Category: Uncategorized

A New Wave of Censorship

There have recently been a new wave of creator bans at BackerKit, Indiegogo, and Kickstarter:

This weekend, in an unprecedented move, Kickstarter banned me after I submitted my military science fiction space marine comic, The Emerald Array, for approval. I’ve seen projects declined before, but never an outright creator ban like this where it’s stripped me of the ability to communicate with the current backers of my last campaign, some asking questions via message or comment, which I have no way to answer.

JDA isn’t the only one to have a crowdfunding campaign shut down before it started of late. Lacey and I were banned by BackerKit for some unidentified “associations” and Comicsgate’s Cecil was banned by Indiegogo. Fortunately, a less censorious gentleman has prepared an alternative platform that is open to all and sundry, as JDA notes:

I’m not going to take this lying down, however. I’ve decided to fight, fight, fight, moving up the timetable of The Emerald Array space marine graphic novel campaign. We’re moving to Fund My Comic, a site run by a Christian creator committed to free speech.

Although we haven’t had any problems with Kickstarter, it’s good to know that there are other options that are available to us; while we have the right to use a certain alternative with whom the Cavalry are very familiar, we prefer not to use them and thereby generate revenue for them. One victory lap was sufficient to prove the point.

In the meantime, the HYPERGAMOUSE campaign is going well, moving steadily toward the next stretch goal. We’re contemplating the addition of a) a leatherbound edition of Sigma Game and b) foreign language editions of Hypergamouse.

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Don’t Tell Them About the Helmets

Apparently it is now a “huge controversy” to display your nationality:

New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh sparked controversy during the team’s NFL game against the Minnesota Vikings in London on Sunday. The 45-year-old was spotted on the sidelines at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium wearing a Lebanese flag below the Nike logo on the sleeve of his team hoodie.

The night before Sunday’s game – the first of the NFL’s international fixtures this season – Israeli bombing continued on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, amid the Israel-Hezbollah war. The Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut was hit by more than 30 strikes overnight, which were heard across the city, with smoke still seen billowing from the site after dawn, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.

Saleh, who is of Lebanese heritage, previously wore a similar patch last October but his decision to bear the flag Sunday raised eyebrows as the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Gaza approaches.

Saleh is Lebanese. Naturally, he doesn’t support Israel invading and attacking his homeland. But he’s not doing anything more than EVERY SINGLE NFL PLAYER is doing; look at the back of their helmets. Most players have US flag stickers because they are US citizens, but foreign players wear the flags of their countries; there is a German tight end – I don’t recall which team – but he has a German flag on the back of his helmet.

If the NFL is smart, they’ll leave this one alone. Because you know Robert Kraft is just itching to turn every Sunday into a massive advertisement for supporting Israel’s wars against a) Palestine, b) Syria, c) Lebanon, d) Iran, and now e) Pakistan? I have to admit, I’m lost on the latter.

It’s too bad Martin van Creveld felt the need to suspend his blog in August, as it would be very good to get his thoughts on the matter as a military historian. I’ve been reading his intriguing history of Israel, The Land of Blood and Honey, and I suspect he might not be very optimistic about the way in which the Netanyahu regime has gone about waging its wars, which appears to be based upon a strategy of escalate, then escalate again.

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Terry Pratchett Knew

He didn’t know right away or he wouldn’t have co-written a book with him. But there’s no question that Terry Pratchett figured out who and what Neil Gaiman was by the time he wrote the Introduction to Good Omens, the book they wrote together. And I don’t think it’s an accident that despite the success of the first book, Pratchett never wrote another one with Gaiman in the 25 years that separated the 1990 publication of that book with Pratchett’s death in 2015.

Remember, Pratchett was a wordsmith, and a much better one than average. And since Gaiman’s reputation has always been one of being “a very nice, approachable guy”, Pratchett is clearly implying that he knows Gaiman is not, but is instead “an incredible actor”. Which events have subsquently confirmed to have been the case. Because that’s the only option that could “come as a surprise to many”.

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Ski-U-Mah

24 Minnesota
17 USC (#11)

So that was fun. Minnesota hasn’t beaten USC since 1955. I was a Gophers fan when I was a kid, Tony Dungy was the quarterback, and upsetting a #1 Michigan team 16-0 in 1977 was the most exciting thing about growing up in Minnesota prior to The Miracle on Ice in 1980. I even went to a few games at the old Memorial Stadium, including the 1976 season opener that was a win over Indiana.

But too many seasons of losing 45-0 to Big Ten rivals and 73-0 to Nebraska, in company with the incredibly stupid move to the horrible Metrodome, caused me to lose all interest in college football, except for keeping an eye on future NFL players. They didn’t even make it to a single bowl game, no matter how lowly, between 1987 and 1998.

However, the new stadium is really cool – the Vikings played there in Brett Favre’s last year – and the expansion of the Big 10 means that the Gophers are now getting the chance to play teams like USC and UCLA that they seldom played without getting to the Rose Bowl, which hadn’t happened since 1962. In fact, this was only the sixth time the two maroon-and-gold teams had ever played in my lifetime… and the first time was the year I was born.

