^

Quote:Or is it? Because here’s the thing about Bookscan — it doesn’t in fact track all sales of a book. It doesn’t track eBook sales, for example, nor does it track audiobook sales. Nor does it track sales from some small independent booksellers, who might have not signed up to be Bookscan-reporting retailers. As a result, depending on how much you sell in other formats, and where you sell your books, Bookscan can massively underreport your total sales.

I know this because that’s what Bookscan does with me. A couple of years ago I tracked the sales of the hardcover era of Lock In (which is to say, all the sales reported while the physical book was only available in hardcover). For the time it was in hardcover, Bookscan reported 11,175 hardcover sales in the US. However, overall the book sold about 22,500 copies in hardcover and about 87,500 copies across all formats (hardcover, ebook, audio).

In all, Bookscan recorded roughly 12.7% of my total sales. Which is not a lot! If Yiannopoulos were seeing a similar sort of ratio, based on his physical copy sales, he could indeed have sold something on the order of 100,000 copies of his book in the first week. He might not be lying.

There's Scalzi's real motivation for writing the piece. Dude's gamma to the core and obsessed with metrics, so he just had to talk about himself and how he was being underreported. Then he goes on to say [not quoted] how Milo is probably lying because x, y, z and thus Scalzi is a better seller than him. In fake magnanimity, he then says how nice it is that Milo is a genuine bestseller, and that's something to be proud of.

He's a fucking tool. I am ashamed I recommended his books years back in the SciFi-Fantasy thread.

Reasonable Milo is... reasonable.

This is the first really great interview he's done in a while especially compared to the obnoxious Bill Maher showing a few months back. The setback seems to have done him some good.

I got a copy of his book from Amazon yesterday. I only had time to read about 20 pages so far but it looks good.

double post delete

delete

Ben Shapiro writes a piece claiming Milo is a "alt right apologist"

Quote:Thanks to the hard work of alt-right apologists like Milo Yiannopoulos, the widespread perception has been created that the alt-right is a movement on the rise, with a fast-increasing number of devotees

Milo v. Jones is some of the best new right content in the past few years. Alex is in prime form, high off the roasting of his boyfriend Glenn Beck, free to share jabs back and forth with his guest. Milo has a great appearance that follows Roosh's great observation:

This could in the future be its own thread, the "Berkeley Happening III thread."

For now though, Milo and Ben Shapiro are planning to speak at UC Berkeley in the fall.

And Berkeley has a new chancellor.

And she has a different attitude to the last one.

And the free speech tide might be turning.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volo...64837586ad

Quote:This fall, the issue of free speech will once more engage our community in powerful and complex ways. Events in Charlottesville, with their racism, bigotry, violence and mayhem, make the issue of free speech even more tense. The law is very clear; public institutions like UC Berkeley must permit speakers invited in accordance with campus policies to speak, without discrimination in regard to point of view. The United States has the strongest free speech protections of any liberal democracy; the First Amendment protects even speech that most of us would find hateful, abhorrent and odious, and the courts have consistently upheld these protections.

But the most powerful argument for free speech is not one of legal constraint — that we’re required to allow it — but of value. The public expression of many sharply divergent points of view is fundamental both to our democracy and to our mission as a university. The philosophical justification underlying free speech, most powerfully articulated by John Stuart Mill in his book, On Liberty, rests on two basic assumptions. The first is that truth is of such power that it will always ultimately prevail; any abridgement of argument therefore compromises the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. The second is an extreme skepticism about the right of any authority to determine which opinions are noxious or abhorrent. Once you embark on the path to censorship, you make your own speech vulnerable to it.

Berkeley, as you know, is the home of the Free Speech Movement, where students on the right and students on the left united to fight for the right to advocate political views on campus. Particularly now, it is critical that the Berkeley community come together once again to protect this right. It is who we are.

Nonetheless, defending the right of free speech for those whose ideas we find offensive is not easy. It often conflicts with the values we hold as a community — tolerance, inclusion, reason and diversity. Some constitutionally-protected speech attacks the very identity of particular groups of individuals in ways that are deeply hurtful. However, the right response is not the heckler’s veto, or what some call platform denial. Call toxic speech out for what it is, don’t shout it down, for in shouting it down, you collude in the narrative that universities are not open to all speech. Respond to hate speech with more speech.

We all desire safe space, where we can be ourselves and find support for our identities. You have the right at Berkeley to expect the university to keep you physically safe. But we would be providing students with a less valuable education, preparing them less well for the world after graduation, if we tried to shelter them from ideas that many find wrong, even dangerous. We must show that we can choose what to listen to, that we can cultivate our own arguments and that we can develop inner resilience, which is the surest form of safe space. These are not easy tasks, and we will offer support services for those who desire them.

