Several people seem to very much want to explore the limits of sanity. Minion #38 painstakingly inscribed the following note on a bone that was left outside my chambers this morning.
In one of your replies to a commenter on today’s VP post entitled “Why kids hate nerds,” you mentioned that you dial down a lot of your thoughts before presenting them on your blogs, and that they would be more interesting if you could openly brainstorm. As a VFM and daily reader of both VP and AG, I couldn’t agree more. I rarely comment on your blogs, but I find your theories to be some of the most thought provoking ideas I’ve ever read. I’d love to hear more. Would you ever consider sharing more of your “crazy theories and random notions” somewhere other than on your blogs without as much of the dialing down required for a wider audience? Maybe via a members only message board, youtube channel, voice/chat server, or really any medium of your choosing?
I don’t object to the idea in principle, but I’m slightly reluctant to dabble in such things because I always want to provide unquestioned value for money. I have no problem with capitalism, obviously, but as should be obvious from the lack of advertising and tip jars and so forth, I’m not into the Patreon model either. You guys have been absolutely superb about supporting Castalia House for over a year now, and not only do I appreciate that, I’m perfectly aware that no well of goodwill is endless.
That being said, I also know that I would have leaped at the chance to take part in something like what is being suggested were the individual at the center someone like Umberto Eco. My interviews with him, John Julius Norwich, and Steve Keen have been some of the intellectual high points of my life.
My thought is that what might be interesting as well as useful would be a monthly members-only Skypecast, with a transcript that would be sent out to members afterward. Members could suggest topics and when possible, the topics would be listed ahead of time so that those interested could sign up and take part. I imagine it could be done for not much more than the price of a movie, although it might be desirable to not make it so inexpensive that too many people would take part. Memberships would be purchased through Castalia House, either one-time or annual with a discount.
Anyhow, if it’s of interest, feel free to throw out your own ideas here. I’m not saying that anything will be done at all because I am extremely busy. But given the amount of collective brainpower here, it wouldn’t be surprising if the concept proved to be worthwhile. The main questions, to my mind, are the number of members, the price of membership, and the frequency. The maximum number of Skype video is 10, and 25 for voice, while GoToMeeting Plus permits up to 100 video participants.
It was suggested that they also serve, who inadvertently and unknowingly do the bidding of the Evil Legion of Evil through their ludicrously predictable reactions. And lo, a badge for this brigade of Unwitting Minions was created. Evil Legion of Evil minions are free to award it to those whose behavior is so egregiously stupid or shortsighted or self-destructive that they could not possibly serve your Supreme Dark Lord better if they were consciously doing His Evil Bidding.
Given that they are, without exception, unique and special snowflakes, they naturally all bear the title “Minion #1”.
On a not entirely unrelated note, RI explains why he is now reading this blog and Larry Correia’s books:
I’ve been a spectator to this conflict for several months now. To be honest, I didn’t even know who any of the participants were when I first started following. Now, because of the outcry against you, Mr. Correia, and Mr. Torgersen I have become a daily reader of your blog and am rapidly burning through Mr. Corriea’s books. I’d like to think I stand somewhere in the between you and Corriea. I’ve noticed you’ve been calling attention to some of the unethical book reviewing practices of the SJWs and I found one I thought you would like to point out on your blog.
This person openly admits to downgrading her review after finding out about Correia’s politics.
If I am any evidence of a growing trend, then the SJWs are basically screaming themselves into irrelevance. I am glad you have decided to wade into this and stand up for your beliefs and stand against the terrorism of the left. God bless you, sir.
This is the perspective that is so often ignored. What people are assumed to perceive, and what they will actually perceive, are often two different things. Larry once said that the benefit of telling the truth is that you have no need to worry about keeping your stories straight, and another one is that people tend to recognize those who tell the truth, whether they accept the truth on that particular subject or not.
