The Irony Goes to 11

Fandom Pulse chronicles the official death of science fiction and the SFWA:

SFWA has done the unthinkable and named N.K. Jemisin, Grandmaster of Science Fiction, which they plan to celebrate at their upcoming Nebula Awards Conference, as the club continues to push into political propaganda, abandoning any semblance of being a professional science fiction writers’ organization.

N.K. Jemisin is best known as a diversity-hire in publishing with a penchant for black activism, hailed as one of the greatest writers out there despite her works being narrowly focused on race-baiting agitation…

How this helps professional science fiction writers in the least is beyond anything Fandom Pulse could come up with. We reached out to Vox Day, the editor in chief of Castalia House Publishing, and a recent science fiction #1 bestseller with his co-written Space Fleet Academy: Year One. He commented on Jemisin’s nomination, “I congratulate SFWA on completing its self-destructing speed run and rendering itself entirely irrelevant to the actual genre of science fiction literature.”

The beardy old school SF writers never should have let Anne McCaffrey convince them to change SFWA’s bylaws. The devolution of the organization is even more complete than that of what is now a minor subgenre of Romantasy.

The idea that JRR Tolkien, John C. Wright, Neal Stephenson, and Tanith Lee are not “SFWA grandmasters,” but NK Jemisin, is serves to conclusively prove that whatever that status might signify, it is not being a Grand Master of literature.

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Unification is Coming

Taipei is going to reunify with the mainland sooner rather than later, and more peacefully than anyone expects, as the upcoming visit between Ms Cheng and President Xi may be more significant than anyone in the West suspects:

The leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), is traveling to mainland China, marking the first such visit since 2016. Known as a vocal opponent of the island’s possible independence, Cheng Li-wun was invited by Chinese President Xi Jinping for what she has described as a peace-building mission.

Taiwan de facto became a self-governed territory after Chinese nationalist forces lost in the civil war against the communists and fled there in 1949. Beijing considers the island part of its sovereign territory under the One China policy, which the vast majority of countries also recognize.

Cheng’s visit will start on Tuesday and is expected to conclude on Sunday, with the KMT chair leading a party delegation. She has said she hopes to meet Xi personally as part of her pursuit of “cross-strait peace and stability.”

Speaking to NBC News ahead of the visit, Cheng argued that “in Taiwan, we must do everything in our power to prevent a war in the Taiwan Strait,” adding that she does not want the island to “become the next Ukraine.”

The combination of a) the successful integration of Hong Kong, b) the Ukraine catastrophe, and c) the implosion of the US military means that the reunification of Taiwan island with the Chinese government is probably going to take place before 2030 and without military conflict.

Cheng is an attractive and popular figurehead for leading the reunification charge. The global appeal of “democracy” for its own sake has been destroyed by the fake democracies of Europe and the charade of elections everywhere from Arizona to Ukraine. Everyone understands that there is no point in voting when the vote is just a fig leaf for various elites to ignore the actual will of the people.

And the obvious difference between the decadent, invaded societies of the so-called “democratic” West and the progress of the homogenous so-called “autocratic” nations could not be more obvious. Most of the world doesn’t admire America or Europe anymore; the Japanese even have a word for the disappointment that Japanese tourists have upon seeing the cruel reality of modern Paris.

Pari shōkōgun is a sense of extreme disappointment exhibited by many individuals when visiting Paris, who feel that the city does not live up to their expectations. The condition is commonly viewed as a severe form of culture shock.

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US Military Revolt

A retired US Army general, Mark Hertling, confirms military commanders are actively preparing to defy Donald Trump. They are bound by the Constitution to disobey unlawful orders to bomb Iranian civilians. A military revolt is brewing.

I suspect the various military intelligence services know perfectly well that the individual playing the role of “Donald Trump” is not their actual commander-in-chief. Any orders he gives them are no more legitimate than the executive orders signed by the autopen of “Joe Biden” or the demands of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Remember, everything – EVERYTHING – about Clown World is fake and gay. Nothing they present is real. It’s all a performance by theater kids.

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No Deals

Iran appears to have learned its lesson. You can’t negotiate with either Israel or the United States. Both states are agreement-incapable.

Pakistan brokered an emergency ceasefire framework overnight — the “Islamabad Accord”

Pakistan’s Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir was in contact ALL NIGHT with both sides

The deal had two phases: immediate ceasefire + Hormuz reopens, then a comprehensive peace deal in 15-20 days

Both Washington and Tehran received the proposal

Iran’s response this morning: REJECTED

A senior Iranian official told Reuters: “Tehran will NOT reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a temporary ceasefire”

Iran added: “The United States lacks readiness for a permanent ceasefire”

Then the IRGC released a statement that should terrify every person on Earth:

“The Strait of Hormuz will NEVER return to its former state, especially for America and Israel”

“NEVER.” That is the word they used. NEVER.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: “The entire Middle East will burn”

Now look at the diplomacy scorecard:

❌ 10-day ultimatum — Iran said no

❌ 48-hour deadline — Iran said no

❌ Turkey mediation — failed, no progress (WSJ)

❌ Egypt mediation — failed, no progress (WSJ)

❌ Pakistan “Islamabad Accord” — rejected this morning

Every single path to a deal is now DEAD.