This September, Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos have both been invited by student groups to speak at Berkeley. The university has the responsibility to provide safety and security for its community and guests, and we will invest the necessary resources to achieve that goal. If you choose to protest, do so peacefully. That is your right, and we will defend it with vigor. We will not tolerate violence, and we will hold anyone accountable who engages in it.

We will have many opportunities this year to come together as a Berkeley community over the issue of free speech; it will be a free speech year. We have already planned a student panel, a faculty panel and several book talks. Bridge USA and the Center for New Media will hold a day-long conference on October 5; PEN, the international writers’ organization, will hold a free speech convening in Berkeley on October 23. We are planning a series in which people with sharply divergent points of view will meet for a moderated discussion. Free speech is our legacy, and we have the power once more to shape this narrative.

Fucking A+ New Chancellor Lady!

With the lunatic left at Berkeley, she'll need police protection soon if she successfully lets Milo and others like him on campus!

I'm very happy he's gone back to how he was originally in Britain. Another good interview where he's being serious...this time with the Google anti-diversity memo guy. Milo is good as an interviewer, like he was with Alex Jones, but Jones was always going to make it interesting. Here, Milo knows James is awkward and nerdy so makes it interesting for the viewer himself.

Agreed, Teedub, that is Milo at his best. Don't think he is going back in any meaningful way, he has just invested too much in being Milo. It is more like a hiccup in the time/space continuum, though that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it.

Christ what a nightmare...

Lipo at $28000 where in Colombia it costs women like $2-$3000 something is false and misleading in that article.

(09-23-2017 01:44 PM)komatiite Wrote:  

Christ what a nightmare...

So: narcissistic and fixated on his appearance; using plastic surgery out of fear of aging; changing his 'look' as a substitute for personal growth; being a voracious consumption machine spending beyond what he earns; abusing drugs and alcohol so as to attempt to exist in a chemically-altered state between Up and Down, never finding a happy medium?

To quote the mantra of the Leftists: it's 2017. Given the cultural dominance of venerating Gay Culture, how even the most sheltered Midwestern 'Frau' - the current slur Gays use to describe women, (which I guess is a step up from 'Fish') - doesn't understand that Milo is simply conforming to the standard issue homosexual script in beyond me.

The things is, this is their preferred state of existence, and why Gay Men often crash and burn so hard in their Forties... if they even survive that long.

I've been sorting out old song lyrics and demo tapes lately, and I found minor one I wrote back in January 1991: "House Of Wax".

Near the end of that year, a Flaming Gay Promoter Friend overdosed. Talking with the rave kids after the event, no-one knew he had graduated to heroine, and, given everything else that he took, we didn't understand how he had any room for another drug in his life.

The song came about because the guy had once dropped some unknown combination of drugs before going to a Wax Museum where someone in his drug circle was being honoured with a statue - and told me of how horrific he found the experience, because he'd fixated on a conversation he'd had with a staff member he was hitting on about the statue, who explained that it was re-purposed: "We just melt down the old stars no-one cares about any more."

Immediately, I thought of every musician I knew who had graduated to the major labels only to crash and burn within a couple of years and thought "There's a song here." (At that stage, I tended to see myself as a Documentarian, observing and recording everything around me).

What I found interesting was that this thought seemed to fill the Promoter with some kind of yawning, existential horror, and he explained how he started to notice in the early hours of the morning, dancers at a rave started to look like Wax Figures to him. Since he was usually a very mentally-flighty guy who would swerve out of any conversation he was bored with, I found the idea that a thought had ever even stayed in his head over a period of weeks interesting.

The song's bridge seemed to have come from of a conversation with him about Andy Warhol and the need to act like a Star to get attention: "What once was fifteen minutes now seems like fifteen days. You've just got fifteen seconds to matter."

I suspect that's what his fear was really about: No longer mattering. Understanding that no matter what you did, how spectacular the art you created, how wild a party you threw, how outrageously you acted, would eventually become ordinary enough to be ignored by the majority of people. (Since I already existed in a 'everything is transitory' mindset - youth, success, wealth, comfort, stability - the idea wasn't upsetting to me).

I summed the man up with one line in the song: "A shorter candle with a brighter flame."

Note that I wrote that description about 10 months before he died. Whilst the manner of his death was unexpected, his death itself was that predictable.

