Tag: trainwreck

What ARE the odds?

Such a coincidence….

The third man killed in the deadly Amtrak derailment south of Seattle has been identified as an Auburn child pornography collector and an outspoken proponent of child sexual abuse, whose crimes were first detailed in a 2013 SeattlePI story.

The days since the deadly Amtrak derailment between Tacoma and Olympia saw two of the three fatally injured victims, Jim Hamre and Zack Willhoite, celebrated for their love of trains. Hamre, 61, and Willhoite, 35, were close friends and volunteers on the board of All Aboard Washington, a rail advocacy organization.

Benjamin Gran’s story is more complicated.

Gran, a leading member of an online forum dedicated to promoting the sexual abuse of children, served a federal prison term after he was caught with a vast collection of child pornography videos.

The Pierce County coroner’s office said Wednesday that Gran, 40, died of multiple traumatic injuries sustained in Monday’s crash. His death came six years after child pornography investigator came knocking on his apartment door.

Covering for the monsters

Inadvertently and out of good intentions, I have no doubt. But women like Claire Berlinski are covering for the monsters all the same:

We are a culture historically disposed to moral panics and sexual hysterias. Not long ago we firmly convinced ourselves that our children were being ritually raped by Satanists. In recent years, especially, we have become prone to replacing complex thought with shallow slogans. We live in times of extremism, and black-and-white thinking. We should have the self-awareness to suspect that the events of recent weeks may not be an aspect of our growing enlightenment, but rather our growing enamorment with extremism.

We should certainly realize by now that a moral panic mixed with an internet mob is a menace. When the mob descends on a target of prominence, it’s as good as a death sentence, socially and professionally. None of us lead lives so faultless that we cannot be targeted this way. “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Your computer can be hacked. Do you want to live in the kind of paranoid society where everyone wonders—Who’s next? To whom is it safe to speak freely? What would this joke sound like in a deposition? Do you think only the men who have done something truly foul are at risk? Don’t kid yourself. Once this starts, it doesn’t stop. The Perp Walk awaits us all.

Given the events of recent weeks, we can be certain of this: From now on, men with any instinct for self-preservation will cease to speak of anything personal, anything sexual, in our presence. They will make no bawdy jokes when we are listening. They will adopt in our presence great deference to our exquisite sensitivity and frailty. Many women seem positively joyful at this prospect. The Revolution has at last been achieved! But how could this be the world we want? Isn’t this the world we escaped?

Who could blame a man who does not enjoy the company of women under these circumstances, who would just rather not have women in the workplace at all? This is a world in which the Mike Pence rule—“Never be alone with a woman”—seems eminently sensible. Such a world is not good for women, however—as many women were quick to point out when we learned of the Mike Pence rule. Our success and advancement relies upon the personal and informal relationships we have with our colleagues and supervisors. But who, in this climate, could blame a venerable Oxford don for refusing to take the risk of teaching a young woman, one-on-one, with no witnesses? Mine was the first generation of women allowed the privilege of unchaperoned tutorials with Balliol’s dons. Will mine also be the last?

Yes, and it should be the last. The grand feminist experiment in sexual equality has failed, brutally. It failed faster than communism. It failed faster than civic nationalism. It failed faster than multiculturalism. Feminism is literally the dumbest, most destructive ideology that has ever been invented, which is no surprise because it was invented by the most neurotic women history has ever known.

And the more we learn about (((Hollywood))) and Washington and Berkeley and London, the more it is clear that not only were those “moral panics” and “sexual hysterias” justified, they were merely scratching the surface of a diseased evil that runs much deeper and wider under the surface of society than most normal Americans realized. Consider the following passage from The Last Closet, in which one member of science-fiction fandom describes the reaction of the Berkeley science-fiction community to the public behavior of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s husband.

At first Berkeley was indifferent to Walter’s sex life. This gradually began to change. There were two main causes for this. At a GGFS meeting at the S’s, S walked into her son’s bedroom—age 13—to find him in bed with Walter with Walter’s arm around him. They were watching TV. (Walter is incredible.)  S wasn’t about to take this. She didn’t make a scene at the time, but from then on, someone else was anti-Walter. Thenceforth the S kids were under instructions to retire into their room and barricade the door with furniture whenever Walter was in the house. They did too. S wanted to ban Walter from the house entirely but Alva felt great reluctance to reject any fan.

