Tag: Devil Mouse

Why the Polls Were So Off

538’s final forecast for the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is officially out, and it’s a real nail-biter. Our model gives Harris a 50 out of 100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes. Our model gives Trump a 49 out of 100 chance. The model shifted toward Harris slightly on Monday, Nov. 4, after high-quality polls released over the weekend showed her tied or ahead in the key northern battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Of course, Harris lost badly, including all three key northern battleground states in which she was supposedly “tied or ahead”. Donald Trump’s electoral college ranked #39 out of the 59 historical US presidential elections; it was not exactly the “real nail-biter” that 538 forecasted. And the Dark Herald knows why:

A while back, Disney subsidiary ESPN bought up Nate Silver’s 538 to help with their forecasting. It was actually a pretty smart idea. Then 538 gets transferred over to ABC News, which takes it away from Jason Pitaro and puts it under the control of… You guessed it! Dana Walden. Nate Silver “resigns” from the company he created and is replaced by G. Elliot Morris a 28-year-old flaming idealogue and journalist. This is when things started to go down hill fast for 538.

Rasmussen Polls were sent a few polite-ish requests for their procedures and some proprietary information. The boss of Rasmussen doesn’t like how this smells and refuses. Sure enough, it was the equivalent of “We are going to write this story about you and feel you should have a chance to tell your side of the story.” It was obviously a trap. Sure enough, Disney’s 538 sends Rasmussen a vicious letter accusing them of every kind of bias in their methodology and informing them they are now being dropped from 538’s aggregation.

538 also injected ABC News’ own polling into their aggregation which immediately biased things to the left. Basically they poll the same people over and over again and they are allegedly influenced by community managers.

That’s right. The Devil Mouse has now graduated from ruining news and entertainment to destroying the purpose of election polls. This is progress?

DISCUSS ON SG

3 Strikes, He’s Out

In the aftermath of multiple accusations of sexual assault directed at showrunner Neil Gaiman, the Amazon show Good Omens has been effectively cancelled as its Season 3 was “paused”:

Production has been paused on the third and final season of fantasy drama Good Omens, the Neil Gaiman drama for Amazon that’s shooting in Scotland.

Deadline is hearing there are discussions about possible production changes. A spokesperson would not comment.

News about the future of Good Omen comes less than a week after Disney put a planned feature adaptation of Gaiman’s 2008 YA title The Graveyard Book on pause amid a series of sexual assault allegations against the award-winning author.

While the mainstream media’s wall of silence about the accusations is still mostly holding firm – none of the major newspapers that have regularly published puff pieces on Gaiman for years have published an investigative article – the third cancellation in series of a Gaiman-related show isn’t something that can be reasonably ignored.

And yes, in this context, “paused” likely means “cancelled”.

Didn’t want to comment on this before the official drop, but I heard this yesterday from various pals who worked on the previous series. From what those crew are saying, it’s less “paused” and more “cancelled”.

Impressive, very nice. Now do Sandman.

DISCUSS ON SG

If You Think That’s Bad

People are, quite rightly, reacting with disbelief and horror to Disney’s attempt to claim that signing up for a Disney+ subscription means that if you die at one of their restaurants at Disney World due to Disney’s negligence, you have agreed not to sue them.

That doesn’t surprise me, given what corporations have been adding to their Terms of Service. To be honest, I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if Disney also claims the right to sell the organs of anyone who dies at one of their theme parks, or while watching Disney+.

DISCUSS ON SG

Devil Mouse Maoists

One of the things to come out of the Gina Carano vs Disney Inc lawsuit is that Disney literally forces people to attend Maoist-style reeducation camps:

Shocking details, however, emerged from the judgment. It transpires that, at first, Disney and Lucasfilm began demanding an explanation from her and criticized her for not embracing social media users’ demands that she list her pronouns. They then engaged her in “long phone calls,” “constant meetings,” and what Carano refers to as a “reeducation’ program.” They required her to meet with representatives of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination, which she did, and she reviewed several documentaries that the representatives asked her to watch.