There are no good guys here. But resistance to Clown World, global satanry, and military aggression is always necessary, whether you’re a good guy or not.

This isn’t going to be easy or fun for anyone except perhaps military contractors. The very best outcome would be if the USA would withdraw from the Middle East, stop funding any foreign states, and let Iran and Israel fight to the death of one or the other nation.

Not our dogs, not our hunt, not our concern. It’s rather remarkable to observe that the Christian Zionists have so little faith in their false god that they think the USA has to do his job for him.

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The Edo Scroll

Mondays are the day we announce the release of the new weekly Library translation. This week’s translation is, like its predecessor, the first-ever English translation of an Eiji Yoshikawa novel, exactly 100 years after it was first published in Japan, THE SECRET SCROLLS OF NARUTO: The Edo Scroll. Edo, of course, is the old name for Tokyo, as it was known thoughout the era of the Tokugawa Shogunate, until it was renamed in 1868.

Edo, the 1760s. A junk dealer works his way through the back streets of Surugadai in midwinter, calling out for old rags and broken crockery. He is not a junk dealer. He is Mankichi, the Tenma detective from Osaka, and he has traced a missing woman to a shuttered house with a changed nameplate and bars on the windows. What he finds inside is worse than he imagined — and the people who put her there are already coming back.

The second book of The Secret Scrolls of Naruto shifts the action from the open roads and waterways of the Kamigata to the warren of Tokugawa-era Tokyo, where the conspiracy runs deeper, the villains are closer, and nobody can be trusted. Two killers strike a deal over saké: one will murder the swordsman-monk Gennojō, the other will claim the woman he has been hunting since Osaka. Underground chambers, a great urban fire, a swordfight in total darkness on a plum-scented path, a deathbed confession that transforms a pickpocket, and a midnight ambush at Sensō-ji temple — this is the book where Yoshikawa Eiji earns his reputation as the Alexandre Dumas of Japan.

I can attest that these books are very, very good. If you’re interested in being among the first to ever read these books outside of Japan, you can support the Library’s translation efforts by becoming a paid subscriber to Castalia Library or you can simply pick it up on Kindle, KU, or audiobook.

It should be mentioned that the Library’s translation efforts are not limited to Japanese literature. We already have two translators actively working on Spanish literature; the first three books in the landmark 46-volume Episodios Nacionales by Benito Pérez Galdós have already been translated and will be made available in May. We have also completed hitherto-untranslated works from Italian and German. The translation work is being done at a very high level of quality, one that consistently rates higher than the average translated classic.

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It Wasn’t a “Rescue Mission”

The crowing over losing multiple planes and helicopters in what purports to be a successful mission because all of the planes and helicopters were destroyed by US forces on the ground instead of Iranian forces struck me as more than stupid spin, it sounded like the “hurr-durr” meme applied to war.

“Jokes on you! I WANTED to blow up my own planes!”

So it’s not a surprise to learn that the rescue was actually cover for a failed attempt to seize Iran’s processed uranium.

The official story claims the HC-130s got stuck in “mud” after landing, and had to be destroyed on the ground along with several helicopters, though this was later updated to a “mechanical failure” despite bullet holes being found on the wings and fuselage of the wreckage.

But buckle up, because here’s where the story begins falling apart.

The original F-15E that was shot down was said to have gone down in ‘southwestern Iran’ with geolocations showing roughly 30.787710, 50.701440, which is about ~80km from the Iranian coastline: You can see even major outlets reported the crash to have happened in southwestern Khuzestan province:

To the best of my ability I’ve traced the original geolocation to this post which shows US Pave Hawk Combat Search and Rescue choppers flying over the area presumed to be the original F-15E crash site. But here’s the plot twist: the new footage of destroyed American C-130 transport craft and helicopters has been geolocated to over 200km away at this geolocation: 32.258394, 51.901927.

The geolocated wreckage of the C-130s which were apparently using a local “agricultural airstrip” (32.223369, 51.897678) just happens to be right over a mountain, about 35km away, from Isfahan’s nuclear facility, where Iran’s ‘near-weapons grade’ enriched uranium is alleged to be stored:

You can confirm via the above link in the quote that they are referring to the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center at the center of the discussion. There is apparently an underground complex at the connected “missile complex”, whose southern entrance is here: 32.585522° N, 51.814933° E.

This puts the failed US clandestine operation 35km southeast of one of Iran’s main uranium sites.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot more US casualties than we’ve been told as well.

