2020 project updates

So, as you know, we’re behind on pretty much every single one of our projects for various reasons. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have been able to regularly improve the quality of what we’re delivering, and we expect to be able to continue doing that in 2021. Here is the current state of affairs:

CASTALIA HOUSE

We’ve significantly reduced the number of books we’re producing and removed almost all of our audiobooks from Audible in order to focus on books that are worth the effort involved to produce them. Those who want audiobooks can buy them from us directly or acquire them through the Castalia subscription on Patreon. We have completed the entire THERE WILL BE WAR series in paperback, but have not yet announced them because we need to make some minor revisions and Ingram is having some operational problems that are delaying them. The Junior Classics will be available from Castalia House through normal distribution as soon as we complete the shipments of the Original Backer editions. We also intend to produce regular hardcover editions of some of our Library books, such as MEDITATIONS and THE DIVINE COMEDY.

CASTALIA LIBRARY

The first four books have been bound and shipped. The fourth book, THE DIVINE COMEDY, is just beginning to reach the first subscribers. Books Five and Six, the two volumes of PLUTARCH’S LIVES, were scheduled to ship today, but we rejected the initial stamping because the gold was spilling over the two soldiers on the spine due to excessively fine lines. We’re working on modifying the stamping plates and expect the books to ship together in late January. A number of non-US subscribers have not received their books yet due to border blockages and insufficient airline cargo space, so just be patient, as they will get to you as soon as delivery is permitted.

ARKHAVEN COMICS

No comics will be released until March. Due to the unprecedented opportunity being presented by the meltdown of DC Comics, the Arkhaven team is focusing all of our efforts on this front on a new site dedicated to delivering free digital comics in an improved version of the Webtoons format. Chuck Dixon’s Avalon is complete. Alt-Hero is complete through Issue 9. A Throne of Bones 1-6 will be complete. Alt-Hero: Q will be complete by March. The first 3 or 4 issues of Midnight’s War will be complete. The first three issues of Swan Knight’s Saga are complete, as well as at least two issues of Shade and several Quantum Mortis issues. As a result of our partnership with an up-and-coming Brazilian comics publisher and Chuck Dixon’s efforts, other comics that will be introduced on the new site in the coming year include, but are not limited to: The Awakener, The Hammer of Freedom, The Grey Claw, Lieutenant Bravo, Hecatomb, Jungle Sword, The Wagon From Hell, and Go Monster Go.

Arkhaven’s newest star: The Awakener

In connection with the new site, we are looking for hard core volunteers who have Photoshop to help us in the conversion process to the new format. If you’re into both a) comics and b) tedious and repetitive graphic work, shoot me an email. It’s not difficult, but there are a LOT of frames that need to be created between now and then. Note: I did not say if you know how to use Photoshop, but if you have it already. Arkhaven print subscribers will be receiving their print issues in January, digital subscribers will be receiving special badges and early access to the new site.

JUNIOR CLASSICS

950 of the 1300 or so sets of Vols. I-III have shipped. None of the demy octavo editions have shipped yet. We’re going to do another shipment of most of the rest of the royal octavos, then put the retail edition royals into general distribution through the bookstores in January. We’re working on the demy editions and will announce when they are ready to ship. The ebook editions of Vols I-III will be sent out in January. Vols IV-VI will first ship in royal in the Feb-Mar timeframe to the same address to which the first three volumes were shipped.

A NOTE ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS

Please note that we NEVER confirm that we’ve received an email from you regarding an address or whatever. If you do the math, you’ll understand why. Everything we do is focused on the actual process of producing and delivering the promised products, and it’s not possible to automate communications about that process ala Amazon for products that are still being created. Notice that orders from the Castalia Direct store and the Arkhaven/Castalia ebook/audiobook store do provide the usual confirmations because those products are in stock at the time the order is placed. If you want more regular updates, please consider joining SocialGalactic, as we regularly provide them there.

More to come later today.

DOJ reverses course

Less than a month after Attorney General Barr’s Sgt. Schulz-style “I see nussing” imitation, the Department of Justice has finally detected election fraud:

Senior Adviser to the Justice Department John Lott reveals voter fraud was rampant in this year’s elections. In his new study, Lott revealed an unusual pattern of subtracting Trump votes from the final tally and adding excess votes to Joe Biden.

