Why can how be so?

The media finds it hard to grasp the obvious fact that people simply don’t believe them anymore:

The critics loved “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” — The Times’s Manohla Dargis raved about it, and she wasn’t alone. Rotten Tomatoes, aggregating critics’ reviews, rated the latest chapter in the saga 93 percent fresh. But fans? Not so much. At least if you go by Rotten Tomatoes, which says moviegoers posting on its site rated the film 56 percent fresh.

But wait! CinemaScore, which conducts exit polls at theaters (that is, it talks to actual, live human beings), says moviegoers gave “The Last Jedi” a solid A. And the box office was stratospheric: $450 million worldwide in one weekend, making it the second biggest opening ever.

What’s going on? There are several theories:

1) It’s straight-up trolling. Deadline.com pointed out that nothing prevents the same person from repeatedly logging onto Rotten Tomatoes and dragging down the audience score. (And one Facebook user claims to have done just that.)

2) The adventures of Rey and company (including the villainous Snoke) were genuinely disappointing. As the Hollywood Reporter noted, fans hoped that the writer-director Rian Johnson’s follow-up to “The Force Awakens” would explain, among other mysteries, who Rey’s parents are, and the answer (nobody special) wasn’t very satisfying.

3) It’s a function of how the internet has affected fandom. Vanity Fair argues that the web fosters the kind of scrutiny that few films can withstand.

On Facebook, we asked what you thought of the movie and what explains the divide between fans and critics. More than 800 responses suggested that perhaps the Rotten Tomatoes fan rating wasn’t so far off. A lot of you really did not like “The Last Jedi.”

The truth is that post-GamerGate, only idiots and SJWs pay any attention to what the critics, who are at best converged and at worst corrupted and in the direct pay of the content-producing corporations, say anymore. And in this particular case, the movie not only sucked, but betrayed multiple generations of fans.

UPDATE: After 4 days, TLJ is already underperforming TFA by $46.5 million and 19.2 percent. By comparison, Attack of the Clones outperformed The Phantom Menace by $25 million and 26.4 percent. That means that despite the massive numbers, in terms of expectations it is a box office bomb. If the fall-off picks up pace, and based on the media’s defensiveness I suspect it will, TLJ will take in less than two-thirds of what TFA did.

Panic in DC

The bizarre train derailment in Washington was reportedly in retaliation for the God-Emperor’s action in Atlanta. It appears that the bad actors are attempting to flee the USA, as we have been told that the end is near, there are now 19 operations in action, and 12 more proffered deals were rejected yesterday.

And above all, trust the Grand Inquisitor.

It is not insignificant that the God-Emperor recited these words yesterday. They were both a reminder and a warning: “With this strategy, we are calling for a great reawakening of America, a resurgence of confidence, and a rebirth of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. And we are returning to the wisdom of our founders.  In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign.”

Translation: The Deep State does not govern, the globalists do not rule, and Satan is not sovereign.

UPDATE: I’ve been told that George Soros has been arrested – there is some belief that he was the target of the Atlanta operation – and that Al-Waleed bin Talal is now in US custody as well, but be aware these reports have NOT been confirmed. This may explain the recent Twitter crackdown as well as the Washington Post leaks; it appears the media is desperately attempting to concoct some sort of anti-Trump narrative to defend the Deep State by provoking a Constitutional crisis if/when the Clintons are arrested. Given Speaker Ryan’s unexpected announcement that he’ll be stepping down from Congress next year, that attempt appears to be an abortive one.

(And really, no one finds anything suspicious about Ryan’s announced resignation in light of how long almost every previous Speaker has presided? Even John Boehner, who resigned after only four years, lasted longer.)

Again, we can’t know if any of this is true or if it is merely wishful thinking on the part of patriots. This can be easily rebutted by simply demonstrating that George Soros is out and about somewhere, although I note that he hasn’t tweeted since November 26th. Regardless, events do appear to be coming to a head of sorts, and if even one-quarter of what is being discussed happens, it’s going to be important to be able to put these things in context for the great majority of Americans who will be caught completely off-guard by them.

UPDATE: This would appear to be pertinent.

A MISSILE fired at Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh was shot down moments before it hit a royal palace today. Mohammed Abdussalam said on Twitter that a Volcano 2-H ballistic missile was fired towards al-Yamama royal palace.

I wonder who was in it.

