His Master’s Wretched Organ

From somewhere deeper than the unconscious, something stirs.

Whatever it is, its shifting is eternal, as ancient and restless as the churning galaxies. You have always felt its presence when you are still, which is precisely why you keep yourself distracted with trivialities. It cannot be named because words are now merely the primitive tools of an insignificant context.

Much like dreams, these stories do not pretend to answer our gravest questions – they only invite consciousness beneath that mantle above which the waking mind finds tenuous asylum. Do not outstretch your hand for guidance, because no-one else can explore here but you. In this indefinable space, even the assumption of your own being must be called into question.

His Master’s Wretched Organ is a collection of short stories that probe themes of disconnection, self-inquiry, spiritual ascendancy, awe and horror.

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Where to buy His Master’s Wretched Organ:

New Zealand readers can buy a paperback copy of His Master’s Wretched Organ from TradeMe HERE.

International readers can buy a paperback copy of His Master’s Wretched Organ from Amazon HERE.

New Zealand and International readers can buy a Kindle copy of His Master’s Wretched Organ from Amazon HERE.

The Verity Key

After most of humanity was wiped out in the Mindvirus Plague, the world’s foremost superpower in 2072 is New Australia. As this nascent Southern empire struggles with a series of murders called the Moneybook killings, the machine cultist Jonty Gillespie is trying to stay alive and out of trouble until his team can win the nation’s premiere virtual reality fighting championship.

Acting on the belief that machine cultists are behind the Moneybook killings, the XSA agent Richard Nordmark coerces Jonty into an adventure that encounters exotic drugs that open dimensions he’s never imagined, mind doctors who live to crack the minds of other men, a communitarian technocult balancing between triumph and oblivion, and technology that forces him to reevaluate his understanding of what it means to be human.

Jonty’s developing involvement with the remote mind control device called the Verity Key gives him more power than he could ever have dreamed of, and with it the responsibility to confront the violence in his past and in the hearts of other men.

Critics enjoyed Vince McLeod’s portrayal of protagonist Jonty Gillespie, who begins the story a hedonistic nihilist but who finds within himself a purpose to keep fighting even when all seems lost.

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Where to buy The Verity Key:

New Zealand readers can buy a paperback copy of The Verity Key from TradeMe HERE.

International readers can buy a paperback copy of The Verity Key from Amazon HERE.

New Zealand and International readers can buy a Kindle copy of The Verity Key from Amazon HERE.

What the BetFair Market is Telling us About the US Presidential Election

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Although a glance at the BetFair market for November’s US Presidential election looks, on the surface, to be a comfortable win for Hillary Clinton, there are some facts that go against this simple conclusion.

There has been a lot of discussion about Hillary Clinton’s health. Much of the mainstream media, though, seems willing to write this off as an alt-right conspiracy theory.

But at an appearance during a 9/11 memorial Hillary left because she was “overwhelmed with emotion”. Later, the story was corrected to “overwhelmed with heat” (the day was not especially warm). Even later still, the story was changed to “pneumonia”, so we can rightly suspect that there is a major political secret about Hillary’s health that could define this presidential campaign.

The odds of Hillary winning the Presidency blew out when this was reported, from $1.45 to $1.61. It went up and down after that with low volumes being placed, as the market started to suspect that she might be forced to drop out of the race.

There are Democratic replacements for Hillary at short odds, but this is not the same for Republican replacements for Trump. The difference between the two gives us some clues about how much the market suspects Hillary might drop out.

After the 9/11 medical event, Bernie Sanders was paying a mere $38 to win the Presidency, reflecting the belief that, as premiere challenger to Hillary during the primaries, he would be the obvious choice to take over should Hillary’s health fail.

Joe Biden came in to $30 on rumours that the Democratic party had conducted polls suggesting Biden had a 20-point lead over Trump in a head-to-head election.

Tim Kaine came in all the way in to $95 from $1000, reflecting the widespread belief that, for some reason, it is too late to change the candidate and so the Democrats would have to go with Kaine should Hillary become incapacitated.

Using VJM Publishing’s Draw Arbitrage Finder program we can calculate that the BetFair market considers $16.65 to be fair value for any candidate other than Clinton and Trump. Considering that the odds of the closest challenger to Trump, Paul Ryan, are $610, this equates to a roughly 6% chance that Clinton will drop out of the Presidential race.

Also of interest is that Trump is doing much better than Brexit was at any stage of that campaign, including, crucially, the morning of the vote itself. This suggests that the apparent advantage that Hillary has is well within the range of possible outcomes that could be the result of Establishment manipulation.

If Pete Rainey Had a Clue, He’d Put Cannabis Law Reform Before Hone Ma Heke

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Pete Rainey needs to stop crying about Hone Ma Heke and support a policy that will actually benefit the people of Nelson. What Nelson needs isn’t to raise a lynch mob and go after a protester – it needs to legalise cannabis.

In few places on Earth does cannabis have more popular support than among the people of Nelson. This is a hugely pro-cannabis area, with the sentiment only getting stronger the further West from Nelson one goes. Almost everyone here smokes it – young, old or in between. You can see Bob Marley posters in several stores and a handful of others openly sell cannabis paraphernalia.

So a mayoral candidate that promoted such a thing would have the support of the locals.

Also, we need the money here in Nelson. It has been estimated by the Treasury that cannabis law reform would make the country $330,000,000 per year, roughly half of that savings from not enforcing cannabis prohibition and the other half from taxes. If the Nelson area has 1.5% of New Zealand’s population, it stands to reason that we would reap 1.5% of the savings of cannabis law reform.

This amounts to almost $5,000,000 per year.

With the proceeds from cannabis law reform alone, Nelson would save, in ten years, enough money to build a gondola that rivalled the biggest gondola in the world!

That’s the sort of vision Nelson needs – not petty hatred aimed at a guy already at the bottom of the ladder.