Most people were rather amused by this incident, feeling that the kid could say “No” and even if he said “Yes” the experience probably wouldn’t hurt him any. After all, Walter is so child-like himself that it would be just as if the kid were playing around with another kid. And quite apart from the sexual connotations some people were outraged that an adult could prefer the society of children to that of adults, as Walter does.

The second cause was Walter’s sex play with 3-year old P. He had her trained up to the point where she would take off her clothes the minute she saw him. He would then “rub her down” and all that. I recall one occasion—a fairly large gathering at the Nelsons — in which he also used a pencil, rubbing the eraser back and forth in the general area of the vagina, not quite masturbating her.

What I have learned from editing Moira Greyland’s book is that where there is sulfuric smoke of this nature, there is not merely a fire, there is a raging inferno. What is really worse for women, sacrificing a few career opportunities for the evolutionary dead ends in the workplace or sacrificing women as young as three to the depraved appetites of sexual predators?

Happy Converged Christmas at Tor

This is hilarious. The Macmillan executives who just shut down Pronoun have got to be eyeing serious cuts at Tor Books in 2018. At least Pronoun did what it was supposed to do.

Black Excellence: Honoring Kwanzaa through Science Fiction and Fantasy

It may be the holiday season, but for many people that goes beyond just Christmas or Hannukah. In my case, it means honoring my ancestors and culture through Kwanzaa. I’ve celebrated Kwanzaa alongside Christmas for nearly two decades now. While I no longer go through the whole ritual of lighting the mishumaa saba (seven candles) in the kinara (candleholder) or setting out the mazao (crops) and kikombe cha umoja (unity cup) on the mkeka (mat), I still try to honor the Nguzo Saba (Seven Principles) on which Kwanzaa was founded. One of the ways I do that is by spending the week of Kwanzaa focusing on work created by African Americans, from television to movies to comics to books to businesses and beyond.

It’s always amusing to see people pretending to care about fake holidays for fake Americans. As for me, I like to celebrate Black Excellence during Kwanzaa by watching Serena Williams defeat an white girl half her weight in straight sets while listening to Puff Daddy’s greatest hits, after which I read one of SFWA Grand Master Samuel L. Delaney’s beautiful tales of true gay love between man and underage boy.

It’s a very special time of year.

Dems to the Frankengroper: resign

The Democrats have finally concluded that it is time for (((Al Franken))) to resign:

Fourteen Democratic senators and the DNC chief urged Sen. Al Franken to resign Wednesday following the latest sexual misconduct allegation against him. After the resignation calls, Franken’s office said the senator would make an “announcement” on Thursday. It didn’t elaborate.

 Earlier Wednesday, Politico reported that a former Democratic congressional aide is accusing the Minnesota Democrat of forcibly trying to kiss her 11 years ago, adding to a string of allegations against him. In a statement before the calls for his resignation started, Franken denied the latest accusation against him.

In a succession of statements Wednesday, 14 of Franken’s Senate Democratic colleagues — nearly a third of the party’s caucus — pushed for him to step down. Among them was Patty Murray of Washington, the third-ranking Senate Democrat.

Although it would be advantageous to Republicans if Franken tried to run for re-election, it would be even more satisfying to see the nasty little creep forced to resign in disgrace. His election was fraudulent and he never should have even been nominated by the DFL in the first place.

Mailvox: do not “correct” me

I so despise the sort of midwit who leaps upon every possible opportunity to “correct” someone in order to show off how smart he is, and in doing so, demonstrates his own ignorance. Add in a dash of smug passive-aggression if you want to maximize the annoyance factor. Here is a suggestion: if you think I’ve gotten something wrong, look it up. If the 14 years of this blog serve as a reliable guide, there is about a 98 percent chance you are wrong.

VD: We can only hope that he will treat them in much the same way Sulla treated his political opponents

valiance: The way *Marius* treated his political opponents, surely?

VD: No.

From Infogalactic: Sulla

At the end of 82 BC or the beginning of 81 BC, the Senate appointed Sulla dictator legibus faciendis et reipublicae constituendae causa (“dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution”). The “Assembly of the People” subsequently ratified the decision, with no limit set on his time in office. Sulla had total control of the city and republic of Rome, except for Hispania (which Marius’s general Quintus Sertorius had established as an independent state). This unusual appointment (used hitherto only in times of extreme danger to the city, such as during the Second Punic War, and then only for 6-month periods) represented an exception to Rome’s policy of not giving total power to a single individual. Sulla can be seen as setting the precedent for Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, and for the eventual end of the Republic under Augustus.

