Tag: trainwreck

No sympathy for Shapiro

I wonder if the Littlest Chickenhawk is beginning to feel differently about his past calls for instigating violence and putting people in harm’s way when it’s he and his family who are being targeted instead of the young American men he encouraged to invade “Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and others” in the name of empire.

Ben Shapiro, the conservative talk show host and editor of The Daily Wire, was the target of serious death threats and the suspect has just been arrested … TMZ has learned.

Law enforcement sources tell us, Shapiro, who frequently appears on cable news shows and has a hugely popular podcast, filed a police report with the LAPD. We’re told the threats were not just against Shapiro but his family as well. He’s married with one daughter.

We’re told the Department got in touch with the FBI and created a joint task force to hunt down the culprit. Our sources say a man was arrested Wednesday in Washington state for making the threats. We’re told these threats were “extremely serious” … not just someone blowing off steam.

I have zero sympathy for Ben Shapiro. None whatsoever. He’s a libelous and shameless liar who despises America and Americans, hates Jesus Christ, and is actively attempting to subvert history and redefine Western civilization out of existence in the same way his predecessors self-servingly redefined both America and its Christian heritage.

It’s very easy to call for war and violence when you think you’re untouchable. But no one is untouchable except the dead.

As for death threats, BFD. I’ve been getting them for 18 years. As the moderators know, I’m still getting them in the comments from time to time; the last set was just two weeks ago.

Australian shenanigans

The promoter of Milo and Ann Coulter’s Australia tour is trying to pull a fast one:

Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to visit Australia for a five-show tour alongside conservative speaker Ann Coulter in December. The pair was set to discuss the topic “how to save Australia”.

But on Monday, tour promoter AE Media emailed ticket holders advising them that “due to unforeseen circumstances” Milo Yiannopoulos’ 2018 tour had been cancelled. Instead of being offered a refund, fans were told their tickets would be honoured in the form of tickets to see the joint speaking tour of British conservative personality Tommy Robinson and self-descibed “western chauvinist” Gavin McInnes.

Mr Yiannopoulos confirmed the news in a post on Facebook and Instagram.

“Yesterday, I woke up to the news that my Australian tour with Ann had been cancelled and the promoter was “transferring” tickets to another series of events,” he wrote. “This is illegal. If you’re a ticket holder and want a refund, they are obliged to give you one and I will make sure that happens.”

It’s always interesting to learn who is deemed acceptable and who is not. Needless to say, this sort of thing is only one of the many reasons that I have never accepted a speaking invitation to any group, university, or corporation.

Sperg designs brave new world

Unsurprisingly, it fails to account for how normal human beings prefer to live their lives:

In 2008, I found myself speaking with the big boss himself, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I was in the second year of my Ph.D. research on Facebook at Curtin University. And I had questions.

Why did Facebook make everyone be the same for all of their contacts? Was Facebook going to add features that would make managing this easier?

To my surprise, Zuckerberg told me that he had designed the site to be that way on purpose. And, he added, it was “lying” to behave differently in different social situations.

Up until this point, I had assumed Facebook’s socially awkward design was unintentional. It was simply the result of computer nerds designing for the rest of humanity, without realising it was not how people actually want to interact.

The realisation that Facebook’s context collapse was intentional not only changed the whole direction of my research but provides the key to understanding why Facebook may not be so great for your mental health.

The eventual collapse of Facebook is going to be positively epic. The entire operation is simply another attempt to fit the square peg of human behavior into the round hole of Mark Zuckerberg’s imaginary world.

The significance of this revelation, which is not exactly a surprise to those of us who have noticed Zuckerberg’s bizarre behavior, is that Facebook is going to make increasingly bad decisions based on its inherently false assumptions about people.

Don’t smoke your own supply

I regret to observe that Marvel decides to postpone its suicide.

Every year, the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD recognizes and awards a selection of television shows, films, and books that feature powerful portrayals of queer people. This year, a number of Marvel’s comics were recognized for the contributions they’ve made to queer culture, but those nominations were bittersweet for one incredibly disappointing reason: They’ve all been cancelled.

America (from Gabby Rivera and Joe Quinones), Black Panther: World of Wakanda (Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yona Harvey, Alitha E. Martinez, and Afua Richardson), and Iceman (Sina Grace, Alessandro Vitti, and Robert Gill) have each been nominated for GLAAD’s 2018 Outstanding Comic Book category, and with good reason. Over the course of their respective arcs, each series explored various parts of the queer experience in ways that, frankly, are new for comics. Iceman’s dug into Bobby Drake’s coming out as a gay man later in life; America’s focused on what it’s like to be a queer immigrant going to college for the first time; and World of Wakanda delved into the complicated intimate lives of the Dora Milaje.

But all of these books recently met their ends, as so many new, progressive comic books do these days. Low sales led to their cancellation just as an entirely new audience was sure to hear about the books, specifically because of their being nominated for GLAAD awards and other honors.

Note to self: in the unlikely event GLAAD offers to recognize or award any Arkhaven comic, decline the honor.

The ridiculous thing about trying to appeal to the LGBLT-whatever crowd is that it simply isn’t very big. And since the world of comics isn’t all that big either, you’re putting yourself in the unenviable position of selling to a fraction of a fraction. That might work for a small indy publisher, but it’s not going to be viable for the market leaders.

Argue about inclusiveness all you like, celebrate diversity and tolerance and progress if you are so inclined, but at the end of the day, your core market is always going to determine the extent of your sales potential. And since an ever-increasing number of people are sick to death of SJWs, that’s why I’m quite confident that openly anti-SJW material is going to prove to be considerably more popular than anyone expects, be it a business book, a comic book, or a beer-holder.