However, Disney and Lucasfilm were not satisfied, and they continued to demand that Carano issue a public apology. They even went as far as asking her publicist to force her to issue a statement admitting to mocking or insulting an entire group of people. Yet Carano refused, after which Disney and Lucasfilm increased their harassment. They informed Carano’s publicist that they would require her to participate in a video conference with Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and 45 of their employees who identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community as a “litmus test.”

Several of those employees had previously contributed to a GoFundMe account that described Gina Carano as bigoted, yet Disney and Lucasfilm insisted that Carano’s publicist describe them as “a friendly group.” Disney and Lucasfilm claimed that Carano had to “grow and learn.” Disney and Lucasfilm also wanted to know “where her mindset was currently” regarding pronouns, or they would not allow her to speak to the media and would not include her in promotional materials.

I suspect Carano is going to be able to fund her own movies with the amount of money that Disney is going to be forced to pay her. Consider how far this goes beyond the average harassment suit filed by a disgruntled former employee who was wrongfully terminated.

DISCUSS ON SG

You Thought Disney Killed Star Wars

At this point, Devil Mouse executives are going to find themselves facing criminal charges in Florida under Title XLVI, Chapter 872, Section 6. They’re not content with destroying the canon, degrading the characters, and demolishing any modicum of competent storytelling, they’ve now Marion Zimmer Bradleed the Force itself:

This episode was comically bad. It functions as Star Wars answer to the Timeless Child in that it is a major canonical retcon. And given that this is Disney, the retcon will remain in place as part of the lore until Disney collapses and the IPs are auctioned off. Once again because: No. One. At. Disney. Can. Admit. To. Making. A. Mistake.

The episode opens on the Planet of the Space Lesbian Witches. How do I know they are witches because they explicitly state they are witches. The protagonist and antagonist are introduced as a set of young identical twins (girls naturally because there are no men at all on this idyllic world). The Space Lesbians have secret knowledge of the Force. The Force is actually, quite literally, female. The twins have two mothers, one who was their birth mother and the one that knocked her up using the Force. I should point out that the birth mother is from Darth Maul’s race but the twins look like black humans. Indicating their birth mother had no genetic input.

There is a lecture held on the womanly power of the Force. It’s not a “force” at all as that is far too masculine of a concept, it is in fact a thread that sews the cosmos together and it can be tugged upon to accomplish certain… This is all Wicca stuff, if you’ve ever become acquainted with that neopagan Marxist bullshit of a “religion” you’ll recognize the concepts pretty quickly. Space Lesbian Witches are the true and uncorrupted Force users.

There is a constant motif throughout this episode. “The power of one. The power of two. The power of many.”

The corporate cancer of convergence is considerably worse than you ever imagine it’s going to be. It’s reliably worse than you are even capable of imagining. And there is no way back from it, ever.

DISCUSS ON SG

Marvel Comics on the Chopping Block

Fandom Pulse reports that the long-anticipated collapse of a comics giant may be right around the corner.

Disney might have accidentally dropped some damning news for the mainstream comic industry in the form of a job listing. Comic shops have been struggling at all-time lows for sales heading into the second half of 2024, and now, it appears as if Marvel Comics may be on the chopping block.

Now a job posting has surfaced which appears like Marvel Comics might be folding into Marvel Studios. Marvel Studios went through a recent round of layoffs after the MCU’s underperformance, and Disney+ numbers are reaching new lows to pair with their comic book partners. It seems that Disney might be seeing redundancy in having a Hollywood apparatus for these properties and a comic publisher as well.

The job posting, listed on May 20th, is looking for a Publishing Operations Analyst. The duties of this position follow the weekly schedules of production of monthly books—much like Marvel Comics does with its regular publishing schedule.

The job is clearly listed as being a part of Marvel Studios, which marks a change from being involved with Marvel Comics. Fans and industry insiders are speculating that this might be the cancelation of Marvel Comics as an autonomous publishing line, which would fold the operation into Marvel Studios as a whole.

The fact that Disney just laid off 14 percent of its Pixar workforce yesterday tends to lend credibility to the speculation. And given that the only value to Disney is the Marvel IP, which despite the degeneration of the MCU movies remains valuable and potentially very profitable, shutting down the loss-generating comics and focusing on movies and merchandise would be a wise business move. But it will have a devastating effect on the remnants of the mainstream comics industry, which is already reeling from the collapse of the distribution channel.