It seems whomever wrote the would-be hit piece on Milo has lived a very sheltered life if he doesn't realise gay men tend to live hard and fast.

Quote:[C]hanging his 'look' as a substitute for personal growth;

Yeah, the image thing. This is what I saw when I saw him live during the Dangerous
Faggot tour. On TV, great. In person, he makes almost no impression at all.

It felt very odd to me. Most charismatic personalities suck all the attention from a room. When Milo took the stage, I didn't even notice, my companion, who had never seen him before, said, I think it's him.

The Milo voice was there, but he was sitting down, dark sunglasses, and physically, he faded away, and he might as well have been one of the kids had invited him.

And if it didn't seem to me like he was all there, imagine how it must have felt to him, and imagine all the money he has to spend, and all the substances he has to ingest to feel like a real boy.

The full Playboy article that just came out: http://www.playboy.com/articles/the-bran...annopoulos

Playboy article on MILO Wrote:To hear Milo speak about the company, however, you wouldn’t think that he needs to rely on his fans for financial support. He claims that he was able to raise $12 million in funding within the span of 72 hours, though he would not disclose the names of his investors. Playboy can confirm it is a sole investor, through an LLC, behind the $12 million.

Any guesses as to the identity of MILO's sugar daddy? Is there actually a conservative billionaire with Alt-Lite sympathies willing to burn millions of dollars to ensure MILO a platform? Or is it possible MILO is being funded by (((someone))) on the Left? What better way to suck the oxygen out of a coalescing Alt-Right movement that is anti-homosexual and anti-Jew by promoting a homosexual Jew as its most prominent spokesman? This conveniently happens right after the most influential figure on the Alt-Right (Andrew Anglin, who is strongly and vocally anti-homosexual and anti-Jew, and anti-MILO for that matter) was kicked off the internet in what was clearly a coordinated conspiracy by the establishment. Maybe I'm reaching, but I find it a little strange that this sole investor - presumably a conservative businessman who has enough financial acumen to accumulate that much wealth in the first place - would so cavalierly throw $12 million at a transparently self-destructive homosexual who openly admits to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on partying, plastic surgery and clothes. Not exactly a sound business decision. You can't really be expecting to generate a favorable return on investment by backing a horse like that. But nevertheless, someone has thrown $12 million on the table to bring MILO back from exile.

Cui bono?

The Mercer family is funding Milo. They also fund Breitbart.

Quote:Secretive hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his family launched themselves into the top rank of American power through a series of spectacularly successful cash investments in politics: in Breitbart News, the far-right media outlet; in Cambridge Analytica, the controversial political data firm; and, of course, in Donald Trump, the president of the United States.

To those ventures — and a host of others — newly uncovered evidence strongly suggests an addition: Milo Yiannopoulos, the anti–political correctness crusader and conservative provocateur.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein....cyrkELlgM

Their agenda is anti-Islam, anti SJW, pro gay, pro Jewish interests. They're essentially spearheading political correctness 2.0: http://www.rooshv.com/political-correctness-2-point-0

(09-23-2017 08:08 PM)scorpion Wrote:  But nevertheless, someone has thrown $12 million on the table to bring MILO back from exile.

Roosh mentioned the Mercer Family, who are Ashkenazic Jews. I wrote a month back about how little money would mean to them in terms of them putting Trump into power.

Quote:Mercer is a guy who spend $2.7 million dollars installing a model trainset in his home. Do you think burning $10 million or so initially be seen to supporting Cruz to strengthen support for your real chosen candidate is beyond the realm of possibility?

$12 million is nothing.

The more I dig into the Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions movement, the more I see just how in the dark the Alt-Right really has been about this whole election, to the extent I've come to the conclusion that every single commentator is, like Milo, owned. (I wrote this up, including when the detectable shifts happened a while ago, but didn't post it, knowing it would just piss everyone off, and if they couldn't see it by now, they'd never see it).

Here's an interesting article from 2015, from Mondoweiss, a BDS site. Note the Iran thread, and Trump's recent actions.

Quote:“Pro-Israel Billionaires From Both Parties Aid Menendez’s Defense Fund,” is the headline of an article in today’s New York Times that might have been reported by Lobelog or us. The piece by Alexander Burns says that embattled NJ Senator Robert Menendez is getting support from Republican Sheldon Adelson, who wants to nuke Iran, and Democrat Haim Saban, who wants to bomb the living daylights out of Iran, along with assorted other billionaires. (What do you think Menendez’s position is on Iran?).

