Be Excellent To Each Other

Also, if you do happen to be innocent then I think a flat-out denial is completely understandable as a response. In fact, reaching out to a victim in private actually looks a little bit like buying silence or similar, perhaps. I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘this is an awful response because of the current climate, and is damaging to all cases’ because his response must critically address his case. I’m not saying that as a fan in this one instance. I’ve literally no idea who this guy is (well, I do now as I asked and someone said Star Wars, but I’ve not seen them or him).

Edit: Star TREK, even.

Indeed. If you haven't done "it" then you are entitled to flat out deny that anything of the sort happened, and you have precisely zero obligation to do anything else just because of any incidental effect it may have on unrelated cases/people.

Funny thinking back on Trek, there was those reports of Gene Roddenberry acting quite badly during production.

Also it was an actor on the current series of Trek that outed Kevin Spacey.

So can we just blame it on the Klingons and get on with stuff as usual then?

Provocative headline, but I broadly agree with what's written here:

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/ho ... socialflow

Louis CK take note, this is how you apologise:

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/ ... man-244978

I kept reading waiting for the bit where he resigned from his job in public office, but it never came up.

Come on, now that we can rank "public apologies for sex arrassement", LCK isn't that bad. After Spacey's "apology" CK's apology looked like The Brothers Karamazov. Yep, i'm still such a fanboy, even though i've been looking for other comedians to listen while i work because it's still too soon to listen to Louie again.

Try Mike Birbiglia: https://open.spotify.com/album/4dyqwnLapBXxpQN0rFeu0Z

CK didn't actually apologise at all.

Same

I know

I'm in the future too

Wow, this guy from Orange is The New Black and Amy Schumer show is a good comedian? Didn't know

I’ve said it privately and I’ve said it out loud to people’s cake holes: I’m not satisfied that Rolf Harris is a guilty paedo.

Then I’d read this assessment of the Harris case and I’m thinking there’s a miscarriage of justice in here somewhere. I reckon this piece is a fab write-up and deserves sharing widely. Also, it’s a fascinating look at the road to conviction in our courts that many people won’t have first hand experience of. Have a read, will ya.

http://barristerblogger.com/2017/11/19/ ... n-retrial/

FREE ROLF HARRIS!

FREE ROLF HARRIS!

FREE ROLF HARRIS!

Then do a retrial cause, y’know, just to be on the safe side cause he might molest our kids.

Actually, he might have been released already. ONLY HE NOES.

I see that Morrissey has helpfully chipped in with his opinion

I love the Smiths so every time Morrissey opens his mouth I die a little inside.

He’s an absolutely fucking awful person.

Yes. Yes he is.

Just assume, like in Clint Eastwood's case, that he was abducted by aliens and replaced with an inferior "clone".

FTFY

Err, no.

PS wrestling is shit.

You try not to let it taint the astonishing, towering magnificence of The Smiths' output (and a decent amount of his solo output in fairness, albeit less and less so in that regard over the years), but it's getting increasingly hard work with the utter fucking shite he's been coming out with for years now, and often quite hateful shite at that.

And yet apparently there are some superb tracks on his latest album, which I'll probably listen to and enjoy.

As cliched as it is, I guess geniuses are often troubled and disturbed and/or disturbing on some level, and Morrissey is (was?) definitely a lyrical genius.

I don’t think he’s disturbed, I just think his new music is pap even by comparison to stuff he released only 15 years ago, and he’s intentionally controversial to regain attention. I also think he’s very careful with his language, enough to be quoted out of context to attract bigger headlines (implying things he didn’t say, despite what he said being bad enough) and leaving enough wriggle room for his fans to accept it as a misquote.

I don't know if he's trying to appear "authentic" or whatever by parroting the views of e.g. the thickest twat in the pub or if those are just his actual views. I don't really care either way. I always thought he was a complete fucking tool.

He's a sociopathic, racist, foghorn-voiced empathy-vacuum. (And I like the Smiths.)

Evergreen Viz article from years ago:

Looks like Bryan Singer is finally in hot water.

Production has halted on the Freddie Mercury biopic he's directing, starring your man Rami Malek from Mr Robot. The official story is that he is "ill", but I am pretty sure there's more to it than that.

This one has been a big one for me. I grew up watching the X-Men movies. I still remember going to see the first one in the cinema with my dad, who read the comics when he was a kid. I never heard about the the numerous allegations against him until a couple of years ago, and when you look into it, it's pretty horrific stuff. Lots of allegations that get quietly hushed after the fact, lots of settlements reached, NDAs signed etc. When I first heard the rumours, I just thought it was gossip, and didn't put too much weight into them, but looking over things now it paints a pretty clear picture. There's been a significant number of accusers, he is associated with multiple convicted paedophiles, the story of Brad Renfro and extras hired to work on Apt Pupil, his ties to Kevin Spacey, him deleting his twitter account in the wake of the Weinstein allegations, the creepy as hell stuff his company Digital Entertainment Network produced, Bret Easton Ellis sharing (second hand) stories about what went on at Singer's underage parties, stuff like this and this, and him photographed at one of his parties dressed a priest with his arms around teenage boys.

