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Castalia Library Clarification

Contra my previous post on the subject, the November-December book, #19 in the Castalia Library subscription, is THE LAWDOG FILES by Lawdog. This is actually two books in one, because it contains both THE LAWDOG FILES and THE LAWDOG FILES: AFRICAN ADVENTURES. And consequently, this means THE ARTS OF WAR, featuring an introduction by Alex Macris, will be the January-February book, #20 in the subscription.

I’m sorry for the confusion, but somehow I forgot that we’ve already printed the interiors of LAWDOG and so we can get it shipped sooner than we can ship THE ARTS. The site store has already been updated accordingly. But if, for whatever reason, you a) subscribed in the week between November 5 and November 12, and b) do not want LAWDOG, please email me and let me know which of the previously released books you would like instead.

Also, if you’re on Gab, please note that we’ve established a Library account there which you can follow for regular updates and announcements.

A critter well known to us in our town twisted off one evening and decided to add Attempted Murder to his curriculum vitae by hitting his lady du jour in the head a couple of times with a hatchet. Not one to leave a job half done, he dragged her out to the lake, wired her up to a cinderblock, and shoved her off into the water. Wonder of wonders, she survived. Even bigger wonder, she came into town and filed charges on her homicidal boyfriend. I had been out on a date and wandered back into town about the time that the search was really getting wound up. I’d no sooner walked through the door of the office when the sheriff hit me with three conflicting orders on where to go, one of which would require asbestos underoos. I decided that going back home to change out of my date clothes would be counterproductive, so I was digging through my locker trying to find my spare set of armor when the call came in. One of our local merchants had spotted the critter climbing in the back window of an abandoned building used for storage. Since the other two deputies were on the far side of the county, the sheriff made a posse of me and a luckless Highway Patrol Trooper who had come in for a coffee refill, and we went tear-arsing off to Downtown Bugscuffle. The abandoned building in question had, at one time, been a fairly swanky department store positioned on the prize end of Main Street. However, in the intervening hundred years or so, the entire block had fallen into disuse and disrepair, leaving the once-grand old building standing all alone, used only for storing various and sundry stuff that needed storing by the locals.

For those of you who don’t know how to search a large building with only three people, it’s really quite simple. One officer, whom we’ll call “the sheriff,” stands on one corner watching the front of the building and the west side. The second officer, or “random DPS trooper,” stands at the opposite corner of the building, watching the back of the building and the east side. The third officer, being the bravest and most handsome of the three, goes inside with the idea of flushing the critter out a window where he can be spotted by one of the other two and, hopefully, arrested.

Three guesses who got to go inside, and the first two don’t count. Let me tell you, that place was darker than the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat and stacked floor-to-ceiling with shelves. On those shelves were the collected knick-knacks of 20 years of Main Street stores. And not a lightbulb anywhere.

There I was, with a snubbie .357, a five-cell Maglight, and a Handi-Talkie, and only two hands. About the fourth time I tried to answer the sheriff’s “Have you got him yet?” radio call while trying to cover a suspicious patch of darkness with the .357 and juggling the Mag-Lite, I stopped in the feeble light of the moon shining down through a hole in the ceiling to make a few adjustments.

I was occupied with trying to figure out which I needed more, the Mag-lite or the Handi-talkie, when the SOB decided to jump me. I’m here to tell you, folks, things went rodeo from there. He lunged out of a shadow and tried to grab for my throat, and me, reacting totally out of instinct, I whacked him a good one across the forehead with the Maglight.

Bulb, batteries, and assorted electronic parts arced gracefully into the darkness. The critter took one step back and jumped at me again.

Things were not looking good in Dogville.

I held the snubbie back with my right hand, trying to keep it away from the critter’s grasp, and I tried to stiff-arm him away with my left when I stepped onto what was later found to be a D-cell battery from my Maglight.

Down I went. And the alleged aspiring axe murderer landed on top of me. Hoo boy. The gloves really came off then. We rolled around on the cold cement. I was hitting him in the head with the butt of my revolver and giving him elbow smashes to the jaw and brachial plexus, knee strikes, you name it, the whole enchilada. And he kept grabbing at my throat.

Finally, we rolled into a patch of moonlight, and I saw the bastard had a knife!

Folks, I hate knives. No, I really hate knives. He was on top of me, and he had to weigh three-hundred pounds, and that damn knife was coming down at me in slow motion at just about the same time the barrel of my snubbie rammed up under his chin.

I squeezed off two rounds.

The .357 magnum is a powerful round. Two of them, fired in quick succession, sufficed to blow the electronic brains and assorted stuffing of the Animatronic Life-Like Talking Santa Claus that formerly belonged to the local Thriftway halfway to Dodge City.

You don’t want to know what a couple of .357 rounds will do to hydraulics.

sigh

“The Good Shoot”, THE LAWDOG FILES, Castalia Library #19

DISCUSS ON SG

The Global Moral Compass

Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are putting on their little rhetorical soft-shoe routine in Jerusalem:

Dr. Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist, and owner of one of the most listened-to podcasts in the world said last night (Thursday), while he tearfully pleaded with those present in the International Convention Center in Jerusalem to protect the holy city.

