A belated discovery

John Scalzi finally realizes that the science fiction community has passed him by.

John Scalzi@scalzi
Just saw my WorldCon schedule.

Single panel and a kaffeeklatsch.

Huh.

They don’t respect Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein anymore. They’re certainly not going to take long to forget about a mediocre, middle-aged white male.

UPDATE: If you can’t win, pretend not to have been playing the game.

John Scalzi@scalzi
It’s a trend. Also, after noting last night I’d be happy to give up my panel slot, this morning I went ahead and withdrew from programming entirely, to open up slots for folks previously excluded from programming, including other Hugo finalists.

Such magnanimity! It almost brings a single tear to my eye.

Right Ho, Jeeves #4

THE PRICE OF A DRINK is the fourth issue in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series, which tells of the travails of the inimitable Bertie Wooster, summoned from the comforts of #3A Berkley Mansions, London to Brinkley Manor by his imperious Aunt Dahlia.

In this issue, Gussie Fink-Nottle has summoned up the courage required to address the collected youth of Market Snodsbury, but it is a liquid courage. Not only that, but he has summoned up entirely too much of it, with hilarious and humiliating consequences for everyone involved.

Adapted from the classic Wodehouse novel by comics legend Chuck Dixon and drawn by SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN illustrator Gary Kwapisz, THE PRICE OF A DRINK is issue #4 of 6 in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series.

And on a not-entirely-unconnected note, it appears that our competitors are experiencing difficulties and declining sales, which, of course, cannot possibly be connected to their convergence.

Comic book publishers are facing a growing crisis: Flagging interest from readers and competition from digital entertainment are dragging down sales. Hoping to reverse the trend, publishers are creating their own digital platforms to directly connect with readers and encourage more engagement from fans.

The goal is to reach readers who may not live near a comic book shop but want to keep up with the Avengers and the Justice League. Experts say the direct-to-consumer model also helps compete with streaming services like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video.

“They all look at Netflix and say, ‘Why do I need an intermediary?’” said Milton Griepp, the chief executive of ICv2, an online magazine that covers the industry. “That’s where this battle is being fought.”

Smaller comic book publishers are testing their own direct-to-consumer platforms. Image Comics, the publisher of popular titles like The Walking Dead and Saga, started a direct-to-consumer platform in 2015 to sell comic book subscriptions and apparel.

Of course, Arkhaven Comics already has a direct-to-consumer platform. The latest addition is the gold-logo print edition of Alt-Hero #2: Rebel’s Cell.

Mailvox: the Truth will out

No matter how converged the institutions become, God can always renew the human heart and rebuild new ones. A reader writes of attending Mass this weekend.

I have recently made small efforts to attending the Mass again after a long layoff. I found a parish here in my Florida diocese that happens to administer the pre-Vatican Latin Mass after attending one for the first time on Easter in Germany. Talk about a night and day difference between services.

Anyways, to the point… I was floored when the celebrating priest stepped up to give his Homily and focused on this particular Mass’ Introit prayer, an excerpt from Psalm 53: “the Lord is the protector of my soul; turn back the evils of mine enemies, and cut them off in Thy truth.” He spoke frankly about the… unsuitability of this exhortation for Godly vengeance for the modern sensibilities of the Church and related it to the recent revelations of an American cardinal who has been in the news for abusing seminarians for years, and yet continuing to rise in the Church hierarchy.

To hammer it home even more, the priest spoke of how – at least in the States – the Conference of Catholic Bishops has put zero tolerance rules in place that effectively deflect blame away from themselves down to the priests and parishioners in cases where abuses are brought to light, saving their own asses while offering up those of the flocks they ought be tending to. He even uttered those three magic words – Social Justice Warrior – and excoriated them from the pulpit for separating Christian charity from their works while putting all of their efforts into grandstanding and focusing on the worldly aspects of said works (i.e. politics) This is a far cry from a mass I attended some months ago where the Celebrant was urging us all to call our representatives and cry a river over the Dreamer babies amongst us because – well, because.

This Sunday’s priest said, specifically, “If you open your eyes, and begin to pay attention, and learn what to look for, you will not like what you see.

“And many Christians must be prepared – and yet will not be – to learn just how deep the darkness runs.”

I was brought immediately back to a Darkstream you recently posted, speaking on the depths of depravity of the power brokers in our world and in our institutions, and how few people are truly prepared for the revelations to come about said institutions. God Bless this guy for having some balls to speak truth to power when it seems like all of Christendom has been castrated.

The darkness runs deep. But it does not run deep enough to escape the light of Truth or the sword of Justice. Even the noble pagans knew this.

