We do better werewolves

It is a little ironic to see that despite the vast collection of necrobestiality variants produced by pinkshirted urban fantasists, there are nevertheless those who believe that the Hugo-nominated Larry Correia and I write better werewolf fantasies than they do:

Dear Werewolf mod, delete all your other f—— asks because I have the only two other good werewolf stories you godless heathen.

Series 1:  Monster Hunter International.  Written by Larry Correia, self described gun nut and nemesis of SJWs.  One of the main characters is a libertarian werewolf that has been alive since 1900.  He leads a group of monster hunters that, you guessed it, hunt monster.  He isn’t a bitch about his curse and simply deals with the trouble it causes him.  Third book is about a werewolf apocalypse.

Series 2: Arts of Dark and Light series.  Written by Vox Day.  Great Satan of the SJWs.  Werewolfs are created in his series in the short story “The Last Witchking”.  A pregnant wolf is f—– in a demonic ritual, then boom werewolves.  Hundreds of years later the wolves are conquering nordic lands and threatening the world with their rapine army.

That’s not exactly how I would summarize the series that begins with A Throne of Bones, but I suppose some of the darker, more occultic aspects of the story do get a little grim at times. And I have certainly enjoyed writing the Ulfin siege of Raknarborg in Book Two.

And, as Larry said in response to the gentleman’s opining in ignorance that he could do better: “He is totally welcome to try. :)”

Ebola Weeks 42-43

There has been some talk about a big leap upward in Ebola cases, to 12k+, on Wikipedia. While the reported numbers are known to be inconsistent, I will note that this worrisome leap is NOT reflected in the WHO numbers which I have been tracking.

The Week 42 numbers were 9936 cases and 4877 deaths. This is 939 new cases and 384 new deaths, which means the number of new cases has remained essentially flat for six weeks and the number of new deaths is falling. This is actually the first hint of a positive sign on the statistical front; other positive signs are the fact that there was no significant Dallas outbreak despite the lack of precautions utilized outside the hospital there.

This doesn’t mean that the disease is in retreat yet, but the pace of its advance appears, on the basis of the stastistics reported, to be slowing and falling well short of the 4-week redoubling rate that looked troublesome only two weeks ago. Obviously this analysis is useless if the numbers are junk, but if it is too soon to call the pandemic threat over, at least the situation doesn’t appear to be looking increasingly grim.

UPDATE: It appears I spoke too soon. I updated the WHO numbers two days ago, and while the Week 42 numbers were encouraging, the Week 43 numbers were just released today and they are downright problematic. In fact, one rather hopes that they are more the result of belated reporting than the actual jump statistically indicated. The Week 43 numbers report 13,703 cases and 4,920 deaths, which amounts to 3,767 new cases and 43 new deaths. This is 50 percent HIGHER than the infection rate required to continue doubling. The other strange thing is the collapsing number of reported deaths, which almost surely indicates a breakdown of the hospital system in the worst-affected countries rather than a reduction in the lethality of the virus.

Sci Phi Journal #2

Quite a few New Release subscribers opted for SCI PHI JOURNAL #1 as their free book, so I expect more than few people might be pleased to know that the publisher is permitting Castalia House customers to purchase SCI PHI JOURNAL #2 a few days prior to its official release on November 1st.  The second issue of SCI PHI JOURNAL features short stories, book reviews, and some interesting articles such as “On the Ethics of Supersoldiers” by Patrick S. Baker and “The Making of the Fellowship” by the excellent fantasy essayist Tom Simon. it also contains the first part of a serial, Beyond the Mist by Ben Zwycky, and a history that never-was by Castalia House standout John C. Wright, entitled “Prophetic & Apotropaic Science Fiction”.

From the reviews of the premier issue:

  • It’s a bit tragic that you’d need a somewhat
    specialized magazine to read stuff that treats Sci Fi, philosophy and
    Christianity seriously and with respect – but here it is. 
  • This was an enjoyable read, well worth the price. As with anything in
    this format, the individual entries are of varying quality, but none
    were all bad. “Domo” was my personal favorite.
  • Enjoyed it enormously. The stories are well written. The magazine is thought provoking. 

SCI PHI JOURNAL #2 is now available in the Castalia Store for $3.99. 

Invasion and disintegration is inevitable

As long as countries remain in the EU… and as long as states remain in the USA:

We will never be able to control our borders so long as Britain remains in the EU, a Tory minister warned last night. In an explosive interview, skills minister Nick Boles said the free movement of people is a fundamental principle of the EU that Britain has to accept.