He found more than 11,000 Trump votes were subtracted in Fulton County, Georgia and another 44,000 Trump votes were wiped out in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

Lott also discovered that Biden received 289,000 “excess” votes across five battleground states and it’s unclear where those votes come from. President Trump shared the study on Twitter. He said elections officials gave Biden hundreds-of-thousands of fake votes.

However, it’s possible that Barr was only playing dumb. If you parse his words carefully, he was merely stating that the DOJ had not “uncovered evidence”, which did not necessarily mean that the DOJ was unaware of evidence that other parties had uncovered.

“The Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.”

AZ Attorney General briefs lawsuit

The Arizona legislature just received some heavy reinforcements in their lawsuit against the corrupt Maricopa County supervisors

The Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has filed a brief in support of Arizona legislature in the battle over whether the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors must comply with election-related subpoenas.

Earlier this month, the Maricopa Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 today defy the state lawmakers and resist complying with legislative subpoenas. Instead of allowing an audit, the board voted to file a lawsuit against lawmakers in state court, seeking to block the enforcement of the subpoenas.

The subpoenas were issued by Arizona lawmakers in response to claims that the election in Maricopa County was fraught with fraud. The lawmakers seek force county officials to allow an audit of the voting machines.

One might not unreasonably ask where the AZ Attorney General has been for the last eight weeks. But then, President Trump’s unprecedented exhibition of spinal steel has been causing the sudden discovery of backbones in some of the most unexpected individuals around the country.

Seems a little high

What I find interesting, for the purposes of comparison, is the historical monthly traffic of the sites that made up the core of Pajamas Media back in 2005. These numbers were taken directly from the business plan that allowed Pajamas Media to raise $7 million in venture capital.
  • Instapundit: 4,603,544
  • Michelle Malkin: 3,341,161
  • Little Green Footballs: 3,081,638
  • Volokh Conspiracy: 821,891,
  • Protein Wisdom: 415,940
  • Belmont Club: 308,198
  • Jawa Report: 306,295

15 years later, Instapundit has far more traffic while most of the others have a lot less. But that’s not the point of the observation. Rather, it is informative and educational to observe how smaller sites receive far more media attention, much of it flattering and supposedly indicative of importance, than more popular sites that refuse to respect the boundaries of the mainstream Narrative.

If you happen to be a fly-by or new reader who isn’t likely to stick around once the election crisis concludes, I would encourage you to take this one lesson with you: everything is fake. The news, the science, the hits, the celebrities, the bestsellers, the wealthy, the economic statistics… they are all elements of a false and ever-mutating narrative intended to shape your perceptions. Perception isn’t reality, but since perception always affects Man’s decision-making, shaping his perception is one way to change future reality.

Live fraud demo in GA

 The technological foundation of the election fraud is being demonstrated to the GA Senate:

@JovanHPulitzer just now hacked into a Fulton County voting machine that is being used in the Georgia runoff and it IS connected to the internet. He established two-way communication from a polling pad in a voting center. He’s telling the GA Senate about it right now.

The Spaniards of Beacon Hill

Everything is fake. Especially everything about the celebrities whose lives are relentlessly advertised to us:

Alec Baldwin’s pseudo Spaniard wife grew up in a 100-year-old $4million house in the heart of the most desirable district in Boston. Yoga teacher Hillary Hayward-Thomas — who has long pretended she was born on the Mediterranean resort island of Majorca and only spoke English with a pronounced Spanish accent — instead spent almost her entire childhood in the Beacon Hill district of Beantown.

Records show her parents, attorney David Thomas and Harvard Medical School professor Kathryn Hayward bought the five-bed, five-bath house on Pinckney Street in June 1987 when their daughter was just three years old. They didn’t move out till she had turned 28.

‘I don’t know what she is talking about,’ said the family’s former neighbor. ‘She lived here since she was a child. She didn’t call herself Hilaria then –  just Hillary. And she certainly didn’t speak with a Spanish accent.

