#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 337: A Pack O’ Lips
QUANTUM MORTIS Episode 72: Target is Down
NEURAL NETWORK NOVELLAS Episode 29: Destiny Takes The Long Road
BOVODAR & THE BEARS Episode 29: An Unexpected Surprise
RIOT TOWN, USA Episode 50: Doxxer Poodle
CROSS+WORD Episode 7: Party Time
AESOPS FABLES Episode 35: The Thirsty
The comprehensive failure of Clown World’s color revolution-style strategy to wage psychological and economic warfare against the Russian people, thereby turning them against President Putin and forcing the collapse of the Russian government, is evident in the landmark results of today’s presidential election.
A record number of people have voted in this election. More than 74% of Russia’s 112.3 million voters cast their ballots between March 15 and 17, the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Sunday. This is the highest engagement in the nation’s modern history, unseen for more than two decades. A previous similar turnout was recorded in 1991 at the first and only presidential elections in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, when Russia was still a part of the USSR. At that time, around 74% of voters turned out to cast their vote. The average turnout at the presidential elections in modern Russia ranged between 64% and 69%. The ballot held in 2018 had a turnout of around 67%.
First vote in new territories. It was the first time people in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as in Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, were able to take part in Russian presidential elections. All four regions joined Russia after referendums in September 2022. The new territories demonstrated high turnout figures at the vote, which amounted to 83.7%, 85%, 87% and 88%, for the Kherson, Zaporozhye, LPR and DPR, respectively.
With over 80% of all ballots counted, Putin gets more than 87% of the votes. Kharitonov and Davankov enjoy 4% support each, and Slutsky is backed by some 3% of the voters.
The easily confirmable fact is that Vladimir Putin is far more democratically legitimate, in every sense of the word, than the unelected leaders of the so-called European “democracies”, which are ruled over by a) foreign imperialists based in the United States, b) the unelected bureaucrats of the European Commission, and c) illegitimate heads of state like the UK’s Rishi Sunak, who has never faced an election as a candidate for Prime Minister and is going to lose the first one he faces, and lose it badly, assuming he survives long enough to lead the Conservative Party into it.
And President Putin is, of course, far more legitimate in every sense than the series of decrepit, mask-wearing body doubles that we are supposed to believe are Joe Biden, who clearly didn’t receive anywhere nearly enough votes to win the 2020 U.S. election, let alone the record-setting 81 million that was manufactured for him.
In fact, I suspect the only reason “Joe Biden” has not been charged with any of the various crimes that have been comprehensively exposed and are related to the Biden vice-presidency is because the federal prosecutors know they can’t actually charge anyone who is not Joe Biden for the crimes of the actual man, who is probably lost in the final throes of dementia, assuming that he’s even still alive.
All of the headlines about the illegitimacy of the Russian election or claims that it was, for some totally unnecessary reason, “rigged”, are clearly nothing more than the customary Clown World inversion. The most reliable metric is not to assume that what they are reporting is wrong, it is to assume that what they are reporting is the complete opposite of the truth.
UPDATE: Vladimir Putin himself reached the same conclusion in a recent interview:
“I think it’s obvious to everyone that the American political system cannot claim to be democratic in any sense of the word.”
MENUVIA
A sparkling gem made rough stone, the seat of political power in the Kingdom of Vale. Revolt foments among the patrician class and open gang war looms on the horizon. As the Argentine Tower plots revolution, a lone thief with a past as dark as Menuvia itself picks the wrong lock and opens the wrong door. Shadows still cast in the dark of night, underneath the long moonlight…
An original illustrated fantasy series by RazörFist
Now that Amazon has restored Castalia’s Kindle account, the two books of his NIGHTVALE series, The Long Moonlight and Death Mask, are both available on Kindle. And we’ll have an announcement about our next publishing collaboration with the Shaded Poet of the Unauthorized coming soon.
While the ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT series is also available on Kindle, the CASTALIA JUNIOR CLASSICS will not be. For some arcane reason known only to the Kindle Content Review committee, of the first three books in the series, only Myths & Legends passed muster on the second try. We did, however, receive the good news that The Nature of Ethics: Defining Ethics, Good & Evil, a book we don’t publish and did not submit to KDP, had been accepted for publication, so in light of these various and confusing factors, we decided to simply limit the availability of the Junior Classics on Amazon to the hardcover editions.
People around the world are increasingly convinced that the disappearance of Princess Kate from all media, social and otherwise, is due to her unexpected demise.
