Monday Arktoons

The return of REBEL DEAD REVENGE!

REBEL DEAD REVENGE Episode 50: Infiltrated by the Dead

FULL OF EYES Episode 21: Beyond Forever

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 198: Nomad

EVIL MONKEY MEMES Episode 75: Whatcha Got To Eat

THE BLOODSTAINED DEFILE Episode 4: Flag of Truce

INVASION ’55 Episode 29: Trouble Down Below

BEN GARRISON CLASSICS Episode 80: Debate Souvenir

THE WISE OF HEART Episode 7: A Private Moment

VEGFOLK FABLES Episode 186: Run

And a note from the Production Team:

Proofreaders Needed

The Arktoons production team are looking for new proofreaders to join us. You’ll be proofreading the episodes we create before they are released, reading short stories/comics to see if they are suitable for us to adapt, and other tasks related to reading. You’ll need no technical skills or programs, all you’ll need is some time each week to help out and a desire to take part in the culture war. Please email: ArkhavenComics-AT-outlook-DOT-com.

The Thumb on the Scale

While I stopped subscribing to NFL Game Pass and playing fantasy football after the NFL went woke, I still watch all the playoff games. But one thing that made it easier to invest considerably less time in the sport that I’ve followed since childhood was the observation I’d made around the same time, which is that the NFL Commissioner’s office appears to have gotten more aggressively involved in influencing the end results than in previous decades.

While there were a few plays over the years that struck me as highly questionable, for the most part they appeared to be sporadic and generally free of any larger pattern. (See: Drew Pearson a) catching the ball out of bounds, b) pushing off in the 1975 Minnesota – Dallas game, and c) the two non-holding calls on both plays.) The approach has definitely changed, because it’s now become regularly recognizable which team the league would prefer to win the game by the end of the first drive by each team. Note that I said “drive”, not “possession”, because it’s usually impossible to learn anything from an initial three-and-out.

A lot of this year’s playoff games were really good. And the NFL isn’t dictating or scripting the games, it appears to be content to simply put a thumb on the scale, giving the preferred team a small advantage that is worth somewhere between 3 and 7 points in the end. This is an advantage that can be overcome fairly easily by a superior or very well-coached team, but in contests in which the “game of inches” description is apt, it tends to make the crucial difference. The usual reason for assigning the advantage is to help the inferior team and keep the games close, except in those cases when the league has a larger narrative to protect.

For example, in the conference championship games, it was immediately clear that the refs were favoring Philadelphia and Kansas City. I didn’t initially understand why, since the “Andy Reid Bowl” story didn’t seem to justify it, until I read this line from Peter King’s regular Monday morning column.

Historic game: It’s the first of the 57 Super Bowls with two starting Black quarterbacks facing off. Mahomes plays in his third for Kansas City, Jalen Hurts in his first for Philadelphia

And there’s the missing piece. The narrative drives everything.

Philadelphia had absolutely no need of the assistance, as even an excellent 49ers team couldn’t hope to overcome the loss of both its quarterbacks to injury. (The NFL really should go back to 14 game regular seasons and 10 teams in the playoffs. They won’t, but they should in the interest of the quality of the games.) But Kansas City needed every bit of the thumb-on-the-scale in order to eke out a 23-20 win over Cincinnati; the Chiefs also required a failed two-minute drive by the Bengals offense plus an incredibly dumb but 100-percent legitimate penalty by a Bengals linebacker in order to kick the winning field goal in regular time.

As strange as it might sound, recognizing this pattern of subtle intervention tends to make the sport a little more interesting to me, not less. Now it all makes more sense, and I find myself particularly interested in the first two drives, just so I can work out which team is going to get the benefit of the dubious calls at the important moments. Because it’s also observable that the referees attempt to cover what I presume is their league-ordered bias by making a dubious call or two in favor of the disadvantaged team late in the game if that will help make the game closer. See: the ridiculous roughing-the-passer call against the Giants at the end of the Minnesota – New York game.

Now, I can understand if die-hard fans of the game find this hard to believe. But so far, the hypothesis has not been falsified.

UPDATE: These penalty statistics are interesting, especially the comparison with the two previous games between Cincinnati and Kansas City.

  • 4-30, 2-11
  • 6-55, 4-35
  • 9-71, 4-55

The statistics are similar for the NFC Championship game between San Francisco and Philadelphia.

  • 11-81, 4-34

These discrepancies are particularly intriguing given the fact that the Bengals were the 2nd least penalized team in terms of yardage whereas the 49ers were the 12th least penalized team. The Eagles were 8th and the Chiefs were 20th.