In total control of the city and its affairs, Sulla instituted a series of proscriptions (a program of executing those whom he perceived as enemies of the state). Plutarch states in his “Life” of Sulla (XXXI): “Sulla now began to make blood flow, and he filled the city with deaths without number or limit”, further alleging that many of the murdered victims had nothing to do with Sulla, though Sulla killed them to “please his adherents”.

“Sulla immediately proscribed eighty persons without communicating with any magistrate. As this caused a general murmur, he let one day pass, and then proscribed two hundred and twenty more, and again on the third day as many. In an harangue to the people, he said, with reference to these measures, that he had proscribed all he could think of, and as to those who now escaped his memory, he would proscribe them at some future time.” -Plutarch, Life of Sulla (XXXI)

The proscriptions are widely perceived as a response to similar killings which Marius and Cinna had implemented while they controlled the Republic during Sulla’s absence. Proscribing or outlawing every one of those whom he perceived to have acted against the best interests of the Republic while he was in the East, Sulla ordered some 1,500 nobles (i.e., senators and equites) executed, although it is estimated that as many as 9,000 people were killed. The purge went on for several months. Helping or sheltering a proscribed person was punishable by death, while killing a proscribed person was rewarded with two talents. Family members of the proscribed were not excluded from punishment, and slaves were not excluded from rewards. As a result, “husbands were butchered in the arms of their wives, sons in the arms of their mothers”. The majority of the proscribed had not been enemies of Sulla, but instead were killed for their property, which was confiscated and auctioned off. The proceeds from auctioned property more than made up for the cost of rewarding those who killed the proscribed, making Sulla even wealthier. Possibly to protect himself from future political retribution, Sulla had the sons and grandsons of the proscribed banned from running for political office, a restriction not removed for over 30 years.

Not a good start

After reading Tom Wolfe’s unstinting praise of EO Wilson, I decided I need to read the man’s work. Who could fail to be interested after this sort of billing?

He could be stuck anywhere on God’s green earth and he would always be the smartest person in his class. That remained true after he graduated with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in biology from the University of Alabama and became a doctoral candidate and then a teacher of biology at Harvard for the next half century. He remained the best in his class every inch of the way. Seething Harvard savant after seething Harvard savant, including one Nobel laureate, has seen his reputation eclipsed by this terribly reserved, terribly polite Alabamian, Edward O. Wilson.

Fantastic. But as I am insufficiently learned to read his scientific work critically, I elected to begin with his philosophical work, specifically, The Meaning of Human Existence. And I was unexpectedly disappointed on only the second page. To say that it does not begin well for a man of supposedly superlative intelligence would be an understatement.

In ordinary usage the word “meaning” implies intention, intention implies design, and design implies a designer. Any entity, any process, or definition of any word itself is put into play as a result of an intended consequence in the mind of the designer. This is the heart of the philosophical worldview of organized religions, and in particular their creation stories. Humanity, it assumes, exists for a purpose. Individuals have a purpose in being on Earth. Both humanity and individuals have meaning.

There is a second, broader way the word “meaning” is used and a very different worldview implied. It is that the accidents of history, not the intentions of a designer, are the source of meaning. There is no advance design, but instead overlapping networks of physical cause and effect. The unfolding of history is obedient only to the general laws of the Universe. Each event is random yet alters the probability of later events. During organic evolution, for example, the origin of one adaptation by natural selection makes the origin of certain other adaptations more likely. This concept of meaning, insofar as it illuminates humanity and the rest of life, is the worldview of science.

What? All right, hold on just one sociobiologically-constructed minute. No one, literally no one, ever uses the word “meaning” that way. Even less so can this usage be excused in the case of an author who is writing in the intrinsically philosophical context of attempting to explain the significance of Man’s existence. Let’s reference the dictionary.

MEANING, noun

  1. what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated; signification; import
  2. the end, purpose, or significance of something

Hmmm. He has at least a superficial excuse. It appears that Wilson is playing a little fast-and-loose with the definition of “meaning” here. He is clearly using it in the sense of “what actually is”. That is (unexpectedly) fair enough, except for the fact that by selecting that specific meaning of the word,(1) he reduces both his statement and the thesis of his book to basic tautologies.

