Tag: media

LA 2.0

There can be absolutely no doubt that a) the Los Angeles fires were not organic and b) they were part of a plan to rebuild the city in accordance with the principles and preferences of the ruling elite. It’s exactly the same situation as Maui, only on a larger scale. The property is too valuable to be left to the plebs, so the insurance policies have been cancelled, and various other legal machinations will be created in order to incentivize homeowners to sell their properties for dimes on the dollar.

The corrupt California governor, Gavin Newsome, has been caught on camera talking openly about how the planning teams for LA 2.0 are already in place and at work, which means that they were being put together long before the first fire even started.

Neither the Maui nor the LA fires were an accident.

UPDATE: Miles Mathis knew something was afoot very early on:

I saw the first reports Tuesday evening, then followed it over the next few hours. Before I went to sleep I checked overnight wind predictions from Weather Underground, since the mainstream was saying wind would remain high overnight. That would be extremely rare, since wind normally dies down at night. Weather is not completely predictable, of course, but they are very accurate just a few hours out, and the professionals were confirming to me winds would drop down to about 5mph overnight. That would last at least 14 hours, so I assumed hotshot teams would fly in from all over the state and knock this thing down overnight. There are no other fires in the state, since northern California has gotten a lot of rain in the past two months. Where I am we have gotten a thorough soaking since November. So all the planes and helicopters across the entire state should have been free to assist. Besides, this was Pacific Palisades, home of the rich, so you would expect the response to be at maximum. No expense would be spared.

But of course we all know that isn’t what happened. When I woke up about noon, I checked both Calfire and Wunderground first thing. Wunderground confirmed the winds overnight had been very calm all across the LA area, and wouldn’t be as strong on Wednesday as they had been on Tuesday. Tuesday peaked about 25mph, and Wednesday was supposed to peak at about 15mph. Brisk, but not too strong to fight fires very successfully. But when I went to Calfire, I was in for a shock: zero containment. Not only that, but the mainstream and alternative reports were both full of downright lies, trying to push 100mph winds on me, high overnight winds, and no fall-off on Wednesday. So I knew immediately the usual mischief was afoot, mischief that had to be something like we saw in Lahaina.

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Game Over, Gaiman

The Dark Herald nukes Neil Gaiman by pointing out his essential mediocrity:

Neil Gaiman had an extraordinary career. And I mean that literally. It was Extra Ordinary.

Writers who’ve hit it big all have the same complaint. Some rando will come up to them and make the following offer; “I’ve got this absolutely amazing idea for a story. Here’s the deal, I’ll tell you about the idea, then you write the book and then we split the money.” Gaiman’s biggest successes were in getting people to actually do that for him. Anyone who’s read Terry Pratchett knows damn good and well who did all of the heavy lifting in Good Omens. Even Gaiman admitted it. As for Sandman, the most amazing comic book of all time, how much of that comic’s success was due to the artwork? Without Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, Bryan Talbot, and Michael Zulli, would anyone have the vivid impressions of that title that they do? They were the real storytellers, Gaiman just had the ‘amazing idea.’ Which half the time were retreads of somebody else’s work.

As for the King of Dreams, let’s be honest here, Morpheus was nothing more than a Mary Sue and a pretty obvious one at that. And one that no one can look at now without seeing the true horror it was masking. Sandman is about to be swept under the rug alongside his “creator.”

It is over. It is ended.

But Larry Correia most definitely won the best quote competition:

Years ago John Scalzi declared me teaching armed self-defense classes to women was “victim blaming”. Turns out Scalzi just didn’t want his friend Neil Gaiman to get shot.

And speaking of John Scalzi, he managed to both a) avoid condemning Gaiman and b) make the entire scandal about himself and his feelings. Again. The man really chose the wrong career, as instead of a mediocre pop SF writer, he could have been the greatest White House press officer the world has ever seen.

