Category: Uncategorized

She blames Scalzi

And rightly so. A fanzine author realizes who was always to blame for the destruction of the Hugo.

So fuck John Scalzi anyway.

Fuck his sense of entitlement. Fuck his arrogant, unilateral “fix” of things he didn’t understand, which weren’t actually broken to begin with. Fuck his self-promoting crusade to prove that a merely world-famous, best-selling professional author with an international following of devoted groupies, whose “fan writing” blog is devoted to the ideas and concerns of professional SF authors qua pro authors, and whose grasp of what a fan writer is came by way of the modern equivalent of reading it off a cereal box, can still drum up enough ignorant first-time voters to win himself a Best Fan Writer Hugo because gosh darn it, people like him. And the rules didn’t explicitly say he couldn’t. And because he tapes bacon to cats, I guess. Woo….

So as far as I can see, John Scalzi created the blueprint: providing both proof of concept and implicit permission for the Sad and Rabid Puppy ballot stuffing campaigns. The fact that they didn’t also win the rockets suggests to me that they weren’t as good at marketing (and were aiming at some rather tougher nuts to crack, in voting number terms – Scalzi was sharp enough to notice that the fan categories had long been low hanging fruit for wrangling a short list nomination), but what they did wasn’t materially or morally different from what John Scalzi did. Neither one violated the letter of the law, and both dismissed or ignored the spirit. If the actions of the Puppies were blameworthy, so were those of John Scalzi.

If what he did was okay within the rules and therefore okay, then so were the Puppy campaigns. The fact that John Scalzi is a funny, likable guy who tapes bacon to cats doesn’t change the moral quality of his actions, it just distracted a bunch of people from noticing it. Think of him as the Daenerys Targaryen of burning the Hugos to the ground, if you like – the Mother of Dingbats.

She’s correct. John Scalzi was absolutely the inspiration for the Sad Puppies, although he wasn’t the only one. It was the entire Tor Cabal, scheming and plotting to win as many awards as possible, then waving them in the face of better, better-selling authors like Larry Correia, that made it clear that the awards were no longer anything but a popularity contest.

Larry proved his case with the first Sad Puppies campaign; all the subsequent Puppies campaigns were intended to do was to underline for the entire world his original point that the awards no longer had anything to do with literary quality in the science fiction genre. And the Rapid Puppies in particular succeeded in doing that to perfection; literally no one takes the Hugo seriously as a statement on literature anymore now that Space Raptor Butt Invasion, Stix Hiscock, and N.K. Jemisin have permanently stained what was once a substantive award.

Why not a Little Old Mermaid?

Considering that Disney is already making Ariel the Little Black Mermaid:

Halle Bailey, 19, got a flood of online congratulations on her casting as Ariel in a live-action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. But some of the warm feelings were a bit misdirected, as several online commentators hilariously mistook her for Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry, 52.

Berry herself wrote: ‘In case you needed a reminder… Halles get it DONE. Congratulations @chloexhalle on this amazing opportunity, we can’t wait to see what you do! #TheLittleMermaid #HalleBailey’.

They might as well gone with Halle Berry. They’ve gone straight from blackwashing A Wrinkle in Time Bomb to The Little Mermaid, almost certainly with similarly dismal results. The hatred of Disney for all things European is so marked, I’m surprised that they haven’t completely replaced the very Germanic architecture of the Disneyland parks yet. All in due time, I suppose. But all this incessant Hollywood blackwashing just makes me want to remake Roots with a Chinese cast.

But back to the Little Black Mermaid…. at least this remake should provide some interesting new plot twists if Ariel is illegitimate and doesn’t know who her father is.

I wonder who will prove to be more popular, Little Black Mermaid or Little Black Irongirl? Every day is Wakanda day.

UPDATE: Amazon is not looking any better.

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series is bringing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom filmmaker J.A.  Bayona to Middle-earth. Bayona will direct the first two episodes of the fantasy series based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels, and he will serve as an executive producer, alongside partner Belén Atienza.

