It Was a Nazi Salute

Elon Musk’s intentional and very public Nazi salute is no different than Richard Spencer’s “Hail Victory, Hail Trump” performance after the 2016 inauguration. It was an attempt to damage Trump through the negative visual rhetoric of a fake supporter. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Elon Musk is an actor who plays the role of “the world’s richest man” as well as “elite PC gamer” and “corporate CEO”. All three roles are fake and the midwits who scripted his role never took into account that their conceptual model for the part, Tony Stark, spends most of his time in the lab, not playing corporate front man. He’s not on our side, or President Trump’s side, anymore than Richard Spencer, Ben Shapiro, Neil Gaiman, or Jordan Peterson are.

They’re not controlled opposition, they are fake opposition. And his assignment to attempt to undermine President Trump’s second term is the reason Musk isn’t hanging out in Hollywood trying to seduce yet another actress or singer.

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Auditor 202

The extent to which the Church of Scientology supported Auditor 202’s career and perceived success is gradually coming to light, despite his very public and apparently untruthful denials.

Neil Gaiman has consistently stated that he is not a Scientologist, despite his family’s deep ties to the Church of Scientology. In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Neil addressed rumors about his involvement with the church, suggesting that he had not been a practicing member since becoming an adult.

However, some documentary evidence has surfaced which appears to directly contradict this claim, especially since he appears to have still been completing Scientology courses between the ages of 26 and 28, and to have been a donating member in good standing at the age of 49.

  • Neil Gaiman’s name appears in graduate lists in The Auditor Worldwide (published by AOSH UK copyright 1986) as Auditor #202. Neil is listed as completing three courses: the Hubbard Senior Sec Checker Course #222 (1988), the 21 Dept Org Board Course #227 (1988) and the Hubbard Basic Art Course.
  • Cornerstone Newsletter, November 2009: List of Members in GOOD STANDING: MARY AND NEIL GAIMAN ($35,000.00)

It would also appear The Simpsons saw through Neil Gaiman all along. While some might think that Gaiman being in on the joke would tend to exonerate him, that’s not the way imposters play the game. It’s just what the psychological operators call Revelation of the Method, or blown cover as cover.

“The Book Job” is the sixth episode of the twenty-third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 20, 2011. In the episode, Lisa is shocked to discover that all popular young-adult novels are conceived by book publishing executives through use of market research and ghostwriters to make money. Homer decides to get rich by making a fantasy novel about trolls, with help from Bart, Principal Skinner, Patty, Moe, Professor Frink, and author Neil Gaiman. Lisa does not think writing should be about money, and decides to write her own novel.

However, when Lisa opens a copy of the book, she discovers that Gaiman is listed as the author, not her. It turns out that by slipping a third flash drive with his name onto Lisa’s possession with his secret co-conspirator Moe’s help, Gaiman has heisted his way to the best-seller list “once again” despite being illiterate. During the credits, Gaiman and Moe celebrate with a toast at Shelbyville Beach, but Gaiman double-crosses Moe and poisons his drink.

Whether Gaiman is, or is no longer, a Scientologist remains an open question. The more interesting question, of course, is what percentage of those 50 million books Gaiman has reportedly sold were purchased by members of the Church of Scientology. Because Gen Xers will recall another erstwhile Scientologist who wrote science fiction novels that appeared even more often on the bestseller charts, and for much longer periods of time, an author by the name of L. Ron Hubbard.

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Enjoy the Hope

The first time around, Donald Trump was the best President of the United States since Andrew Jackson. But the degree of difficulty he faced was too great, and he was obviously not ready for the level of resistance he faced from his own appointees and employees. He has already shown signs that he is much better prepared for his second stint in office, as the list of the executive orders he signed immediately following his inauguration tends to show.

It’s better than a good start, it’s an excellent start. But excising the Deep State and foreign interests from Washington DC is a marathon, not a sprint, and they’re going to fight him every step of the way. He’s yet to end the Federal Reserve, foreign aid, and the IRS, or begin any mass repatriations of LEGAL immigrants. The only new order that seems particularly dubious is the removal of sanctions from the settlers in Israel; this does tend to underline the existing suspicions that there will be a false equivalence between American interests and Israeli interests, but at this point, there is no reason not to give the once and current President the benefit of the doubt.

For the meantime, enjoy the hope!