Consider the title: The Meaning of Human Existence. Now let’s incorporate this second, broader way the word meaning is used, according to Wilson: The Actual Is of Human Existence. What, one wonders, can we derive from Wilson’s bold statement that humans actually exist? Are we to assume it is a catalog of facts about humanity rather than a statement about the significance of humanity’s existence? It’s more akin to a bad comedy routine than a genuine philosophical statement.

“What do you mean by that?”
“What it is. What it actually is.”
“I know what you said. But what do you mean?“
“What I said. What else could I mean?”
“Don’t you mean what else could I actually is?”
“Don’t you?”

In fact, I even suspect Wilson of cherry-picking this definition in order to beg the question he appears to be feigning to propose given the fact that it does not appear in other dictionaries, such as the Oxford online dictionary.

MEANING, noun

  1. What is meant by a word, text, concept, or action.
  2. Implied or explicit significance.
  3. Important or worthwhile quality; purpose.

But the definition provided is even worse than the self-parody it appears to be. Remember, Wilson didn’t directly state that meaning is that which actually is, he declared the second way the word is used to be is that the accidents of history “are the source of meaning”. So, he’s actually using the word meaning in his own definition of the word meaning. This is either intellectual incompetence or intellectual shadiness, and while I cannot say which is the case yet, I am now on high alert to the probability of either… or both.

Given this shaky – or shady – foundation, I do not have very high hopes for the philosophy that Mr. Wilson has constructed upon it. I completely understand why some find my intellectual arrogance to be unseemly and offputting, but honestly, can you not in turn understand how I come by it, given how often this sort of thing happens?


(1) One can legitimately groan at that one. It does nicely underline my point, though.

Take away their feminist cards

The women of SNL sell-out their sisters on behalf of Senator Fish Lips Frankengroper:

SNL Women Offer Solidarity  in Support of Al Franken

We feel compelled to stand up for Al Franken, whom we have all had the pleasure of working with over the years on Saturday Night Live (SNL).  What Al did was stupid and foolish, and we think it was appropriate for him to apologize to Ms Tweeden, and to the public. In our experience, we know Al as a devoted and dedicated family man, a wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant. That is why we are moved to quickly and directly affirm that after years of working with him, we would like to acknowledge that not one of us ever experienced any inappropriate behavior; and mention our sincere appreciation that he treated each of us with the utmost respect and regard.

We send our support and gratitude to Al and his family this Thanksgiving and holiday season.

SIGNED BY
1.Jill Baylor, Production Assistant,1991-92
2.Shannon Gaughan Bowman, Writer, 1988-89
3.Beth Einhorn, Script PA,1987-1988
4.Cindy Caponera, Writer, 1995-98
5.Jane Curtin, Not Ready for Prime Time Player, original cast, 1975-80
6.Tracy Cooper Drippe, Script PA/ Script Supervisor,1986-1991
7.Suzy Drasnin, Production Staff/Photographer,1986-90
8.Juli Pari Frankel, Script PA, 1984-1985
9.Julia Fraser, Script Supervisor, 1978-1985
10.Tara Gardner, Writers Assistant, 1990-95
11.Iris March Gross, Broadway Video/SNL 1977-1985
12.Marcy Hardart, Assistant to Lorne Michaels, 1987-1990
13.Lori Jo Hoekstra, Writer’s Assistant/Weekend Update Producer, 1990-1998
14.Sheila Kehoe, Costume Dept, 1976-82
15.Marci Klein, Co-Producer, 1989-2014
16.Franne Lee, Costume Designer, 1975-80
17.Laila Nabulsi, Schiller’s Reel 1975-79; Associate Producer, 1985-1986
18.Laraine Newman, Not Ready for Prime Time Player, original cast, 1975-80
19.Mary Ellen Mathews, Show Photographer, 1993- present
20.Cristina McGinniss, Assistant to Lorne Michaels (25 years);Broadway Video,1979 – present
21.Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Writer, 1975 -1994 (intermittently)
22.Dinah Minot, Associate Producer,1985-1989; Co-Producer, Broadway Pictures,1989-96
23.Evie Murray, Assistant to Lorne Michaels & consultant, 1983-1994
24.Sarah Paley, Writer, 1979-80 (& The New Show 1981-82)
25.Sandra Restrepo Considine, Script Supervisor/PA – 1987-1993
26.Suzanne Rosenberg, Coordinating Producer/Weekend Update, 1983-2003
27.Suzanne Ross, Script PA, 1991-1993
28.Karen Roston, Costume Designer, 1975-1983
29.Mary Salter, Film Producer, 1977-1987
30.Claire Shirey, Script Coordinator, 1982-present
31.Rosie Shuster, Writer, 1975-1980;1984-88
32.Kiki Kazanas Steele, Script PA/Script Supervisor, 1985-1990
33.Pam Thomas, Consultant, 1980s
34.Bonnie Turner, Writer, 1986-1993
35.Christine Zander, Writer,1987-1993
36.Liz Welch, Talent Coordinator,1981-89

