Category: Uncategorized

Friday Arktoons

FULLSTRIKE! Episode 1: The Early Bird

FIDDLE WITH DARKNESS Episode 6: Chapter 6- The Conspiracist

WARDOGS INC. Episode 26: Operation Five Finger

THE SWORD OF GOD Episode 54: Like Mother Like Son

FRIDAY FISH FUNNIES Episode 15: Why So Serious

BOB Episode 128: Stop Tutting

FLYING SPARKS Episode 67: Making An Example

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 227: No Smorking

Today marks the first episode of FULLSTRIKE!, Cliff Cosmic’s first original series. Check it out!

Blocking the Bowdlerizers

An English playwright who is already experiencing requests for revisions by SJWs plans to protect his work from his literary heirs in his will:

Martin McDonagh has revealed he may use his will to ensure there are no Roald Dahl-style posthumous edits to his work.

The acclaimed playwright, 53, told how some theatre companies have refused to put on productions of his plays because he refused language changes to make the performances more ‘palatable’. The filmmaker, who wrote and directed The Banshees of Inisherin, described the practice of writers being asked to change what they have written for sensitivity-related reasons ‘problematic’.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Martin said: ‘That’s why I’ve got to make sure in my will, the wording of that is very, very specific too. A theatre has got every right not to put a play on. The major problem is that they ask you or another writer to change it to make it more palatable to them or what they think their audience is.’

The playwright’s words come after it emerged that Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books are being rewritten by sensitivity gurus to remove language they deem offensive. Publisher Puffin hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books ‘can continue to be enjoyed by all today’, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work.

It’s a good idea. My initial thought is to include a codicil stating that if the heirs sell any of the rights associated with the work or publish the work with any posthumous edits, the work immediately reverts to the public domain.

Obviously, this requires some careful thinking and precise language, as one does not want to harm an honest literary heir like Christopher Tolkien who did a remarkable job preserving and even extending his father’s literary legacy. But no self-respecting author wants to see what is happening to the work of Road Dahl and other deceased authors happen to his work.

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Undermined by Intelligence

As the Chinese state media sees it, US foreign interests are being systematically undermined by the behavior of the US intelligence agencies toward major US allies:

The leaked documents offer a rare glimpse into the U.S.’ extensive espionage operations targeting both allies and adversaries. Among the most striking revelations is the interception of conversations between high-ranking South Korean national security officials. These conversations focused on concerns over a U.S. request for ammunition, which the U.S. intended to send to Ukraine. The South Korean officials debated the potential violation of their policy of not supplying lethal aid to countries at war and even discussed ways to circumvent this policy by selling the ammunition to Poland.

In the case of Israel, a leaked CIA report sourced to signals intelligence alleges that Mossad, Israel’s primary intelligence agency, has been encouraging protests against the country’s new government. This revelation has sparked outrage in Jerusalem, with the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office vehemently denying the allegations and calling the report “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”

As for the U.S.’ infiltration of its adversaries, the documents reveal detailed information about Russian troop movements, capabilities, and plans. This information was obtained through intercepted communications and human confidential sources, raising concerns about the safety of these assets and the possibility of Russia changing its communication methods to better conceal its planning.

The leaked documents not only showcase the breadth and depth of the U.S. intelligence operations but also highlight the potential consequences of such activities. The exposure of U.S. espionage on its allies may lead to a weakening of trust in these crucial relationships, while the revelation of America’s infiltration into its adversaries’ communication systems may force these adversaries to adapt and find new ways to obscure their intentions.

In the context of the ongoing situation in Ukraine, the documents highlight the proxy nature of the conflict, directed by Washington. The U.S. has been providing intelligence that allowed Ukrainian forces to anticipate and counter Russian operations. The Pentagon’s involvement in organizing Ukraine’s air defenses and estimating the exhaustion of the country’s existing arsenal underscores its active role in the conflict.

Sooner or later, the extent of Clown World’s insidious evil will become known to the entire world. I would not be even remotely surprised to learn that national leaders such as Putin, Xi, and even AMLO have been fully aware of the US-stasi domestic spy program for some time. At this point, most foreigners are better informed about the true nature of the Empire That Never Ended than Americans are, and I have little doubt that more information on the subject will be made available to the US public in the near future.

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Liars Fear the Truth

NPR flees from Twitter in response to being labeled as both “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” media despite observably being both:

After briefly being labeled “state-affiliated media,” NPR has decided to abandon Twitter.

Under the leadership of entrepreneur Elon Musk, Twitter attached a descriptor to the account associated with National Public Radio, characterizing the account as “state-affiliated media.”

After swift backlash, though, the social media site exchanged the label for a different, more accurate one: “Government-funded media.”

Supporters of NPR were angered by Twitter’s original label, seemingly lumping the U.S. news outlet in with sites like Russia Today (RT) and China’s Xinhua News Agency.

Apparently displeased with both designations, NPR announced Wednesday it was suspending its Twitter accounts.