– Reinstating the name Mount McKinley

– Renaming Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America

– Designating Cartels as foreign terrorist organizations

– Ending diversity, inclusion, and equity hiring in the federal government

– Temporary withdrawal of all areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing

– Revocation of any active or current security clearances held by the former intelligence officials involved with “inappropriate political coordination with the 2020 Biden presidential campaign” and John R. Bolton

– Granting pardons for January 6 rioters

– Reevaluating United States foreign aid

– Declaring a national energy emergency

– Restoring accountability for career senior executives

– Promoting beautiful federal civic architecture

– Restoring the death penalty in the US

– Routing more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of California

– Securing the United State’s borders

– United States citizenship does not automatically extend to those born in the United States

– Realignment of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

– Unleashing America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources

– Clarifying the military’s role in protecting the US borders

– ‘America First’ trade policy that benefits American workers, manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and businesses

– Resolving the backlog of security clearances for Executive Office of the President

– Restoring accountability to policy-influence positions within the federal workforce

– Withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization

– Delaying TikTok ban for 75 days

– Putting America First in international environmental agreements

– Deliver emergency price relief to the American people

– Hiring freeze for federal civilian employees (does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety)

– Regulatory freeze pending review

– Restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship

– Recissions of dozens of executive orders and actions from Biden administration

– Ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government

– Only two sexes, male and female, to be recognized by the federal government

– Department of Government Efficiency to implement the president’s DOGE Agenda

– Putting American and its interests first in foreign policy

– Protecting US citizens from terrorist attacks and threats

– Tapping into the vast natural resources, energy, and seafood in Alaska

– Ensuring the federal government carries out United State’s immigration laws

– Pulling the US from the Paris Agreement

– Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States

– Pulling the US out of the global corporate tax deal secured by Biden

– Organization of the National Security Council and subcommittees

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Beginning with a Bang

The Dark Herald has taken his talents to the Arkhaven substack, and he’s gotten off to a blistering start with a comparison of Neil Gaiman’s derivative work to the woman from whose work he derived it:

One is the real deal and the other is a cheap knockoff of the original. 

There is a Swiss Rolex and there is a Bangkok Rolex. There is Classic Coke and there is Sam’s Cola.  There is the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and the one on Cousin Jimbo’s velvet blanket.

There is Tannith Lee and there is Neil Gaiman. 

This has become vastly apparent to me this weekend while reading Night’s Master. It’s a funny thing about writers, we all have that one writer that made us want to write for a living.  While learning the craft we discover our strengths and limitations.  Some of us will eventually discover that we have surpassed our masters.  In bitter truth, most of us will discover that we can’t due to the limitations of our innate talents but those who face this unpleasant realization do not resent the writer who inspired us. 

Mostly. 

Gamma males, on the other hand, live in a world blanketed by their resentments and can never bring themselves to give credit where it’s due. It’s too painful a truth to acknowledge.  How can I be the secret king when there is all too obviously a real king? John Scalzi has never given credit to Joe Haldeman for his influence on his early work, although it’s clearly there. Neil Gaiman’s disdain for Tanith Lee went all the way back to when he was doing literary reviews. By Lee’s account, (which I will take over Gaiman’s in a heartbeat), he was pleasant, fawning and even obsequious during his interview of her for the Guardian.  When he published his interview, Lee discovered that Gaiman had described her as “formerly attractive.”

On top of which, reportedly and according to Lee’s belief, he directly plagiarized entire paragraphs from her. I haven’t seen the direct evidence of the truth of the plagiarism yet, but I suspect that between the Dark Herald and me, we should be able to find it if, in fact, it exists. While I’m very familiar with the various tales of the Flat Earth, including the Secret Books of Paradys, which I own and have read repeatedly, and also own her Secret Books of Venus series, I’d never read a single Neil Gaiman work until after we launched Arkhaven and I was encouraged to read Sandman.

Which, you may recall from the streams I was doing at the time, struck me immediately as mediocre and derivative, as well as more than a little off-putting.

Anyhow, it’s no surprise that the Dark Herald is off to an excellent start at the Arkhaven substack. He’ll be blogging there henceforth, so if you’re accustomed to reading him at the store site, I’d encourage you to sign up for a free subscription there.

In other Arkhaven news, we received the test print of JDA’s Overmind omnibus from the new printer this weekend. The quality of the color printing is excellent, indeed, one could quite credibly say superlative. We’re placing an order for the initial print run of 75 leatherbound copies, so there will be a few extras available for sale when they’re ready. The Hypergamouse printing will soon follow. And two additional bonuses; the leatherbound comics will be sewn, and somewhat to my surprise, color edge printed.