It has come to my attention that our vile faceless minions, in their abject loyalty to Our Evilness, crave more than the mere lash of our whips, the daily sustenance of SJW blood, and the occasional bones of an SJW on which to gnaw. Such is their pride in the growing spread of the dark shadow over lands hitherto unengulfed that they have begged for badges of recognition with which they can strike yet more fear into our craven and cowardly foes.
It is, of course, exceedingly risible to imagine that we should raise them up to the extent of providing them with names. Or, as one minion, who is unfortunately no longer with us after an accident that involved six Hellhounds and the untimely ringing of a dinner bell, once had the temerity to suggest, pay them wages. But it occurred to me, in a stroke of Indubitably Evil Genius, that it might be useful to be able to tell the difference between these otherwise indistinguishable, and indeed, faceless, creatures. Therefore, in my Tender yet Sinister Mercy, I have graciously acceded to their pleas.
An example of the first said badge is provided, one which has already been awarded to the first and most ruthlessly loyal of our minions. Should any of these vile and faceless minions wish to boast their own number in the Evil Legion of Evil, they have merely to humbly bring themselves to Our Superlatively Evil Attention via the word MINION. My Inventively Evil and Aggressively Breasted Executive Assistant, Malwyn, she who is also known as the Whore-Mistress of the Spiked Six-Whip, will subsequently send them a uniquely numbered badge, which they can display to the public with all the unseemly pride and haughty arrogance they will no doubt feel, filling SJW hearts with fear and horror thereby.
In Supreme Confidence of the Coming Day in which Darkness Shall Cover All the Land,
Vox Day Supreme Dark Lord Evil Legion of Evil
And in other news, I answer a few questions about my intentions at File 770:
“I don’t care about awards at all.” None the less, your nomination of yourself has been noted. Also, your nomination of people who work for you.”
Yes, that’s obvious. And the statement is nevertheless true.
“Well, who cares how many page views he gets?”
Scalzi and everyone who claims how popular and influential he is. It was all self-puffery all along. When he claimed to have 2 million pageviews monthly in a 2010 interview with Lightspeed and everyone bought it, he actually had 305k.
“No-one’s conspiring to keep you from your just rewards, we just individually don’t like you.”
Yes, I know. I still don’t care. Why is it that you feel the need to keep pointing out the obvious? Do you find it that hard to accept that I place no value on your precious opinion? And yes, I will keep coming after PNH, but no I would not go after Stross, Valente, or anyone else unless they give me reason to do so. Leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone. And unlike Scalzi, I have respect for Stross’s writing. I was one of the few people who used to nominate him for Nebulas back when he most deserved them.
“What is your ultimate objective regarding the Hugos this year? Is it to win a few for your writers?”
To see how the SF establishment responds. This was just recon. No, winning awards was never an objective. I do think John deserves to win a few, as with Stephenson and Mieville he is one of the best SF/F writers writing today. And if WorldCon prefers No Award to honoring Wright for works much superior to past winners, that will confirm what I suspected from the start. And what I expected.
See, I’ve never been interested in much more than convincing a large number of people that the SJWs in SF are, in fact, the cultural enemy. You’ve collectively played your part wonderfully well in that regard. Based on his recent piece, I think Jim Hines is one of the first to belatedly figured out what’s actually going on. But it’s far too late. The mask has not only slipped, it’s been ripped off.
“And what will your response be next year if SP/RP nominees are No Awarded this year, as some have threatened?”
I haven’t given the matter much thought, other than to point out the one obvious option. It’s no secret that a fair number of RP want me to declare No Award for everyone and everything THIS year. The idea had some appeal, but the SP asked me not to do that and I agreed to give WorldCon a chance to play ball. If they’d rather play war, well, I am a wargamer. That’s fine too.
“And what is the plan about getting yourself nominated as editor?”
I am the sharpest stick. And I am the best short-form editor this year, as it happens. Not that it is likely to matter with regards to the vote, but then, that’s sort of the point.
“In conclusion, if you don’t care about awards (and I believe you), why go through the exercise? Do you intend to advise your supporters how to cast their final ballot? Will you be actively coordinating the final ballot with Larry Corriea, Brad Torgersen, Jim Butcher, etc.? Will you be suggesting anything for No Award?”