As long as the UK remains a successful economy, Britons need to get used to a ‘very large amount of immigration every year’.

Mr Boles’s words blow a hole in David Cameron’s argument that he can claw back any meaningful powers from Brussels over UK borders. They will also be seized on by Ukip and Eurosceptic Tories as proof that his talks with Brussels will achieve little.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has already said she would not agree to any ‘tampering’ with EU migration rules. In an interview with Total Politics magazine, Mr Boles insisted the British people would favour a reasonable level of immigration if they thought Parliament had control. But he admitted that those who believed MPs did not have such control were ‘right’.

No nation in history has EVER survived permitting “the free movement of people”, and the free movement of people is an intrinsic and integral part of free trade. Which is something I have been trying to point out to naive conservatives, starry-eyed libertarians, and short-sighted liberals ever since I did the math and realized that the USA cannot POSSIBLY remain a coherent, functional nation under a free trade regime. This is not up for debate. It is mathematically impossible, based on what we already know about historical inter-state free movement of people within the United States.

The first album you ever bought

Just got the discount codes out, which I did while cranking the first album I ever bought, AC|DC Back in Black. Man, there is still nothing like that first guitar kicking in on the title track.

I actually think Shoot to Thrill is my favorite track on the album, but it’s hard to decide whether Back in Black or Hells Bells gets off to a better start. And You Shook Me All Night Long is a respectable third in that regard. Which reminds me of  one of the things I love about Rock Sugar’s mix of Like a Prayer and Shook Me All Night Long, how they slip in the riff from Hells Bells into it towards the end.

Anyhow, the code are good for a week, so don’t leave redeeming to the last minute. By the way, in case anyone is interested, the preferences were as follows:

34.5 percent JANISSARIES
27.6 percent SCI PHI JOURNAL #1
19.5 percent QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted
12.6 percent THE EMPEROR’S CORPS
5.6 percent FIRST ON THE MOON

I was also annoying Markku by sending him the line after line from Bloodhound Gang’s Screwing You on the Beach at Night, which is the greatest Gamma-mocking song ever recorded. I think I listened to it 10 times in a row and laughed every single time. In case you can’t tell, we haven’t been turning in before 4 AM in about a week.

I know my haikus are freaking intense
And even the words I made up to sound French
Don’t express my feelings for your toilet parts

That is some QUALITY lyric writing.

Air strikes still don’t work

The failure of the American air campaign against 4GW forces will not be news to anyone who has read William S. Lind’s ON WAR:

The Islamic State continues to gain new recruits in large numbers despite weeks of airstrikes and other military efforts by the United States, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said the group’s ability to attract new recruits to replenish their fighting ranks is an indication of the its mass appeal. U.S. strikes have thus far not degraded IS’s ability to grow its forces, Kirby said.

It would have been more than a little remarkable if they had. Some relevant quotes from the newly released book; note that the most recent one was written more than six years ago.

  • Air power works against you, not for you. It kills lots of people who weren’t your enemy, recruiting their relatives, friends and fellow tribesmen to become your enemies. In this kind of war, bombers are as useful as 420mm siege mortars.  – “Incapable of Learning”
  • The Israeli high command continues to express its faith in the foxfire of air power to destroy Hezbollah, but, as always, it’s not working. Lebanon is taking a pounding, to be sure, but Lebanon is not Hezbollah. – “Welcome to My Parlour”
  •  Air power failed, as it always does against an enemy who doesn’t have to maneuver operationally, or even move tactically for the most part. – “Beat!”
  • The U.S. Air Force recently announced it is developing its own counter-insurgency doctrine, precisely because some people are suggesting air strikes are counterproductive in such conflicts. Well, yes, that is what anyone with any understanding of counter-insurgency would suggest. The Air Force, of course, cares not a whit about the realities of counter-insurgency. – “The Perfect (Sine) Wave”
  • Air power always promises more than it can deliver. – “Operation Cassandra”

Disclose and DISQUALIFY

runsonmagic explains the reason behind the growing pressure to eliminate online anonymity:

Anonymity forces you to evaluate a writer only on their work, which is precisely why so many oppose it. The people against online anonymity are intellectually lazy. They want to be able to tell what they think of an idea based on who is telling them to think that way. They want to nod when a minority, “alpha male,” or person who looks like them tells them something. Knowing an author only by their words forces readers to think abstractly, to think for themselves, and they hate it.