This explains why Hillary Clinton vowed to her benefactor Saban that she will work “across party lines” to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who was indicted in April on corruption charges, raised nearly $1.6 million for his legal defense fund in the second quarter of the year, including from some of the country’s most prominent pro-Israel billionaires, according to a disclosure report filed this week.

Though Mr. Menendez is a Democrat, his legal fund has attracted support from political donors in both parties who take a hawkish view of Israel’s security. The New Jersey senator has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations with Iran, and its often-troubled relationship with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who is a prolific donor to Republican groups, gave $10,000 to Mr. Menendez’s legal trust, as did Mr. Adelson’s wife, Miriam, who is a physician.

According to the filing prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, the Robert Menendez Legal Expense Trust also received contributions from the entertainment magnate Haim Saban, a pro-Israel Democratic donor, and his wife, Cheryl, as well as from the real estate billionaire Mortimer B. Zuckerman. Seth Klarman, a hedge fund billionaire who has donated heavily to Republicans, gave $5,000.

The Times is finding it has no choice but to report on pro-Israel billionaires because they are such a prominent force in US politics on both sides, are the leaders of the opposition to the Iran deal; and because Eli Clifton and Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer and our site too have been pounding the issue so much in recent years. Along with presidential hopeful Sen. Lindsey Graham:

“If I put together a finance team that will make me financially competitive enough to stay in this thing…I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding. Bottom line is, I’ve got a lot of support from the pro-Israel funding.”

It's interesting to note Hillary was trying to play it both ways from both the Reform and Zionist Donors. No wonder she thought she had the election in the bag and is still whinging about it.

Quote:Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Haim Saban, the biggest giver on the Democratic side, saying that she will be speaking out publicly against BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign aimed at Israel, and will work “across party lines” to oppose it.

In a two page letter with a handwritten postscript, released by Saban to the press, Clinton expresses “alarm” at the movement, links anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and the murderous attacks on French Jews, and tells Saban that she first “fell in love” with Israel more than 30 years ago when she and Bill Clinton walked the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City. (Sorry, but that’s occupied Palestine.) And Israel is a miracle; but it’s definitely not South Africa:

I am also very concerned by attempts to compare Israel with South African apartheid. Israel is a vibrant democracy in a region dominated by autocracy, and it faces existential threats to its survival. Particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world — especially in Europe — we need to repudiate forceful efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people.

She seeks Saban’s thoughts and recommendations about how to engage communities across the country to counter BDS. From Congress to state legislatures, to classrooms and boardrooms, Clinton says, we need to engage all people of good faith to show why BDS is harmful to Palestinians and Israelis. (But every Palestinian I’ve met is in favor of BDS!)

BDS must be doing something right to be getting this kind of attention. This is all about money; Hillary Clinton needs to raise more than $2 billion, much of it from pro-Israel Jews. Saban just staged a conference in Las Vegas with Sheldon Adelson, the big Republican giver, to come up with ideas to counter BDS. The big idea was millions of dollars.

A few weeks back President Obama also said that anti-Zionism was anti-Semitism. He is presumably supporting Democratic candidates for office.

Clinton says that the Palestinians cannot unilaterally declare a state, and no one can impose a solution on Israel. She brags on her record as a U.S. senator and secretary of state, saying she opposed “dozens of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN.” She writes that she supported Israel after the “biased” Goldstone Report.

“Time after time I have made it clear that America will always stand up for Israel — and that’s what I’ll always do as President.”

Clinton does not care that the Democratic base is deserting her on this issue. She thinks she can push this position through.

See how it doesn't actually matter who was President (Obama), who thought she would be President (Clinton), and who actually became President (Trump)? They all served the same master, (though I'm starting to have a little more grudging respect for Obama since I can more-easily detect now how he was occasionally-biting back at the hand that fed him and was trying to achieve diplomatic distance from Israel).

Roosh, I warned a few weeks back that we were to the Right of Zionism, when it comes to Gay Rights, Feminism, Transsexuals in the Military and (particularly) Abortion. Israel under Netanyahu has one of the most liberal approaches to Abortion in the world. I don't expect Planned Parenthood to go anywhere, because I'm getting a worrying feeling Israel doesn't think it needs Christian Approval anymore.

Berkeley Free Speech week is supposed to start this week. People are unsure whether if it is going to happen or not. Press conference happened yesterday.

Some crazy anti-Free Speech Leftist hijacked the press conference. "Free Speech is a cover for fascism!"




Milo looks pissed at the biased BBC reporter. After watching the whole thing, he shredded the reporter to pieces during this interview because of the ludicrous questions.




