The brokeness of wokeness

There will be no sequel to Birds of Prey:

Margot Robbie’s Birds of Prey was a record breaking failure at the box office. According to online publisher Giant Freakin’ Robot, the sequel to Birds of Prey has been canned.

‘Warners [Brothers] no longer believes in the concept or in the creative team behind the movie,’ the publication’s source said.

Birds of Prey failed at the box office, recording the worst opening of any DC Comics superhero movie, bringing in just US$201.9 million worldwide. This was worse than the critically panned Green Lantern film, which still brought in  US$219.9 million in 2011.

The Legend Chuck Dixon wrote the original comic. They should have hired him to write the script.

Daily Beast interview with Owen Benjamin

The Daily Beast interviewed Owen Benjamin about the Patreon lawsuit filed against 72 of its users who backed him. The piece was originally supposed to run on June 24, but apparently never appeared on the site. So, Owen sent me the interview to post for your reading pleasure here.

DB: Patreon says you urged your fans to file claims against Patreon to punish the site, through arbitration costs, for ending your account? Do you think that’s a fair account of what happened?

OB: Not at all. Patreon violated their rights just as it violated my rights when it tortiously interfered with the separate legal contract between me and them. They are exercising their right to legal redress, which Patreon mandated be done through arbitration, just as I am. It’s not their fault, or my fault, that Patreon’s lawyers were dumb enough to impose a legal structure on its users that literally guarantees its own bankruptcy.

Did your fans realize, when they filed the arbitration complaints, that they could potentially get sued? It strikes me that some of these people might not have realized their names and locations would be outed. In that way, do you think this plan backfired?

No. Nor did I, because they shouldn’t be getting sued in the first place, much less sued in a group action. The only reason Patreon brought the lawsuit now is to try to dox and harass them into withdrawing, because it has been losing every decision related to my arbitration and their arbitrations for the last six months. But I guess if you’re going bankrupt, you might as well go down swinging.

Do you have plans to cover your fans’ legal fees or expenses?

Of course. And we’ll set up a legal defense fund if that turns out to be necessary, which it probably won’t. Remember, the Patreon Terms of Use specifically bar group actions, and what Patreon filed is a group action.

Feel free to add anything else on the case you’d like to share.

Your readers may not be fans of mine, but they should be aware that Patreon has repeatedly attempted to strip the California consumer protections from ALL of its creators and is also trying to strip legal rights from all four million of its users. The lawsuit isn’t the first time they’ve doxxed people either; they sent me the complete account information for 2,700 complete strangers – someone else’s patrons – as a result of a data breach.

The real story here is that there probably won’t be a Patreon by the time this is over.  Their CEO openly admits that their business model isn’t sustainable, their numbers reported on Graphtreon suggest they’re losing something like $1.5 million every month, and I’ve been told they have already received hundreds of notices of arbitrations unrelated to my situation. I think this lawsuit is mostly their outside counsel trying to keep the checks coming in for a little while longer.

You’ve been described as “alt right” and engaging in “Holocaust denial” in articles, including Bethany Mandel’s in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Do you think those are accurate descriptions?

I raise goats, I tell jokes, and I voted for Obama. I don’t know who Bethany Mandel is, but since I am a history major, I’ll bet I know a lot more about World War II history than she does. You know perfectly well those are not accurate descriptions.

For a considerably less-informed take on the situation, read the Daily Dot article, which manages to get everything wrong from the very start and commits two egregious errors in the first seven words of the headline.

The Chief Justice on the Epstein tapes?

Intelligent Supreme Court observers have had their doubts about Roberts for years, especially his very timely departures from his supposedly conservative judicial philosophy on important decisions. /pol/ thinks they’ve figured out why he’s been showing signs of being owned by the Prometheans:

One of the SCOTUS fags is in the Epstein tapes that were recovered yesterday. I’m sure you can guess which one. The shocking part is the canary is telling the feds a certain nation state has been blackmailing this gentleman since prior to his nomination to SCOTUS.

What does this mean? This justice was hand picked at the highest levels specifically because he was being controlled via blackmail. A sheep in wolf’s clothing appearing to be which he is not.

Cat is out of the bag… or I should say almost.

Here is the best part. The SCOTUS justice on the tapes it is being rumored in the federal court community has sat down with the FBI to roll on a previous president AND wife in an effort to keep his position, or more likely, be allowed to gracefully retire before the next SCOTUS term.