Kate Middleton, the 42-year-old wife of Prince William and mother of their three children, made her last official public appearance on last year’s Christmas as she walked into church with members of the royal family… British talk show host John Oliver even joked that Kate “could have died 18 months ago.” A new theory is that Kate’s disappearance is related to unsubstantiated rumors that Prince William had an affair.
The “Gone girl” drama in the British royal family has also become a trendy topic on China’s social media platform. On Sina Weibo, an ongoing poll on “what do you think happened to Princess Kate” found 4,900 out of 8,000 (61 percent) on Saturday respondents thought she “probably had died,” while 20 percent thought she suffered physical illness and 9 percent believed it was a mental situation.
Another popular speculative theory was that Kate is determined to divorce due to William’s affairs and no longer cooperates in royal duties.
Now, I have no idea why the princess has gone radio dark after more than a decade of serving as the British monarchy’s brightest and most important star. But if there is a medical reason behind her sudden disappearance, I think we all know what it is, and also why it is not just the British press, but the whole Clown World media establishment, that is not being permitted to openly discuss either her disappearance or the fake images that have been released to create the illusion of her well-being.
The Kurgan went rather dark with his theory, which I have to confess is not something I’d ever considered. I tend to imagine the Royals engaged in icy conversations about how they’d prefer their tea than in domestic violence, but I suppose it’s possible… although weirdly precise about the details.
My personal OPINION is that she got stabbed by William in an argument. I been saying that for a week.
UPDATE: There is a detailed rumor on /pol/ that one would hope is merely a LARP in response to the incompetent palace PR shenanigans. But there have been separate, unrelated, and possibly faked images of UK flags at half-mast as well. If it’s true, we’ll probably know tomorrow.
it’s official. She’s gone.
Top government officials have already been briefed.
My mum is a clerk at Steinmeiers office (President of Germany)
She saw it on his desk.
BBC will release a major statement shortly
NOT A DRILL
SHE’S GONEReported reason: complications from a myoma (intrauterine tumor). During the surgery a severe bleeding occurred which could not be controlled in time. Apparently she suffered from a hereditary coagulopathy which was unknown to her surgeons.
UPDATE: On the other hand, The Sun reported a few hours ago that the princess is fine and was out and about today.
‘Happy and healthy’ Princess Kate spotted out and about for first time since surgery as she visits farm shop with Wills. Kate and William spent the morning watching children George, Charlotte, and Louis take part in sports. 22:00 17 Mar 2024
I’d bet on the /pol/ report being a English LARP, mostly because a German whose mother is a German bureaucrat is unlikely to use the word “mum”. And no one who knows what they’re talking about tends to use the words “top” anything.
UPDATE: The more out-there conspiracy theorists appear to think the significance goes well beyond the tabloid monarchy. We’ll find out soon enough.
And, as Liberia has proven, it doesn’t make the dirt magic either.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. It is therefore futile and foolish to make appeals to Constitutional arguments in an immoral and atheistic society. Our enemies have disregarded what the Constitution says for half a century. It is a mistake continuing to play by a set of rules that our enemies no longer obey. Worse yet, turning a piece of paper into an idol and elevating it to some pseudo “holy” status in our minds.
Andrew Torba is correct. The power is not in the paper, the power is in the ideas and those ideas have been adulterated and perverted wherever they haven’t been abandoned. Neither the words nor the ideas have ever applied in any way to newcomers, immigrants, citizens, illegals, invaders, foreigners, or the children of those diverse peoples, they only ever applied to the Posterity of the Founders, the direct genetic blood descendants of the men who fought the American Revolution against their British brethren for independence from the King of England.
The Constitution was written to safeguard the liberties of the sons and daughters of the American Revolution and no one else. That’s what the Preamble to it says and that’s literally what Posterity meant. And that’s what it still means today, the legalistic fantasies of the would-be inclusive midwits who overrate the importance of their credentials and their own cognitive capabilities notwithstanding.
The words of the U.S. Constitution have never applied in any way to most of the “Americans” who are reading this now. So to fetishize it, to place any trust whatsoever in it, is to fundamentally fail to understand what it is, why it was written, and why it is no longer even remotely applicable to the United States of America in the Year of Our Lord 2024.
No damage therefore, that men in the state of nature suffer from one another, can give a conqueror power to dispossess the posterity of the vanquished, and turn them out of that inheritance, which ought to be the possession of them and their descendants to all generations. The conqueror indeed will be apt to think himself master: and it is the very condition of the subdued not to be able to dispute their right. But if that be all, it gives no other title than what bare force gives to the stronger over the weaker: and, by this reason, he that is strongest will have a right to whatever he pleases to seize on.