To get a better grasp on what the other side can bring to the battlefield when motivated. Yes. No. I will either suggest everything or nothing for No Award, but I have not made a final decision. Out of respect for the opinions of SP and neutrals, I am leaning towards nothing but it is possible their opinions will change, given the behavior of the SJWs.
With regards to the vote, although Sasquan’s ballot is now open, I will not be posting my list of recommendations until several weeks after the Hugo packet is released. I have no idea when that will be, as I have not yet been contacted in that regard. However, those interested in reading the nominated works of John C. Wright can download them for free here.
Contradictory claims are being made about the murderous Germanwings pilot. The more explosive one is that the “significant item” that was found at his apartment was indicative of a conversion to Islam:
According to Michael Mannheimer, a writer for German PI-News, Germany now has its own 9/11, thanks to the convert to Islam, Andreas Lubitz. Translation from German:
All evidence indicates that the copilot of Airbus machine in his six-months break during his training as a pilot in Germanwings, converted to Islam and subsequently either by the order of “radical”, ie. devout Muslims , or received the order from the book of terror, the Quran, on his own accord decided to carry out this mass murder. As a radical mosque in Bremen is in the center of the investigation, in which the convert was staying often, it can be assumed that he – as Mohammed Atta, in the attack against New York – received his instructions directly from the immediate vicinity of the mosque.
Converts are the most important weapon of Islam. Because their resume do not suggests that they often are particularly violent Muslims. Thus Germany now has its own 9/11, but in a reduced form. And so it is clear that Islam is a terrorist organization that are in accordance with §129a of the Criminal Code to prohibit it and to investigate its followers. But nothing will happen. One can bet that the apologists (media, politics, “Islamic Scholars”) will agree to assign this an act of a “mentally unstable” man, and you can bet that now, once again the mantra of how supposedly peaceful Islam is will continue.
Now this sounds a little far-fetched and breathless to me, especially since there were only reports of the pilot breathing, not of any prayers or the customary jihadist battle cry. I’d take it with a grain of salt at the moment. Then again, I’m not sure that any direct statements that the pilot said nothing of any kind have been made. And it is true that claims of his mental instability are already being reported, such as here:
The Germanwings co-pilot who crashed his plane into a mountain killing himself and 149 people on board was receiving psychiatric counselling right up until the crash, it emerged today.
Andreas Lubitz locked the pilot out the of the Airbus A320’s cockpit before setting the plane’s controls to descend into a rocky valley, French prosecutors revealed yesterday.
As well as having been signed off from training with depression in 2008, it was reported this morning that Lubitz had continued to receive mental health support up until this week’s crash.
German newspaper Bild also reported that the 28-year-old was in the middle of the ‘relationship crisis’ with his girlfriend in the weeks before the crash and may have been struggling to cope with a break-up.
It was claimed this morning that the couple were engaged to be married next year.
New information about Lubitz’s life emerged just hours after police investigating the disaster began a four-hour search of his flat, which he is said to have shared with a girlfriend. Officers refused to reveal details of what they have found but have insisted no suicide note had been recovered.
The two things that are slightly strange here are a) the refusal to reveal any details of what has been found, except the statement that something was “significant”. Of course, that could be anything from a Koran to the dead body of his ex-girlfriend. The other thing that is strange is that in all the previous reports, there was no indication of a girlfriend of any kind. For example, he was reported to have taken a trip to a resort with a male friend, the sort of trip I have never known any man to take except with a wife or girlfriend.
And, of course, given the growing strength of PEGIDA, we know the German authorities will be desperate to keep any indication of Lubitz being a Mahometan convert under wraps.
BREAKING NEWS: French prosecutor: Germanwings co-pilot appeared to want to ‘destroy the plane,’ the Associated Press reports.