A news article from NPR reported, “NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network ‘state-affiliated media,’ the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China, and other autocratic countries.”

NPR will “no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” the outlet said in a statement.

John Lansing, CEO of NPR, told the news site he leads abandoning Twitter is about “protecting” NPR’s “ability to produce journalism without ‘a shadow of negativity.’”

The amusing thing about NPR’s little tantrum is that both Russia Today and the Xinhua News Agency are considerably more reliable than National Public Radio, which is both affiliated with the U.S. government and funded by it.

NPR gets another 31 percent of its funding in programming fees from member organizations. Federal funding indirectly contributes to the latter category because the publicly funded CPB provides annual grants to public radio stations that pay NPR for programming.

The media tries to conceal the fact that the Federal government gives the money to NPR’s member organizations, which than gives the money to NPR. There is nothing private or independent about NPR, though at least, unlike the BBC, citizens are not forced to pay a direct fee for it.

It is certainly both telling and amusing to see the extent of their reaction to being correctly identified in this way. The wicked flee even when no man pursueth.

UPDATE: The government-funded Public Broadcasting Service has reportedly followed suit and exited Twitter. It will be informative if the totally-independent and not-at-all marching-in-lockstep mainstream media organizations do the same. In, you know, protest and solidarity and all that.

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Hoaxacaustian Exposed

A Jew named Joseph Hirt who has spent years lecturing American schoolchildren about his experiences at Auschwitz now admits, after being threatened with exposure, that he was never there and those experiences are entirely fictional.

An Adamstown man who has claimed for many years that he escaped from Auschwitz now says he was never in the concentration camp and apologized for saying he was.

“I was wrong. I ask forgiveness,” Joseph Hirt, 91, wrote in a letter delivered to LNP Wednesday evening.

“I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz. I was not a prisoner there. I did not intend to lessen or overshadow the events which truly happened there by falsely claiming to have been personally involved,” Hirt wrote.

“It wasn’t about me. I was wrong in using an untruth (my presence) in an attempt to enhance the important truth of the suffering and death of so many – not only Jewish people, but also others held in disdain by the Nazi movement. I was wrong. I ask forgiveness. I used poor judgment and faulty reasoning, risking a sullying of the truth I was trying to share.”

Hirt’s story was brought into question a few weeks ago by history teacher Andrew Reid, a New York man who was born and raised in Lancaster County.

Reid first questioned Hirt on April 15 when he attended a presentation in Lowville, New York, along with several of his students from South Lewis Central School District in Lewis County, New York.

He launched his own investigation, which culminated in a 25-page document he sent to media outlets and organizations that had written about or hosted Hirt, “unknowingly perpetuating his false claims to an even greater audience,” Reid said.

Reid challenged Hirt to apologize publicly and said that if he did not, he would petition the district attorneys in Lancaster and Lewis counties to launch a criminal investigation.

I expect the complete falsity of more of these hoaxes, including but not limited to the Bear & Eagle Cage, the Nazi Masturbation Machine, the Ballpoint Diary of Anne Frank’s Perverted Uncle, and the Flaming Rollercoaster of Death, to finally be admitted due to the fact that the one man who absolutely and unquestionably possesses all the historical facts and figures related to “the Holocaust” is Vladimir Putin.

Remember, my dear readers, which military liberated all of the “death camps” and which current nation is therefore now in possession of all of the meticulous German records of those camps.

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It’s Not Over

A vaxx skeptic attends the 23rd World Vaccine Congress and shares his general impressions:

  • The majority of attendees truly believe they are doing the right thing.
  • The majority of attendees look no further than recommendations from agencies of public health to guide their opinions. In other words, they fully believe COVID-19 mRNA (and other) vaccines are exceedingly safe and have saved millions of lives.
  • Beyond members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) and officers from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), few, if any, are aware of vaccine trial and post-marketing observational data around COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy.
  • The keynote speakers and expert panel moderators who raised the topic of “vaccine hesitancy” were dismissive of those who managed to avoid vaccination and were openly contemptuous of those who encouraged others to do the same.
  • Except for a few instances, the tone of the presentations and round table discussions were collegial. Aside from the pointed questions that Mumper and I were able to pose, there were no open hints that any of the attendees questioned the conventional narratives around the COVID-19 pandemic response.
  • One-on-one exchanges revealed encouraging signs that not everyone there has bought the conventional narratives around the pandemic.
  • Calls for public-private “partnerships” were a common theme.

Dr. Gregory Poland, director of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic, set the tone for the four-day conference in the first 10 minutes. In his mind, the COVID-19 pandemic was halted through the hard work of our regulatory agencies and the remarkable products borne of the mRNA platform.

The only failure came in the form of “inexplicable” vaccine hesitancy, a phenomenon driven by anti-vax pseudoscientists who are profiting from spreading baseless, fear-driven propaganda.