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Ben Johnson to Bears

That was what I did not want to see. The NFC North may have underperformed in the playoffs this year, but it arguably now has four of the best young head coaches in the league: KOC, LaFleur, Campbell, and now Johnson. Three of the four are very smart, and Campbell has proven the effectiveness of his aggressive leader of men approach.

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In Praise of Blasphemy

I think I have stumbled upon why the godless sex perverts who made up an influential element of the science fiction crowd of the 1960s lionized and feted Roger Zelazny on the basis of a short story which not only isn’t anywhere nearly as good as his later work, but doesn’t stand up well over time in any context, be it scientific or socio-sexual.

The damning paragraph follows. Note the the Locar of which the patron saint of Gamma fiction writes is Ecclesiastes.

“And ours is not an insignificant people, an insignificant place,” I went on. “Thousands of years ago, the Locar of our world wrote a book saying that it was. He spoke as Locar did, but we did not lie down, despite plagues, wars, and famines. We did not die. One by one we beat down the diseases, we fed the hungry, we fought the wars, and, recently, have gone a long time without them. We may finally have conquered them. I do not know.

“But we have crossed millions of miles of nothingness. We have visited another world. And our Locar had said ‘Why bother? What is the worth of it? It is all vanity, anyhow.’

“And the secret is,” I lowered my voice, as at a poetry reading, “he was right! It is vanity, it is pride! It is the hybris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us. ⁠—All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak!”

No wonder science fiction and fantasy have devolved into diseased lunacy. Their foolish elite literally set themselves against God, and now they have reaped the inevitable whirlwind as their retarded heirs laboriously scribble their deranged fantasies about being gang-raped by gay dinosaurs.

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A Tale of Two Remembrances

Castalia House’s Morgan recalls his friendship with the late author, Howard Andrew Jones:

It was late 1997 or early 1998 that Howard Jones had contacted me. I was the Official Editor of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association at the time. Periodically someone would contact me on how to get their pastiche Conan novel sold or how to get on the syndicated Conan T. V. show which was showing at the time. I never saw that show.

I received an e-mail from Howard who introduced himself and told me that he wanted to be to Harold Lamb what Glenn Lord was to Robert E. Howard. Glenn Lord was the agent for the Robert E. Howard copyright holders for around 28 years. Those Zebra and Ace non-Conan Robert E. Howard paperback collections. Glenn Lord was the agent who made the deals. He was a breath of fresh air.

Thus began a decades long friendship with Howard. We discussed fantasy fiction and historical novels we liked. We discovered new authors through each other. He seemed to like Fritz Leiber more than Robert E. Howard when I first knew him. We both tracked down old obscure hardbacks of historical fiction from the pulps. I seemed to like Arthur D. Howden Smith more than he did. Despite that, he had a copy of the first Grey Maiden story by Smith and sent me a photocopy of it. He also lent me a bound set of pulp stories including Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur’s “He Rules Who Can,” Joseph Ivers Lawrence “Swords on the Northern Sea,” and a Sargasso Sea story by F. van Wyck Mason.

He got Harold Lamb’s fiction back into print with University of Nebraska’s Bison Books. Before this, there were two collections of Harold Lamb’s cossack stories from the 1960s. Bison Books produced eight large volumes of Harold Lamb’s fiction from both the pulp and slick magazines. Howard organized them in a logical manner. We had discussed at one time of co-editing a volume of sword & sorcery fiction covering the early and middle years as an introductory volume to new readers.

At the same time, he was the fiction editor for Black Gate magazine. He championed getting new sword & sorcery fiction published. Sword & sorcery had been banished by the big publishers (for probably ideological reasons) but Howard knew there was a desire for it.

John O’Neill of the late and much-lamented Black Gate magazine also paid tribute to his former editor:

Howard has been a huge part of my personal and professional life since 2002, when I opened a submission to Black Gate magazine and found a long, rambling, and extremely enthusiastic cover letter from him, expressing his delight at finding a quality magazine devoted to heroic fantasy. The letter ended with “I want in, bad,” and was attached to a terrific tale featuring two adventurers named Dabir and Asim.

We eventually published three Dabir and Asim tales in Black Gate, and within a few years Howard’s editorial contributions had become so essential to the magazine that we named him our first Managing Editor. He ran our non-fiction department, single-handedly recruiting and managing over a dozen contributors to fill some 80 pages every issue with thoughtful essays, book reviews, gaming coverage, and much more.

In November 2008 Howard told me he wanted to remake our website, and post new articles every single day, instead of a few times a month. I told him he was crazy. How in the world could we produce that much content, especially without a budget?