Fortunately, I’m confident that DC is going to more than make up for Marvel’s halting baby steps away from the precipice.

Ye cats….

Steve Sailer observes that the civic nationalists really are as dumb as they appear.

They Really Do Believe Emma Lazarus’s Poem Is “The Foundational Principle of Our Country”

Well, you certainly can’t claim that the country doesn’t deserve its fate. Especially the country that was founded in 1883. I don’t think you have to be pig-ignorant to be a civic nationalist, but it observably helps.

Mountain View quakes with fear

Google’s Colin McMillen FEARS FOR HIS LIFE because my ideas are so terrible, my mien is so frightful, and my gaze is so lethal that my mere existence on the same planet puts specific Googler’s lives in clear and present danger!

Indeed, the mere act of emailing the Supreme Dark Lord clearly amounts to recklessly endangering human lives. Or rather, it would if SJWs did a better job of passing for human. You know they’re going to blame the next earthquake in the Bay Area on me. But then, who is to say that they would be wrong to do so?

It must be quite the little witch hunt they have going there. Of course, if they ever do discover the various sources of the leaks, I’m pretty sure that at least one identity will absolutely shock them to their core.

And this is why you don’t chase money

As I wrote previously, Bannon really is not a strategic thinker. It’s much better to build a broad, self-sustaining support network than depend upon the momentary whims of the ultra-rich:

Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon has reportedly lost the support of billionaire backer Rebekah Mercer after he suggested he might run for president himself.

A person close to Mercer told The Washington Post that she no longer supports Bannon. According to the report, Mercer was frustrated with Bannon’s strategy in the Alabama Senate special election and pulled her funding after he told other major conservative donors that Mercer would back Bannon in his own presidential bid.

Bannon, now head of Breitbart News, supported Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct, in his eventual defeat to now-Sen. Doug Jones (D) in December.

“The core constituency for Breitbart is what you would call the Trump Deplorables. That’s the audience. And if they’re asked to choose between Steve and Trump, they’re going to choose Trump. That’s clear,” a person familiar with Breitbart News’s operations told the Post.

It was unclear from the report whether Mercer, who bought a stake of Breitbart News from her father in November, will continue to back the right-wing news site. The report said she is no longer backing any future Bannon projects.

To be honest, this initial support for Milo and Bannon, followed by sudden withdrawals of that support, looks more than a little strategic itself.  And seriously, the partnership was always destined to fail if a loose cannon like Bannon can cut his own supply lines with nothing more than some obviously unserious musings about his own political prospects.

Marvel’s biggest screw-up in 2017

At least, according to the SJWs in the comics media:

#1: Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter continues to be good friends with, official advisor to, and financial supporter of President Donald Trump

Marvel has made a big effort to brush off criticism that they’ve abandoned their commitment to diversity in 2017 after saying that they heard from retailers that people didn’t want it and then canceling a crapload of books with LGBTQ and POC leads at the end of the year. Marvel editor Jordan White even took to Twitter to ask people to please keep buying Marvel books so that they can get their diversity back on in 2018.

But how can Marvel Comics be a positive force for social justice when their Chairman is good friends with Donald Trump and financially supported his presidential campaign? Do a couple of comic books with more representation even out financial support for a President that has tried to ban Muslims from entering the country, wants to deport immigrants, has openly bragged about sexual assault on tape, and done so many other terrible things that it would take a dozen listicles to name them all? For every dollar spent on a book promoting a positive social message, how many ended up in the coffers of the Trump campaign through donations from Perlmutter? What would the ratio need to be before any positive benefit is canceled out?

Right. THAT is certainly the problem. Any more questions about what convergence is?

The jar ran out

He tries so hard to be relevant. To be significant. To matter. But not all the agent- and publisher-pumping in the world can disguise the fact that the grand decade-long attempt to transform a blogger turned midlist writer of color-by-number Heinlein pastiche into a leading author has failed.

John Scalzi@scalzi
Actual thing I just said as I was cleaning my office: “Damn it, *now* where am I going to put this special citation from the Ohio House of Representatives?!?”

(it was under a pile of books before)

Artie Fufkin, Polymer Records@FrmerJoe
Actual thing I thought while reading this tweet: “Scalzi needs everyone to know that he got citations from the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate? How pathetic is that?”

John Scalzi@scalzi
(pats head)

That’s because you’re an asshole, child.

Artie Fufkin, Polymer Records@FrmerJoe
Wow! Killer comeback! I can see why your cutting wit is feared throughout the land.

This naturally raises the question, how would a dumpy little guy like Scalzi pat anyone on the head in the first place? He’s 5’4″ and nearly 200 pounds; he’s little more than a gelatinous blob of SJW, snark, and insecurity. Anyhow, I preferred this response.

Spacebunny Day @Spacebunnyday
Actual thing I said when I was cleaning out my attic: “Damn it, *now* where am I going to put my fifth place ribbon from my jr. high track and field day?!”

The most amusing thing about this exchange is that it’s the consequence of Scalzi’s attempt to address the very uncomfortable fact that VP is now nearly ten times more popular than Whatever by his own chosen metric of importance. IT’S LIKE THE BOUNDLESS HELL OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN! IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY! NETFLIX! PARAMOUNT! MOBILE GAMES! SPECIAL FREAKING CITATION!

Well, Scalzi certainly is special, to put it mildly. Whatever happened to that jar of ZFG? It must have run out.