The decline of American innovation

It’s been gradually becoming more and more obvious over the last two decades, but now entrepreneurs are starting to talk openly about the problems that increasingly limit innovation in the USA:

China, we’ve been told for years, never will overtake the United States because command economies can’t innovate, only copy or steal. As a partner in a Hong Kong investment banking boutique, I saw plenty of innovation in companies we took to the stock market, notably by young Chinese scientists trained at America’s best universities. China may be a tortoise in terms of innovation, but the American hare has been asleep. Bound and gagged might be a better description. Here’s the quote of the year, from Sam Altman, the chairman of the start-up incubator Y Combinator, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful innovators:

Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me.  I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco.  I didn’t feel completely comfortable—this was China, after all—just more comfortable than at home. That showed me just how bad things have become, and how much things have changed since I first got started here in 2005. It seems easier to accidentally speak heresies in San Francisco every year.  Debating a controversial idea, even if you 95{9a996019c711e78922037ddc236e8e30d6b42c40f34cfa785ada7e9abef6c172} agree with the consensus side, seems ill-advised.

Corporate America is wallowing in political correctness, following our elite universities. That is all the more destructive in a winner-take-all world where there is room for just one search engine and Internet ad provider (Google), one social media site (Facebook), one standard business software maker (Microsoft), and so forth. The politically correct corporate culture that destroys the career of a Google engineer who wrote a thoughtful memo on the problems of recruiting female STEM professionals threatens to destroy our capacity to innovate at all.

Western Europe is pretty bad in this regard too, so those countries are unlikely to unseat the US as an innovative engine. But Eastern Europe is a very different matter, as those countries are a) unadulterated by the third world, b) not particularly PC, and c) totally uninterested in diversity. However, unlike China, Christianity is not aggressively growing there.

In any event, all of the factors that made the USA such a center of innovation are now seriously in decline. Which is why it will not be at all surprising if the USA continues to decline in this area, particularly if China gets around to addressing its corruption problem, which is probably the biggest single factor holding it back at this point.

Don’t get me wrong, the USA is still the primary place to be with regards to technological innovation. But it is no longer safe to assume that it will continue to be.

Alabama: It’s not technically over

The Alabama Secretary of State is still counting the votes:

December 18, 2017 – MONTGOMERY – Pursuant to Act 2016-450, regarding the identification and recordation of write-in votes, the Secretary of State has determined that the individual write-in votes cast in the U.S. Senate Election will be identified and documented for the results of Special General Election on December 12, 2017.

This decision on whether to count these ballots was made based on Act 2016-450 which provides, upon a determination that the number of write-in votes for Office of United States Senator is greater than or equal to the difference in votes between the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes for the Office of United State Senator.

The difference, as of today, in the two candidates total votes received is 20,634 and the total number of write-in votes cast was 22,814. Upon the introduction of UOCAVA ballots and approved provisional ballots, these numbers are subject to change.

Upon completion of the count of write-in votes, the write-in votes are to be included in each county’s final canvass of results that will be certified to the Secretary of State on December 22, 2017.

Now, if these were normal times, it would not matter. However, the probability that there was significant voter fraud involved in creating that 20,634-vote lead for Jones may – MAY – turn out to be relevant here.  Or it may not. But the point is, Moore has not conceded and the Secretary of State has not certified the election, and this may be for a good reason.

It seems incredibly far-fetched, but there does seem to be something strange going on with the Alabama election count, and it won’t surprise me if we see more weirdness out of there before it’s finally over and someone is seated in the U.S. Senate.

The best they’ve got

The increasing irrelevance of the conservative is exemplified beautifully by this list of “The 40 Best Conservative Columnists of 2017″ by Right Wing News, particularly the top ten.

  1. Ben Shapiro
  2. Jonah Goldberg
  3. Matt Walsh
  4. Kurt Schlichter
  5. David French
  6. Matt Lewis
  7. Kevin Williamson
  8. David Limbaugh
  9. Ashe Schow
  10. Victor Davis Hanson

Cucks, cowards, and clowns, for the most part. That’s what the political posers who call themselves conservatives are. They conserve nothing. They accomplish nothing. They literally stand for nothing.

Imagine a debate between the five best minds of the Alt-West and the top five conservatives listed there. Is there any doubt as to which side would come out easily on top? Is there any serious question as to why these top conservatives run like frightened little bitches from debate with anyone to the right of them?

They know they have no substantive case that will hold up to scrutiny. That’s why they only dare to snipe from safety.

President of ESPN resigns

Their executives being on drugs would explain a lot of ESPN’s crazy decisions these last few years. Then again, perhaps what the evil creatures of Disney force their minions to do to keep their jobs requires a considerable amount of self-medication:

ESPN President John Skipper announced Monday he is resigning from the network due to a substance addiction problem.

“I have struggled for many years with a substance addiction. I have decided that the most important thing I can do right now is to take care of my problem,” Skipper said in a statement.

Skipper said he and the company have “mutually agreed” it was appropriate for him to resign. “I come to this public disclosure with embarrassment, trepidation and a feeling of having let others I care about down,” Skipper’s statement continued. “As I deal with this issue and what it means to me and my family, I ask for appropriate privacy and a little understanding.”

