Tag: trainwreck

Trust Not in Ticket-Takers

Elon Musk bows down before the one he serves.

Elon Musk didn’t let the responsibilities of becoming CEO at a third major company curb his Halloween spirit this year. Fresh off of a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, Musk showed up on a red carpet in New York City in what appeared to be a “Devil’s Champion” costume alongside his mother, Maye Musk. Musk on Monday evening attended model Heidi Klum’s Halloween bash on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. AbracadabraNYC, a New York store that features the costume online, shows a list price of $7,500 for the “armored” red and black outfit.

Now, for the love of all that is Good, Beautiful, and True, can we PLEASE stop waxing enthusiastic for every wicked creature who happens to show signs that his commitment to evil might be slightly less than 100 percent? How many times do we have to go through the same old stupid routine?

This isn’t that hard. Evil is not good. And because evil has rival factions, not everything that opposes one evil faction is good.

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Gammas are Never Wrong

Scott Adams illustrates the principle beautifully:

The biggest illusion of 2022 is that if your marriage doesn’t work it is because you picked the wrong person.

It doesn’t matter who you pick. Marriage is a pre-Internet, pre-equality system that no longer fits the modern world.

I don’t have a better idea.

The one thing, the only thing, that Scott Adams knows is that no matter what happens, it’s not his fault. The Gamma lives a life entirely free of self-accountability, which is why he is entirely incapable of learning from his not-mistakes.

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Boris is Back for Britain

I expect the return of Boris Johnson to the British premiership is going to go worse than putting the corpse of Queen Elizabeth II back on the throne.

Tory MPs are waiting for news this morning after leadership rivals Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak held three-hour talks late last night over a possible power-sharing pact. The pair met at 8pm last night, where Mr Johnson argued that if he re-entered No10 with Mr Sunak in a senior role it would avoid a divisive battle.

But Mr Sunak’s campaign received a major boost this morning when prominent Brexiteer Steve Baker gave his support to the former Chancellor and warned Tory MPs against putting Mr Johnson back in Downing Street. The Northern Ireland minister, who backed Liz Truss over Mr Sunak in this summer’s leadership contest, claimed a Boris comeback would be a ‘guaranteed disaster’.

Sadly for the Tories, about the only thing capable of going worse for them than Boris’s return would be the foreign corruption of the Indian dwarf Fishy Rishy. So naturally, it makes sense that they’ll offer a two-for-one in a futile attempt to delay the inevitable General Election that will drive them from power.

At this point, the best hope for Britain may be an unsuccessful war against the Sino-Russian alliance.

UPDATE: No deal. The Empire wants unvarnished foreign rule, not Le Cirque du Boris 2.0.

Rishi Sunak officially launches bid to be PM after three-hour peace talks between him and Boris end ‘with NO deal’

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Literally Retarded

You know, these retarded left-wing “news” sites really need to decide if they’re in the business of actually trying to report anything even remotely factual or just devote themselves to straight-up short-bus Orange Man Bad-level defamation.

The Rebel’s Run collapse stands as a cautionary tale for conservatives who dream of seeing their ideas turned into films, and comes as right-wing media outlets increasingly dabble in motion pictures. Commentator Ben Shapiro’s company has a streaming website that offers movies with a conservative tinge, including a thriller about a school shooting and a western starring “canceled” actress Gina Carano. Earlier this year, Breitbart News distributed a Hunter Biden biopic. But Rebel’s Run collapse stands as a cautionary tale for conservatives showing that the jump to movies isn’t a risk-free endeavor.

There was reason to think Beale and his fans could realize their dream of going from comic books to cinema, if only through sheer fanaticism. His devoted followers call him the “Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil,” and describe themselves as his “minions.” Beale’s supporters, who frequently complain about supposed progressive “social justice warrior” influence creeping into fields like video games and science fiction, had already funded a handful of comic book issues and stirred up a controversy at science fiction’s premiere awards….

As Ohana’s promotional materials put it, according to prosecutors, the firm offered “banking [to] the unbankable.” On Nov. 5, 2020, Beale transferred the $1 million to Ohana to be held in escrow in advance of future film funding.

It’s a pity this didn’t run in the Swiss media, or Will Sommer would quickly find himself being dragged into a police station to face an interrogation. I never had any access to, nor did I transfer, “the $1 million” to anyone, nor have I ever had any contact whatsoever with James Wolfgramm, Ohana, or any of its employees, associates, or principals.

This literally retarded article firmly cements my policy of never talking to the media. Because even if you do, they either pay no attention to the information that doesn’t fit their narrative or they are simply too stupid to grasp what you’re telling them.

As for our future plans, we’re already breaking new ground in the field of animation. And while you wait for us to demonstrate our progress there, you can read the 68 episodes of Rebel and her compadres at Arktoons.

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Improving on Tolkien

The Amazon Abomination tries, and succeeds, to improve upon the late, great grandmaster of high fantasy. Needless to say, it doesn’t go well.

They are trying to improve Tolkien.

They are not succeeding.

Mithril now has an origin story. According to Celebrimbor, there is a legend of an Elf warrior fighting a Balrog for a tree in which one of the Silmarils is lodged. The fight was so titanic (and cliché) that it forced the power of the Silmaril through the tree’s roots, into the ground and created the Mithril.

No. It didn’t. Mithril’s origin story is that the Dwarves found it and dug it up.

Here is a brutally quick history of the Silmarils.