– John Locke, Of Conquest, Second Treatise on Civil Government, 1690
Without actually telling me you’re low status. The Educated Hillbilly attempts to psychoanalyze a bitter success:
Imagine knowing you’re better than everyone else & having to share a school bus with them. A lunch table. A class room. The rage builds for 18 years.
This idea has never made any sense to me. What sort of person is angry about their own perceived self-superiority? I’ve never seen a woman who knows she is prettier than everyone else being angry about it. She’s perhaps a little standoffish due to being preemptively labelled a bitch or worse by all the women on the mere basis of her appearance, but she isn’t angry. I’ve never known anyone who is genuinely smarter than everyone else being angry about having to put up with the relentless retardery that is necessitated by human contact, it’s just a quotidian reality that has to be endured with stoicism lest one slip into existential despair.
What athlete is angry about being forced to compete on the athletic field with his sporting inferiors? Isn’t that the whole point of winning? So, who imagines that intrinsic superiority is a source of anger?
The answer, of course, is the gamma male. Now, this is not to say that the Educated Hillbilly is a gamma male now, but the evidence suggests that he may have been in his youth. Perhaps he has graduated to delta, perhaps he is still a gamma, it really makes no difference because this isn’t about him, but rather, his diagnosis of the Columbia professor.
Now, I was fortunate in my choice to attend an elite Ivy League reject school rather than an Ivy, which is why I a) actually had a good time in college and b) remain capable of meeting people without informing them of where I received my university education in the first thirty seconds of conversation. While in retrospect I would have done better to attend either a) Stanford or b) Arizona State, it was a reasonable, if suboptimal, decision. However, even at an Ivy reject school, there was a fair amount of the “ex nihilo” population, most of whom had one chip or another on their shoulder about their backgrounds, and all of whom were varying degrees of bitter about not getting into their top choice of schools. Some, like my freshman year roommate, were defensively proud of their deprived backgrounds, others went in the opposite direction and began speaking like characters out of Monte Python and dressing like characters out of PG Wodehouse.
The professoressa in question was clearly more inclined to the latter, although not so much so that she invented a new and more impressive family history for herself in preference to the real one. Instead, she tries to ingratiate herself into her new and preferred surroundings by expressing her disdain for her humble background in a way that will no more impress the New York Brahmins than a pencil-neck dork talking down Aaron Rodgers will impress the jocks.
What drives this woman is not anger, but rather insecurity, combined with a very reasonable feeling of betrayal. First, her insecurity about her own superiority; if she was that confident in it, she wouldn’t have feared her potential inability to escape her original surroundings or being mistaken in any way for being one of those inferior beings. Second, her well-placed insecurity about her place in her new surroundings; she will never be a high-status WASP, Jew, or media celebrity, no matter how many academic credentials she collects.
A credential is piece of paper that aspirational failures are awarded as participation trophies in lieu of genuine accomplishments.
All of her complaints and ever-more-elaborate fictions serve no purpose except to remind her betters that she is not, and never will be, one of them. She would have done much better to never, ever, speak of her unfortunate roots; then she might, possibly, have had a chance of passing, at least among those who met her later in life. The Great Gatsby addresses this very subject; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s entire life and his literary career were shaped by his love-hate relationship with his Midwestern background and his failure to graduate from Princeton.
Simplicius explains why the UK providing its Storm Shadow missile to Ukraine doesn’t pose the same danger to the UK that providing its Taurus missile would to Germany:
The majority of people, by the way, don’t actually understand the real reason behind Germany’s trepidation at sending the Taurus. It’s not that Germany is somehow more afraid to get involved, considering the fact they’re already the top aid provider besides the U.S.
It has more to do with the fact that, unlike the Storm Shadows, limited to under 250km for the export versions given Ukraine, the Taurus comes stock at well over 500km range, and is reportedly secretly capable of carrying nuclear warheads—a fact the Bundestag indirectly confirmed by declining to answer the question recently, stating it was ‘top secret information’.
That means the Taurus presents a totally different type of strategic threat if used against Russia. From the Russian standpoint, if a Taurus were to be launched into Russian territory, Russia would have no choice but to treat it as a potential nuclear first strike attack from NATO, given that Moscow is less than 500km from Ukrainian territory and there is no way to determine if the missile is nuclear-armed during its inbound flight. This opens up an entirely different can of worms, which would doctrinally give Russian armed forces the allowance to potentially respond to Germany in almost any escalatory measure, up to and including preventative nuclear launch on Berlin.