Of course, it is not impossible that this is related to the rumored storm in the works, as yesterday’s shut down of the Atlanta airport allegedly was.

Christmas gift guide

A number of people have asked me for last-minute Christmas gift recommendations from the Castalia House catalog. Since we’re discussing gifts here, I will limit my recommendations to print editions. Links to both Amazon and the Castalia Direct store are included; the retail prices are the same but we do a little better if you go with the Direct option.

For those who like to laugh:

The Lawdog Files

The Promethean

For the intellectual:


Clio & Me: An Intellectual Autobiography

On the Question of Free Trade

The Missionaries
For the business professional or college student:

SJWs Always Double Down

For the military buff or wargamer:

A History of Strategy

The 4th Generation Warfare Handbook

There Will Be War Vols. I and II

For the science fiction reader:

The Eden Plague

City Beyond Time

The End of the World as We Knew It
For the fantasy reader:
The Green Knight’s Squire

Appendix N

For the epic fantasy reader:

A Throne of Bones

Star Wars is not science fiction

The Original Cyberpunk, who knows a thing or two about science fiction, explains:

Vox, my young friend, I should think that you of all people would appreciate the true genius of J. J. Abrams. If he’d chosen to go into music he would have been one of those guys who said “Screw actually learning to play an instrument” and parked himself in a recording studio with a drum machine, a sampler, two turntables and a microphone, and then spent his days churning out hit single after hit single by sampling, looping, and remixing earlier hit singles.

Instead, he chose to go into film-making, where he is doing exactly the same thing: compositing together commercially successful movies by lifting scenes, bits of business, and entire set pieces from earlier successful movies. He is the first fully realized hip-hop filmmaker.

I should think you of all people would appreciate that.

By the way, here’s my review: 

Saw this movie, we did. Long, it is. Impossible to write a substantive review without including spoilers, it may be. Nonetheless, try I will.

In the interests of full disclosure, though, I must lead off this review by pointing out that I contributed not one but two essays to David Brin’s Star Wars on Trial, the first arguing in favor of the original Star Wars trilogy as a watershed moment in cinematic history and the second absolutely slagging the prequel trilogy as childish tripe. So I come into this review with a long history as both a consumer and critic of Star Wars entertainment products, and I will put my greatest heresy on the table right now:

Star Wars is not science fiction.

Sure, it looks like science fiction. It sounds like science fiction. And based on that guy in the wookiee costume who was ahead of us in the concession line, it even smells like science fiction, or at least like the third day of a furry fandom convention.

But Star Wars is not science fiction. It’s a long-winded heroic magical fantasy saga that happens to take place in a world cluttered up with lots of sci-fi props and set dressings. If considered as science fiction, there is not one thing in the entire Star Wars universe that bears close scrutiny, because if you think about it at all seriously, the seams split and all the nonsense comes pouring out.

Read the rest of it there. It is… informative. As for J.J. Abrams, I appreciate that he is good at what he does. I just don’t like what he does. That stupid “mystery box” formula of his is the sure sign of a storytelling charlatan.

This is what winning looks like

A readers sends an example of Generation Zyklon upsetting a guidance counselor. It appears to be an actual, first-hand account from an SJW school counselor and his terrifying encounters with the fed-up, disaffected and angry white kids who never got to experience the economic prosperity nor the ethnically homogeneous homelands that their Baby Boomer, and, to a lesser extent, Gen X predecessors enjoyed.

I work as a counselor at a school where there’s a lot of 4chan-esque right wing boys who are coming up. The previous generation a year or two ago wasn’t too bad, but this generation coming up now is much more right wing.

My question is, how the fuck do I deal with this shit? How am I supposed to honestly give council to a kid with a pepe shirt on. How do I talk to these kids who literally come to me and rant about affirmative action? 2 years ago these types barely existed and now they are everywhere, not only men but women too. They literally cannot control their right wing beliefs, they talk about it constantly, everywhere. They can’t have a discussion about fucking math without bringing up how women hate math and science and that is why they are unsuccessful. They can’t talk about english classes without talking about colleges are wiping away white authors because of cultural marxism. A kid came to me and ranted that his history classes ‘blamed white people too much’ for tragedies in the past and that made him uncomfortable.

I know my job is that people can come to me with whatever possible problems they want, no matter how controversial. But this is getting fucking out of hand. How do I do this?

I don’t expect you to do anything, Mr. Guidance Counselor. I expect you to continue to be irrelevant and outdated. But in the meantime, you might direct those promising young students to the 16 Points of the Alt Right, because the Alt-Right is an inevitable consequence of the 1965 Naturalization Act.

Still not tired.