Imposter syndrome

 It's a short post, so I'll quote it in it's entirety. From Vox's blog:

"The secret of the elites is that they're not all that smart so they need the deck stacked to continue the illusion that they are elite at all."

- Rob Peffer

He's absolutely right. That's why the fake elite devotes 100 percent of their collective effort to trying to maintain the illusion and keep the deck stacked. It's also why nationalism and populism terrify them. They know their power and influence could be broken literally overnight by a sufficiently angry populace.

This is no longer about ideology. All the idearrhea about "liberal" and "conservative" and "communism" and "objectivism" is a veil to obscure the realities of the stacked deck. It's about lawless rule by a small, mostly foreign and self-appointed fake elite. They all have imposter syndrome because they are all imposters.

The Emperor has no clothes. The great and powerful wizard is just a frumpy man behind a curtain. Whatever culturally appropriate metaphor you prefer, it describes those who rule over us. Because our culture is high trust and we dislike rentier jobs, we pretty much just let them come in and remake our legal and political and even social framework right before our eyes, never suspecting that they were doing something so malicious and destructive. But, they were. And they did. And to paraphrase that Japanese general, the sleeping giant is waking up. The only real question is what will happen next? 

PIE spread

 An interesting map from the following paper.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-prehistoric-society/article/abs/forgotten-child-of-the-wider-corded-ware-family-russian-fatyanovo-culture-in-context/6309A60F638130BF6F7FD96135AA1B37#

There's one exception I'd make to the bottom map, though. It seems most possible that Yamnaya originated in the Western steppe, not the eastern steppe. The genetic evidence, according to Eurogenes, seems to suggest this, although there are other hints that it may have started in the east, as an outgrowth of Repin and Khvalynsk. Davidski suggests that post-Sredni Stog rolled over Khvalynsk, and that genetics can prove it, to create Yamnaya, and that early Corded Ware was genetically identical to Yamnaya. Later Corded Ware cultures picked up more admixture from native European hunter-gatherer and farmer ancestries.

In any case, the map doesn't feature time depth, though. Or rather, the second one adds some time depth. Keep in mind that Fatyanovo-Balanovo and Abashevo coexisted with the more westerly Corded Ware, and is usually considered a farther eastern extension of them. Sintashta has roots in Abashevo, but is considered a separate development. Andronovo is generally considered the eastern steppe explosion of Sintashta into territory that used to be the non-Indo-European Botai-Tersek culture earlier. Although granted, the Kazakhstan archaeological picture is a bit hazy because much more fieldwork is required.

Linguistic PIE

I'll repost the same image I did yesterday, but in a slightly bigger format (although the image is the same; if you click on it, you get the same sized version), and then talk about it and the article I mentioned yesterday, with it's working theories.

Let's reiterate, shall we? There are several known branches of Indo-European that we know enough about to classify (as well as several other languages that we don't know enough about to classify because they were parahistorical; going extinct without ever being written down in more than a few words, phrases, names or glosses, but were mentioned by literate neighbors like the Greeks or the Romans.) These branches are:

1. Anatolian
2. Tocharian
3. Albanian (from Illyrian?)
4. Celto-Italic (later branching into Celtic and Italic specifically)
5. Greco-Armenian (later branching into Greek and Armenian. May have included Phrygian as well.)
6. Germanic
7. Balto-Slavic (later branching into Baltic and Slavic branches)
8. Indo-Iranian, later branching into Indic and Iranian branches)

The chronological branching off of groups from a unified Proto-Indo-European (PIE) has created a confusing mass of modified titles; archaic PIE, common PIE, Indo-Hittite, etc. Koch divides PIE simply by numbers, and it is the following, as shown on the graphic:

1. PIE 1 is the most archaic PIE, and includes all branches of the family.
2. PIE 2 has had Anatolian split off, but includes Tocharian, Albanian, Italo-Celtic, Greco-Armenian, Germanic, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian. According to Koch, this is the classic Pontic Steppes Indo-European.
3. PIE 3 has Tocharian now split off as well, but still includes a Common Indo-European of Albanian, Italo-Celtic, Greco-Armenian, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian. Archaeologically, this would be late Yamnaya or early Corded Ware, I presume?
4. PIE 4 has now lost Albanian (odd, considering that it is located right in the center, or at least only a little to the south, of the Indo-European development central at this point.) It still contains Italo-Celtic, Greco-Armenian, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian. This is supposed to take place before the Bell Beaker phenomena still.
5. PIE 5 has now lost the Italo-Celtic branch, which is archaeologically visible as the rise of the Bell Beaker phenomena. Keep in mind, this isn't suggesting that the Bell Beakers spoke Italo-Celtic, merely that they started a process that introduced enough linguistic isolation from the rest of the Corded Ware and post-Corded Ware community that they would develop in the future into Italo-Celtic.
6. PIE 6 has now spun off the Greco-Armenian branch, and is the last rump of "unified" Indo-European, being left with the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian branches (and probably Thracian too, for that matter, since it appears to be a satem language.) The big innovations that belong to this phase include satemization and the ruki rule. I will point out, however, that the ruki rule is not limited to the languages Koch puts in PIE 6; it does seem to include Albanian and Armenian (possibly as an areal feature?) and there are odd exceptions in Slavic and Indo-Iranian. 
7. You'll notice that Germanic floats above the branching structure and has dotted lines to PIE 4 and PIE 6. This is explained in the working hypotheses below.