  • I hate every single possible thing about this, and I’m heartbroken about all of it.
  • I’ve admired Neil’s work immensely, but my connection is, we’re friends and have been for some time. All this has been a set of punches to the gut. I’ve been (reasonably) criticized about not being louder sooner, but processing bad news about friends is a thing, and it hurts.
  • This is at odds with my public persona of “moderately famous nerd has opinions online,” plus there are folks who believe that the SF/F field has been unusually silent on Neil and find that troubling. So, some backlash for me on it. Fair enough. There’s no response that’ll make everyone happy. If I don’t comment there will be “his silence is telling,” and if I do respond there will be “way to make it about you,” and if I acknowledge any grief, I’ll get knocked for my “processing,” etc. I accept a ration of crap is mine no matter what.

And finally, two women on Reddit reveal that women on the science fiction tour circuit have known about Gaiman for 25 years, but it’s been swept under the table and kept quiet by a conspiracy of bookstore owners and people working in the publishing industry.

  • I was warned to stay away from Neil Gaiman when I was in college. So approximately 25 years ago. Despite never having been at an event he was present at. Women in the science fiction and con communities have been trying to keep each other safe from him for a long time. When the public allegations came out, the reaction I heard from a lot of women was “good, we’re allowed to talk about this now”.
  • I had the same experience in the early aughts. I was a pratchett fan, found good omens through that route, and was talking to an older woman in the sci fi community about the book. She warned me to stay away from Neil Gaiman and said he liked to take advantage of young fans. Now that all this news is coming out I’m so, so grateful to her but horrified that nothings come to light sooner.

And to absolutely no one’s surprise, the meme masters at Neil Gaiman Memes do not disappoint.

On a related note, there’s a new remix of Mr. Tubcuddle (Coraline’s Eyes) at Sigma Game.

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The Conservative Rock Star

L’il Benny has come a long way from his days as the openly imperialist Littlest Chickenhawk, and as the Hollywood Reporter – which is famous for its panegyrics to conservatives and Republicans – breathlessly reports, his massive success is totally real, totally organic, and not at all fake and manufactured:

Shapiro admits that, yes, he was once a Never Trumper. “In 2016, I didn’t vote for either candidate because I didn’t know if President Trump was going to be conservative,” he says in a bit of self-serving revisionism. Like many other right wing media figures at the time, he eloquently spoke about Trump’s many moral failures and called him a joke — but eventually caved. He maintains, however, that his take on Trump as a person is basically the same. As he puts it to me on the plane, “My opinion of Trump characterologically has not changed.”

But once Trump was in office, “right away he nominated Justice [Neil] Gorsuch, and I put on a MAGA hat,” says Shapiro. “In 2020, obviously, I backed him. And in 2024, I gave money to his campaign, I fundraised for him. I campaigned in six states. If we back him and if he does the right things, which I think he will, then America will be great.”

It’s mildly amusing that even a puff-piece article about Ben Shapiro can’t help but show what a complete fraud he is. The thing is, I knew Ben Shapiro back when he had a conscience. He made a conscious, informed decision to sell his soul and his mind for fame and money. And I can assure you, he knows better than anyone else what an intellectual imposter he is.

As for the so-called “fastest-growing conservative empire”, the Daily Wire, well, conservative Boomers have always been suckers for those who despise them pretending to be one of them. But the Daily Wire has never been able to conserve its professed positions and principles any more than conservatives managed to conserve marriage or the Ladies Room.

Universal Press Syndicate signed my WND column because they thought I was the intellectual heir to William F. Buckley. As it turns out, it’s Ben Shapiro who was his true heir. In more ways than one..

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GaimanGate: The Next Chapter

It appears the next chapter in the ongoing Neil Gaiman sexual assault scandal is about to begin. From r/NeilGaimanUncovered:

This is a heads-up as promised (and the last update) before the long-awaited article. We are only a few days away from publication. The article will be posted in this sub as soon as it’s out and we’ll include trigger warnings so vulnerable members can engage with highly disturbing content on their terms.

