Quelle Surprise

It’s not exactly shocking to have The New York Times confirm, only 44 years late, that three-time New York City Mayor Ed Koch was a homosexual.

Edward I. Koch looked like the busiest septuagenarian in New York.

Glad-handing well-wishers at his favorite restaurants, gesticulating through television interviews long after his three terms as mayor, Mr. Koch could seem as though he was scrambling to fill every hour with bustle. He dragged friends to the movies, pursuing a side career in film criticism. He urged new acquaintances to call him “judge,” a joking reference to his time presiding over “The People’s Court.”

But as his 70s ticked by, Mr. Koch described to a few friends a feeling he could not shake: a deep loneliness. He wanted to meet someone, he said. Did they know anyone who might be “partner material?” Someone “a little younger than me?” Someone to make up for lost time?

“I want a boyfriend,” he said to one friend, Charles Kaiser.

It was an aching admission, shared with only a few, from a politician whose brash ubiquity and relentless New York evangelism helped define the modern mayoralty, even as he strained to conceal an essential fact of his biography: Mr. Koch was gay.

The Secrets Ed Koch Carried, The New York Times, 7 May 2022

So a Jewish politician pretending to be an American was also pretending to be straight? Lawsy, will the totally shocking surprises never cease? Just think, sometime around the year 2052, The New York Times – or rather, the single media amalgamation that has swallowed The New York Times – will report that Barack Obama was a homosexual and “Michelle” Obama’s real name was “Michael”. And we will all pretend to be surprised.

The so-called conspiracy theorists aren’t always right, but they are far more often correct than the media that claims to “debunk” them.

I’m old enough to remember when people would say things like, “Ed Koch can’t possibly be gay, for crying out loud, he dated Miss America!”

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The Importance of Bedsheets

Chris Roberts has officially become the Marcel Proust of game designers:

Star Citizen has been in development for well over a decade now, during which time it has raised more than $450 million in crowdfunding, and if you’re wondering why it’s still in an alpha state after all that time and money, the latest update from developer Cloud Imperium Games might hold a clue.

It all comes down to something called “bedsheet deformation,” which is exactly what it sounds like: Ensuring that blankets on beds are mussed up accurately, just like they would be in real life. This is important because the “sleep and bed relaxation” element of Squadron 42, the singleplayer portion of Star Citizen, was recently updated so NPCs are now able to find and enter their beds, and then sleep until they’re scheduled to get up.

“We knew early on that, to hit the fidelity we expect for Sq42, we would need to do some R&D on bedsheet deformation,” the AI Content team explained, apparently straight-faced. “This work is currently underway and, if successful, will allow the AI to deform their sheets when entering, exiting, or sleeping inside them. This is a challenging assignment and expands the complexity of the feature. For example, what happens to the sheets if the AI needs to exit the bed in an emergency?”

“what the actual fuck lmao this game was supposed to be out years ago and they’re implementing fucking BEDSHEET DEFORMATION?? I’m done lol” – torvi97

“R&D on bedsheet deformation….for a game that is 10 years overdue. That’s the ‘fidelity’ that players are waiting for? I’m not sure about the rest of you, but this is a feature I can safely say we could wait for the patch in 2083.” – InconspicuousBastard

“Is this a joke? No wonder they can’t finish this thing. Pointless feature creep at its most extreme.” – Valerian_II

“How about just GETTING THE GODDAMN GAME OUT THE DOOR before worrying about how a fricking BEDSHEET will deform.” – BotdogX

Well, I know that I, for one, would not want to see improperly deformed bedseets in my game.

My gamedev mentor, a VP at Sega and Konami, among other companies, and I used to joke about what would be the worst possible 3D action game. We settled on REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST 3D: The Search for the Cooler Side of the Pillow.

It never occurred to us that anyone, let alone the legendary Chris Roberts, would actually attempt to build the game.