DISCUSS ON SG

When the Plan Fails

A Rand report published in April 2019 laid out US strategy vis-a-vis Russia, which as you can see in hindsight, was followed fairly closely to the letter. Note that “extending” Russia is shorthand for “causing the Russians to overextend and unbalance themselves”.

This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia’s economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them — ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options). After describing each measure, this report assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood that measure could be successfully implemented and actually extend Russia. Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. Some of these policies, however, also might prompt adverse reactions from other U.S. adversaries — most notably, China — that could, in turn, stress the United States. Ultimately, this report concludes that the most attractive U.S. policy options to extend Russia — with the greatest benefits, highest likelihood of success, and least risk — are in the economic domain, featuring a combination of boosting U.S. energy production and sanctions, providing the latter are multilateral. In contrast, geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself and ideological measures to undermine the regime’s stability carry significant risks. Finally, many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.

Key Findings

Russia’s weaknesses lie in the economic domains

  • Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports.
  • The Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime.

The most promising measures to stress Russia are in the realms of energy production and international pressure

  • Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same would maximize pressure on Russia’s export receipts and thus on its national and defense budgets. Alone among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk.
  • Sanctions can also limit Russia’s economic potential. To be effective, however, these need to be multilateral, involving (at a minimum) the European Union, which is Russia’s largest customer and greatest source of technology and capital, larger in all these respects than the United States.

Geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself are likely impractical, or they risk second-order consequences

  • Many geopolitical measures would force the United States to operate in areas that are closer to Russia and where it is thus cheaper and easier for Russia than the United States to exert influence.

Ideological measures to undermine the regime’s stability carry significant risks of counter escalation

  • Many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.
Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, RAND, 24 April 2019

This was followed up by a report five months later, which provided specific actions intended to achieve the objectives identified in the initial report, entitled Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options.

Insert deep movie trailer voice: They did not correctly assess the impact of the cost-imposed options.

What’s fascinating is that now RAND is rapidly backtracking on the idea of extending Russia, because the US attempts to extend Russia have turned out to extend the USA, its NATO proxies, the other European states, and Clown World itself. Remember what I said in the previous post about NATO needing to win fast? That’s why Rand wants to pull a Vietnam/Afghanistan, call it a win, and get the US military out of Eastern Europe as quickly as possible.

The Andrew Anglin committee has correctly assessed the situation.

Here’s the deal: everyone understands that Russia is only a power capable of competing with the US because it is backed by a much larger and much wealthier country called “China.” Russia needs their economy to survive. India wouldn’t be standing up to the US, nor would Saudi or any of the other former allies pushing back, if they weren’t getting cover from China.

The think tanks were all pushing for China to be the target of the next US war.

However, Pentagon people said Russia is much weaker, so they went with that. Now it’s a boondoggle. The West is destroying its economy, they are alienating the whole world, and they’re accomplishing what exactly? Russia can keep fighting indefinitely. It’s not costing them anything…

The US can’t possibly open up the China front while the Ukraine is ongoing, and time is on China’s side over there.

This is why RAND is mad.

However, wars do not take place in a vacuum and they have a way of creating a new reality that is unforeseen even by the architects of the best-laid warplans. There is no reason for Russia to let NATO and the US military off the hook just because it suits RAND, and there is absolutely zero chance that Xi Xinping and the extremely astute Chinese warplanners are going to be blind to the advantages of making sure that the first front stays active until the second one is opened by one of the two parties concerned.

Remember, the failure of a plan doesn’t mean it never existed, it simply means it didn’t work.

DISCUSS ON SG

NATO Calls the Shots

The Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee pulls the curtain away and reveals that the “alliance” is in fact the military bureaucracy of the US empire.

NATO is prepared to fight Russia if a direct conflict erupts between the two, Rob Bauer, the chairman of the alliance’s Military Committee, said on Saturday. In an interview with Portuguese RTP TV, when asked whether the US-led military block is ready for a direct confrontation with Russia, Bauer unequivocally stated, “We are.”

The official noted that when the hostilities broke out in Ukraine in February 2022, NATO already had a number of battle groups along its eastern flank. During a summit in Madrid which took place in June 2022, the alliance’s leaders decided to create four more battle groups in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, Bauer said.

Bauer went on to say that for decades, many NATO nations thought they were the ones who decide when and where to deploy their forces, but the Ukraine conflict was a gamechanger.

If a nation isn’t able to decide when and where to deploy its own military forces, it isn’t a sovereign nation anymore. This is why signing up for all of these supranational organizations was always short-sighted and foolish, as they intrinsically necessitate giving up sovereignty and democracy.

The Russian generals get more of a vote where the NATO generals establish their forces than the elected leaders or the people of any of the NATO nations.