Rest assured, the memewarriors at Neil Gaiman Memes are ready and will be memeing up a storm on the basis of the new information once it is revealed. And as can be seen in the meme below, it’s not exactly a mystery as to why Gaiman did what he is accused of doing, why his purported “success” was manufactured for him, or why he has seemingly been protected for so long. As with the British politician mentioned in the prior post, he makes it very clear who and what he serves.

One Gaiman fan on Reddit was skeptical that anyone could possibly have had any idea about Gaiman prior to the allegations going public last year:

Can anyone point me to some threads or posts where people shared their feelings of ick about Gaiman from before the allegations went public? So many people here were feeling the same thing, surely there are documented cases of people speaking out.

Here are three from this blog alone. The posts from 2017 and 2018 are mine, the one from 2013 is from a reviewer I was quoting. But my disdain for Gaiman as a writer and novelist is well-documented, and while I didn’t read enough of his work to be certain that he was a bad person prior to the 2024 allegations of sexual assault, much less the manufactured creature he now appears to be, he was most definitely in the “yeah, this guy is probably off” category after reading American Gods and a few issues of Sandman, after which I stopped reading him. Although, to be fair, it was the mediocrity that was the reason, not the probability that he was what he turned out to be.

  • 2018: If you think Neil Gaiman is a great novelist, or even a great SF/F novelist, you are simply wrong. He is a successful, talented and much-loved SF/F author, and understandably so, but he is also little more than a very successful stunt writer with two or three tricks in his bag. There is a reason that all of his notable books involve mythology of one sort or another; his true gift is translating ancient myth into a form that pleases postmodern palates.
  • 2017: It is right and proper to judge the artist on the basis of the art. More often than not, the art created by the artist provides relevant insight into his psyche; it is very difficult to write the opposite sex well and it is also very difficult for a man to write characters who are different than his own socio-sexual rank. Read Louis L’Amour and Robert Ludlum. Then read John Scalzi and Neil Gaiman. The difference is readily observable. Then read Piers Anthony and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Notice the creep factor? Exactly. This is one area where you can reliably trust your feelings.
  • 2013: Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods and Anansi Boys are written by the exact same man. It’s that Mr. Stock Type shows up for all four, each iteration as dull and insufferable as the last, distinguishable only faintly by his name. Leaving American Gods and Stardust alone for now, this isn’t so much a matter of “oh you could do this to any fantasy book,” itself an asinine proposition, because not all fantasy books feature a timid Londoner devoid of ambition who has relationship troubles with a demanding sweetheart/fiancee. The sweethearts in question(respectively Rosie Noah, Jessica, and Victoria Forrester) are likewise identical: thinly written, demanding, henpecking, and not the brightest. Really Gaiman kind of sucks at writing women, and apart from this one incredibly tertiary character in American Gods I don’t think he’s particularly comfortable with gay men–certainly not enough to write them as protagonists. Similarly, the catalyst to “finding the secret magic world” is always more or less the same: through colliding with one of said secret world’s inhabitants.

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Reject Diversity

There is absolutely no benefit to giving into the demands for diversity. If you don’t give in, you’ll take the heat but you won’t suffer the negative consequences of destroying your organization. If you do give into them, you’ll first suffer the negative consequences of destroying your organization, then you’ll take even more heat for trying to fix the new problems the diversity created for you.

Since two black NFL coaches were fired, one who was unprepared and abysmal and one who was merely overmatched, the social justice warriors on ESPN and social media are going crazy about how unfair it is that some white coaches who didn’t have good seasons weren’t… even though three white coaches and the only Arab coach were. This was a particularly stupid complaint:

Interesting how Black head coaches get 1 year to turn around terrible teams…. Meanwhile, Brian Daboll…

Brian Daboll of the New York Giants wasn’t fired after the 2024 season for three reasons. He’s already won a playoff game, he’s won Coach of the Year, and the Giants ownership is famously patient by NFL standards. He is also a very highly-regarded offensive coordinator who developed successful offenses at Buffalo and at the University of Alabama.