Truly pathetic. One would think that the fact that they were following in the Dunham Horror’s footsteps would have been sufficient to give them pause. It’s an interesting line of defense too. Perhaps the next bank robber charged with robbing a bank should consider requesting letters of support from all the banks he didn’t rob.

Besides, it’s not going to save him.

CBS Fires Rose.

The bitter last Boomer breath

This column by Kurt Schlichter confused me at first:

With all the awful things happening now – the discord, the anger, the stupidity – at least those of my generation can rest easy knowing that the Millennials are going to suffer after we’re gone. Sure, I’m going to die a lot sooner than them – unless someone invents some sort of expensive life extension potion that I can buy but they can’t because they will still be paying off their degrees in Oppression Studies and Virtue Signaling Arts until the year 2083. But at least I’ll know that we left them a suitably terrible world, since they are a terrible generation.

Millennials are the spawn we deserve – annoying, posturing, and frequently pierced. They are utterly convinced of their own moral superiority, and yet they don’t even believe in morals. Well, that’s not quite true – they just confuse morals with the increasingly bizarre patchwork of taboos and fetishes of the social justice weirdos they use as their moral compasses. When you ask people, “What’s the world’s biggest problem,” and they answer, “The structural paradigm imposed by cisgender Western males,” and you reply, “How about, I dunno, ISIS?” and they answer “Well, who are we to judge their culture?” it’s slappin’ time.

We warned them to stay off our figurative lawns, and now it’s time to figuratively tackle them like Kentucky libertarians.

Wait, what? The Millennials aren’t our spawn. I don’t quite… oh.

I was born during the last week of the Baby Boom, making me…older than the Millennials. So I straddle that useless generation and the useless one that followed. It used to be called Generation X, but no one calls it that anymore because it made no lasting impression. Obama was in my generation. We’ll never live that down. In any case, I remember when calculators were newfangled, phones were attached to walls, and Showtime was the bomb.

Oh, I suspect Generation X will make an impression that will last a lot longer than the Baby Boomers self-celebrated world-changing ever did. We’re going to clean up the mess that the two preceding generations made, with Generation Zyklon providing the footsoldiers.

Yeah, we messed up, but you Millennials reading this on your smartphones, which you can see without glasses or squinting, shouldn’t act so high and mighty. You had a chance to fix all of this and instead you’ve chosen to never move out of your parents’ houses and to just sit around and invent new pronouns for genders that don’t exist. A couple decades down the road, when I’m dead from chronic bitterness and drinking too much expensive cabernet that I buy with the Social Security money you’ll be toiling to pay me, you won’t have families or careers. You’ll be my age and still making coffee for the next generation of ingrates, the children of the immigrants and super-religious Christians who represent the only portion of America still making babies. You’ll come home to your used Mitsubishi love robot named Olive, reheat some Sara Lee avocado toast sticks, and watch Saturday Night Live as it tries to make fun of President Donald Trump, Jr.

The saddest thing about the Baby Boomers is that they STILL can’t accept the fact that they are old and uncool. Decades ago, when they were freaking out about turning 40, Generation X used to joke about how the Boomers were going to try to pull off the 70 is the new 30. But we didn’t think they would actually do it. And then they did. They’re STILL trying to sell Jane Fonda as a sex symbol and she’s practically embalmed.

But while we’re still here together, with me owning stuff and you struggling to afford your daily kombucha smoothie, we face many shared challenges. There’s that giant debt, and there are those foreign people who want to kill us, and there is the terrifying fact that we are at each others’ throats here at home. We know how this plays out if we don’t fix it – bad for me, but super-bad for you. Maybe we should try and square things away. Maybe we should stop assuming the worst about each other, start thinking about what unites us instead of what divides us, and work together to make a better tomorrow. Maybe.