As for whether NATO is ready for direct war with the Russian military, well, its proxies haven’t fared very well against the Russian proxies. I suppose they’re about as ready as they’re ever going to be, I just don’t think “readiness” should be confused with “having a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning”.

Remember, we’re talking about a military that can’t even defend its own borders.

UPDATE: The US empire is apparently not ready to fight China, however.

A four-star US air force general predicted that the US and China will be at war in two years, most likely over the Taiwan region, and called on troops under his command to pursue battle readiness in a recently disclosed memo, a move Chinese experts on Saturday decried as a reckless and provocative hyping of “China threats,” which would inflame tensions and deepen strategic mistrust between the US and China when ties are already at a low ebb.

It cannot be ruled out that the move may serve as a way of putting pressure on China to gain more leverage ahead of a potential China trip by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, analysts said.

In the memo, first obtained by NBC News on Friday but dated February 1, General Michael Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), said that “my gut tells me will fight in 2025,” as both US and Taiwan regional authorities will have elections in 2024, and the US will be “distracted,” which gives the Chinese mainland an opportunity.

Minihan listed his goals of military preparation for a “fight with China” to his soldiers in the AMC, including building “a fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready to fight and win inside the first island chain,” according to an NBC report.

Better beat those Russians fast…

DISCUSS ON SG

Pfizer’s Non-Denial

Robert Malone observes a few salient facts about the Project Veritas bust of a Pfizer director admitting gain-of-function research on the coronavirus.

1) Pfizer lawyers did not throw their Director of R&D Operations and Scientific Planning under the bus. 2) there is no denial of what he said. 3) No denial that he is Pfizer staff. 4) Swapping new spike sequences into original Wuhan-1 is technically gain of function research. The press release from Pfizer only addresses the company’s own actions and statements regarding gain of function and directed evolution research. It does not specifically mention any contractors or partners that the company may be working with.

We all knew they’d be doing it. And YouTube, Google, and every other tech/media company wouldn’t be aggressively attacking the Project Veritas expose if it wasn’t real.

First the responsible parties release the disease, then they release the actual bioweapon as a purported cure. That’s what villains do, and the global depopulationists do it because they are very wicked people who are genuine villains seeking to reduce the human population. This isn’t a movie, this is the sort of reality that movies are based upon.

DISCUSS ON SG

Mailvox: Read Your Own Book

A reader observes that Scott Adams failed to listen to his own advice when he trusted the experts and got vaxxed:

In Scott’s book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, chapter 28 “Experts”, Scott shares a story of when a medical doctor was wrong about diagnosing Scott with cancer at age 20. He then goes on to tell people that when things are complicated, experts are wrong half of the time. Scott advises the best thing to do is trust your own intuition.

This is the very advice Scott is now condeming. People following their intuition using pattern recognition, the subject of chapter 22 in the same book.

Scott should have read his own book.

Indeed.

DISCUSS ON SG

No Part of It

Croatia very sensibly wants no part of NATO’s war on Russia:

Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII. Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said…

“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”

Neither, apparently, does France.

Decisions by the US, Germany and several other countries to supply main battle tanks to Ukraine do not mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after a controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week. “We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.”

But while it takes two to tango, it only takes one to war. And Russia is now “at war with NATO and the West” thanks to the neocons’ successful escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia is now at ‘war against NATO and the West’ and has taken the invasion of Ukraine to a ‘different stage’, a senior EU official has admitted, raising the terrifying spectre of a global conflict.

The Asian and Arab nations have already taken Russia’s side. The African nations don’t really matter, but they will do so as well. I expect that more than a few European nations will follow suit once it becomes abundantly clear to even the most casual observer that NATO has zero chance of winning the war. And when I say zero, I mean ZERO. None whatsoever.

Based on a comparison of the technological and industrial capacities, the United States and the UK have about the same chance of defeating the Sino-Russian alliance as Japan had of defeating the US/UK alliance in WWII. Which is just one reason why no American or European should lift a finger, let alone risk his life, for Clown World and its wicked disorder.

DISCUSS ON SG

Clown World Conservatives

It kind of makes you start wondering about space and dinosaurs, doesn’t it? The Big Bear was right again, as Steven Crowder comes out of the closet.

Steven Crowder admits to “bisexual phase” and fears it will come back, also fears having children. He cites these fears as potential marital problems. This just after slandering Ye and Nick Fuentes as “gay for Hitler”

And isn’t it a surprise that this two-year-old revelation goes viral right after Crowder’s very public spat with Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire?

Once more, we observe that the so-called, self-styled conservatives assigned to play the roles of thought leaders for the Right are little more than puppets and parrots. They’re quite literally fake and gay, just like the rest of Clown World.

DISCUSS ON SG