Jared Mayo and Antonio Pierce were both promoted too soon and they were put into positions where their failure was all but guaranteed in the name of diversity. That’s what promoting diversity in the place of competence, let alone excellence, does. It puts unprepared and incompetent people into positions where they cannot possibly succeed. Hiring Mike Tomlin is not promoting diversity; Mike Tomlin is a great coach and I was very unhappy when he was hired away from the Vikings by the Steelers before the Vikings could replace Brad Childress with him. Hiring Kwesi Adofo-Mensah isn’t promoting diversity either, as based on the way he overcame an incredibly difficult preseason, he may be the best young general manager in the entire league as well as one of the smartest.

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The Devil Champions Foreign Invasion

I warned everyone not to go back to Twitter after it was acquired and rebranded by Elon Musk. It was just swapping King Log for King Stork, which is becoming increasingly obvious as Musk is now seeking to deplatform, demonetize, and suppress the reach of Americans who criticize the federally-approved foreign invasion that has disemployed millions of Americans and lowered their wages.

The online beef between Donald Trump’s Silicon Valley backers and the more traditionally conservative MAGA base has culminated in Elon Musk allegedly using X to censor his fellow Trump supporters.

Laura Loomer, Gavin Mario Wax, ConservativePAC, and Owen Shroyer all had their X verification badges removed Thursday night after criticizing Musk’s stances on labor and immigration earlier in the day.

“All of our influencers have now lost verification status, as well as our own page,” the Trump-supporting ConservativePAC wrote. “Our brand did nothing. We spoke out against HB1 visas and it appears that @elonmusk intentionally shut us down? Is this the new status quo from America’s ‘most free’ social media platform?”

No, it’s not “the new status quo”. It’s the same as it always was. I have had actual evidence proving that Musk is a liar for two years now. In order to prove my suspicions, in 2022 I asked X tech support to unsuspend my @voxday account which had been suspended since 2017. They promptly informed me that my account would never be reactivated, in direct contradiction to what Musk had been publicly proclaiming at the time.

The amusing thing is that the Clown World fraud – Elon Musk is most likely a midwit actor, he’s probably not even Mensa material – almost appears to believe that he actually is the character he is playing. His IQ is reportedly five whole points higher than my own, but I have never heard him say or seen him write one single thing that would require an IQ over 120. Does this angry and self-defensive tweet sound like anything I, or any other high-IQ individual, has ever written? Or does it sound more like bad 4chan copypasta?

The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B. Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.

An invader is willing to go to war to import more invaders in order to defend himself from the natives. How very new and different… America would be much better off if he and Ramaswampy would go back to their homelands and take SpaceX, Tesla, and every other fake, propped-up company they’ve financialized with them. What they represent isn’t economic strength, but what is known in the economic literature as “malinvestment”.

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“A Legitimate Act”

The Times view on assassination of a general: The targeted killing is a legitimate act of defence by a threatened nation.

How very peculiar! I don’t recall the British newspapers endorsing the IRA assassination of Lord Mountbatten as a legitimate act of defense. But if we’re to take Clown World media seriously, any nation that is threatened is now justified in engaging in state-sponsored targeted killings.

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The Gatekeepers Coagulate

Now you can get all your piping hot cuckservative takes about how nationalism is evil, anti-anti-semitism laws are totally compatible with the 1st Amendment, and Israel ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody in one convenient place!

Tim Pool is reportedly selling his entire Timcast operation to The Daily Wire effective January 1, sources confirmed to Media Right News. One source told Media Right News that a Daily Wire employee has been questioning Timcast employees to determine whether they will be terminated, while a second said it is unclear which employees will retain their positions. Sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to concern of legal reprisals.