Koch then offers a number of working hypotheses, which I'll summarize and discuss very briefly. There's at least one that I think is a poor syllogism, but since it's a faddish theory right now, it can't simply be dismissed without reviewing, I suppose.

1. The Homeland of PIE 1 can't be the Pontic steppes, because Daamgaard's survey of the archaeogenetics of five supposed Hittite speakers have no trace of the Western Steppe Herder DNA component. Therefore, PIE 1 is to be located south of the Caucasus, and they somehow taught their language to the WSH's without transfering any of their DNA. As you can tell by my sarcastic tone, that is just as unlikely as the reasoning used to dismiss the kurgan theory for PIE 1 in the first place, if not actually a fair bit moreso. Not only that, as Davidski points out, there are good reasons for supposing that Daamgaard's "Hittites" were actually Hattians, who may well have spoken Hittite by this point, but weren't the people who brought the Anatolian branch to Anatolia. He also says that he detects a weak WSH signal in some samples from Bronze Age Anatolia, but admits that much more sampling is required to confirm this. In any case, this is exactly the wrong null hypothesis, because the exact same reasoning that suggests that PIE 1 can't have been spoken on the steppes means that it would be impossible to derive PIE 2 on the steppes from south of the Caucasus, since no recent Caucasian admixture is found in subsequent steppe populatons.
2. PIE 2 is the classic WSH cultures; Yamnaya and related. Again, as we suggested above, you can't derive this from anything south of the Caucasus, so the more likey story is that an early branch of this like Usatovo is the source of the Anatolian split-off, and those that remained on the steppes still continued linguistic innovation as PIE 2. This is related to the question of Tocharian, because the imminent splitting off of Tocharian is the defining line between PIE 2 and PIE 3. Three related questions need good answers of yes to make this hypothesis correct:
1. Are the Afansievo and Yamnaya populations genetically similar enough to derive one from the other? The answer here is a solid yes; Afanesievo seems to be genetically identical to Yamnaya.
2. Is the link between Afanasievo and Tocharian secure? The answer here is no, but on the other hand, no other credible alternatives have ever emerged, so it remains the only null hypothesis by default.
3. Was Tocharian the second branch to split off? While the mainstream view is certainly yes, there are a number of workers who dispute this and have introduced alternative explanations.
3. The archaeological Beaker package arose among probably non-Indo-Europeans on the far western coasts of Europe, but was spread by a genetically somewhat heterogenous population of Indo-Europeans with Y-DNA haplogroups derived from the Single Grave Culture. The SGC was awhich was a far western Corded Ware variant and probably early Indo-European speaking phenomena. Early Beakers from Iberia show no WSH genetics, but strong continuity with the Neolithic in the area, although later Iberia was subsequently over-run with male line WSH beakers. The British Isles in particular seem to have had a massive turnover from the Neolithic population to the Beaker population; over 90% of its genetics in the from the Neolithic was replaced by genetics that are largely identical to Single Grave genetics in the Bronze Age. This genetic replacement in both regions, (and in others for that matter) was heavily mediated by male intrusions; much of the female lines appear to remain in some cases; in Iberia, almost entirely (in the British Isles, the female lines seem to be replaced as well.) As the beaker phenomena spread eastward, it encountered more established Corded Ware variants, and although there is interaction, there isn't replacement as there was in the British Isles and Iberia, which were presumably non-Indo-European prior to the Beaker intrusions. This whole process probably initiated a dialect or language split between the far Western Corded Ware linguistic continuum and the rest of the Corded Ware cultures, and the Beakers can be likely credited with created a new branch of Indo-European that now differed from the Corded Ware mainstream. This new dialect probably eventually emerged as Italo-Celtic and Germanic (see below.)
4. This next one is complicated, and has two parts, but which work in harmony. The first is that the Old European hydronymy (river names), i.e., pre-Indo-European river names based on a recognizable root, is confined to the area outside of the Corded Ware culture distribution, suggesting that the Corded Ware is the spread of Indo-European into Europe, and that there was at one point a vast Corded Ware dialect continuum from the Low countries in the west to the Urals in the east, north of the Alps, which excluded what is today France, Iberia, the Italian area, the Balkans, Greece and the Aegean, etc. The Beaker phenomena later created a marked dialectical difference that led to different branches and separated this phenomena along a vaguely defined line running north-south through somewhere in Central Europe. The second part of this hypothesis is that the Germanic languages were initially more closely aligned with the Balto-Slavic group to their immediate East, but cultural conditions caused a "realignment" towards the western group, which gives them simultaneously notable correspondances with Italo-Celtic but also with Balto-Slavic. The genetics seem to bear this out too; the Germanic area shows a high degree of the classic Corded Ware R1a clade of Y-haplogroups (relatively speaking) but also shows a high degree of the classic Beaker clade of R1b. The Germanic area is somewhat unique in sporting both in relatively high pluralities, whereas throughout most of the rest of Europe one or the other dominates much more markedly. Missing from this working hypothesis, however, is any explanation of where the Balkan and post-Balkan languages fit in. While it describes Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic Slavic (and leaves room for Indo-Iranian farther to the east, where it shows more signs of a continuum with Balto-Slavic), where does Albanian come from in this scenario? Or the Greco-Armenian group? To be fair, this is still a problem, and few people address it, prefering to see in the Corded Ware not necessarily the expansion of PIE 3 out of the steppes, but PIE 4 or 6. (This is nonsense that it would be so strictly limited, especially in the early Corded Ware period, since the Beaker phenomena is genetically an outgrowth of the westernmost Corded Ware group, the Single Grave culture, and nobody is saying that the Beaker folks are the ancestors exclusively of the Balto-Slavic and Germanic languages.) The origins of the paleo-Balkan languages are a mess, and most specialists seem to prefer to ignore it and focus on the more northern sphere, probably because it's easier to do, and probably because their own ancestry and linguistic heritage is to be found there. (I mean, even the Balkans today is mostly Slavic speaking, amirite?) As working models by Davidski have suggested, it seems much more likely from a genetic perspective that the Corded Ware is the mother of PIE 3 at least, and that all branches except Anatolian and probably Tocharian can be derived from it.