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Foreign Legion Fail

A Canadian sniper returns from Ukraine, unimpressed:

Once lauded by the international media, a Canadian sniper known as ‘Wali’ has returned from Ukraine to Quebec, telling local media that his experience there was a “terrible disappointment.” He claimed there was inadequate weaponry, poor training and heavy losses, as well as profiteering and desertion in the ranks.

When ‘Wali’ answered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call in March and volunteered to fight for Ukraine, he was given lavish coverage by the Western media. A former Canadian soldier who had also volunteered to fight with Kurdish militants in Iraq, Wali was described by Spanish media as “the best sniper in the world,” celebrated by American military bloggers for “hilariously troll[ing]” Russia and praised by the New York Post for “grabbing anti-tank missiles in a warehouse to kill real people.”

However, he said that reality left him disillusioned. Back home in Quebec, Wali told La Presse on Friday that his Ukrainian commanders initially “didn’t know what to do” with foreign fighters like himself. Tired of waiting for an opportunity to fight, Wali joined the ‘Norman Brigade,’ a private unit led by another former soldier from Quebec.

However, several members of this brigade told La Presse that weapons and armor promised by the brigade’s head never showed up, and some of its members found themselves near the front lines with no protective equipment. Around 60 members of the brigade have since deserted, its commander told La Presse, and some soldiers “schemed” to steal a $500,000 shipment of American-supplied weapons and form their own unit.

Wali eventually joined a Ukrainian unit fighting near Kiev, and described having to seek out weapons, food and gasoline. “You had to know someone who knew someone who told you that in some old barbershop they would give you an AK-47,” he recounted. “Even for the meals, it is often the civilians who provide them.”

In the end, Wali said that he ended up firing two bullets into windows “to scare people,” and decided to come home shortly after two Ukrainian conscripts he was posted with in the Donbass region exposed themselves to a Russian tank and received “highly accurate” shell fire in return.

I’m surprised he managed to survive. Of course, simply telling the truth about his experience will almost certainly get him banned from social media for “disinformation”.

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Mailvox: Redesigns

After an email conversation with a Castalia Library subscriber who was disappointed with the fact that we are doing second editions, thereby theoretically reducing the value to collectors who would prefer the supply of Library books to be as limited as possible, it occurred to me that in addition to changing the color of the second editions, we could follow the lead of Franklin and Easton by changing the artwork on the covers and spines.

For example, Easton actually has five different editions of Plutarch’s Lives in addition to its Deluxe Limited Edition, which has a limited print run of 1,200 volumes. The editions, with one exception, feature different artwork.

While I would prefer to keep the artwork more or less the same from one edition to the next, thereby maintaining some degree of continuity for those who start collecting the books later, I can understand why some might prefer different covers. So, I thought it best to survey the people whose opinions matter most, which is to say the Library subscribers.

Also, I should point out that while we value the opinions of the collectors and we are pleased to have piqued their interest, they are not our primary market nor is serving their needs our primary objective. Castalia Library, first and foremost, is about the preservation of knowledge in a beautiful and timeless manner. Therefore, our motivations and our decisions may, at times, not be aligned with the preferences of those who are buying our books.

Regardless, let us know your opinion on SocioGalactic.

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To Merit Forgiveness

Karl Denninger explains what is necessary:

To merit consideration of forgiveness you must do all of the following first with no assurance you’ll receive forgiveness in return:

Contrition — which of course requires an admission you ****ed up. You must admit, not tacitly but deliberately and consciously, communicating it as publicly as your original error — you were wrong and you did wrong.

Restitution for the harm — when possible. Not always possible, but when it IS possible it has to be proffered voluntarily, not pried out by landsharks or bullets, because if you actually HAVE contrition then you willingly admit you owe the harmed party(s). This is not a matter of punitive retribution; the willful and non-coerced offering of same is THE act that proves #1 is real and not words from the mouth of a snake.