An official who knows about the audio recordings from the recovered cockpit voice recorder of the Germanwings flight that slammed into the Alps said Thursday one of the pilots was apparently locked out of the cockpit when the plane went down.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, told the Associated Press that this important detail was gleaned from studying data from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder, which was damaged, but recovered by emergency responders Wednesday.
Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, would not confirm nor deny the reports, the AP reported.
The New York Times quoted an unidentified investigator Thursday as saying the audio depicts someone knocking with increasing urgency — and force — on the cockpit door. The Times quoted the source as saying: “And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”
It’s not hard to tell who was the pilot and who was the co-pilot who appears to have intentionally crashed the plane:
Lufthansa, the German pilots’ union and the Lufthansa flight training school in Bremen where the pilots trained are not making any comment or giving out names. They have, however, given information on the pilot and co-pilot and their experience. But German media has identified the men as as Patrick S, a father to two children. Bild newspaper said he flew for over ten years for Lufthansa and Germanwings and had completed more than 6,000 flight hours on the Airbus 320.
The paper named the First Officer as Andreas L. He was “young”. He was from Montabaur, in Rhineland-Palatinate. He had 630 flight hours. He joined Germanwings in September 2013 straight from the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen.
Lufthansa said both pilots were trained at the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen. The captain had over 6,000 flight hours’ experience and joined Germanwings in May 2014. Previously he was a pilot with Lufthansa and Condor, a Lufthansa partner airline.
It’s a good thing his name was Andreas L. and not Mohammed L. or you might see air travel come to a near-complete halt. Although if it turns out that he was a convert, you might see a noticeable slow-down anyhow.
UPDATE: Prosecutor identifies jet crash co-pilot as Andreas Lubitz: AFP
“At this moment, in light of investigation, the interpretation we can give at this time is that the co-pilot through voluntary abstention refused to open the door of the cockpit to the commander, and activated the button that commands the loss of altitude,” the prosecutor, Brice Robin, said. He said it appeared that the co-pilot’s intention had been “to destroy the aircraft.” He said that the voice recorder showed that the co-pilot had been breathing until before the moment of impact, suggesting that he was conscious and deliberate in his actions. He said that his inquiry had shown that the crash was intentional.
Once again the mainstream media peddled the spoon-fed propaganda that world leaders “led the march” to honor the victims of the Paris shootings last week. Glorious photo-ops of Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko, David Cameron (oh, and not Barack Obama) were smeared across front pages hailing the “unity in outrage.” However, as appears to be the case in so many ‘events’ in the new normal managed thinking in which we live, The Independent reports, French TV has exposed the reality of the ‘photo-op’ seen-around-the-world: the ‘dignitaries’ were not in fact “at” the Paris rallies but had the photo taken on an empty guarded side street.
We are living in a Potemkin world. Take nothing reported by the media at face value.
The long range objectives of #gamergate has been summarized as less outside interference, more responsibility in the gaming media and greater accountability of game publishers and so of course we have collided with cultural Marxists, for these purposes bring us immediately into conflict with the SJW’s on two levels.
On the Ideological plain, the SJW’s seek always and everywhere to bring about more interference, less individual responsibility and an amoral way of doing things. On the plain of action, until the SJW’s can be stopped from their subjugation of all western society, there will be no opportunity for us to move forward at all. We have undertaken therefore to play a leading role in slowing down, stopping and eventually routing the SJW interlopers.
We realise that the one thing that the SJW’s cannot withstand is the light of day on their activities. What cultural Marxists fear is exposure. For this reason we do all that we can to bring to our fellow people more knowledge and a better understanding of the methods, the progress. and the menace of the SJW machine. In this undertaking we have become a new form of opposition to the SJW’s which they have never faced before in any of the vast areas they have already taken over.
The SJW’s, grasping this fact very early on, set out destroy us as a movement. The western mainstream media help the SJW’s by laying down the line for the faithful. There has not been one mainstream media publication which has not been used to attack #gamergate.
I’m not sure the Wall Street Journal has bothered to attack #GamerGate, but it was a little startling to see First Things come out and pronounce us dead for the Nteenth time, albeit in a nominally sympathetic manner.