5. Indo-Iranian comes from Abashevo and other easterly Corded Ware variants, and it's even more easterly later extension to the other side of the Urals, Sintashta, which later led to Andronovo. This is confirmed because Sintashta and Andronovo contain EEF and WHG ancestry which Yamnaya lacked, therefore, the Indo-Iranians can't be derived directly from the Yamnaya steppes; they have to be derived from the Corded Ware. Corded Ware itself can probably be derived from the western portion of the steppes, which spread northwest into the forest steppes and the European plain before spreading eastward again over the steppes. Exactly the relationship between Yamnaya and Corded Ware is unclear; they were genetically clearly very close, but Corded Ware had picked up some Neolithic European admixture, whereas Yamnaya were more "pure" WSH in their genetics. However, the later Indo-Europeans all show signs of this admixture, suggesting that ultimately the Yamnaya were perhaps mostly a dead end after they separated genetically from the Corded Ware, and that the roots of the rest of the Indo-European family from PIE 3 onwards are to be found in the Corded Ware, not the Yamnaya. Granted, I'm adding a bit more than what Koch himself said; he only said that in regards to Indo-Iranian, but as I've got from reading Eurogenes for some time now, I think it's a bit broader than Koch is admitting here. See the map below for early Corded Ware and Yamnaya spheres before Corded Ware expanded.
6. The sixth working hypothesis is a multi-part one, and is in many ways supportive of the Celtic from the West argument. It suggests that since 1) the Beaker cultural package seems to have had some kind of genesis with Atlantic non-Indo-European natives, 2) it was adopted by westerly Indo-Europeans of the Single Grave Corded Ware variant, and 3) the spread of the Beaker culture along with significant genetic replacement by Single Grave male lineages (but in many cases retaining native female lineages) that Celtic in particular emerged out of the interaction of Indo-European with a non-Indo-European substrate. A lot of correspondances can be made between Celtic and Basque/Aquaitanian and Iberian. Celtic from the West is a bigger hypothesis than what Koch is suggesting here, which he knows quite well, but this is just the executive summary portion of a part of the arguments that support it. Personally, I'm finding myself more and more in favor of it over time. Given that Koch is also one of the proponents of this theory, its no wonder that he put a working hypothesis in that supports it.
7. Working hypothesis 6, along with other details, suggests that Basque and probably related languages like Aquitanian and maybe Iberian, which don't exist anymore today and only barely registered briefly in the Roman and Greek historical records, was there already when the first Indo-Europeanization of the Atlantic region started. While the paleohispanic linguistic situation, prior to the Latinization of the peninsula, is not as complicated as the paleobalkan linguistic situation, it's still got its share of mysteries. Some languages are obviously Celtic, some are Vasconic (Basque, Aquitanian, and possibly Iberian, although this is disputed), some may be para-Celtic, i.e., a separate branching of the Italo-Celtic branch, but linguistic dead-ends and unknown to us today, or perhaps some other type of ambiguous Indo-European, and some may be non-Indo-European, but also non-Vasconic. Some may even have a North African antecedent; we know from historical sources that the Carthaginians were very active in pre-Roman Hispania, after all. While Koch himself is the proponent of the idea that the Tartessian language is a Celtic one and its meager carved inscriptions can even be translated, this isn't widely accepted, and the mainstream opinion would be more likely to see ties to Iberian and Aquitanian. If true, and that's a big if because little is known about any of those languages really, then it would imply a larger Vasconic linguistic presence in Iberia prior to Indo-Europeanization. This begs the question, as Koch notes, that maybe Vasconic was much more widely spread than even that. While Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis never really worked from a time-depth and linguistic period, and genetics has pretty much killed it stone dead (it is an EX-hypothesis!) he was right in pointing out that the Neolithic expansion of Anatolian farmers who became the Early European Farmer (EEF) genetic clade and which spread into Europe on two fronts (along the northern Mediterranean coast in the Cardial Ware horizon, and up through the Balkans to Central Europe and beyond in the "Old European" Balkan cultures like Vinča and Starčevo clusters and the vast LBK horizon) probably brought a single language, or at least tightly related language family with them which had originated in the Mesolithic/Neolithic boundary in Anatolia. Is Basque the sole survivor of this linguistic spread ~5500 BC? While certainly plausible, the fact the WHG DNA survives in appreciable numbers into the Bronze Age in Iberia and elsewhere in Europe (even having a resurgence in the Funnelbeaker and Globular Amphora cultures, among possibly others) means that we can't rule out a Mesolithic ancestry for this language group. Koch suggests that more work be done (although where more material to work with is unknown) in trying to find correspondences between known languages like the non-Indo-European paleohispanic languages, Etruscan, Minoan and Eteo-Cretan, and non-Indo-European languages of Anatolia like Hattic and Hurrian to see if anything can be untangled here. But he's clearly suggesting a working null hypothesis of a Vasconic family being associated with the Neolithic farmer spread, which survives today only in the form of Basque in the Pyrenees. While this is fine, few people suggest an Etruscan and Vasconic link, and Etruscan is a reasonably well-known non-Indo-European language of Europe, and may be part of a more wide-spread Tyrsenian language family. How do Tyrenian and Vasconic compare? Are there connections? According to most linguists, no, none. Both are isolates. But this is known to be speculative, and Koch is calling for more work and research. Honestly, the tapestry of Neolithic cultures of Europe and their relationship to each other still needs some work period. It is possible that the two waves of EEF expansion brought different language families; the Cardial Ware being more Tyrsenian, for example, and the Starčevo to LBK being Vasconic, or something like that, or one or the other may be an older WHG holdout, or something else entirely may be happening too. Maybe Vasconic's origins are to be found in North Africa across from Iberia. Maybe the Etruscans are actually intrusive to Italy and come from somewhere else more recently than the Neolithic spread, as Greek writers seem to suggest, linking them with the Pelasgians and other far westerly Anatolian and Aegean peoples.