A vow and, in the realm of business or political activity, legal and enforceable contractual strictures to prevent it from happening again.

All must be offered willingly and freely, not by legal or other coercion and even if doing so risks legal retribution before any consideration of forgiveness is to be undertaken. Further, all three do not guarantee or obligate forgiveness, but all three are a predicate before the person harmed should consider forgiveness.

God doesn’t forgive the unrepentant. Why would you?

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Not An Option

Europe cannot replace Russian natural gas, according to European oil professionals.

European countries will not be able to replace Russian natural gas without an energy transition, according to Shell CEO Ben van Beurden.

“Bringing more LNG to the market, increasing liquefaction and regasification capacity, and raising pipeline supplies from North Africa and Norway are reasonable things,” he said adding that “it is also inevitable to have an energy transition in the medium term. There is no way to simply buy more pipeline gas and LNG to completely replace all the Russian gas that we currently consume. This is not feasible,” van Beurden said.

Perhaps more sanctions are the answer? Or more sanctions and pride parades?

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Second Editions

Castalia Library is presently offering its subscribers first shot at THE BLACK SWAN by NN Taleb. We’re also planning to release second editions of the sold-out THE MISSIONARIES and MEDITATIONS, both of which will be very similar to the first editions, although they will be clearly denoted as second editions and will feature different color leathers in order to clearly distinguish the different editions.

Please drop a note on SG or to my email if you are interested in either second edition, as well as if you are interested in the Library or Libraria versions as we will offer second editions of both. We’re asking the subscribers now because we need to decide the size of the print runs for both second editions. We expect that these print runs will be smaller than the initial print runs, but it’s theoretically possible they will be larger, depending upon the demand.

Please note that we are not taking any orders for them yet; next month will be the soonest that we will do so.

While we’re on the subject of sold-out first editions, I should probably mention that RHETORIC is down to the last five copies in stock, for those who are interested in obtaining one before it sells out also sold out. However, we won’t contemplate a second edition of it until we see how ETHICS and POLITICS do.

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Australia Threatens Invasion

The utter hypocrisy of the globohomogenized remnants of the West could not be more clearly demonstrated than the difference in the reactions to a) Russia’s response to Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO and b) Australia’s response to the Solomon Islands agreeing to a security pact with China:

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has urged the Solomon Islands’ leader Manasseh Sogavare to remain “calm” after he said his country was being “threatened with invasion” over a security pact it signed with China.

“We need to be calm and composed when we deal with these issues,” Morrison said on Thursday, insisting the relationship between Australia and the Solomon Islands remained friendly even while acknowledging he was concerned over “security” in the region following Sogavare’s decision to sign the “secret arrangement” with China.

Sogavare has criticized both the US and Australia’s response to the security pact his island recently inked with Beijing, insisting there is “nothing to be concerned about” and that the island nation is “insulted” by the West’s response to the move.

“We are being treated as kindergarten students walking around with Colt 45s in our hands” who “need to be supervised,” Sogavare complained, insisting his country was being “threatened with invasion” over the controversial pact and that Australia’s response demonstrated a “lack of trust.” Sogavare said on Tuesday that there had been a “warning of military intervention” in the Solomon Islands if other countries’ security goals were undermined. “We are threatened with invasion,” he warned. “Now, that is serious.”

Morrison insisted that Australia remained Honiara’s “primary security partner,” and that his country trusted the island nation as an equal.

No final version of the pact between the island nation and China has yet been published, though a draft leaked in March mentioned Chinese warships were to be given safe harbor in the islands. Morrison had previously warned that a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands would be considered a “red line” for Canberra.

Australia reacts to ‘invasion’ threat claim, 5 May 2022

So, we’re supposed to believe that Ukraine attempting to join NATO and threatening to put nuclear missiles on Russia’s border is not a casus belli, but the Solomon Islands permitting China to put a military base over a thousand miles away from Australi is.

Inversion is always a certain sign of evil.

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