Just shut up. Seriously. While there are individual exceptions, the Baby Boomers, as a generation, have literally nothing to offer the world except their merciful extinction. Maybe – no, definitely – they should accept the fact that they were the stupidest, most destructive, most foolish grasshopper generation human history has ever recorded, stop trying to defend their utterly indefensible record, and do their best to exit the historical stage in suitably penitent humility.

They won’t. But they should.

Generation X knows better than to expect anything from them. We knew better than to expect anything from them even when our grandparents were still around. And it is all too typically Boomer to take solace in “revenge” upon a generation whose only crime is to be young by celebrating the fact that, unlike most previous generations, they have left the world a much worse place than they found it.

The Great Reckoning

I rather like that name for the ever-expanding Hollywood Values revelations. Hollywood and the media are in serious trouble and they know it.

‘Fear is everywhere’: a quiet paranoia haunts post-Weinstein Hollywood
The industry is on edge as allegations of sexual misconduct reach dizzying heights. The question on everyone’s mind is: ‘Who will be next?’

Week five of the great reckoning and Hollywood is frightened and lost, drifting deeper into uncharted waters with no script, no direction and no sense how it will end.

Scandal was always part of the entertainment industry, a ritualised process of rumours, denials and hush money, publicists and fixers, banishment and redemption. But the vortex of sexual abuse allegations which started with Harvey Weinstein spins ever faster, whirling beyond control of the studios.

Who is next, asks the reporter in the Guardian? Apparently two Guardian editors.

The Guardian’s digital editor Ian Prior has been absent from work after female staff members reported harassment allegations to management, BuzzFeed News has learned. Guardian sources say Prior — the UK news organisation’s digital editor and former head of sport — is away from work while management investigate the allegations, made in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations that have created shockwaves across Hollywood, the media industry and politics…. The latest allegations against Guardian editors come after BuzzFeed News revealed earlier this year a complaint had been filed against former deputy Guardian US editor Matt Sullivan.

Meanwhile, ESPN’s great experiment in attempting to SJW-converge American sports is collapsing.

ESPN will lay off more than 100 staffers after the Thanksgiving holidays, multiple sources tell Sports Illustrated. The layoffs, which were described by a person briefed on the plans, will hit positions across ESPN including front-facing talent on the television side, producers, executives, and digital and technology staffers. The SportsCenter franchise is expected to be hit hard—including on-air people—given the frequency of the show has lessened considerably on main network ESPN.

The network declined comment to SI on Thursday afternoon.

Though hiring has continued and the network remains one of the great destinations for jobs in sports media, ESPN has experienced significant layoffs over the last two years. In Oct. 2015 the company laid off roughly 300 employees, about 4-5{666e5e86189a1fe5e2247551e7a4443f43206d2d8b82140cfc9efd38c8e16ed5} of its workforce—a particularly brutal act of gutting given the long tenures of many of those who were cut.

These are glorious days indeed. Drive on through the false narratives, punch through the flimsy armor of distractions and dissimulations, and find the truth! Hunt the witches without mercy. Encourage those who have been victimized to Be Brave and Be the First! The God-Emperor wills it!

UPDATE: DC is going down hard. It’s not even a little bit surprising that some of the most SJW-converged shows on television were being run by a (((gamma))) given to sexual harassment:

Andrew Kreisberg, co-creator and executive producer of the CW/Warner Bros TV DC series The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow and Arrow, has been suspended from his duties by the studio today over allegations of sexual harassment. Tonight, WBTV also say they are launching an investigation into the accusations.

“We have recently been made aware of allegations of misconduct against Andrew Kreisberg,” Warner Bros. TV Group said in a statement Friday night. “We have suspended Mr. Kreisberg and are conducting an internal investigation. We take all allegations of misconduct extremely seriously, and are committed to creating a safe working environment for our employees and everyone involved in our productions.

Kreisberg has been one of the top lieutenants of Greg Berlanti, the boss of the CW/DC universe. He has been a key auspice on all DC series, with primary focus on serving as showrunner of The Flash.

“We were recently made aware of some deeply troubling allegations regarding one of our showrunners,” Berlanti Prods.’ principals Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter said in a statement. “We have been encouraging and fully cooperating with the investigation into this by Warner Bros.