The Daily Wire also tried to buy Jordan Peterson, but they learned he had already sold his soul.

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Paul Krugman is Done

After 24 years of leading opinions into intellectual dead ends, America’s leading cheerleader for neoconnery and Neo-Keynesian economics is ending his run as a New York Times columnist with an exhibition of the same sort of dishonest cluelessness that rendered him such a helpless punching bag for the entirety of that run.

It’s hard to convey just how good most Americans were feeling in 1999 and early 2000. Polls showed a level of satisfaction with the direction of the country that looks surreal by today’s standards. My sense of what happened in the 2000 election was that many Americans took peace and prosperity for granted, so they voted for the guy who seemed as if he’d be more fun to hang out with.

In Europe, too, things seemed to be going well. In particular, the introduction of the euro in 1999 was widely hailed as a step toward closer political as well as economic integration — toward a United States of Europe, if you like. Some of us ugly Americans had misgivings, but initially they weren’t widely shared.

Still, people were feeling pretty good about the future when I began writing for this paper.

Why did this optimism curdle? As I see it, we’ve had a collapse of trust in elites: The public no longer has faith that the people running things know what they’re doing, or that we can assume that they’re being honest… So is there a way out of the grim place we’re in? What I believe is that while resentment can put bad people in power, in the long run it can’t keep them there. At some point the public will realize that most politicians railing against elites actually are elites in every sense that matters and start to hold them accountable for their failure to deliver on their promises. And at that point the public may be willing to listen to people who don’t try to argue from authority, don’t make false promises, but do try to tell the truth as best they can.

We may never recover the kind of faith in our leaders — belief that people in power generally tell the truth and know what they’re doing — that we used to have. Nor should we. But if we stand up to the kakistocracy — rule by the worst — that’s emerging as we speak, we may eventually find our way back to a better world.

Even at the end of his very undistinguished career, Krugman cannot admit that he and his fellow ethnic elites completely blew the opportunity that their grandfathers and fathers so painstakingly prepared for them. They assumed near-complete control of the most powerful empire the world has ever seen at a time when the rest of the world was still digging itself out of the rubble of WWII, and instead of devoting themselves to the benefit of the American people, spent the last fifty years looting their host nation and abusing their power and their influence in a manner so obviously stupid and short-lived that it’s hard to even describe it as self-serving.

The reason people around the world have lost all faith in elites is the direct result of the complete failure by Krugman and his fellow elitists to govern reasonably, let alone responsibly. Their core assumptions were wrong, their objectives were insane, their policies were societally destructive, and their eventual failure was inevitable.

It’s not so much that Paul Krugman will not be missed. He will not even be remembered.

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Defuse Mode Activated

The mainstream media is suddenly in full defuse mode as public awareness of the Six Bidens and the Three Trumps is beginning to confuse the NPCs.

The US President Elect has a history of being flexible with the truth, and his vital statistics are seemingly no exception. Donald Trump, 78, has always claimed to be a towering 6ft 3″ in height…but his meeting with Prince William at the re-opening of Notre Dame in Paris this weekend suggested a little shrinkage may have taken place.  

The incoming US leader and the Prince William appeared to have a cordial exchange as they shook hands inside the Parisian cathedral. Later the pair posed for photos at the residence of the British ambassador in the French capital, with Trump calling the Prince of Wales a ‘good man’.  On both occasions, William, 42, cut a statuesque figure – the royal is 6ft 3″ or 191cm – and Trump didn’t quite match him in the height stakes. 

That’s the official line. Trump is lying and he is also shrinking. Never mind the fact that at his first inauguration, he was taller than his 5’11 wife, the former professional model, who was wearing heels, which is consistent with all of their historical pictures together.

The one explanation they never touch is the obvious one in line with the conclusion that Ockham’s Razor dictates: the pictures are not of the real President Trump, but of some other individual who is shorter than the Donald Trump.

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