Germany knows this, which is why the Taurus is off the table.
The bizarre thing about the European leaders blathering in their helpless ineptitude about what they will and will not permit Russia to accomplish is the way in which they apparently fail to grasp that they have absolutely no say with regards to what Russia will do or will not do.
For all their blustering, for all their threats, for all their posturing, there is nothing, literally nothing, that all of the European countries combined can do about Odessa, or Kiev, or even Warsaw, for that matter. And they know this, which is why the only weapons that will be permitted to Ukraine are those that cannot even credibly threaten Russia, and the primary European objective is not winning an unwinnable war, but rather “to send Russia a signal of resolve and long-term commitment.”
I’m sure that signal will impress the field marshals of the Red Army about as much as it impresses us. It doesn’t say they are strong. It just says they are stupid and that the retardery of Clown World is relentless.
If you’re not using cash every chance you get, you’re literally part of the problem:
Sainsbury’s is battling a major IT meltdown on one of the busiest shopping days of the week and has left customers fuming after suffering an ‘error with an overnight software update’ that has prevented the supermarket from being able to fulfil online orders or accept contactless payments at the tills.
Stores across the UK are battling a major ‘technical issue’ that has left customers ‘disappointed’ and forced to turn to rival Tesco to complete their Saturday shop.
Frustrated customers say they cannot pay at the tills, while company bosses admit the firm is ‘experiencing issues with contactless payments’ and also ‘will not be able to fulfil the vast majority of today’s Groceries Online deliveries’.
Look, there are many situations that one simply has to use electronic payments, such as when one is not in a face-to-face transaction. But this recent payment failure at Sainsbury’s illustrates the absolute need for cash, which is why it is incumbent upon everyone to insist on cash transactions for all of your face-to-face transactions.
I don’t even have a debit card, much less one of those smartphone app payment methods. And this isn’t because I’m a Boomer who hates and fears newfangled technology, but because I understand exactly where all this “contactless” electronic payment tech is ultimately heading.
Don’t help pave the way for the Mark of the Beast. Don’t participate in it. Don’t make it easier for them.
Andrew Torba appears to have belatedly come around on the problematic nature of free speech, even if he has not yet accepted the historical fact of its essentially evil nature:
The Previous Policy: Focus on Individual Content Removal
For a long time Gab relied on a policy that focused on removing individual pieces of content that violated our community guidelines. This approach often involved issuing warnings to users before taking action on specific posts or comments. However, this strategy has shown limitations, as some users continued to engage in threatening, spammy, and harassing behavior even after multiple warnings. This led to the ongoing presence of toxic elements within the community, which often drove good and decent users away.
The New Policy: Removal of Entire Accounts
In response to these challenges, Gab has decided to take a more proactive approach by removing entire accounts that engage in threatening, harassing, or spamming behavior. This shift in policy is a direct response to the shortcomings of the previous approach, which failed to effectively deter users from engaging in problematic activities. By removing entire accounts instead of just individual pieces of content, Gab aims to send a clear message that such behavior will not be tolerated and will ultimately lead to account termination.
We are giving no quarter to subversive accounts that exist for one reason and one reason only: to destroy Gab and our amazing community.
In order to strike the right balance between protecting free speech and ensuring the safety of our community, we must continually assess and refine our approach to content moderation. This involves ongoing discussions with users, legal experts, and other stakeholders to ensure that our policies remain both effective and fair.
Ultimately, our goal is to create a platform where individuals can freely express themselves while also feeling safe and protected from subversive freaks who want to scare them off the platform with violent threats and make Gab look bad.
As we continue to evolve and grow as a platform, we remain committed to the principles of free speech and community protection. By working together with our users and partners, we believe that we can create a space where individuals can engage in healthy and productive dialogue while also not facing a barrage of threats and harassment from subversive people who want to destroy Gab.
We’re cleaning up Gab and it’s long overdue.
This is a wise step forward, but an incoherent policy. Because “the principles of free speech” are inherently and always opposed to “community protection”. The very purpose of free speech is subversive and blasphemous; as we have learned, the primary advocates of free speech are the very first to criminalize and penalize it as soon as they attain sufficient power.
But I understand. It’s very hard to not only abandon, but actively turn against the very rhetoric that once inspired you. Most people are never able to slaughter their formerly sacred cows. At least Torba and company have recognized the poison in the false promises and are now taking practical steps against it, even though they are still paying lip service to the conceptual problem.