And it will, of course, be great news for independent comics publishers, such as Arkhaven, and independent creators like Chuck Dixon, Razorfist, Eric July, and Ethan van Sciver.

Onward and upward, as they used to say…

UPDATE: Fandom Pulse is moving to Substack.

Due to censorship from FB/Google, Fandom Pulse will move completely to Substack starting June 1.

DISCUSS ON SG

Devil Mouse Continues Suicide

The Disney shareholders had a chance to at least try changing course, and they rejected it.

Disney (DIS) has successfully fended off activist investor Nelson Peltz in his quest to secure board seats at the company, officially ending a highly contested proxy battle that has plagued the entertainment giant and its CEO Bob Iger for months.

The company revealed the news during its annual meeting of shareholders on Wednesday, confirming the current Disney board will remain intact following a shareholder vote that gave Disney a win “by a substantial margin.” About 75% of retail shareholders voted in favor of Disney’s current board, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Disney’s stock traded lower immediately following the results, with shares down more than 1%.

The results of the vote lend additional credence to the notion that once a corporation is completely converged, there is no way out except bankruptcy. The Disney executives will continue doubling down until their fate is sealed, assuming that it isn’t already.

DISCUSS ON SG

Awards are Gay and Literally Fake

ESPN was caught winning more than 30 Emmy Awards for individuals who are imaginary employees of the Disney network:

In March 2023, Shelley Smith, who worked 26 years as an on-air reporter for ESPN, received a call from Stephanie Druley, then the network’s head of studio and event production. Druley said she wanted to talk about something “serious” that needed to stay between the two of them, Smith recalled. She then told Smith that Smith needed to return two sports Emmy statuettes that she had been given more than a decade earlier.

That request was one of many ESPN made of some of its biggest stars last year after the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), the organization that administers the Emmys, uncovered a scheme that the network used to acquire more than 30 of the coveted statuettes for on-air talent ineligible to receive them. Since at least 2010, ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the awards won by some of those imaginary individuals, had them re-engraved and gave them to on-air personalities… The fraud was discovered by NATAS, which prompted an investigation by that organization and later by ESPN.

Sadly, it turns out that the legendary, award-winning broadcasters Kirk Henry, Lee Clark, and Dirk Howard don’t even exist.

Now, I’m fairly notorious for my indifference to awards. I’ve understood that most of them are nothing but popularity contests or marketing tools since my junior year of high school. And that’s not sour grapes or anything; I declined my high school’s attempt to invent a fake award when the soccer team coach wrongly felt I’d been robbed when the MVP award went to the spiritual leader of our undefeated team instead of to the leading scorer.

But a lot of people take them seriously even though they prove absolutely nothing about excellence or quality. And even if you weren’t convinced of that by the Sad/Rabid Puppies campaigns, or the fact that Mark Clifton and Frank Riley won the 1955 Hugo Award for their unforgettable novel They’d Rather Be Right over some little book written by an English professor called The Lord of the Rings, I should hope that ESPN winning 30 Emmies for people who don’t even exist would suffice.

DISCUSS ON SG

Disney is the New Enron

The Devil Mouse has been very, very, very naughty. But instead of getting coal in its stocking this Christmas season, it’s getting an audit of the Reedy Creek Improvement District by the State of Florida, and almost certainly, the IRS, as the Dark Herald explains how and why the wolves are circling CEO Bob Iger.

Reedy Creek owns some power plants, and these are taxpayer-supported. Although, they are primarily to be used as emergency backups. Please excuse this next bit because I’m going to have to say allegedly a LOT. Allegedly, it would take years to bring one of them online. The other has allegedly been turned into an air conditioning plant, but they both allegedly still collect subsidies. I mean why pay for something out of your pocket when you can get Uncle Sucker to buy it for you?

The auditors weren’t permitted entry into these plants because the employees that run these Reedy Creek government facilities DON’T WORK FOR REEDY CREEK.