Ye cats…. Although I suppose it could have been a lot worse. It could have been Spielberg. Or shudder J.J. Abrams. It should be downright fascinating to see the gay black elves and pretty blonde orcs.

UPDATE: In fairness, from the SJW perspective, a remake was absolutely necessary. Because problematic.

I watched the original with my wife literally this week and it was the first time I’d seen it in about 25 or so years and, wow, it is very, very bad. There’s a lot of cleaning up to do.

UPDATE: What positive impact?

On social media, thousands praised the decision and the positive impact 19-year-old Bailey’s casting could have on ‘young black girls’.

A bunch of young black girls thinking they can be mermaids… it’s not exactly a mystery how this could go horribly wrong, given how black Americans are not, on average, what one would tend to describe as famous for their swimming abilities.

Cerno strikes again

Mike Cernovich convinces a federal court to expose some of the secrets of Epstein’s underage sex ring:

A federal appeals court has ordered the release of sealed court records pertaining to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex ring—spelling a victory for the victims, whose lawyers said the documents will prove Epstein trafficked underage girls to his famous friends.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled certain records in a defamation lawsuit filed by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Epstein’s alleged madam, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, should be made public record.

In its opinion, the panel vacated a Manhattan federal judge’s decision to keep the records secret and ordered the summary judgment record in the 2017 case to be unsealed—with minimal redactions—after it issues a mandate closing the case. The court also remanded the case to the district court for a review of the remaining sealed materials.

The court stated that “upon reviewing the summary judgment materials in connection with this appeal, we find that there is no countervailing privacy interest sufficient to justify their continued sealing.”

A timeline for when the summary judgment record would be unsealed isn’t immediately clear.

“We applaud the Second Circuit’s decision to unseal the materials in the Guiffre v. Maxwell case,” said Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for Giuffre, in a statement. “This ruling is a watershed moment that helps victims of sexual abuse. It unequivocally stands for the proposition that information cannot be hidden in court filings and that the public has the right to know about the abuse of victims.”

As The Daily Beast reported, the Miami Herald had asked a federal judge to release all sealed or redacted documents in Giuffre’s case, which was filed in the Southern District of New York.

Epstein’s lawyer and friend, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, and right-wing podcaster Michael Cernovich also asked the court to unseal specific records. (Dershowitz argues the release of such documents will reveal Giuffre fabricated allegations that she was coerced into having sex with him.)

Excellent work by Cerno. Exposing evil is the first step towards defeating it.

REBEL’S RUN

Many of you are aware that we have been working on a larger-scale project than usual over the last few months. So, I suspect that few of you will be surprised to learn that what we have been assiduously working on is putting together a production team for the first Arkhaven film as well as a new film production company, Viral Films Media. This is the Rebel’s Run Teaser Trailer from Galatia Films and VFM. We’re pleased to be able to announce that Scooter Downey, who directed this trailer, will also be directing the film.

UPDATE: Owen and I discuss REBEL’S RUN and another project on his stream.

It’s go time

If you’re an Arkhaven backer of a certain project that has been in the works these past few months, please check your email and respond accordingly. The public announcement will be tomorrow evening.

UPDATE: we’re going to make the initial public announcement in about 8 hours, so if you haven’t been able to follow through yet, you might want to do so before everyone else has the chance to get on board.

UPDATE: No Darkstream tonight, I’ll be appearing on Owen’s livestream instead at 7 PM EST. If you want to know what’s going on with all these cryptic comments and so forth, be sure to tune in.

No one is buying Fake News

Apparently lying to all of the people all of the time in exchange for advertising revenue is a suboptimal business strategy:

The struggling US media industry is facing its worst year for job layoffs in a decade as news organizations continue to cut staff and close shop, according to a new survey.

The consultancy Challenger Gray & Christmas reported this week that media companies, which include movies, television, publishing, music, and broadcast and print news, announced plans to cut 15,474 jobs so far this year, of which 11,878 of which were from news organizations.

That is nearly three times more than the 4,062 cuts announced in the media sector in 2017 and the highest total since the economic crisis in 2009.

