Could be legit

Or it could be the Hellmouth’s attempt to control the narrative, either way, it is a good sign that more and more people are beginning to recognize the youth-devouring evil emanating from Hollywood:

While fame and fortune are an ever-enticing dream, few things seem less appealing than being a child star, and HBO’s Showbiz Kids certainly reinforces that feeling. Awash in anecdotes about the ways in which the industry—and the attendant hunger for the spotlight that consumes both children and parents—warps, alienates and exploits kids, it’s a documentary which illustrates that, sometimes, being nobody is far healthier, and more fulfilling, than being well-known.

Sexual misconduct is the dark cloud hovering over Showbiz Kids, and it comes to the fore when former Diff’rent Strokes star Todd Bridges recalls being molested as a child—a disclosure that, according to Evan Rachel Wood, isn’t unique, as she claims, “In my experience, I know a lot of kids that grew up in the industry. And what surprised me when I got older was finding out that pretty much all of the young men were abused in some way, sexually.” She then relays that, at a recent Golden Globes gala, she watched a pedophile (whom she doesn’t name) win an award, and had to walk out because she was so disgusted by the praise being lavished upon this monster. As she departed, she thought to herself, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I can’t keep watching this happen. I don’t know how to handle this. This has to stop.”

Those moments are definitely the ugliest, and most eye-opening, in Showbiz Kids. Written and directed by Alex Winter, whose big breaks came in Joel Schumacher’s 1987 Brat Pack vampire thriller The Lost Boys and 1988’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the film knows whereof it speaks.

I tend to expect it does, given that the late Schumacher, along with Spielberg, has been repeatedly been rumored to be among the most predatory of the Hellmouth’s more influential denizens.

Mailvox: cutting out the cancer

A CEO’s son writes of an encouraging response to Corporate Cancer:

My father is CEO of a [REDACTED] firm. I gave him my copy of Corporate Cancer after I read it. He read it, immediately sent it to his head of HR and made it mandatory reading for all employees. I’m told his HR manager is close friends with the EVP of HR at [a big bank], who has also now read and is sharing your book. The truth moves silent, but nevertheless moves.

I have a copy to my boss, which was less warmly received… que cera.

I’ve been told by several businessmen that CC is the most important book they’ve ever read, which is encouraging in one sense, and extraordinarily depressing in another. Then again, it probably is more useful in a practical sense than anything Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, or Lee Iacocca ever wrote.

Mailvox: making a difference

Sometimes people are just looking for someone to take a stand:

We belong to a small 400-500 member startup church that I thought was Biblically-based. Several weeks ago, our pastor preached a message on Social Justice.  After several days of consideration, I sent a two-page rebuttal to the sermon.  We fully expected to be asked to leave the church.  Today, the pastor asked me to take one of three eldership positions.

Don’t be afraid to leave. But also, don’t be afraid to lead.

Supreme Court rules against President again

The Supreme Court says the President must turn over his taxes:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a New York prosecutor can obtain President Donald Trump’s financial records but prevented – at least for now – Democratic-led House of Representatives committees from getting similar documents.

Both 7-2 rulings were authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. One ruling means that the subpoena issued to Trump’s long-term accounting firm, Mazars LLP, for various financial records to be turned over to a grand jury as part of a criminal investigation can be enforced.

But the court sidestepped a major ruling on whether three House committees could also obtain Trump financial documents under subpoena, giving Trump at least a short-term win. Litigation will now continue in lower courts.

In both rulings, Roberts was joined by the court’s four liberals as well as Trump’s two conservative appointees to the court, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

I have no position on this, but things are rapidly getting to the point that one finds oneself beginning to wish Trump would stop arguing and tweeting and start ordering drone strikes.

Another Hollywood “death”

It rather looks as if Maxwell’s arrest is percolating through the Hellmouth:

Actress Naya Rivera is missing and presumed dead today after her four-year-old son was found alone on a boat in California.