“There is nothing more important to us than the safety and well-being of our cast, crew, writers, producers and any staff,” they added. “We do not tolerate harassment and are committed to doing everything we can to make an environment that’s safe to work in and safe to speak up about if it isn’t.”

According to people familiar with the situation, several staffers on The Flash have complained about Kreisberg’s behavior.

15 women and 4 men registering complaints. Shut them all down.

Plagiarism is plagiarism

Toddy-Cat isn’t quite sure that the Zman is a plagiarist.

“I’m not sure that not citing a source in a response to a blog comment actually rises to the dignity of ‘plagiarism’”.

That degree of uncertainty is fair, especially if you haven’t actually read the source yourself, as I have not. But, as Tublecane demonstrates, once you look at Stove’s actual words and compare them to the Zman’s words, you are forced to conclude there is nothing to be uncertain about:

I thought of the paraphrasing defense, but that doesn’t hold up. It’s not that Z-man comes off sounding like Stove because uses the same general form of argument, borrowing a phrase or two…. I believe it was deliberate. Compare:

thezman: “Much more is known now about the natural world, than was known fifty years ago…”

Scientific Irrationalism by David Stove, (p.1) “Much more is known now than was known fifty years ago…”

thezman: “…and much more was known then than in 1580.”

Stove: “…and much more was known then than in 1580.”

thezman: “So there has been a great accumulation or growth of knowledge in the last four hundred years.”

Stove: “So there has been a great accumulation or growth of knowledge in the last four hundred years.”

thezman: “This is an extremely well-known fact.”

Stove: “This is an extremely well-known fact…”

thezman: “Let’s call this (A).”

Stove: “…which I will refer to as (A).”

thezman: “A person, who did not know (A), would be uncommonly ignorant.”

Stove: “A philosopher, in particular, who did not know it, would be uncommonly ignorant.”

The remainder of the post veers away from Stove’s text, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it were stolen from somewhere else. Now, whether such a thing as plagiarism exists in internet comment sections, that’s a different matter. I say yes, because it’s publicly passing off someone else’s writing as your own.

Tublecane is correct. The Zman clearly attempted to pass off David Stove’s writing and ideas as his own in order to try to place himself in an intellectually superior position from which he could then pass judgment. It’s not merely a question of what he did, but why he did it in that particular manner. He is observably a plagiarist. This observation is further supported by the fact that the Zman didn’t understand the argument that Stove was making about Karl Popper, nor does he understand Popper’s positions, nor does he even understand the fundamental differences between a) logic, b) math, and c) science, let alone the current need for the etymological division of “science” into its three aspects of scientody, scientage, and scientistry.

Ogre agrees. “It’s absolutely plagiarism in the sense of “presenting the words of another as your own.” And that’s really the only kind of plagiarism we care about here. Whether it could be considered academic plagiarism (I don’t know) or copyright infringement (its not), its still a dishonest and unethical thing to do. Especially given the context in which it was presented. It’s just more evidence of his posturing–passing off another’s arguments and expressions as his own in order to bolster his perceived intelligence.”

As has been the case every single time I have exposed the pretenses and posturings of someone who has fans, some of those fans are attempting to change the subject away from the failings of that particular individual to my theoretical motivations in destroying that individual’s intellectual reputation. To those fans, I will simply point out that my motivations are irrelevant, the facts are readily observable to everyone, and that this is what I do every time anyone comes at me, be they friend or foe.

The Zman and his would-be defenders can dance and defend and distract and theorize all they like. It won’t make any difference. The point is that he’s not particularly smart, he’s not very well-read – it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he hasn’t actually read much of the Stove book past the first page since he clearly didn’t understand it – and most importantly, he’s not very honest. And his moral and intellectual failings have nothing to do with me, as I am merely one of the many people who has happened to observe them.

The main difference between me and most of those who wish to somehow minimize my influence or discredit me is not that I am at least a standard deviation more intelligent than they are, although that is often true. The main difference is that for 16 years I have had tens of thousands of opponents poring over my every word written in column, blog post, comment, tweet, and book, looking for every possible mistake they can exploit, and most of my critics have not.

So, even if I lacked both confidence in my own words and personal integrity, I know better than to ever make the sort of stupid, obvious, dishonest, and self-discrediting mistake that the Zman did in plagiarizing David Stove’s words and attempting to pass off Stove’s ideas as his own. At the end of the day, a man must decide whether he values his integrity or he values the opinions of others. My decision should be obvious from my mantra: MPAI.