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
– Epictetus

Be free. Be fearless. And when the Day of Deus Vult arrives, be ferocious.

The Bible has something to say about this

I seem to recall a warning concerning those who call good “evil” and evil “good”:

Sarah Silverman Retweeted
Selma Blair@SelmaBlair
Jul 21

Marvel: RE-HIRE JAMES GUNN – Sign the Petition! Because if people are punished despite changing, then what does that teach people about owning mistakes and evolving? This man is one of the good ones.

Ms. Blair’s petition is useful. First, it’s a nice public list of pedo-defenders. Second, as the petition itself points out, all the other Hollywood directors need to be fired.

The other thing is if you do this to Gunn you have to do it for all the other directors who have said some crappy joke sometime in their life, which is all of them, cause I doubt there’s one human on this planet who hasn’t made a shitty joke once or twice in there life.

Bounding Into Comics is covering the exposure of more Hollywood pedo-jokers active on Twitter:

After James Gunn was fired by Disney for a number of sickening tweets involving pedophilia and child rape, more celebrities’ old Tweets are being exposed which cover the same subject. Those celebrities include Sarah Silverman, who stars in Disney’s upcoming Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It-Ralph 2, Ian Michael Black, who previously starred in Reno 911, Sean Gunn, James Gunn’s brother, who stars in Guardians of the Galaxy as well as Gilmore Girls, comedian Anthony Jeselnik, and Patton Oswalt, who lends his voice to a number of animated cartoons like Justice League Action, Spider-Man, and Disney’s Big Hero 6. 

Remember, /pol/ is always right.

Hollywood vs the chans

It appears the rapid takedown of James Gunn’s career has spooked Hollywood enough that they have declared war on the chans. If Sarah Silverman is to be believed, REPERCUSSIONS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

I was wondering why Disney would act with such uncharacteristic alacrity in getting rid of Gunn, who has not even been accused of any actual crime, when they have shamelessly hired convicted child molesters as directors in the past. A post by Neon Revolt offers a possible explanation, as it claims the entire Hollywood mafia is in a panic, due to the way in which the sacrificial Weinstein crossburn has failed to end the multiple lines of inquiry that increasingly point towards some of its highest-ranking members in film, media, finance, and politics being guilty of unspeakable crimes.

I suspect this is why Shapiro and other fake conservatives are exposing themselves now as Gunn’s defenders, because this would be one secret that they cannot afford to permit to reach either their fans or the general public. Even the most rabid evangelical Christian Zionists who fly the flag of Israel in the church sanctuary and hold sacred the broadest interpretation of Genesis 12:3 is not going to defend a network of Satanists who corrupt, rape, and murder children just because they happen to be of Jewish descent; to the contrary, his fury is only going to be stoked by the way in which he has been methodically deceived for so long.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Shapiro, Peterson, and other inexplicable media stars are what the chans describe as “made men” themselves.

If we know anything about the weaponized autists that make up the chans, they are not going to “stand the fuck down”. To the contrary, these threats will only energize and motivate them. And if even half of what Renegade is saying is true, then it explains the cautious way that the God-Emperor has gone about breaking the power of the shadow state, because things would almost certainly get violent and out of control very fast. But sooner or later, the flood of truth is going to break through the dam of lies.

Can confirm. All of this is true and there was a thread that was investigating twitter handles. Thousands of names came up and anons were digging deeper and deeper before the (((mods))) at cuckchan shut it down. This is full on damage control and they’re really scared after that James GUNN scandal. Obviously they didn’t want another scenario like that to happen, but in trying to censor those of us exposing the sick fucks running Pedowood they didn’t realize we had archived almost everything. 

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
– Ecclesiastes 31:8

Now why would Sarah Silverman be up in arms about this? Oh, that’s why.

Sarah Silverman‏@SarahKSilverman
Hey, is it considered molestation if the child makes the first move?  I’m gonna need a quick answer on this.
10:34 PM – 6 Jul 2009 

I found it amusing that when I went to archive it, I got this message: This page was last archived 1 day ago. Remember, never link, always archive. The ride never ends.

Snicker-snack

So this is the competition. At least, the competition that is likely to survive the ruthless winnowing of #MeToo, #JustAJoke, #ComicsGate, #DontHitMeImAGirlNow and #PizzaGate2.

Who’s with us?

Just an accident, I’m sure

It appears some people are getting increasingly desperate.

A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jet on Saturday intercepted a small plane near Donald Trump’s private golf resort in New Jersey, where the president is currently staying.

Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command said a “general aviation aircraft” entered a temporary restricted area “without proper clearances or communications” over Bedminster, N.J.