Social justice warriors and feminists hate anonymity because they do not believe in objective truth. They believe it matters more who makes a certain statement than what is being said. The same words that are okay for a black lesbian to say, might be offensive if a white heterosexual male says them. This is precisely why social justice warriors hate Anne Gus and #notyoursheild….

The real reason many social justice warriors are against anonymity is
because it prevents them from harassing writers and getting them fired
from jobs. It prevents tech companies from collecting accurate data on
public forums. Even in the manosphere, anonymity prevents internet
marketers from slandering their competition by claiming they are “not a
real alpha male” without photographic evidence. Like most things, the
push against online anonymity comes back to money and power.

I can’t tell you how many times pinkshirts and other lefties have tried to out me. They assume that simply because one has a pen name, they must be trying to hide something. (Never mind that all it did was demonstrate their insufficient level of intelligence and classical education.) In fact, their deliberate choice of addressing me by my given name is always a dead giveaway that they are an ideological enemy.

The whole point of forcing disclosure is to DISQUALIFY, which is the only form of argument that the sub-intellects of the Left are ever capable of making. Which, of course, is why it is pointless to even attempt to engage in rational dialectic with them. Relentless scorn and dismissive rhetoric is the most reliable means of routing them, but it is a tactic that requires confidence and a combative nature.

But anonymity is an absolute necessity for every non-combatant who dares to stand in the way of the pinkshirts, which of course is why they are desperate to eliminate it in the belief that everyone will cower obediently before them once they are stripped naked and forced to choose between submission and being unable to make a living. They don’t realize that there are millions who will embrace the ISIS model before submitting to them. Their triumphalism is not merely foolish, it is insanely suicidal.

Look at how panicky they sound when a few advertisers simply withdraw advertising and show their vulnerability. And then imagine if we were truly the monsters they claim us to be. My strong suspicion is that they have limited imaginations and are simply incapable of realizing that the status quo is not built upon a foundation of stone, history does not progress inevitably in one direction, and civilization is considerably more fragile than they understand.

#1 Military Strategy bestseller

This is really remarkable when one considers that as many books were sold at the Castalia House store as were sold on Amazon yesterday. On behalf of both Castalia and Mr. Lind, I would like to thank you for your support of what, despite being a must-read, is but a mere prelude to an even more important book that will be published in 2015.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,111 Paid in Kindle Store

  • #1 in Books > History > Military > Strategy
  • #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Military > Strategy
  • #12 in Books > History > Military

A few people need to be thanked for their assistance in the successful launch of On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009. First, LtCol Gregory A. Thiele, USMC, who helped me find some of the missing columns. Despite the book’s mammoth size, we’re still missing about five percent of the 325 that were originally written; as we discover them, we will add them to the ebook. Second, LL, who did the first draft of the e-formatting of the first draft, which I can assure you is the only reason the book made it out in 2014. She’s a fast learner and an even faster formatter. Third, Martin van Creveld, the brilliant and influential Israeli military strategist, author of two books in the 4GW canon, who graciously agreed to write the Foreword. We’re hoping to add him to the Castalia House ranks someday.

Fourth is Tesla7, who bought the book as soon as it was available, ripped through it, and sent me an errata list that allowed me to considerably clean up the text before it went up on Amazon. If you’ve ever converted PDF to text, then you’ll understand that despite whatever errata it still contains, the ebook is much cleaner than one would reasonably expect considering its size. Fifth is dh, whose idea for a New Release newsletter turned out to be more effective than I’d ever expected. We’ve now got an active subscriber list that is more than 7x bigger than I anticipated; if you want to join it, just leave a comment at the Castalia blog and check the box at the bottom marked “Add me to the New Release mailing list”. And sixth is JartStar and Ørjan, who joined forces to produce another excellent, eye-catching cover.

So, thanks again for your support of Mr. Lind and Castalia, and regardless of where you bought the book, please consider taking the time to post a review on Amazon. Newsletter subscribers, the download codes for your free books will be sent out later today. I’m rather curious to see how the breakdown of the five books turns out, as more people were interested in Sci Phi Journal #1 than I’d expected.

Great Minds of the SF/F Left

This was the response of the author of science fiction’s longest ode to the passing of gas to this simple observation on Twitter: “If you are anti-#GamerGate, you are no longer a gamer. You may play games, but you are not a part of gaming culture. You have rejected it.” Never forget, these are the individuals in the SF/F community who genuinely believe themselves to be our moral and intellectual superiors.