Peterson said: “As Jews in Israel, are you telling the greatest story ever told? Well, you decide that by how you live. And what you do will affect the world – for one reason or another, it’s not so easy to understand, everyone looks here to see, well, how are you actually doing, under this tremendous assault of adversarial criticism, as this little, tiny people in the middle of no man’s land in some real sense, as a -what would you say – cardinal model of the nation-state and the city on the hill. You have a tremendous moral responsibility, like you have, perhaps, for your entire history, for reasons that are very difficult to understand, and I think it is true, in some real sense, that the fate of the world depends on the decisions of the people of Israel. Just as the fate of the world depends on the decision of every individual, so you make yourself a shining light on the hill, right? You attract people here because of what you’re capable of doing. You show the world what the holy city could look like. Because we need it. We need it, and it’s up to you to do it. Thank you very much.”

Ben Shapiro, the well-known American political commentator, and the owner of the media body The Daily Wire explained that in his eyes, Jerusalem, chosen especially by the two as the place where they will appear when they arrive together in Israel, is a global moral compass. “We have returned to an era in which divine rule does not come from above, not through laws, not through logic and not even through providing a sufficient explanation, but through force alone. When chaos ruled everything.”

You have to love the Petersonian bafflegarble. It just sounds so deeply sincere while simultaneously saying absolutely nothing. But when you’re relying upon a definitely-not-meth addict and a manufactured fast-talking media whore to define the moral compass for the world, you’re most definitely serving Satan in some capacity. As anyone who knows anything at all about the history of modern Israel is aware, despite being a remarkable success story, it provides absolutely no basis whatsoever for a functional stand-alone civilization, let alone a model for the nations.

Imagine the average U.S. Home Owner’s Association Karen, except the entire neighborhood is entirely comprised of male and female Karens. I am reliably informed, by Israelis, that is a reasonable analogy for daily life in Israel. Which is fine, if one happens to enjoy conversations about conversations, but sounds remarkably like Hell to less extroverted personalities. I’m all for the right of Israelis to live in Israel however they see fit, but let’s see it survive for a single decade – or even for a single year – without relying upon any outside funding or support, before holding it up as a successful model worthy of imitation elsewhere.

“We couldn’t think of a better opening for the new year than with an event like this, with the participation of our three greatest minds,” commented Amiad Cohen, CEO of Tikva Israel Fund.

So Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are as good as they’ve got? That sound you hear is Wang Hunin, laughing himself sick, in Chinese.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Oathkeepers Glowed

This is not exactly surprising to anyone who has been paying attention to organizations like Unite the Right, the Oathkeepers, and the Patriot Front over the last few years. The FBI is treating the white Right in much the same manner it treated the black Left in the 1960s.

An F.B.I. informant who was embedded for months in the inner circle of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, is likely to testify as a defense witness at the seditious conspiracy trial of Mr. Rhodes in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The informant, Greg McWhirter, served as the Oath Keepers’ vice president but was secretly reporting to the F.B.I. about the group’s activities in the weeks and months leading up to the Capitol attack, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Despite their relationship with Mr. McWhirter, federal prosecutors decided not to call him as a government witness at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and his four co-defendants, which is now unfolding in Federal District Court in Washington. The prosecution rested its case last week without calling other key cooperating witnesses, including three members of the Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges….

Mr. McWhirter is the second known F.B.I. confidential source who was in a position to provide information to federal agents about the Oath Keepers before Jan. 6, raising questions about why investigators did not know more about the attack on the Capitol.

Federal investigators knew everything about the so-called “attack on the Capitol” because they planned it. About the only more patently obvious false flag is the next one, the one that will provide the USA with a casus belli against Russia.

DISCUSS ON SG

Twitter Flirts with Bankruptcy

The rapid decline of Twitter is the result of a false foundation on free money and fake advertisers rather than user-subscriptions.

At least six executives have reportedly resigned from Twitter this week. The social media platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, called an all-hands meeting on Thursday, announcing a return to office hours and mentioning the possibility of bankruptcy unless the company can find a way to become profitable.

Among the departures was the head of safety and moderation, Yoel Roth, Bloomberg reported, citing insider sources. Musk had kept Roth on despite complaints from conservatives that he had been responsible for much of the political censorship on the platform – one of the reasons the Tesla and SpaceX CEO cited for buying the company.

“The economic picture ahead is dire,” Musk wrote in an email calling the meeting, according to the New York Times. “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn.”

Unless Twitter can generate profits from its $8 monthly Blue program, bankruptcy is a very real possibility, Musk reportedly said, adding that the platform is currently too dependent on advertising.

All of the social media giants are, to greater and lesser degrees, fraudulent corporate structures. They are not actually real businesses as one learns about business in business school or Econ 101. Their nominal customers are not their customers, but rather, their “advertisers”, who are not actually advertisers as one is taught in Marketing 101, but Clown World conduits for free money provided to ticket-takers. They are totally – and I mean TOTALLY – dependent upon a constant flow of external “investment” money. In most cases, the total “investment” into them far exceeds their actual revenue.