The Glee star and her son Josey rented a pontoon boat on Lake Piru on Wednesday afternoon, but three hours later another boater raised the alarm after seeing the vessel drifting and the child asleep on board.

Cops found Rivera’s life vest on the boat and believe that ‘she did go in the lake’ to go swimming, acknowledging that ‘this may well be a case of drowning’. Her car was found nearby.

Four-year-old Josey has told investigators that his mother jumped in the water and didn’t come back up, TMZ reports, but the circumstances are unclear and cops say it is ‘challenging’ to interrogate a toddler.

Given her past association with a known pedo from the Hellmouth, there’s little question about her involvement in Hollywood values. And until a body is found and it is convincingly demonstrated to be hers, I’d be dubious about this being either an accident or a suicide.

Never take “free speech” seriously

Much less those artists who claim to champion it:

Trans writer Jennifer Finney Boylan distances herself from free speech letter – that she signed with 150 other authors and academics calling out cancel culture – after realising JK Rowling also endorsed it.

If you’re capable of deriving the correct conclusions from this little vignette, you can save yourself the trouble of reading John Bagnell Bury’s A History of the Freedom of Thought.

St. Efan banned from Twitter

Unfortunately, this is what happens when you make it clear that you are not a hard out:

Stefan Molyneux has had his Twitter account suspended, just a week after he was banned from YouTube. His removal from the platform comes amid a growing debate over free speech on social media.

The ban came without warning, Molyneux claimed during a livestream in which he discussed the development. “It’s nice to see that Twitter is talking to tech journalists before they would talk to me,” he said. The popular right-wing pundit and intellectual suggested that he was removed from the platform after promoting a new essay that outlines his values and beliefs. “It’s not hard to understand why powerful people might not want you to read what I wrote below,” reads a note at the top of the essay, in which he announced his removal from Twitter.

Molyneux argued that the campaign to deplatform conservative voices has started to “energize” conservatives and that his ban demonstrates “who has the power and who doesn’t have the power.”

Twitter appears to dispute the notion that he was removed for ideological reasons. In a statement provided to CNN, the company said that Molyneux “was suspended for spam and platform manipulation, specifically operating fake accounts.”

Liberal journalists applauded Molyneux’s ban. Jared Holt, a reporter for Right Wing Watch, said the move was “overdue” and expressed curiosity about what finally motivated Twitter to pull the plug on his account.

As someone who was banned from Twitter long ago, and who voluntarily left Facebook, I don’t see any significant harm here. And it’s good for people to see even moderates are too extreme for the SJW-converged corporations. But it also underlines the fact that building one’s own platforms is the only way to proceed, as everyone who has tried to pass as innocuous has been banned anyway.

Mike Cernovich’s comment was both apt and amusing:

The Venn diagram of people who just signed that Against Cancel Culture letter and those who will mention Stefan Molyneux being banned will be two wholly non-intersecting circles.

The Left has cucks too

It’s amazing how these fake “free speech advocates” are afraid to tell the truth even when they are taking a public stand:

More than 150 academics and writers including the likes of JK Rowling, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie have called for an end to ‘cancel culture,’ to defend their right to freedom of speech.

Journalist Anne Applebaum warned ‘Twitter mobs’ on the left and right sides of the political agenda, along with US President Donald Trump, were placing ‘very important restraints on freedom of speech’.

Ms Rowling and Ms Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, have both signed the letter, despite being on opposing sides on trans issues recently.

The letter, published in Harper’s calls for: ‘The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.’

The signatories go on to say they ‘uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter speech from all quarters.’

It later adds:  ‘It is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.’

Neither Twitter mobs nor President Trump are the problem. And they know that perfectly well, they’re just afraid to go after the ADL, BLM, the social media giants, and the very concept of “hate speech” for fear that they’ll be targeted next. The ADL is ground zero for all the thought and speech policing in the USA and provides the impetus for a considerable amount of speech policing by the tech companies. So, if you’re not directly addressing that evil organization and its ongoing war against Americans and the First Amendment, you’re not serious about free speech.