Clown World cannot abide Russia because Russia has escaped the satanic chains that bound her, while her European diplomats have lost the art of diplomacy for which they were once famous:
Dominic Lieven, a fine British scholar of the Russian Empire’s origins, wrote that the Russians were the only people Western Europeans had to deal with who were capable of fighting for their special, independent niche in the modern world with boundless courage, perseverance, and self-sacrifice.
Consider these words – we are the only civilization against which the West has attempted to act aggressively, and failed to achieve its goals. All the rest – the Great Empire of China, the ancient civilization of India, and many others – were unable to withstand the decisive thrust of the West, which for 500 years had been expanding the frontiers of its power by fire and sword. They were beaten, even if they were able to restore their statehood after some time.
Our country was never defeated. But let’s try to put ourselves in the Western Europeans’ shoes and understand their emotional state. For centuries, they have been living with a trauma called ‘an independent Russia’. However, we ourselves have never had the opportunity to understand what it is like to have a permanent enemy that can never be conquered.
So, when the USSR suddenly collapsed in 1991 and the unified state disintegrated, Western Europe found itself in a situation it had never experienced before. Overnight, the most unfulfilled wish of generations of European politicians and military leaders came true. All by itself, without a decisive military clash, and with the Russians’ full of desire to join the ‘European family’, even as pupils. Such a shock could not pass without serious consequences for the psyche of the statesmen and ordinary citizens of these Western European states.
Their entire foreign policy culture was based on the fact that Russia would never be pushed around or told what to do. Suddenly, the West felt it had won the Cold War without firing a single shot. In a state of fantastic emotional upheaval, the Western Europeans began to build relations with Russia as if it had finally been defeated. For several years, Moscow accepted the rules of the game that the West imposed. It took into account the wishes of the Western Europeans in the economic sphere and developed its foreign relations with an eye to how this would affect the main goal – which was gradual ‘integration’ with the EU.
In the new circumstances, the bloc found itself in the position of a demanding teacher, offering numerous ‘partnership’ programs with two simple objectives. First, to secure the interests of Western European business and make the Russian market even more open to it. Second, to ensure that Moscow was complying with its instructions.
European diplomats became equally demanding teachers. For several generations of EU ambassadors in Moscow, the main task was to monitor how well Russia was honoring its many commitments. As part of this ‘honorable’ mission, a tradition of communication with Russians at various levels has developed. And while there have been talks at the level of heads of state or foreign ministers, there has been no trace of normal diplomacy below that level.
EU ambassadors did not simply become the executors of the will of their masters back home (which is perfectly normal) – they gradually became technical workers entrusted with the task of observing Russia and pointing out errors in its behavior.
And the level of their intellectual ability was no longer measured by their competency in playing a subtle diplomatic game. The main measure was the degree of hysteria with which they pushed through a very simple agenda. All the more so as their individual will and intelligence were increasingly integrated into the system of rules and requirements common to all NATO and EU representatives abroad.
As a philosopher wrote in the last century, “in any collective, individual agency becomes the servant of the collective interest.” And gradually, we should add, it disappears in the sense that is a sign of agency in the first place – the ability to analyze a situation independently and to make decisions. This problem has become so total for Western European diplomacy and politics that it has gradually ceased to be noticed.
All the more so because European politics was also changing rapidly. Having found themselves, through no fault of their own, in the position of ‘winners of the Cold War’, Western Europeans felt a deep sense of moral superiority over the whole world around them. Except, of course, towards the Americans, who they are simply afraid of. We have repeatedly seen examples of the European Union interfering in the purely internal affairs of key partners such as China, or the still-very-friendly India. Not to mention states of lesser size and importance. Last year, for example, French President Emmanuel Macron made a scene with the Brazilians over their treatment of their forests.
The behavior of European leaders like Macron, Merkel, and Boris Johnson does often strike one as significantly out-of-touch with basic reality. When they talk about “defeating Russia” or “sanctioning China”, it makes one seriously wonder if they are even capable of basic math, let alone capable of understanding that the balance of power is no longer in their favor.
What the author gets wrong is that while Russia was never defeated by the West, it was defeated by a foreign power when the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, by the same power that rules over Ukraine and is at war with Russia today.
UPDATE: This recent demand by the European Parliament should serve to demonstrate the cartoonish extent to which the European leaders are overestimating their influence.
On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on Moscow to send back 91.5 metric tons of gold and cultural artifacts that were exported to the Russian Empire in 1916-1917 by Romania.
I’m a little disappointed that the Russians merely rolled their eyes and told them, explicitly, “to fuck off”. I think it would have been much more amusing if they’d simply pointed out that the sanctions being applied by the European governments render any such transaction impossible.