For example, Patreon’s peak monthly payout, in July 2022, is $26 million. Since they take an average of 6 percent, this means their average monthly revenue is around $1.6 million. Ergo, their peak annual revenue is around $20 million and their total lifetime revenue from 2013 is around $60 million, while as of one year ago, Patreon had received $413.3 million in funding over 10 rounds. This strongly suggets that Patreon is not, and never will be, a viable business under its current revenue model. The same is true of Twitter and other public companies propped up by various forms of “investment”; rising interest rates and falling stock prices mean that the flow of money these corporations require to operate is beginning to dry up.

This is why UATV and Arktoons have been subscription-based from the start. And this is why it is so important to subscribe to at least one service, because it is the only foundation that is real and capable of keeping things going over an extended period of time.

As a community, we have an amazing opportunity here. The corporate fakes and frauds that have siphoned up all of the public awareness by providing “free” services are beginning to crumble. As with the Great Depression, the giants of the 2060s and beyond will be the agile and determined operations that survived and thrived during the Great Collapse.

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Thursday Arktoons

ALT★HERO: Q Episode 56: Dead End

STONETOSS Episode 138: Ship Sailed

EVIL MONKEY MEMES Episode 62: That Can’t Be Good

VEGFOLK FABLES Episode 154: Saint Neri

WARMAN Episode 27: Disgusting Habit

UPDATE: Congratulations to the Arktoons dev team, the production team, the creators, the illustrators, the colorists, and the letterers. And especially, thanks to the backers and subscribers who make it all possible. 10 MILLION VIEWS!

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1918 Finally Ended

Eugyppius suggests an interesting hypothesis about the disappearance of the remnants of the Spanish Flu and the advent of a new seasonal flu virus based on Corona

The flu is gone. This is not an illusion. It’s not down to the wilful or mistaken misdiagnosis of Corona or anything like that. Most countries have long-standing influenza surveillance programs, entire offices of people whose job it is to find and track the flu. These programs are still running, and influenza tests are still widely administered across the world. Despite all of this searching, nobody can find anything but a few outliers. As a seasonal phenomenon in the northern and southern hemispheres, influenza has disappeared….

A lot of basic matters are poorly understood in the field of virology, and one of them is why waves of infection seem to spontaneously collapse, rather than continuing indefinitely until all susceptible have been taken ill. One reason seems to be that some viruses interfere with other viruses, such that the rise of one compels the decline of another. Plainly, not all pathogens are at odds with each other. Co-infections are common among the overlapping deep-winter viruses. Some viruses, however, definitely seem to exclude others, at least some of the time and in certain places. Influenza and Corona are two of these mutually exclusive viruses. Since it has killed the flu, Corona can operate both in the vacant flu season and in its own natively preferred dark winter months.

Some months ago, I suggested that Corona’s victory over influenza could well represent a permanent change in the order of respiratory viruses – a revolution, perhaps a very rare one. The only conceivable historical precedent would be the Spanish Flu of 1918. While we have historical reports of influenza-like illness going back centuries, we don’t have any sequenced viruses predating the second wave of this great 1918 pandemic. Before 1918, we can’t be sure that seasonal flu-like illnesses were caused by influenza viruses at all. For all we know, coronaviruses were the dominant scourge prior to 1918, and their centuries-long reign was interrupted by the anomalous and highly destructive avian influenza that entered humans in that year. Perhaps the ensuing century of influenza was an unstable equilibrium, an anomaly, and Corona has restored a prior, more ordinary world.

All that’s speculation, but we do know that the ensuing seasonal flus for decades afterwards were descended, directly or indirectly, from that first 1918 strain. What happened in 1918 was certainly a viral revolution, on the order of the upset Corona achieved in 2019. Much of virology, as a field, grew up in the shadow of 1918, as an attempt to understand the pandemic of that year and the obviously related seasonal infections to which it gave birth.

I thought the reports of the flu vanishing were total nonsense, nothing more than a propagandistic attempt to report flu cases as cases of Covid-19. But if it’s true that the seasonal flu as we’ve known it for the past 100 years didn’t even exist before the Spanish Flu, then it’s conceivable that the coronavirus of 2019 has simply replaced it as the seasonal flu virus.

In which case, the flu vaccines are even more worthless than before, and worse, those vaccinated against Covid-19, whose immune systems have been trained to permit variants of the coronavirus to enter and wreak havoc without meeting much resistance, will likely face regular periodic episodes of new flu without enjoying the benefit of the usual reduction in severity.

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Wednesday Arktoons

THE STRANDED Episode 47: Never Know

SAVAGE MEMES Episode 169: Patterns

SOMETHING BIG Episode 66: How It’s Gonna Be

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 166: Mall Contents

This marks the finale of THE STRANDED, which comes to a nicely satisfying end, so if you’ve never read it, you should give it a whirl. Also, the production team is looking for new volunteers, so if you’ve got Photoshop skills and want to be a part of the conquest of the comics industry, let us know.

THE STRANDED