It's difficult to say, since genetically as far as we know, the EEF group forms a pretty solid cluster, not a widely spread group, although some admixture is known to have happened, and the Mediterranean was a conduit for travel for a long time in both the prehistoric and historic eras, bringing people from Anatolia, Southern Europe, North Africa and the Levant into association. But one people can't be expected reasonably to be responsible for the spread of two completely unrelated language families, as well as to originate in an area known for two other completely unrelated isolate languages—Hattic and Hurrian. How many language groups were lurking about in Anatolia anyway, all spoken by genetically indistinguishable people in a small geographical area?

As Koch says, there's plenty of tantalizing hints of stuff going on, but very little real knowledge. More work, if something to work with could be found, would be most welcome in untangling this mess. What would be especially helpful is if enough new Linear A (presumably Minoan) and Vinča script work could be found that those languages could be partially deciphered and studied with regards to their potential relationship to other known languages. But don't hold your breath for that to happen.

Companions

Like everyone, I'm often distracted by current events right now, and I am often actively seeking to distract myself from current events right now. Vox Day, as is often the case, says it best—to be patient, because disinformation is the order of the day, and few people know what's really going on, and those people are necessarily not talking about it. Meanwhile, the people who are talking are known liars and the only thing you can trust from them is that you shouldn't ever trust what they say.

So, today I'll try to make two posts; the first a very frivolous one about the companion characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) and the second a more interesting one summarizing and commenting briefly on a paper I got from academia.edu by John T. Koch on Indo-European branching, which presents several working hypothesis (although right away, I have an issue with the first one. But still; good work overall.) Granted, I'm not an Indo-European expert, so maybe nobody cares what I think of his paper, but precisely because I'm not mired in the details that the experts wrangle over, I think I'm able to see big picture stuff fairly well. At least I like to think so. In any case, here's a teaser image from that paper attached the post, which I quite like. I also like the division of Proto-Indo-European into various "stocks" representing the unified body of languages at various stages after other sub-families "split off." This makes the assumption that there are ten known subfamilies, while noting that various "big time" branches have completely unknown affiliations, such as Thracian, and therefore have to be ignored for purposes of this tree.