The media has been entirely coopted and cannot be trusted in any way, shape, or form. Even the nominally conservative media readily falls in line under social pressure from more extreme SJWs. But as I noted on Alpha Game today, media reality is not synonymous with objective reality; it portrays the world as they believe it should be, not as it actually is.
This is why blogs like this one will continue to grow in popularity, as the mainstream media ratings consistently fall no matter the medium. The reason the media keeps declaring #GamerGate dead is because they need it to be dead, as the longer it persists, the more obviously doomed they are.
As Prince Andrew becomes the latest figure to be named in an establishment paedophile scandal, the British nation has woken up today to face, yet again, the uncomfortable possibility that they are governed by an elite political and media establishment that has, for at least the past 50 years, engaged in, covered up, and ignored institutionalised paedophilia.
I spent the month of November in the United States, whilst there the UK Home Office’s “Independent Investigation” into historical child abuse in Westminster hit new levels of absurdity when the SECOND appointed head of the investigation resigned due to links to those implicated in a paedophile ring….
Having come across much of this information as a Parliamentary intern in 2005, where it was described to me as “just what goes on here”, I cannot believe that anyone with a long-term political career in Britain has not only not heard the rumours, but has come across or witnessed enough consistent information to believe they merit investigation.
Members of Parliament past and present would therefore fall into three categories: those who participated in child abuse, those who directly assisted in covering it up, and those who were aware of the issue but decided to do nothing. Indeed Lord Tebbit, Margaret Thatcher’s former Cabinet Minister and confidante, has bravely stated that both he and Thatcher were aware of a problem, which now implicates many of their close colleagues, but that there was a feeling at the time that investigating or exposing them would destroy the British Establishment, and that it was more important to protect it.
There may have been a time when I, and perhaps a large proportion of the British public, felt that the value of protecting the institutions and traditions of the British Establishment outweighed the necessity for justice for the victims of these crimes, but when current members of the Establishment issue their “strenuous denials” and still dismiss the possibility that such a thing could have possibly occurred, it seems they may be really operating either in the panic of self preservation, or in the assumption that there are simply still matters we don’t talk about for the “greater good”.
It’s also very hard to argue that there is any reason, let alone value, to protect the legitimacy and popular perception of the “British Establishment” now that the establishment doesn’t have much power any more after having ceded most of its important decision-making functions to bureaucrats in Brussels and NATO generals.
“Simon Danczuk MP, who has previously chaired meetings in Parliament on the investigation has stated that he feels that the Prime Minister has been “intentionally dismissive” of the issue, and that the investigation is being purposely “delayed and sabotaged” by the government.”
I suspect that the deeper the investigations go, the more it will become obvious that the pedophilia of British politicians has been the way in which their political loyalties have been directed. If UKIP throws its growing weight behind the investigations, they could well topple the evil British establishment on the wave of popular outrage and revulsion.
If you’re having trouble seeing things from the globalist perspective and wondering how they can possibly justify their ruthless attacks on national and individual sovereignty, it can be helpful to read their doctrines. Henry Kissinger puts forth his global vision in World Order:
The issue of peace in the Middle East has, in recent years, focused on the highly technical subject of nuclear weapons in Iran. There is no shortcut around the imperative of preventing their appearance. But it is well to recall periods when other seemingly intractable crises in the Middle East were given a new dimension by fortitude and vision.
Between 1967 and 1973, there had been two Arab-Israeli wars, two American military alerts, an invasion of Jordan by Syria, a massive American airlift into a war zone, multiple hijackings of airliners, and the breaking of diplomatic relations with the United States by most Arab countries. Yet it was followed by a peace process that yielded three Egyptian-Israeli agreements (culminating in a peace treaty in 1979); a disengagement agreement with Syria in 1974 (which has lasted four decades, despite the Syrian civil war); the Madrid Conference in 1991, which restarted the peace process; the Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel in 1993; and a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in 1994.