And speaking of fear, Spacebunny had an amusing thought about the dilemma that now confronts one fourth-tier writer of mediocre science fiction.

You know Scalzi is losing sleep right this very minute trying to figure out which side is ultimately going to be his best bet……

A tale of two filings

This complete lack of a response to one of the core elements of the dispute pretty much tells you everything you need to know about how next week’s hearing is likely to go.

  • JAMS issued a second letter on March 12, 2020, stating that JAMS would not issue a blanket stay for numerous separate arbitrations.  Specifically, the March 12 JAMS Letter stated: “Patreon’s Terms of Use state that arbitrations ‘may only take place on an individual basis’ and no ‘grouping of parties is allowed.’  (Terms of Use, pages 4 – 5). 
  • In fact, this matter is subject to dismissal under even the Purported Amendment.  The dispute resolution clause expressly states that “[n]o class arbitrations or other grouping of parties is allowed.”  Patreon, here, has made a grouping of Defendants.  By its own terms, it is not entitled to file this suit and seek the relief it requests.  Patreon is not entitled to an injunction that covers 72 defendants as a group—just as Patreon chose to deny Defendants the ability to join as a group and engage in collective action, it cannot now be allowed to obtain an injunction in violation of that term.
  • – DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO MOTION FOR ISSUANCE OF PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

SEARCH “grouping”

no matches found

– PLAINTIFF PATREON, INC.’S REPLY IN SUPPORT OF REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION [Filed concurrently with Declarations of Colin Sullivan and Tyler M. Layton in Support of Reply]

The irony is that Patreon is now complaining about the way a number of the Bears being sued have put Patreon on notice that they will find themselves facing more arbitrations due to Patreon’s breach of contract involved in bringing the group lawsuit. Their Head of Legal cried about it in their most recent filing with a classic “this just proves” argument that would almost make one mistake him for a bowtie-wearing National Review conservative.

On July 2, 2020, I received emails from 15 Defendants, informing me that unless Patreon withdraws this lawsuit, they intend to commence new arbitrations before JAMS claiming that Patreon’s filing of this lawsuit, to enforce the amended Terms of Use, is a breach of the Terms of Use.  Given that Defendants are already challenging the amended Terms of Use in their already pending arbitrations, this confirms that Defendants’ actual goal is to multiply the number of duplicative proceedings to maximize costs to Patreon, in the hopes they can eventually exceed Patreon’s ability to pay.  That outcome would be an irreparable harm.
– Declaration of Colin Sullivan in Support of Reply

It doesn’t prove anything of the sort. To the contrary, informing Patreon that new arbitrations will be commenced if the breach of contract isn’t cured is exactly what Patreon’s Terms of Use require the Bears to do in light of Patreon’s obvious breach of the contract, as spelled out in the very emails about which he is complaining.

I am sending you this notice pursuant to the procedures stipulated in Patreon’s Terms of Use to inform Pateron, Inc. that the filing of case CGC-20-584586 against myself and 71 other individuals constitutes a blatant breach of its own Terms, which, as you know, clearly prohibit the grouping of parties.

No class arbitrations or other grouping of parties is allowed. By agreeing to these terms you are waiving your right to trial by jury or to participate in a class action or representative proceeding; we are also waiving these rights.

Patreon very clearly waived its rights to participate in the very lawsuit it filed. They not only have no right to an emergency injunction, they have no right to be in that courtroom for those purposes at all. So, they should hardly be surprised when the people they are suing call them out for that.

ACKTUALLY…

Episode 11 of Hypergamouse, ACKTUALLY… is now live on Webtoons.

And Lacey isn’t the only one crushing it. Arkhaven is doing well across the board, as Alt★Hero is now #5 in Superhero and Midnight’s War is up to #25 in Short Story.