Let me explain very briefly the image, but I'll keep further commentary for the other post. Which may happen today or tomorrow, depending on my time today. Proto-Indo-European 1, or PIE 1, would be the last "complete" Proto-Indo-European language, and would include the Anatolian branch, the first to split off. PIE 2 is after Anatolian splits off, and right before the Tocharian branch splits off. PIE 3 is on the verge of spinning out Albanian, PIE 4 is on the verge of spinning out the Italo-Celtic languages, PIE 5 is on the verge of spinning out the Greco-Armenian branch (and possibly Phrygian, as part of this branch? The paleo-Balkan language situation is a Charlie Foxtrot for sure.) PIE 6 is the last of the "unified" part of Indo-European, although it could really just be called the Balto-Slavic branch + the Indo-Iranian branch. The placement of Germanic is tricky, and it "floats" over the image, but that's part of the discussion. From the get-go, the placement of Germanic has been tricky, as there are things that tantalizingly seem to pull it towards the Balto-Slavic branch and others that pull it towards the Italo-Celtic branch in the estimation of linguists. To me that makes Germanic one of the more interesting of the bunch, and the fact that of course I speak a Germanic language as my native language, and my genetics go back nearly a thousand years to people of Germanic descent (although the oldest guy we have information for was a Norman and the father of one who crossed the English Channel with William the Conquerer; technically a Germanic person speaking a Romance language! That said, my ancestry is overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon and British Celtic, not Frankish, Viking or Norman) makes it doubly interesting to me. 

Anyway, that's for next time. Right now, I want to refer to this relatively recent article on companions in SWTOR (written at the end of 2019 makes it just over a year old, but still—given the age of the game, that's pretty recent.) Although I haven't yet finished all of the stories of all of the characters (or even started with a few of the classes) I've seen enough on Youtube playthroughs over time to feel reasonably confident to comment, without being myself (yet) a "legendary player" who's completed all eight class stories. (As an aside, I'm about three fourths of the way through Knights of the Fallen Empire with my Jedi Knight, I'm due to start the Shadow of Revan with my Sith Warrior, I'm well into chapter 2 with my Smuggler and just starting chapter 1 with my Agent. And, as a reminder, although I'm starting over with a new character, I did do all the way through chapter 1 with a bounty hunter before accidentally ending up locking out my companion stories by doing some Onderon stuff. Ugh. That's why I made a story progression tracker in Google Sheets to make sure that I didn't screw anyone else's stuff up.)

Let's see my commentary on best companions:

Jedi Knight: I mostly agree, although I tend to like bringing T7 along quite a bit, and I think Doc has tons of interesting dialogue. His backstory isn't quite as intriguing as that of Scourge, but his dialogue is funnier. Most of that character-building stuff happens in the ship between planets anyway, although there's some interesting snippets here and there if you have the right character with you at the right time.

Sith Warrior: I'm not completely in agreement. I don't like Vette as much as the rest of the crew seems to. I think if she were human instead of Twi'lek, I probably would, but she's not, so that's a moot point. Also, I did light side Jaesa, and can't really imagine doing the dark side stuff. The morality of Star Wars games, particularly when it's trying to portray the dark side, is puerile and stupid. While this goes both ways quite often, where blatantly immoral acts are light side (like lying and breaking your word, and abandoning your responsibilities to your people), it's particularly egregious with the dark side stuff. My Sith Warrior did more light side than dark side choices, mostly—but not always, because they didn't always make any logical sense either. In any case, doing things that way means that my experience with Jaesa in particular was very different. I like her, especially with the red-hair or blond-hair customization options for light side, and the platonic romance between them was kinda amusing—with a big pay-off coming at the end of the expansion storylines when you're reunited and it is a full-on regular romance. Best romantic partner pay-off in the game, although it requires patience to pull off.

Jedi Consular: While I confess to not being super informed on this one, from what I have seen, I think that it's a reasonable assessment.

Sith Inquisitor: I'll say more or less the same thing about the consular, although the fact that your "default" romance option isn't usually considered one of the best companions to take along should be a clue that the romance options aren't really satisfactory. In my opinion, your "romanceable" companion should be your first choice, and if it's not, that's not a great romance.

Trooper: Once again, I'll defer to the article, as I don't really have the expertise to rebut it. But my playthrough on Youtube experience would tend to agree, or at least not have any reason to question it. I'd be interested, quite honestly, in who the worst companion choices would be too. Heck, they should have ranked the "full stable."

Bounty Hunter: 100% agree with Mako. Despite the weird sharky name, she's one of the better NPC characters in the game period, and a perfectly written match for the hunter. I'm a little less sold on Torian, although if you're playing a female character and want a romanceable option, I guess that moves him up. Gault Renow is much funnier to have around. Blizz is entertaining, but the novelty value tends to wear off after a while.

Smuggler: I agree with this assessment. I will say that I'm disappointed that you have so many interactions with Risha before she's your companion, so you can't apply a customization yet. And that you pick up Guss pretty late; he'd be fun to have around longer.

Agent: Sigh. The poor agent. I really dislike Kaliyo, who's the first (main?) companion and default romance option, so I suppose this is a good enough list. I don't much like Vector either. Raina Temple I probably prefer to SCORPIO, because she's my actual romance choice (after applying a customization that makes her white; either #4 on Belsavis or #9 from the GTN). But in general, his team is my least favorite of the eight classes. Which is too bad, because he's one of the most interesting characters himself, and has one of the best plots. Putting him as a default with Kaliyo almost seems like it's a deliberate emasculation of James Bond in space.