John Scalzi @scalzi
If anyone tells you who gets to be a “real” gamer or not, they are stompy whiny little babies throwing a tantrum and you can ignore them.

Tiffany Reisz @tiffanyreisz
If you game, you’re a gamer. If you write, you’re a writer. If you fart, you’re a farter and maybe slow down with the beans, okay.

Trinity Bergman @TrinityBergman
How did you know about the beans??

Tiffany Reisz ?@tiffanyreisz
I made chili today. I KNOW ALL ABOUT THE BEANS.

richfletcher @richfletcher
And: if you hate, you’re a hater.

D L Owens @keikomushi
I hate beans.

Tiffany Reisz @tiffanyreisz
#farts

DangerIck @RangerRick
I am *at least* one of these things. Disclaimer: I had Thai for dinner.

Tiffany Reisz @tiffanyreisz
I had chili. You’re in a safe space. No one judges you here.

Duncan Ellis @DunxIsWriting
“Luke, I am your farter.”

Tiffany Reisz @tiffanyreisz
Butt Solo #starfarts

Marcos Astorga @GMarcos69
I fart more than i game or read so I guess that makes me a member of #Fartgate.

Tiffany Reisz @tiffanyreisz
It’s about ethics in farting.

Marilyn Holt @merlintheholt
beans, beans, the magical fruit…

D L Owens ?@keikomushi
One of the easiest ways to make new friends is to discuss bodily functions. We all appreciate it on some level.

D L Owens ?@keikomushi
In this regard, farts bring people together. 😀

Brilliant. While McRapey claims anyone who classifies gamers is to be ignored, genuine gaming professionals and executives in industries that sell into the games market are constantly analyzing who is a real gamer or not, because if you are going to make a high-powered CPU or an expensive graphics chip, you are not going to sell very many of them to the Farmville and Candy Crush Saga aficionados, regardless of how much they play those games.

It’s not that one can’t make money on casual games, it’s that the people who play them don’t consist of a market that a) spends much money per person or b) consists of a coherent and identifiable culture. This is why, despite its popularity, we are unlikely to see Tor Books publishing a line of Farmville novels any time soon, Rovio’s success in turning Angry Birds into a brand notwithstanding.

Gamasutra notes 15 Factors of Classification distinguishing hardcore gamers from non-gamers: “Hardcore gamers are clearly different from casual gamers, and the characteristics of hardcore and casual gamers will also be different from those who are generally uninterested in interactive entertainment.”

One could usefully define a “real gamer” as a player of games who plays 20+ hours of PC/console games per week and spends or consumes more than $500 on games and game-related products in a year. For example, the NPD Group describes “core gamers” in a similar manner: The NPD Group describes “core gamers” as any individuals who spend more than five hours a week playing games on a home console such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, a Windows PC or a Mac. By these standards, there are currently over 34 million core gamers in the United States, and they are playing video games for an average of 22 hours every week.

Everything has fallen into place

Now isn’t that just unfortunate:

Former CBC radio star Jian Ghomeshi took to Facebook Sunday, publishing an extraordinary account of what he says led to his termination from the public broadcaster.  The CBC announced Sunday it was severing ties with Mr. Ghomeshi, citing
“information” it had recently learned about the popular host of Q on CBC Radio and CBC TV….

Mr. Ghomeshi details an “on and off” relationship with a woman in her mid-20s, which included “adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission.” After he opted to end the relationship, Mr. Ghomeshi said an anonymous woman began reaching out to his former partners, “to tell them she had been a victim of abusive relations with me. In other words, someone was reframing what had been an ongoing consensual relationship as something nefarious.”

Mr. Ghomeshi said a freelance writer started probing the allegations and he has “lived with the threat that this stuff would be thrown out there.” He said he informed CBC of the allegations and the broadcaster was part of a team that dealt “with this for months.”

“They said they’re not concerned about the legal side,” Mr. Ghomeshi wrote. “But then they said that this type of sexual behavior was unbecoming of a prominent host on the CBC.”

Probing the allegations. Living with the threat. Unbecoming sexual behavior. Indeed. In case you’d forgotten, Mr. Ghomeshi once hosted Rapey McRaperson and helped him record some vocals for the Pink Rabbit Posse’s hit number. I can’t help but wonder: what panoply of perversions will freelance writers eventually uncover about his co-vocalist?

Ask not for whom the pinkshirts come
Crawling on hand and knee.
A-slavering from their forked tongues
They come, they come for thee!