These goals were reached because three conditions were met: an active American policy; the thwarting of designs seeking to establish a regional order by imposing universalist principles through violence; and the emergence of leaders with a vision of peace…. Once again, doctrines of violent intimidation challenge the hopes for world order. But when they are thwarted—and nothing less will do—there may come a moment similar to what led to the breakthroughs recounted here, when vision overcame reality.
Kissinger is a clear and lucid writer. His historical knowledge is deep and impressive. But he makes no case for his vision, he simply assumes the reader will share it; and it is easy to understand why America finds itself caught up in a convoluted web of international intrigue given the political influence of the author. The arrogance and hypocrisy in that open tacit claim that “nothing less will do” than the imposition of universalist principles through violence by leaders with a vision of peace is astonishing. And more than a little ironic in light of Kissinger’s criticism of the “remarkable arrogance” of the European colonial powers.
The pamphlets and treatises of the colonial powers from the dawn of the twentieth century reveal a remarkable arrogance, to the effect that they were entitled to shape a world order by their maxims. Accounts of China or India condescendingly defined a European mission to educate traditional cultures to higher levels of civilization.
What is truly remarkable is the complete lack of self-awareness demonstrated here. The globalists are doing EXACTLY the same thing they complain about the colonial powers having done, and what Kissinger correctly observes the Iranians to be doing: asserting their entitlement to shape a world order by their maxims. But precisely how is Kissinger’s “vision of peace” any more rationally justified or globally authoritative than Mahmound Ahmadinejad’s publicly proclaimed “promise of God”?
And what is the globalist hope for world order if not a doctrine of violent intimidation?
Asteroids could wipe out humanity unless more effort is made to track and destroy them, a leading body of scientists and astronauts has warned. Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, Brian Cox, and Richard Dawkins are among more than 100 experts calling for the creation of a huge asteroid detection system to prevent a doomsday scenario.
At an event at London’s science museum on Wednesday night, Lord Rees read out a declaration resolving to “solve humanity’s greatest challenges to safeguard our families and quality of life on Earth in the future.”
The dire threat of asteroids producing an urgent need for space-based defense systems. Now, where have I heard something like that before? As it happens, in the testimony of a woman who was an associate of Werner von Braun back in the 1970s, which dates back 14 years.
He said the strategy that was being used to educate the public and decision makers was to use scare tactics. That was how we identify an enemy. The strategy that Werner Von Braun taught me was that first the Russians are going to be considered the enemy. In fact, in 1974, they were the enemy, the identified enemy. We were told that they had “killer satellites”. We were told that they were coming to get us and control us—that they were the “Commies”.
Then terrorists would be identified, and that was soon to follow. We heard a lot about terrorism. Then we were going to identify third-world country “crazies”. We now call them Nations of Concern. But he said that would be the third enemy against whom we would build space-based weapons.
The next enemy was asteroids. Now, at this point he kind of chuckled the first time he said it, “Asteroids—against asteroids, we are going to build space-based weapons.”
And the funniest one of all was what he called aliens, extraterrestrials. That would be the final scare. And over and over during the four years that I knew him and was giving speeches for him, he would bring up that last card: “And remember Carol, the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens, and all of it is a lie.”
I think I was too naïve at that time to know the seriousness of the nature of the spin that was being put on the system. And now, the pieces are starting to fall into place. We are building a space-based weapons system on a premise that is a lie, a spin. Wernher Von Braun was trying to hint that to me back in the early 70’s and right up until the moment when he died in 1977.
Of course, since we know the military-industrial complex is going to manufacture wars in order to keep its system of income distribution running smoothly, I would think it is eminently desirable for the wars to be waged against space rocks and entirely imaginary. It makes for an interesting investment plan, anyhow.
And is there not an even darker possibility? What if the whistleblower who is warning about these manufactured wars is actually an agent for the aliens who wants to see Earth disarmed? Wheels within wheels, my friends. Wheels within wheels.
Anyhow, it’s nice to see that the AGW/CC alarmists have a new toy with which to play.