It's interesting, of course, that pretty much nobody picks Kaliyo as a favorite companion for the agent or a favored romance option overall. Luckily, they actually gave you an alternative, even if you can't pick it up until fairly late, in the form of Temple.

The Panopticon

Some good advice. I haven't always followed it as I should, but one needs to rethink these things, right, and repent of past foolishness.  

When woodworking with power tools, I routinely ask myself, "If I fell into this tool right now, what would happen?" If the risk is too great, I reorient myself and attempt to do the job safer. There's risk in all of it, or I could go back to hand saws and chisels. It's all about managing risk.

I think that every Christian and conservative (or whatever political strip which is not woke) needs to ask, "What if everything I ever said, did, or where I even went was instantly exposed to my spouse, church, employer, and eventually greater world?". 

You are standing over that dangerous tool every moment you use an iPhone, Android device, or PC. One must never stop asking that question so you understand the risks you are taking and what it means for your future.

The reality is that although we are dangerously close to living in an evil Panopticon that threatens us for our attempts to be righteous, and reality is that we have always lived in an eternal and eternally just Panotpicon, for God has always watched everything that we've ever done.

Luke 12:

2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

But with regard to the evil Panopticon of Big Tech and their allies; be cautious and be wary. 

The end of America

America current year

 As a fitting epitaph for 2020, here's some words from the Z-man. I'm quoting most of his post today, because it's fitting that it not be too broken up.

https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=22458

Yesterday, Ashli Babbitt was shot in the neck and died while protesting inside the Capitol with other protestors. A group of angry Trump supporters had got into the building and were making a racket. This is not an unusual occurrence. During the Kavanaugh hearings, Democrats organized mobs of screeching women to harass Republicans in the halls of the Capitol. Party media was there to celebrate it as the purest expression of democracy. It was power to the people time.

That was not the case yesterday, according to the media. Instead, it was a direct threat to “our” democracy. This is a bit ironic in that the protests are over the obvious corruption in the election system. The direct threat to democracy is the people demanding their elections be fair and honest. That’s why Ashli Babbitt was inside the Capitol making a racket. Her whole life she had been told this was how citizens angry at their government demand redress when the system fails.

That is how popular government is supposed to work. The people expect their government to be responsive to the will of the people. When they don’t like that they see, they vote for different people to hold office. If those politicians ignore the people, then the people go bang on their door and demand redress of their grievances. The politicians then come out and address their issues. That’s not it works now. Instead, they open fire on the people like they did yesterday.

Ashli Babbitt was not some drug-addled degenerate, like we saw last summer, when the ruling class unleashed their mobs on us. She was a veteran, serving 14 years in the US Air Force, and she was a high-level security official throughout her time in service. She was like most of the people at the protest, in that she had bought into what she was told about America. So much so she signed onto serve in the military and go overseas in various deployments.

Like most of the protestors, she was there because she had spent her life playing by the rules and defending those rules. She was there because the people in charge of maintaining the rules have been violating those rules. They ignored the official corruption in the 2016 election and they laughed about the grotesque fraud that was plainly obvious in the 2020 election. Like the rest of those protestors, she was angry that the politicians were not following the rules.

For her trouble, she died in a pool of her own blood inside what is supposed to be the people’s house in America. It is a bit ironic that a citizen exercising her rights would be murdered by an agent of a corrupt system that is now infringing on her rights. Murder is the right word here. The man who shot her was under no threat and was on the other side of a locked and barricaded door. The murderer was part of Vice President Pence’s security detail. The video, for those interested, is here.

There will be no charges against the murderer. Unlike the cops involved in the George Floyd case or any number of others, this coward will not be fired from his job or face criminal charges. He will probably get a medal. He will not have his face and address plastered all over the media, so that he can be attacked by mobs. There will be no media orchestrated campaign to defund the police over this. Most likely, the whole thing will be put on mute so that the public forgets it.

Of course, unlike George Floyd, Ashli Babbitt will not get three nationally televised funerals and be treated as a fallen hero. That honor goes to drug-addled criminals who overdose in police custody. In this America, patriots who served their country and exercise their rights get gunned down by agents of the state. This woman, this patriot, bleeding out in the halls of the Capitol, murdered by an agent of the state, is the perfect image of what has gone terribly wrong in America.

No doubt, millions of decent people who sympathized with her cause are saddened by this terrible tragedy. It did not have to come to this. This was not an accident. This was not a terrible misfortune. The people on the other side of that door, the people who celebrate the murderer of Ashli Babbitt now, they did this. They created this crisis that threatens to plunge to country into a death spiral. They had choices and they had plenty of warning, but they refused to listen and now Ashli Babbitt is dead.

The Heroes of Capitol Hill

Quoting first Sarah Hoyt. She's a notorious Fake American, who goes on and on and on about being Portuguese, but she's sometimes a better friend to the Americans than people who are the literal descendents of the Founding Fathers and the Colonists. When she can get over trying to establish her place in America, she often has something useful to say about America. As she should. She's the wife of an American, after all.