They work for Disney.

Yeah, who’d have guessed? The chief auditor stated that Reedy Creek produces no electricity at all. This startled the hell out of a lot of us because Disney World has huge banks of solar panels. In fact, they’ve committed quite a bit of ecological damage to the local wildlife trails to build them. To say nothing of how badly those filthy things will poison the land when the inevitable hurricane blasts through and wrecks them.

Disney nonetheless ignored real-world environmental terrorism to pat itself on the back over a being phantom friend of the Earth. Disney World loudly and proudly proclaimed that these panels provide 40% of WDW’s power, cleanly!

Allegedly, all of the electricity provided by those solar panels is sold to a third-party utility. Disney World allegedly buys 100% of its power from Duke Energy and only 10% of that is allegedly provided by anything approaching “clean energy.”

And it just gets even better for the new Ken Lay, previously known as “Bob Iger”.

Bob Iger’s worst nightmare just became the last Bob. In American law, no NDA ever written can stop criminal testimony. Chapek is in a perfect position to rat out literally everyone who got him shitcanned out of the company in the most humiliating way possible.

We all knew that Disney was going downhill fast. It’s been impossible to miss the way that the convergence of the corporation has systematically reduced the value of its intellectual properties. But what we couldn’t have known is how it now appears increasingly plausible that fraud and criminal activity of a greater magnitude than anyone imagined could suffice to take down the entire edifice of corpocratic evil.

UPDATE: Better add another few verys in front of that “naughty”.

New bombshell incoming. Disney was acting as a licensed municipal securities dealer for Reedy Creek. Disney isn’t licensed to do any such thing.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Disney Insurrection

What the Devil Mouse is now confirmed to have done was more illegal, more subversive, and a more substantial insurrection against the lawful government than anything the January 6th protesters are even accused of having done:

For decades, Disney had effectively seemingly controlled the board designed to oversee its own properties. Until DeSantis stepped in recently and put a stop to it. Now a new report from the replacement board has shown just how corrupt Disney’s arrangement was. And how both entities took advantage of taxpayers to foot the bill for their cozy relationship.

The report found that Disney had promised to build services including hospitals, schools and libraries as part of their obligations under their special governing arrangement. Sure enough, they built none of it. It also described what Disney had achieved as essentially an “absolute monarchy” over the Florida property.

“Disney had wholly outmaneuvered the legislature and pulled off an incredible act,” the report reads. “It had established an extra-constitutional governing authority – ‘an experimental absolute monarchy’ – within the borders of the State of Florida, and, accordingly, the United States – one that strikingly resembled, without exaggeration, a kingdom of yore.”

WALT DISNEY WORLD CORRUPTION WAS EVEN WORSE THAN PREVIOUSLY REALIZED, Outkick, 5 December 2023

The Dark Herald, who has been covering this story for months on the Arkhaven blog, has more specific details, as is his wont.

For decades Reedy Creeky employees were treated as if they were Disney World cast members. The annual passes that are a standard benefit to Disney employees, were given to Reedy Creek employees and they were told it was a “gift from the Walt Disney Company.”

What Reedy Creek was actually doing was buying the passes with the tax money that had been collected from the Walt Disney Company. They were giving Disney’s tax money back to the company. Then they lied to their employees about the gift part. None of this was reported to the IRS.

A bigger problem is the 50% discount on Disney cruise lines. There is no getting around the fact that Reedy Creek and Disney broke Florida’s public disclosure laws. These benefits were never reported as taxable benefits, which they are.

Because of these things, these government employees felt their job was to prioritize the needs of The Walt Disney Company.

This is the tip of the iceberg stuff. There is a lot more in this report.

The Reedy Creek Audit, Dark Herald, 5 December 2023

The extent and the extended time frame of this crimes are such that it would be perfectly justified if the Disney corporation had its business charter pulled by the State of Florida, the Reedy Creek land was seized by the state, and its various operations were sold off to the highest bidder.

Due to the size and political influence of the Devil Mouse, that almost certainly won’t happen. But it is a good sign that the massive corruption of at least one giant of the corpocracy is being exposed to the public.

DISCUSS ON SG