Steve Sailer’s long-predicted flight from white is certainly taking some amusing and unexpected turns. But freakshows are going to freakshow. It’s not as if one could reasonably expect sanity from any woman crazy enough to marry Alec Baldwin.

AROUND THE TALE-FIRE

The Forge of Tolkien Episode 18, AROUND THE TALE-FIRE, is now available to subscribers on #UATV.

“Now it happened on a certain time that a traveller…” What do we find when we set out on the journey to Faërie? 
In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown opens the door to the Cottage of Lost Play and welcomes the folk and the children to gather round the “Tale-file blazing in the Room of Logs” to hear stories of the Elder Days when England was known as Tol Eressëa and the towers of Kortirion could be glimpsed in Warwick. What do we make of Tolkien’s archaic pseudo-Biblical language and his Tennysonian verse in his earliest attempts at writing his legendarium? Why is it so hard to craft a convincing tale? And which song do we find ourselves in?
Also available now is Episode 5 of Pinkerton’s Ghosts, THE POP-STAR’S MUSE.

THE OLDE SPEECH

    Title: “Episode 19: The Olde Speech” [with the -e in Olde!]

    Blurb: In December 1954, Hugh Brogan (then age 18) wrote to Tolkien to complain about the “archaizing” style of parts of The Lord of the Rings, particularly the chapter “The King of the Golden Hall.” Tolkien drafted his response but never sent it, deferring a proper discussion to a time when they could meet in person. When is archaizing “tushery,” and when is it necessary? What is the difference between a bogus and a genuinely “antique” turn of phrase? In this episode Professor Rachel Fulton Brown reads the “linking” passage in The Book of Lost Tales taking Eriol from the hall of the Tale-fire to Rumil’s garden to illustrate Tolkien’s process in discovering his proper style. What did Tolkien mean when he told Brogan he found it easier to think in an archaic mode, and why did he chide Brogan for his “parochialism of time”? Hint: The distance is as great as that between Globe Earth and Flat Earth! 

Comply with the fake science!

Now doctors are being deplatformed and disemployed for failing to submit to the Narrative:

A doctor in Northern California has been fired from his job after he co-authored a letter that questioned the science behind his county’s lockdown order.

Dr. Michael deBoisblanc was working as the trauma medical director for John Muir Health in Contra Costa County, California, until last Friday, after he questioned the scientific basis for again locking down citizens of the area.

KNTV reported that deBoisblanc wrote a letter to the county health director and board of supervisors voicing his concern regarding the continued lockdown policies prior to his dismissal.

The former medical director spoke from his own experience as a parent, expressing his apprehension that Bay Area students were not being allowed to attend in-person classes, according to KTVU-TV. Along with doctors Pete Mazolewski and Brian Hopkins, deBoisblanc wrote that there were “deep concerns regarding more lockdown measures.”

“The science is clear,” the letter continued, “that more lockdowns lead to much more non COVID morbidity and mortality. Public policy is being based on erroneous assumptions.”

It’s always easy to know when the science and history narratives are fake. Because the truth imposes itself, it has no need to be imposed by government force and relentless rhetoric. 

The greatest showman

AC reports on a hilarious rumor floating around the chans. If it’s not true, President Trump’s team should make it true:

The 6 January elector ‘ballot’ count is going to go down as the greatest troll of all time.

You may or may not know, but the Vice President gets to count the electors. That’s the one thing the Constitution makes crystal clear. Apparently the plan is for Mike Pence to roll in a Dominion voting machine (or a knock off that looks like one). He’s then going to pull out a USB drive, update the software just before the count, and use the machine to count the elector ballots.

Remember, this will be on national television. The count will not only come out fractional, but it will result in more votes than actual electors AND result in Trump winning more electors than Biden.

The chamber is expected erupt in chaos. Obviously the count will be challenged. Pence will then conduct a ‘recount,’ but he will use the machine to print the recount ballots and then hand count those. The recounted number will be similar to the original count, only changing by a couple votes, but it will result in Trump winning by even more than before.

Dems are expected to cry “fraud” and Pence will object and call for order. He will tell them that it’s too late to challenge because it’s already done. The count is finished. He will then deliberately wipe the machine’s software.

I SO want to believe….