When Democratic Party leaders find excuses for left-wing violent protesters and condemn right-wing protesters, one can understand their motives. They see left-wing protesters as being “on their side” and the right-wing protesters as “the enemy.” When Republican Party leaders find excuses for left-wing violent protesters and condemn right-wing protesters, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that they, too, see the left-wing as “on their side” and the right-wing as “the enemy.”

For years I’ve told the left that when they used fraud to win, they’d broken the feedback mechanism.  It didn’t mean their ideas were winning, that people agreed with them, or that they were safe. It was the equivalent of breaking the fire alarm and thinking they were safe from fires. What I never expected was to hear the right condemn the people trying to break out of the burning building, because they don’t hear any fire alarms.

The same government that scrutinizes all our actions on a daily basis and presumes we’re guilty until proven innocent, when questioned by the people about the obvious flaws and issues of the elections refused any examination and told us that everything was fine, or if not, we had no standing. We should just trust their word over our lying eyes. Next thing you know, they’ll tell us to eat cake.

And for the record, no, I will not condemn the protesters. Should they have gone into the Capitol? I don’t know. Why shouldn’t they have? It’s not like they went and hanged the corruptocrats using their own intestines as ropes. They might — or might not. Really, do you trust the reporting? In this time, in this place? — have broken windows. And then walked, carefully between the ropes? Sure, why not. Let’s roll with that narrative.  They might have made a mess of Nancy Ice Cream Pelosi’s office. Maybe. Again…. reporting? You know what they didn’t do? They didn’t kill anyone. That was reserved for someone who shot through a door sidelight at a protester.  You know what else they didn’t do? Use live ammo.  You know what else they didn’t do? Trample the flag, which the capitol police did, while being begged not to. You know what else they didn’t do? shine lasers in cops eyes, set fire to the building, loot it, or shoot fireworks at people. Spare me your pearl clutching. How do you propose we get our republic back if demonstrations are “rude?” When they committed blatant fraud in two elections, right before our eyes, and thereby abolished the representative part of the republic, and with it the constitutional part, what are you going to do? Write them strongly worded letters? Or wait till they fraud 2022 just as blatantly, while you stand around being utterly stunned? It’s time to ditch the Marquis de Queensberry rules.  It’s time to stop fighting with our feet in a bucket. Yes, what happened today was very very bad. Yes, it means that what comes next will probably come with a butcher’s bill.

You know, I do wonder why the Sons of Liberty bothered to attack the British. And why the founding fathers had an army.  I mean, couldn’t they have asked the tyrant, politely, to just remove the foot from their neck and give them representation. Oh, wait, they tried that, just like we tried the courts. Curiously, it didn’t work. It’s almost like those in power don’t care what you say, if you can’t do anything to remove their power.

And also quoting Vox Day. The bleeping out is my own work, however.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds and Ed Driscoll are falling all over themselves to denounce the "violence" and condemn the "marauders".

ENDORSED: Trump Needs to Forcefully Condemn the Rioters, Not Coddle Them. - Ed Driscoll

YES. "Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who lost an eye fighting our enemies in Afghanistan, had a message for the marauders on Capitol Hill: "The people in this Capitol are not your enemy... this is not okay," he said. "This should be condemned. I'm saddened and disappointed by what I've seen." - Glenn Reynolds

F*** you, Ed Driscoll. F*** you too, Glenn Reynolds. You're not on our side. You're not on President Trump's side. You're not on the side of truth and justice. And you're not on America's side. F*** ALL the cucks and cons and all their damned bow ties too, as they denounce imaginary violence in a city named for a man who led an army against his own government.

The same goes for every single conservative and Republican who denounces the Heroes of Capitol Hill and cries crocodile tears about the American people resisting their betrayal by their so-called representatives. Forget them, ignore them, despise them, and don't EVER give them so much as the time of day again. Don't ever forget their betrayal of the American people and don't ever let them forget it. I certainly won't.

Also, note that every would-be commenter who claims that President Trump "conceded" or gave up will be spammed. He obviously didn't, so learn to freaking read. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on November 11, "There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”

And to end it, an interesting observation from "Doktor Jeep":

People who we thought were on our side have cucked too.

Meaning they likely bought the media propaganda. This might be construed as simply being wrong or misled.

But it should be seen as a liability. Anybody who buys anything coming from the media should be seen as gullible and gullible people cannot be relied upon. 

Still upset about the optics of the "violent" "riots"? There was no storming of the Capitol. The patriots were let in. The Narrative of what happened yesterday is a complete and utter lie. Including the story that Trump "conceded."

https://twitter.com/sugaspov/status/1346919943238000645?s=21

The police are not your friend

Today we are seeing yet another sad tale in the story of the police enforcing thoroughly corrupt left wing agitator orders and harassing upstanding American patriots in Washington DC as one cuck after another refuses to do his duty and save our country from a thoroughly corrupt and fraudulent election result. The reality is, however, that this isn't something that should be surprising to anyone. Yes, they've given Antifa a free rein for years, and have harassed and lied about regular American people who support Trump. There have been multiple cases of the police stepping back and letting antifa violently attack regular Americans... and then the regular Americans facing legal sanctions from this exact same corrupt police industry.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/06/live-updates-u-s-capitol-descends-into-chaos-on-day-of-electoral-college-certification/

Do you hear the people sing; singing the songs of angry men? It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again!