“Members of the media, especially journalists, have had a tough few years,” said Andrew Challenger, vice president of the Chicago-based firm.

“Many jobs were already in jeopardy due to a business model that tried to meet consumer demand for free news with ad revenue. As media outlets attempted to put news behind pay walls, in many markets, consumers opted not to pay.”

Interesting, is it not, that they can’t find subscribers… because literally no one actually wants or needs what they are offering. When the Devil already has Google and Facebook and Disney, the ability to further deceive people on a regional or local level is of severely declining marginal utility.

Corporate convergence in action

It’s fascinating to see that more than 200 major corporations, employing more than 7 million people and with $5 trillion in annual revenue, are lobbying the Supreme Court to reduce their employment options:

The Rays joined more than 200 major American corporations signing on to an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting workplace rights for the LGBTQ community.

The landmark brief calls for the court to rule that current federal civil rights law bans job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. A coalition of five human rights groups submitted the brief this week ahead of oral arguments the justices will hear on Oct. 8 regarding three cases involving the issue.

Proponents argue that the current Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in the workplace, at schools, in healthcare and housing on the basis of race, religion and sex, should be interpreted to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

The Rays, who also own the Rowdies, joined a list of companies in support of the brief that includes Amazon, American Airlines, Bank of America, Ben & Jerry’s, Coca-Cola, Domino’s Pizza, Goldman Sachs, IBM, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nike, Starbucks, Viacom, the Walt Disney Co. and Xerox. Their inclusion, however, stands out because only one other sports team signed the brief: the San Francisco Giants.

Not even corporate profits are more important to the corporate devil-worshippers than codifying evil into the lawbooks. Whatever happened to their previous motto of “if you don’t like it, then just don’t do it?” Once more we see that “rights” and “freedoms” are just tactical weapons for the globo-satanists.

An excellent choice

If you want to see the rapid dismantling of the European Union, the selection of the “minister of the lack of defense” as the President of the European Commission is an almost ideal choice:

Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen is slated to lead the EU’s executive for five years. A model centrist liberal politician with a dubious record of overseeing Germany’s troubled military, she’s facing rough waters to navigate.

The long-serving German defense chief has all of a sudden come to the forefront as a future head of the European Union’s executive branch. That might be a little unexpected, as she was not even on the list of potential candidates until recently. Yet, after marathon debates the European leaders agreed that she would be the best fit for the position previously held by Jean-Claude Juncker.

Von der Leyen is a political veteran and the only person to have held a ministerial position in all four successive governments of Chancellor Angela Merkel since the German leader first came to power back in 2005.

Minister of lack of defense

Yet, her ministerial record is far from flawless. Over the past six years, during which von der Leyen headed the Defense Ministry, Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have become a steady source of news about planes that can’t fly, tanks that break down, and vessels that are unfit for maritime operations….

Despite the mounting problems within her domain, von der Leyen has consistently supported the idea of an increased German military presence in foreign nations, sending German troops for peacekeeping missions to countries like Somalia, South Sudan and Mali. In 2016, Germany toed the line to join the US-led coalition fighting in Syria and Iraq. In March 2018, she told the German forces stationed in Afghanistan that her ministry does not plan to bring them home anytime soon – just after Berlin decided to ramp up the troop numbers in the war-torn country.

During her tenure as labor minister, von der Leyen lobbied for lower barriers to immigration, arguing that Germany needs a larger workforce. Two years later, at the height of the refugee crisis, she lashed out at the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his restrictive asylum policies by saying that his actions were “not acceptable” and violated “the European rules.”

She is also a strong proponent of deep European integration. In 2011, she said she would like to see the emergence of a “United States of Europe” built on the example of Germany or the US, which are both federal states.

She’s incompetent, imperious, and completely out of touch with the average European. Which suggests that by the end of her term, Italy, Hungary, and at least two other countries will either be out of the EU or in the process of leaving. You know von der Leyen is going to be exceptionally good for the nationalists of Europe when even a strongly pro-EU German newspaper like Bild describes the selection of a German politician to lead the EU as ‘horrifically short-sighted’.