Feanor created three jewels of literally unsurpassed beauty, within them was the light of the two trees of Valinor. Manwë’s wife made the jewels sacred so that no one evil or mortal could touch them without withering and dying. Morgoth coveted them so much, that he killed the Trees in order to steal them. Then he took them to his fortress of Angband. Their light burned him but he couldn’t part with them, so Morgoth put the Silmarils in a crown that he wore upon his head.

Feanor and his sons made a terrible vow to recover them. Their clan committed untold crimes against the rest of the Elves to fulfill this vow. Great wars, Kinslayings, and misery were the result.

Beren stole a Silmaril, and gave it to his wife Luthien, when she died again (don’t ask) it passed to their son Dior. When the sons of Feanor killed him it fell into Dior’s daughter, Elwing’s hands. She flew with it to her husband and they sailed with it to Valinor to beg the aid of the Valar.

When Morgoth fell after the War of Wrath, the remaining two Silmarils were taken by Eanwë, the herald of Manwë. The last two sons of Feanor snuck into the Valar camp and stole them. Eanwë caught them but apparently decided to let the holy jewels pass judgment on them and gave one to each of the brothers.

They were so tainted by the crimes they had committed in the pursuit of these jewels that they were horribly burned and withered by the Silmarils. Maedhros threw himself and his Silmaril into a fiery pit. Maglor cast his into the sea and apparently spent the rest of his immortal life singing songs of lamentation.

So, of the three Silmarils, one of them is now the North Star, one of them got chucked into a volcano and the third was pitched into the sea. None of them was ever, at any time in a god damned tree, ever. Their locations were always accounted for in the legendarium.

As for Mithril, this is blatant idiocy. The Silmarils never worked that way.

Mithril is just a precious metal. Now it is super rare and worth ten times its weight in gold, but it ends there. It’s not magical and never was.

Well, at least they’re trying to tell a story of some sort. Even if it is an incoherent one that is completely inconsistent with canon.

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Please Don’t Hit Us

The Eu declares it is not at war with Russia:

The European Union is not at war with Russia, but it will continue to support Ukraine in its fight against Moscow, EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano said on Wednesday. The statement came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of troops.

Speaking at a press conference, Stano was asked whether the EU is in a state of war with Russia, given that earlier Vladimir Putin had claimed that Russia is facing “the entire Western military machine” in Ukraine. The foreign policy spokesman replied in the negative.

“Of course we are not in war with Russia. We are supporting Ukraine’s legitimate, justified fight to defend its people and its territory,” he said, adding that Kiev is protecting not only itself, but also European democratic values.

And then promptly turned around and announced new sanctions – that will totally work this time – in response to Russia announcing it is willing to respect democratic self-determination in four former Ukrainian provinces.

The EU has agreed to slap new sanctions on Russia “as soon as possible” over plans to hold referendums in the Donbass republics and Russian-controlled regions in Ukraine on whether to unite with Russia, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said on Wednesday.

Apparently “European democractic values” mean “anti-democratic values”. But this preemptive refusal to accept the will of the Novorussian people isn’t a surprise, given the way the EU also refused to recognize the will of the Catalonian people.

Unfortunately for the EU, unlike tango, it only takes one to war.

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Amazon’s Pants are on Fire

Unlike Tha Rangz o’ Powah, which apparently are not being watched anywhere nearly as much as Amazon is trying to claim. The Dark Herald busts the Bezos machine on the Arkhaven blog.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “numbers don’t lie?”

Accountants say that all the time… When they want a good laugh.

Amazon is proudly claiming they have 25 million views for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, on its very first day of streaming. That is a nice ROUND number, isn’t it?

“25 million people viewed it.” Always be careful with the exact wording.

We can start with I don’t believe it for a second.

Warner Brothers is, for their part, claiming 25 million for the first week of House of the Dragon, and Warner Brothers put the first episode up for free on YouTube. Realistically, House of the Dragon has had way better public reception than Rings of Power. And ain’t it funny that Amazon had the exact same ROUND number?

So, where did this massive overnight number come from?

Well, it came from Amazon.com.

UPDATE: OWWwwww! Samba.TV has released its metrics on Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and they are b-a-a-d. Amazon was claiming a huge number for it’s first day. Samba.TV uses the first three days. On its first three days, the Rings of Power only got 1.8 million US views.

I didn’t buy the 25 million number myself. But an average of 600k/day? I also wasn’t expecting anything that cataclysmic. This looks like it is going to be a downright proverbial failure.

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Grifters, Grifters Everywhere

Was talking to [REDACTED] Bear at the festival and he said most conservatives are doing it, but Gavin is the one who was caught. Apparently Tim Pool pulled the same stunt, but years ago, and while he was “being detained” the YouTube livestream was left on for hours and holds some kind of record for the amount of money collected from superchats in one stream.

Just to be clear, the police do not simply respond blindly to calls as if they have no idea that they have ever been there before. Most public figures at genuine risk of being SWATted have already alerted the local police to the possibility, their address is already known to the police and flagged accordingly, and any attempt at SWATting will result in a telephone call, or at most, a visit from a squad car to confirm that everything is all right rather than an emergency response.

Anyone who gets SWATted multiple times is almost certainly faking it.

SAVAGE MEMES

UPDATE: Apparently Mr. McInnes is on work release from his secret FBI prison.

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He Should Have Listened

Jeff Bezos didn’t listen to his son:

Being one of the richest people on the planet, Jeff Bezos is not used to being told what to do. But when Amazon announced it was creating The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is likely to become the most expensive television series ever made, he received a blunt order from his son: “Dad, don’t fuck this up.”

Sorry, Jeff. A verdict is in. And you done fucked it up.

OH LAWD, DEM RANGS! DEM RANGS A’ POWAH!

Past success sows the seeds of future failure

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