Combatting vaccine hesitancy, he said, is as big a challenge as protecting the world from the next deadly pathogen. Indeed, a significant portion of the events focused on strategies to dismantle the troubling “anti-vaxxer” movement.

Marks supported Poland’s position that the vaccine-hesitant are irrational, “It’s crazy that they don’t get how great vaccines are,” he said. “I am past trying to argue with people who think that vaccines are not safe.”

This remark was particularly disquieting to me. What is it going to take for the director of the FDA’s CBER to ever reassess the safety profile of the mRNA shots, especially if he no longer wishes to engage with those who disagree with him?

The panelists expressed shock that some states (Idaho and North Dakota) are considering bills making the administration of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines illegal.

“How can we get the public to understand that science is iterative?” Heaton asked. “COVID vaccines save lives!”

Poland responded: “Can we get an amen?!!”

Marks, flanked by his partners — I mean counterparts — in industry let the audience know what the future would look like. “I am not going to hold my breath waiting for a sterilizing vaccine, protecting against severe disease is enough,” he said.

Marks predicted COVID-19 vaccines would be administered annually or even biannually.

Translation: this isn’t over. It’s not even close to over. This will continue until the Sino-Russian alliance destroys Clown World. So stay strong, stay openly contemptuous of the literal retardery of anyone who is stupid enough to even consider accepting any vaccine, and do not imagine for one second that the war on the human immune system is over.

We’re long past arguing with retards who still, despite all of the available evidence, insist that vaccines are safe or effective. If people prefer to reduce their life expectancies and render their children infertile rather than doubt the Narrative, so be it. The future belongs to those who show up for it.

Never, ever, accept the mainstream narrative. It is a false narrative constructed by liars and deceived ignoramuses who labor on behalf of literal demons. And remember, the reason they consider us to be dangerous because we stand in the way of their satanic objectives.

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They May Not Be There

Amazon follows up its closure of Book Depository by announcing that it is shutting down Digital Photography Review as well. Given the observable pattern here, it’s really not looking good for GoodReads.

The demise of Digital Photography Review: I have written this column for over 20 continuous years and this is the saddest news I have ever had to report. Digital Photography Review is closing down and as of April 10, 2023 the site will be locked and no new content will be added. More ominously, the site states “The site will be available in read-only mode for a limited period afterwards.” That is a businesslike way of saying the site and all its content will soon disappear for good.

Amazon is responsible for this. They purchased the site in 2007 and now that it does not fit in their business plans, they are going to erase it. This is despicable given the cost of keeping the site available in static form is infinitesimal to a company Amazon’s size.

Surely Amazon can be a good corporate citizen and keep the site up in read-only mode, for the good of everyone? It would be wonderful if a white knight came in and saved DPReview, but that is looking less and less likely. Online commentators are calling the upcoming site deletion “cultural vandalism” and “book burning.” I am with them and in terms of book burning, in the realm of photography it is like burning The Library of Alexandria. The significance of dpreview.com to the industry and photographers everywhere cannot be overstated. There are in-depth camera reviews going back to 1998 along with a comparator that allows you to compare test scene images from almost every camera they have ever tested. There are also forums with sample images and discussions containing millions of pages of content. Despite only being around 25 years old it is probably the most important and comprehensive photographic resource that ever existed.

If these is a takeaway from all of this, it is about big companies taking things away. That is a lot easier for them to do today than in years past when we relied on physical books, magazines and packaged media for reading and entertainment. While I enjoy streaming and it has a place and a purpose for those who enjoys television, movies and music, I have long been a proponent of physical media for the image and sound quality as well as its immutable nature. I have more to say about this and will continue the discussion in a future column. In the meantime, be warned and if there are movies, TV shows, and music that is near and dear to your heart, get yourself a hard copy. It may not be there for you tomorrow.

This is precisely why it is so important to subscribe to Castalia Library and Castalia History. Remember, I’m not the one pointing this out, this is some random audio expert to whom I have no connection who is observing Amazon’s recent actions and reaching the same conclusions I reached when Amazon first launched Kindle Unlimited and I did the math concerning the huge reduction of ebook compensation for the authors and publishers.

The observation that this is about the corpocracy “taking things away” is very astute. This is the complete erasure of a knowledge base, and if the author’s opinion about the importance of the site is correct, the erasure of a significant one. While Amazon has apparently backtracked from its original intention of erasing the site due to the backlash and now intends to archive it, there cannot be much doubt that the company will eventually eliminate the archive as soon as it feels that it can get away with doing so.

This is why the new Castalia Library site upon which we are now working is intended to include a free digital library that will be funded by the Library operations, beginning with the Library and History books we are publishing, rights-permitting. Look for more announcements on that front in future Castalia newsletters.

I anticipate that we will eventually need to launch a book review site to which only subscribers will be permitted to contribute, similar to the design concept I produced for a hypothetical book award that was subsequently proved necessary by the convergence of the Dragon Awards. While it may be too soon for the West to need physical monasteries to preserve the knowledge of the past, it is not too soon to begin building them.

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