The plane landed without incident and the pilot was met by law enforcement officials.

I’m a bit dubious about that fatal “stroke” suffered by one of the President’s secret service agents in Scotland as well.

Time to go, Theresa

Hard Brexit is looking better and better thanks to the machinations of the stealth Remainers:

Theresa May faces a deepening political crisis as a poll showed voters oppose her Brexit plans – and are ready shift to the hard right.

Just 12 per cent said the compromise solution being championed by the PM would be good for Britain.

In a particularly stinging finding, the research found that twice as many people thought Boris Johnson would do a better job in Downing Street.

Mrs May is battling to hold the Tories together as she desperately scrambles to put together a deal with the EU. Mr Johnson and David Davis both quit Cabinet after the premier forced through a compromise plan through at a Chequers summit for ministers a fortnight ago.

Meanwhile, Mr Davis has waded back into the row by urging Mrs May to rip up her plans altogether and start again. The proposals also do not appeared to have delivered the breakthrough with the EU that Mrs May had hoped – as fears rise of a no-deal Brexit. Michel Barnier gave the plans short shrift a a brutal press conference on Friday, suggesting they would be unacceptable.

According to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, just 12 per cent of the public think the Chequers plan would be good for Britain, while 43 per cent disagree. Around 38 per cent would vote for a new party on the right that was committed to Brexit. Some 24 per cent would be prepared to support an explicitly far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Islam party.

The Alt-Right is the only Right and it is inevitable. Everywhere.

Superconverged

DC is racing Marvel in a contest of who can completely converge their film and TV properties first. I’d say DC has taken the lead at the moment. The bad news is that they actually added a white character to Supergirl. The good news is that she is a he.

The panel named transgender activist Nicole Maines (Royal Pains, The Trans List, Becoming Nicole book) joining the show in the series regular role of Nia Nal, aka Dreamer. The newest addition to the CatCo reporting team, she is described as a soulful young transgender woman with a fierce drive to protect others, Nia’s journey this season means fulfilling her destiny as the superhero Dreamer (much like Kara came into her own as Supergirl).

In addition,  the series will be joined by series regular April Parker Jones (Jericho, The Last Ship) as Colonel Haley, a hardline career military woman who lives and dies by the orders of her commanding officers. Dedicated to her country, she always acts in its best interest — even if it’s not her own.

And David Ajala (Doctor Who, Nightflyers, The Dark Knight), who will recur as Manchester Black, based on the DC character created by Joe Kelly, described as the type of guy who brings a knife to a gunfight and still walks away the winner. With a dark past, he easily deflects the brutality of his mission with his charm and sense of humor.

More negroes! More wimmins! More trannies! Hurrah! But where are the gay Jewish pedos in wheelchairs? It’s not true diversity without gay Jewish pedos in wheelchairs! Progress is love is love on wheels!

Reprisal is not hypocrisy

One of the nice things about being an ex-libertarian is that one no longer finds oneself lumped in with the professional cucks at Reason.

The Walt Disney Company has fired filmmaker James Gunn, director of the Marvel franchise Guardians of the Galaxy films, due to revelations that he—gasp—said some very offensive things on Twitter many years ago.

It’s no accident these tweets were suddenly discovered; right-wing bloggers including Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec (with an assist from Breitbart and The Daily Caller) went digging after Gunn made negative remarks about conservative writer Ben Shapiro on Twitter. Ironically, Gunn was actually offering a very qualified defense of liberal actor and director Mark Duplass for saying Ben Shapiro was someone the left should engage.

Gunn’s tweets reference violence and sexual assault against children. They are gross. But he says they were intended as jokes, and there’s really no reason to suspect otherwise. While many have implied that the tweets include a link to child pornography, this is false—the link in question is harmless.

Gunn said he was a very different person when he wrote those tweets, and had previously apologized.

“I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo,” he said in a statement. “In the past, I have apologized for humor of mine that hurt people. I truly felt sorry and meant every word of my apologies.”

This really ought to have been enough. But we live in an era where both the left and the right are eager to collect the scalps of people who offend them. Conservatives who participated in the lynch mob against Gunn are hypocrites, since they have often scolded the left for doing this exact same thing.

Cuckservatives are very unhappy when anyone does anything more effective than protest in a feeble and futile manner. To the Left, an apology is nothing more than an admission of guilt and justification for prosecution, and their apologies should be treated accordingly. Cerno and Jack are doing exactly what everyone on the Right should be doing to the Left, and that is holding them accountable to their own rules.

If you want to win the cultural war, you have to fight. Feckless posturing about how “we should be better than that” is not fighting, it is surrendering.