Milo called out interviewer's employer - The Hill - as the worst offender labeling him as "alt-right", "white nationalist sympathizer", etc.




Posters/Flyers: "Diabeetus Cat"




Posters/Flyers: "Your City is Run by Thugs in Black Masks" and "Fuck Your Commie Trash"

Tim Pool's live feed at Berkeley is unwatchable.

Yelling and Milling.

Strong police presence so not much happening.





Does anyone know when the main event is, and is it outside at Sproul Plaza?

Is it just Milo or what?

This live feed is just more evidence that when the police do their job, antifa disappears and nothing happens.

Edit: Sargon of Akkad is there for some reason.

The Berkeley student group pulled their sponsorship of Milo at the last minute. Milo says it was under duress from the university's administration. I wonder if it was because there was a falling out between the students and Milo?

(09-25-2017 08:21 AM)C-Note Wrote:  The Berkeley student group pulled their sponsorship of Milo at the last minute. Milo says it was under duress from the university's administration. I wonder if it was because there was a falling out between the students and Milo?

This whole thing is pretty suspicious. Why didn't Milo go with an established campus group? This was a very recently formed group, and it is not out of the question that they are an opposition group who formed quickly with the plan of backing out in mind to stifle Milo.

These Berkeley rallies are getting tiresome, like a really boring party or something. These sorts of events lose their sting if they happen too often. It was too much like everyone was going through the motions and didn't even want to be there, an opinion that was voiced openly by Cernovich and Tim Pool.

It reminded me of the old cartoon about the mortal enemies, the sheepdog and the wolf, clocking in together before their shift.






And like a boring party, the livestreams were just people walking around looking for people they knew. Wow? Sargon of Akkad meets Based Stick Man. It's like Batman and Superman meeting for the first time. Hey Sargon, any insights?
Yeah, Based Stick Man is really big. I didn't know he was that big. Thank you for the political commentary, Sargon, glad you came all the way from England for that.

People saying, hey Tim Pool, love your work.

Tim Pool: Thanks man.

Now that's political action!

Milo and Cerno and that old chick walking arm in arm, Milo going to Sproul steps, in Mario Savio's footsteps, and what? Was there a speech? Couldn't find it. He looked like the Bieb signing autographs for twenty minutes before leaving in his limo.



It was just tired. Police looked bored. Protesters seemed like old codgers yelling get off my lawn.

If you want a video to sum it all up, this was the best one, watching how the Berkeley admins deal with protesters:

(09-24-2017 12:41 PM)budoslavic Wrote:  Berkeley Free Speech week is supposed to start this week. People are unsure whether if it is going to happen or not. Press conference happened yesterday.

Some crazy anti-Free Speech Leftist hijacked the press conference. "Free Speech is a cover for fascism!"

It is all just so run of the mill. They start their press conference, some crazy lady comes in and starts shouting, and the rest just take a break and let her rant until she is exhausted, just standing there, looking pointless. Finally, the admin says, you got to say what you wanted, can the reporters ask questions now? And the pointless lady says, go ahead, like she is running the show when in fact she is being tolerated like a kid acting up in a restaurant.

She shouts some more about the police being called, and the admin reminds her that the chief of police is sitting right there, a woman, and the protester loses steam for a second and then starts shouting nonsense, so all the rest leave and go do their press conference in the hallway, and the protester is left all alone in the meeting room. Just like you do with a kid! Don't react, let them scream themselves out.

Yeah, Berkeley is a nightmare, but they have learned a thing or two about dealing with protesters.

This was a totally rote exercise, and even the participants are getting bored with it.

Not to be a codger myself, but we have gone from Savio's passionate speeches






To Milo taking selfies for a few minutes to a small crowd:




Even Fox News is calling it the most expensive photo op in Berkeley history:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/25/mil...icial.html

Coincidentally, or maybe not, Aurini's latest post nails what is happening:

Quote:I discussed the Catch-22 of thinking for yourself; how the subtle complexities which typify free thought are utterly beyond 95% of the population, rendering whatever solution or insight you’ve achieved as a failed non-starter from the get go. Attempting to spread your idea will only result in a dumbed down, mass-market imitation product which replaces your own, and utterly fails to achieve anything of worth.

It is worth a read.

http://www.staresattheworld.com/2017/09/...-catch-22/

Because what happened over the weekend was lame, no matter whose fault it was.It was like politics turned into Kids React before our eyes.


Edit: Oops, sorry, I was wrong. Milo did speak for twenty nine seconds. I take everything back.