UPDATE: Larry Johnson has an interesting spin on the story:

The shoot down of the F-15E was not a ruse to disguise a planned Special Ops raid on the nuclear site in Isfahan. It was an unlucky event for the pilot and the WSO. Given the rank of the WSO — and the highly classified knowledge he has about US operations in the Gulf and in Iran — recovering him became a top priority. The urgency of the situation resulted in the JSOC unit (I’m assuming they are based in Kuwait) being alerted to join the CSAR effort. The two C-130Js probably were already loaded with two AH-6 Little Birds. I think it was pure serendipity that the missing WSO was located northwest of the rudimentary air strip that the JSOC unit had been planning to use to stage its raid on Isfahan. Their familiarity with the area, based on their prior planning for the Isfahan raid, resulted in them being tasked to recover the WSO in lieu of the designated CSAR unit.

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This is Not Winning

I’m posting the screenshot I took directly from TruthSocial simply because I didn’t initially believe it was real when I saw it posted on /pol/.

Evidently both Israel and the USA needed a decapitation strike a lot worse than Iran did. And praising Allah on Easter Sunday?

At this point, I think it’s much more likely that the Clown World clone is malfunctioning than whatever creature is in the White House is genuinely President Donald Trump.

UPDATE: There are now rumors – I stress RUMORS – on /pol/ that Trump, or at least his stand-in, died on Saturday morning. This is definitely NOT confirmed and could just be a hoax.

President Donald J. Trump has reportedly passed away at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following complications related to a cardiac condition, according to preliminary statements from hospital officials early this morning. Sources say Trump was transported to Walter Reed late Friday evening after experiencing severe chest pain at his residence. Medical teams worked for several hours to stabilize him before he was pronounced dead at approximately 2:42 AM Eastern Standard Time.

If it does turn out to be false, it nevertheless had to be posted, due to the fact that it inspired this response:

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The Hobbit 1977

The Dark Herald explains how the 1977 Rankin/Bass version of The Hobbit came to be:

There is no getting across to kids of later generations what a TV Special meant to us. You had no control over it whatsoever. None. You either watched it at the exact time the network scheduled it for or you didn’t watch it at all that year. You could possibly catch a missed episode of a regular show during reruns in the summer but not a Special. Miss it and it was gone, no place to rent it, and streaming it was decades away. When you heard that Special fanfare from the TV you dropped everything and ran!

A few guitar strings were plucked, one by one, and then John Huston’s unmistakable cadence read the first words Tolkien published about the world that would become Middle-earth. There was a respect there for what J.R.R. Tolkien began with that sentence.

The “Many ages ago” that followed was intended to draw children into myth and it worked magnificently. Tolkien nerds used to regard it as heresy because Tolkien didn’t write it but then they had no idea what horrors the future held.

Even at the time it was hardly the worst version of The Hobbit. That would be the Hobbit (1966) a 12 minute “rights retainer” featuring Princess Mika and Slaag the Dragon whom Bilbo kills at the end. There had been radio and play adaptations before 1977, mostly British naturally. The rights to Hobbit had been sold separately by Tolkien then parceled out again and again after that.

By 1977 The Hobbit’s rights were such a trainwreck that Arthur Rankin was able to snatch up the TV rights for pennies with the following opening credit “Based on the Original Version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.” The rights for that being distinct from the 1951 revision, which is what the TV special was actually based on. In the 1937 edition, Elves were called, Gnomes” (from the Greek gnosis for “knowledge.” And Bilbo won the ring from Gollum fair and square, they even parted on friendly terms. Those and some other changes were enough to make it legally distinct.

And the Rankin/Bass version was certainly distinct in its own right. It looks like something made by Studio Ghibli – Because it was made by Studio Ghibli.

Okay, fine. It was made by Topcraft although, when that studio failed the remains became Studio Ghibli, and you can absolutely see the design DNA in The Hobbit.

You can also see Tolkien’s come to that, his own Thrór’s Map was used directly in the TV show and was part of the influence of the design aesthetic. J.R.R Tolkien approved of Arthur Rackham artwork and it was clearly another strong influence. The Hobbit (1977) was a Japanese take on the Western fairytale as grotesque. You can see its influence in Nausicaä. Rankin/Bass helped keep the lights on at Topcraft until Nausicaä came out. The Japanese approach isn’t interested in cleaning the fairy tale up, it leans into the distortions. Faces stretch, bodies warp, and the line between the comic and the unsettling disappears. What reads as “off” to a Western eye is often deliberate: characters are designed to move, to emote, to perform, even if that means abandoning symmetry or beauty. It turned what was supposed to be a children’s story into something just a little grimdark – perfect for its Generation X audience.

It was an art design for Tolkien when no one agreed what that looked like and there weren’t any brand managers ruining it. There was also some leftover hippy influence clinging to it, like your older sister’s boyfriend’s van that still smelled “funny.” College age-Boomers had first experienced Tolkien – differently.

It’s such a pity that after doing a very good job of bringing THE LORD OF THE RINGS to life, Peter Jackson wasn’t able to avoid screwing up THE HOBBIT even though he had a perfectly good template from which to work on the basis of the 1977 version.

And perhaps his biggest mistake wasn’t expanding it to three films, but not licensing the original music.

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