But other than that, what do the police do for us? Why, they're the heavies for local shakedown rackets, of course! Just a week or so ago, I got a ticket in a tiny town in Wyoming (Moorcroft, for anyone interested) for going 62 in a 30. Well, it sounds like you were tearing through town like a maniac, then! No... actually, I was pulled over about 1,000 feet from the interstate on ramp. Corrupt local politicians put an entirely idiotic and pointlessly low speed on the approach out of town on purpose to entrap people passing through, and since it's right on the route from Devil's Tower National Monument to the Interstate, they knew that tourists would be passing through with some regularity. The local officer, who's name I can't read on the citation, wasn't even a little bit embarrassed by this blatantly obvious shakedown racket, and oh, he made sure I had an envelope to mail my payment to the courthouse in. On a trip where I spent the better part of six days on the road and was meticulously careful about my speed to avoid a ticket (because I got another BS one in rural Nebraska four months earlier) this one moment of carelessness was caught by a greedy policeman. In a tiny, Western town where you honestly expect better. I wasn't in downtown Baltimore or Portland or some other corrupt hive of scum and villainy. A town with a population of about 1,000 in Wyoming is the kind of place where you expect your local politicians to be on the ball, and the police to... y'know, serve and protect the community, not harass and extort it.

See, I'm the kind of guy who would naturally defend the police, and support them. But in nearly fifty years of living in America, I can't recall ever once having a single good experience with the police. Oh, sure, one can make the case that perhaps their very presence creates deterrence for potential criminals; but then again, so would a drastically reduced sherrif's force who was willing to temporarily deputize posses on demand from among the upstanding citizens in a community. Y'know, the way we used to do it before the police became paramilitary tools of corrupt local politicians, but were in their own right forces for good in the community, accountable to the electorate of the county directly. And arguably that kind of more direct action and involvement with the community is a much more effective deterrence than a bureaucratic police force bogged down by decades of corruption forcing them to be practically useless at their stated purpose.

The Defund the Police movement is ridiculous. It's based on lies and fraud. Multiple big data studies show that not only do the police not target black people for violent treatment, but that they instead bend over backwards to a degree that is unsafe to try to be "anti-racist" towards them. Of course, everytime some black criminal flips out because one of their genetic behaviorial markers is poor impulse control and violent reactions to being thwarted from doing whatever they want to, the Burn Loot Murder brigade descends on the poor police with lies and calumny and makes his life hell. But, honestly... even given that, am I supposed to care? Am I supposed to support the police and put my neck out there to defend them, even in rhetoric on the internet? Why should I care what happens to the police? The entire industry is corrupt and has been for much longer than most people are willing to believe. As long as I can remember, collections quotas were more important to policemen than serving and protecting. And while of course there are plenty of good men who get into the industry for the right reasons, at the end of the day, aren't they still doing the corrupt bidding of corrupt politicians for 95% of their job? Aren't they harassing and extorting the community rather than serving and protecting it so some city councilman can have a bigger budget for some pet project that doesn't benefit the community either? Aren't they still defying their oaths and refusing to follow the law when it comes to Antifa and Trump supporter protests? So, just because they're not actively evil, the fact that they're apathetic, bureaucratic, "just following orders" types means that I should support them?

Quite honestly, even if Defund the Police is a farce and a lie (and it is), I can't say that I'm overly bothered by its end result. Yep. Get rid of the police. Absolutely. Not because they're racists, but because they're tools for the hateful, tyrannical "elites" that stomp on the liberties that are Americans' birthright reliably, consistently and repeatedly. They're not our friends. They don't have our backs, conservative America. It's time we wake up and realize that and decide that we don't need to have their backs either in return.

By the way, here's the EXACT spot where this completely unethical and corrupt speed trap in Moocroft is. Yes, yes; I know that it seems like my bitterness about a speeding ticket is prompting this tirade. Of course that was the proximate trigger. But in reality, I've thought this for years, and between that speeding ticket and the police trying to keep patriots from entering the Capitol when dirty deeds are literally being done in the Capitol building while we speak has prompted me to hope that a handful, at least, of above average intelligence patriots will get over their rote conditioning and wake up to the awful situation that has enveloped the law enforcement industry in America. It's not what you think it is, and your refusal to pay attention enough to figure that out is making life worse for you, your communities and your posterity.

The High Republic

Introducing two of the new major characters from Disney's The High Republic Star Wars variant. High Republic. They were high when they came up with this concept. Yes, yes, the images below are "fixes" to make them slightly more sarcastic, but realistically, it's not much of a difference from where they started.

First, we have the "dashing" (how dare you suggest otherwise!) Leo X Is Gay, a space pirate or something.

Followed, of course, by the heroically proportioned Wop Bop a Loo Mop A Lop Bom Bom Tutti Frutti, O Rudy.

Disney hates Star Wars. Disney hates anything that is beautiful or good. Disney hates you. Deal with it.