Take it all with a grain of salt, but it does match the available evidence.

A failure of rhetoric

Watered-down rhetoric never works:

Google Trends data shows Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” name-calling isn’t generating nearly the buzz “Crooked Hillary” (or “Little Marco”) did in 2016. Base voters who relished doubting President Obama’s birth certificate aren’t questioning Biden’s.

Other factors are working against Trump’s playbook. Tech platforms are increasingly moving to shut down hate speech and flag misinformation, killing the sources of some of Trump’s favorite conspiratorial material. And search metrics suggest that, for the most part, a nation with more than 125,000 dead from the coronavirus has less patience for the president’s usual tactics.

The reason that “Sleepy Joe” is a failure is because it is poor rhetoric. It is poor rhetoric because it is not based on the truth and therefore misses the target. Hillary is crooked. Marco is a dwarf, both physically and politically. Joe Biden, for all his various flaws and shortcomings, is not a narcoleptic.

I suspect that the President’s original choice for Biden is “Creepy Joe”, but he was talked out of using it by his advisors, because they thought it was too harsh. Which, of course, is wormtongue-speak for “too effective”. But Biden is a confirmed creeper and women, especially young women and little girls, observably find him creepy.

Even “Sniffy Joe” would have worked, given Biden’s predilection for hair-sniffing. But “Creepy Joe” is the killer rhetoric that Trump should have used, and it won’t surprise me if he begins using it once his reelection campaign actually begins in earnest.

Convergence at Boeing

Just in case you weren’t entirely convinced yet that the USA is going to lose its next major war, badly, as well as its ability to manufacture vehicles that fly:

Boeing’s communications chief Niel Golightly has resigned over an article he wrote more than three decades ago arguing women should not serve in combat.

The former U.S. military pilot’s exit leaves Boeing trying to fill the crucial role for the fourth time in less than three years, just as it is battling to shore up its brand after the prolonged safety grounding of its Boeing 737 MAX jetliner.

The Senior Vice President of Communications job has become the industry’s biggest hot seat as Boeing fends off criticism for its handling of the 737 MAX crisis.

‘My article was a 29-year-old Cold War navy pilot’s misguided contribution to a debate that was live at the time,’ Golightly said in a statement included in Boeing’s announcement. ‘My argument was embarrassingly wrong and offensive. The article is not a reflection of who I am; but nonetheless I have decided that in the interest of the company I will step down.’

Good riddance to the cowardly cuck, cowering in fear before the crocodile and begging it to eat him last. But you know he’ll be replaced by some moronic diversity who will be less concerned about failed designs causing planes to crash than advocating even more diversity and vibrancy.

Linux converges

It didn’t take long for the consequences of Linus’s surrender to the SJWs to take effect:

Subject [PATCH] CodingStyle: Inclusive Terminology
From Dan Williams <>
Date Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:02:51 -0700
share

Recent events have prompted a Linux position statement on inclusive
terminology. Given that Linux maintains a coding-style and its own
idiomatic set of terminology here is a proposal to answer the call to
replace non-inclusive terminology.

Cc: Jonathan Corbet
Cc: Kees Cook
Signed-off-by: Chris Mason
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams
—
 Documentation/process/coding-style.rst          |   12 ++++
 Documentation/process/inclusive-terminology.rst |   64 +++++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/process/index.rst                 |    1
 3 files changed, 77 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/process/inclusive-terminology.rst

diff –git a/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst b/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
index 2657a55c6f12..4b15ab671089 100644
— a/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
@@ -319,6 +319,18 @@ If you are afraid to mix up your local variable names, you have another problem, which is called the function-growth-hormone-imbalance syndrome. See chapter 6 (Functions).

+For symbol names, avoid introducing new usage of the words ‘slave’ and
+’blacklist’. Recommended replacements for ‘slave’ are: ‘secondary’,
+’subordinate’, ‘replica’, ‘responder’, ‘follower’, ‘proxy’, or
+’performer’.  Recommended replacements for blacklist are: ‘blocklist’ or
+’denylist’.
+
+Exceptions for introducing new usage is to maintain a userspace ABI, or
+when updating code for an existing (as of 2020) hardware or protocol
+specification that mandates those terms. For new specifications consider
+translating specification usage of the terminology to the kernel coding
+standard where possible. See :ref:`process/inclusive-terminology.rst
+` for details.