Undaunted, Howard put together a top-notch team of writers, and committed to putting daily content on the Black Gate blog. It was his vision, and he executed it magnificently, with a little help from Bill Ward, David Soyka, Scott Oden, James Enge, EE Knight, Ryan Harvey, and others. Eight years later, the website won a World Fantasy Award — an honor that I still believe should have been presented to Howard.

Before long Howard’s own writing career had taken off with such magnitude that he had to step back from day-to-day duties at the magazine. Over the next fifteen years he released fifteen books, including three featuring Dabir and Asim, four novels in the Pathfinder universe, the Ring-Sworn Trilogy, three volumes in The Chronicles of Hanuvar, and the Harold Lamb collections Swords from the East and Swords from the West.

Howard was a wonderful writer. He believed in heroes, and that steadfast conviction informed all of his writing. But despite all his success Howard never lost touch with his other major talent — finding and nurturing new writers. Howard was an enormously gifted editor, and a tireless champion of underappreciated writers.

Many men have lived much longer, and left behind legacies that will not be remembered nearly as long, than Howard Andrew Jones.

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Which Trump Will Be Sworn In Today?

We know there are at least two Trumps, possibly three. What’s interesting is that over the last year, the Hellmouth has been talking openly about body doubles, and forcing the reference in a nonsensical manner that isn’t funny and doesn’t even make sense in the advertising context, such as in this Booking.com commercial starring Tina Fey. As soon as I saw one, it made me think about which method they were revealing, which I assumed referred to the Six Bidens.

And yet, here is Short Trump on stage with Elon Musk. Musk claims to be 6’2″ but since he lies about pretty much everything, he’s almost certainly shorter than that. While he does appear to be about six inches taller than Amber Heard, all Hollywood heights are exaggerated by two inches, so he’s probably 6’0″.

Which makes it hard to explain how Trump magically grew 4 inches for the President Carter funeral, where he can be seen standing next to the 5’11” Melania who is clearly wearing 4-inch heels. The hair also looks the wrong color.

In the event that the picture with Musk was insufficient to convince you of the existence of Short Trump, the photo below with Zelensky, who is 5’5″ or 5’6″ at most, should suffice. Note that the average length of the human head is between 8-9 inches, so given that Zelensky hits the halfway mark, Short Trump is between 5’9″ and 5’11” in shoes. And that is clearly not the same man as the one attending the Carter funeral.

One wonders if the reason the presidential inauguration has been moved inside is to make the ceremony easier to stage for the cameras and obscure these details, in much the same way the Obama inauguration was repeated the following day. In any event, there are clearly a number of anomalies of much the same kind that surrounded the Biden inauguration. And there is reason for cautious optimism.

Last night I had the privilege of being included in a Zoom call with Steve Bannon, former investment banker and media executive, host of the “War Room” show and chief political strategist during the first seven months of Donald Trump’s first term in office. Much of what Bannon presented wasn’t surprising, but what seemed significant was that he confirmed that Trump and his team will go on the offensive from day one in office. “The days of thunder begin on Monday,” he said, and the world will not be the same again. Bannon wasn’t talking about Trump going on the offensive against the Chinese, Iranians or the Russians. Trump and his team are preparing to take on the “they.”

“They,” in Bannon’s words, are the people who control the world’s most powerful empire and, elections or no elections, democracy or no democracy, they will not voluntarily relinquish their privileges and the control over their empire: there will be a fight. Nessun dorma.

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Russia Will Abandon SWIFT

Now that they know they don’t need it, there is no reason for Russia to continue to utilize the erstwhile global payment system:

The SWIFT system should be abandoned to avoid information leaks, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin said in an interview that journalist Pavel Zarubin published on his Telegram channel. “SWIFT should be simply killed, in a good sense of the word, abandoned and no longer used. This is a direct leak of information to our enemies and the main thing is that it is so easy to solve — it is a purely administrative decision, an agreement between the two parties and a few technological solutions, that’s all,” Kostin said.

Several years ago, SWIFT was the main system for processing payments — almost all banking transactions in the world went through it. But in 2014, when Western countries first threatened to disconnect Russia from the system, large countries began to create alternatives. The Financial Message Transfer System (SPFS) appeared in Russia.

It’s now only a matter of time before BRICSIA+ announces its own payment processing system, and eventually, currency. This will be a very positive thing for most people, given the way that the current payment processors play thought police and abuse their privileged positions. But it’s going to have a very negative effect on a lot of Western financial institutions.

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