Because my mother is a football fan who grew up in Pasadena and attended USC, I spent many a late Saturday afternoon watching USC play, although I tended to prefer UCLA. PAC-8 football always seemed a little exotic compared to Big 10 football, although SWC football, with its tearaway jerseys, was the most exciting. I was a bit of a Texas fan, mostly because my parents’ friends, who were huge Arkansas boosters, were so annoying, with their “Pig-sueey” nonsense. The Michigan upset notwithstanding, 1977 was a tough year.

Most people think the development of NIL-related professionalism is a terrible thing for college football, and I certainly have my doubts about the evolution of the Big 10 and the SEC into superconferences. The disappearance of the PAC-12 is certainly to be regretted and I wonder if USC will one day regret its move to the Big 10 for the same reason Arkansas misses the now-defunct SWC. But it is at least possible that the money-related dispersal of talent across dozens of universities may end up having a very positive effect on the general level of competitiveness across the NCAA. After all, it’s a lot easier for teams like Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State to stockpile talent when all it costs them is a scholarship.

Because this certainly wasn’t happening before the NIL era. In fact, it’s been 118 years since Vanderbilt scored this many points on Alabama.

40 Vanderbilt
35 Alabama (#1)

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The Next British Scandal

Something is going on with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that the media is presently dancing around.

So we have a name, as do the Mail and the Telegraph, we have a birth certificate and people have been
looking into it. People been contacted. Journalists have contacted the family, so it’s in play and a lot of people do know it, but we have not been able to substantiate it to to the degree that you need to to
publish.

I’m no insider where British politics are concerned, but I heard rumors that the Prime Minister wasn’t even living with his wife, but was living with his other family until not long before the most recent electoral election began. But regardless of the how and why, it’s pretty clear that Starmer is a creature of Clown World.

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Illiteracy is Good for the Economy

Thanks to immigration, there are nearly one million illiterates in Sweden now:

The most recent survey by Statistics Sweden shows there are currently around 780,000 people between the ages of 16 and 65 who are illiterate in Sweden, but this number is soaring.

“Each month, eight to ten illiterate students arrive,” said Rita Sommarkrans, SFI teacher in Västerås, to SVT. She added that if someone can’t read or write, it’s hard for them to find a place, pay their bills, or even book a doctor’s appointment. 

“If this trend continues, we risk having an entire generation of young people who are effectively functionally illiterate,” wrote Minister of Education Johan Pehrson and Minister of School Affairs Lotta Edholm in an introductory article.

Adding an additional year of compulsory schooling isn’t going to help. Barring a Gaza-style ethnic cleansing of Stockholm and its other cities, Swedish society has been permanently dumbed-down in much the same way the USA and other countries mass-invaded by less-intelligent hordes of immigrants have seen a decline in their average IQ of 8-10 points. This is not an effect that can be fixed; one can no more raise a normal European society from its historical norm to Mensa levels than one can raise a society with an average 85-IQ to the level of a normal European society.

The shape of a society, more than anything else, is determined by the average intelligence of the population. So, the dumbing down of Sweden means that its infrastructure, both physical and intellectual, cannot be maintained.

China doesn’t need to invade any other countries in order to rule the world. It will do so by simple virtue of remaining the same mostly-homogeneous Han society that it has been for the last 6,000 years. Clown World’s collapse became inevitable after China refused to accept the foreign elite that planned to leave the USA in 2015; now all China has to do to ensure its global dominance is play a long game watching the West descend into relative retardery and barbarism.

The free movement of peoples is one of the most destructive philosophies ever conceived. In time, it may prove to be as terrible as communism, or perhaps even feminism.

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They Hate You

They REALLY hate you. For decades, I’ve been telling everyone that the USA hates America and heritage Americans. $35.7 billion for the Kiev and Tel Aviv regimes this year alone, and less than nothing for Americans in need. And only now are some people starting to believe me.

From SG: Remember that this is malice, not stupidity. It is evil, not incompetence. They hate Heritage America on a fundamental level.

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BRICS or Sanctions

Aspiring members cannot choose both, thereby preventing countries like France, which has previously expressed an interest in joining the growing trade bloc, from obtaining membership:

BRICS applicants can’t join in sanctions against any of the economic bloc’s member states, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday, outlining one of the conditions for joining the club.

The group that started as an informal association of Brazil, Russia, India and China has since expanded to nine member states and is expected to discuss further enlargement at its summit in Kazan, Russia later this month.

”One needs to pursue a sovereign policy, have a significant role in international and regional affairs, build good-neighborly and friendly relations with the BRICS countries, and not join in illegitimate sanctions against members of the association,” Ryabkov said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, when asked about conditions for aspiring members.

This underlines the absolute and utter stupidity of formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland giving in to US and EU pressure, abandoning their historical neutralities, and taking sides against Russia. Because now, it’s clear that they’re going to end up losing access to most of the world’s population and half the world’s GDP.

Current BRICS member countries account for about 46% of the world’s population and over 36% of global GDP. At least 34 countries have expressed interest in joining the organization.

It’s a real loss for Switzerland, which has already lost a substantial amount of its historical gold trade to Dubai. True neutrality would have put Switzerland in an ideal position to serve as an economic bridge between the US bloc and the China-Russia bloc, but by choosing to side with the former, they have sacrificed the opportunity to do for global trade what they once did for global diplomacy.

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