And let’s not bother with the whole “well, the changes haven’t been fully adopted and enforced YET” defense. We all know how this is going to end.

The President at Mount Rushmore

I can forgive the risible equalitarianism and the excessive civnattery – after all, what else can we expect, President Trump is a Boomer civic nationalist – given this strong defense at Mount Rushmore of Western civilization:

1776 represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason. And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.

One of their political weapons is cancel culture, driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and to our values and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.

This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty must be stopped and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children from this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life. In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.

Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.

President Trump isn’t perfect and he isn’t everything for which we’d hoped. But he is almost certainly better than the citizens of the USA actually merit.

Pedos on the British throne

Literally sitting on the royal throne, although it isn’t quite what you might not unreasonably assume it to be:

A bombshell photo has emerged that shows child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged “pimp” Ghislaine Maxwell sitting in the British Queen’s throne inside Buckingham Palace, according to reports. Maxwell was arrested by U.S. authorities this week over her alleged role in Epstein’s child sex slavery operation.The newly emerged image shows Maxwell sitting in the throne alongside disgraced actor Kevin Spacey during a private tour of the palace organized by Britain’s Prince Andrew, it has been reported.The photo was obtained by British newspaper The Telegraph and was reportedly taken in 2002.

That’s really not a good look at all, although I suppose it would explain an awful lot about the Jimmy Saville catastrophe. At this point, I’m astonished that Prince Andrew hasn’t been locked up in the Tower of London for the good of the monarchy.

Meanwhile, the British media is attempting to play this off as just “a Palace prank”. It’s just a prank, you see. Not a big deal at all. Don’t even give the matter another thought. It’s just a prank, just a juvenile prank, by a pair of naughty knuckleheads. Let’s just move on…..

Not inclusive enough

It’s amusing how warring SJWs always accuse each other of being racist, sexist, homophobic Nazis. It’s as if they all know their attacks on the Right, which force the average conservative to assume the fetal position on demand, were pure nonsense all along:

In the latest example of ‘cancel culture’, novelist Gillian Philip was last week jettisoned from her role writing titles for a major publishing company.

It came after the writer, who has penned a popular series of books for eight-to-12-year-olds, added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter handle.

Her move sparked a torrent of online abuse and emails to her employer Working Partners, a ‘fiction packaging’ firm which devises series for publishing houses and commissions authors to write them.

Ms Philip, 56, had expressed her support for the Harry Potter creator after she retweeted an article referring to ‘people who menstruate’ and questioned why the story did not use the word ‘women’.  Ms Rowling was subjected to trolling and accused of being ‘transphobic’.

However, Ms Philip – one of several authors writing under the name Erin Hunter on popular animal fantasy series including Warrior Cats, Survivors and Bravelands – found herself sacked for her support of Ms Rowling.

After Ms Philip received sexualised abuse and deaths threats from the trans lobby, she tweeted ‘Bring it on, homophobes and lesbian-haters’ – which only inflamed the situation.

Within 24 hours, James Noble, managing editor of Working Partners, replied to the barrage of complaints saying: ‘The worlds created by Erin Hunter are meant to be inclusive for all readers and we want to let you know that Gillian Philip will no longer be writing any Erin Hunter novels.’

Just stay out of their world and keep them out of yours. If your company or your church or your softball team converges, either deconverge it by ejecting all the SJWs and their sympathizers or walk away without hesitation. It’s never going to get better.

Designed to fail

It’s now readily apparent that the conservative movement was designed to take a fall from the start. CDAN formally outs the late William F. Buckley:

This deceased writer/publisher of a well known magazine that still runs was also known for having a television show. His manner and speaking style were mocked on sketch comedy shows many times.

He preferred sexual relations with men rather than with women but like a lot of men of his generation he could not acknowledge this and so married and had children. In addition, the audience he cultivated would not have accepted this.

He spent a lot of time with homosexual prostitutes from a specific procurer.  He would often tell his favorites that he would refer to them on his TV show by assigning them an obscure word, Latin or old English, and then use the word on his show that week.

William F Buckley (National Review/Firing Line)

So, both Malcolm Forbes and William F. Buckley, two lions of the respective conservative establishment, were eminently controllable.