Scary part is that it's possible he's been able to get away with it, because powerful execs/producers/agents attended a lot of his parties, so I imagine he's had the mindset that he is untouchable (and there is plenty of truth to that). He has the same lawyer as Cosby, Weinstein and Spacey. You'd kind of think with a clientlist like that, you'd have people not wanting to hire that lawyer.

Ian McKellen has been linked to his underage pool parties too. Not enough to hang him on, but I think serious questions need to be asked.

My theory is that he's gone into hiding because he's got wind that a big report on him will be published soon, but maybe not. Depending on how serious things are, I wonder if he's planning to fight them, or to go on the lam.

That guy you link to on Twitter, Paul Empson is typical of the problem, he claims to have seen Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey being inappropriate with small boys at a party for the Superman Film that Spacey starred in.

That was released in 2006 and 11 years later he is on the twitter confessional bandwagon.

He is a bad as the abusers by nature of his silence.

It's tough. Guys like these have a lot of money/power. It's not inconceivable that they will resort to all sorts of methods to discredit you. Weinstein hired a private squad of ex-mossad agents to tail and intimidate his victims and journalists.

If you've not got any evidence, it's just your word against theirs.

I'd like to think I'd speak up if I saw something like that, but I don't really know for sure I would.

It's absolutely not as bad as the abusers.

I love John Oliver

I also love John Oliver, but:

“It is reflective of who you were. If you’ve given no evidence to show it didn’t [happen] then there was a period of time for a while when you were a creeper around women. It feels like a cop-out to say ‘it wasn’t me.’ Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?”

So it's on Hoffman to prove he didn't harass? Seriously?

Also this:

“Do you believe this stuff you read?” Hoffman asked.

“Yes,” Oliver replied. “Because there’s no point in [an accuser] lying.”

We've been over this over and over, and it's so so stupid. Maybe Oliver should read Dostoevsky. People aren't rational and do all kinds of stupid shit all the time. They aren't robots.

I disagree.

Women have been shouted down or intimidated for years and then they get called liars when they do raise anything and they have nothing, absolutely nothing, to gain from raising historical assaults.

If a few Hollywood actors get made uncomfortable because they haven't fully addressed what happened then boo fucking hoo frankly. The balance of probabilities based on those in the limelight that are admitting such behaviour and that people in power tend to abuse that power is that something happened, so Oliver is right to at least pursue the line of questioning with more vigour than has been in evidence previously.

Very germane!

So the burden of proof should change depending on the status of the accused? That's what you're implying?

Also, according to you, the risk of having someone being wrongly accused is negligible because they're rich? I disagree. Also, i do remember when my sister, who is a lawyer, told me in the first year of her career "it's better to have 100 criminals free than to have one innocent in jail". I think i've already quoted here before, and will do again in the future if needed.

Besides, using the term "lying" in what amounts to an accusation of what happened 40 years ago is reducing this to a black and white situation. Memories are malleable and ever changing, and for some reason a 40 year old testimony holds a different weight in a court of law than a 1 year old for example.

EDIT: and now i quote something from the great Joe Miller, from The Expanse: "You know, every time you remember something, Your mind changes it, just a little, Until your best and your worst memories. They're your biggest illusions. "

"Chat show host things you've harrassed women" and "in jail" are really very different things.

Which is why one has a higher burden of proof than the other.

It's also likely that the vast majority of assault and harrassments currently being reported will never make it to trial because of the weakness of personal testimony and the age of the incidents. Does that mean we should declare everyone innocent and the women all liars?

Maybe neither? Why the hyperbole? Fortunately the age of "Acts of faith" is past. Courthouses exist for a reason.

Burden of proof is burden of proof. Not "higher" or "lower". Even if the person in question doesn't do to jail, name and personal reputation is very important, it may in fact be the most important thing.

What Cras said basically.

"Oliver is right to at least pursue the line of questioning with more vigour than has been in evidence previously." is hardly "THEY SHOULD ALL BE LOCKED UP"

A Tweet on my timeline that Jon Ronson just highlighted sums up my feelings on it well;

"On the John Oliver thing and so on. The redistribution of discomfort does not mean hating men. It’s a movement of some discomfort from women experiencing things to men facing them."

Yes, he did question Hoffman, which he did reply that it never happened. Now what? Apparently Oliver isn't happy until Hoffman gives the answer he desires.

You should talk to your sister the lawyer again. There are very many different levels of burden of proof. Civil cases, for example, have a lower burden of proof than criminal ones. Which is why OJ Simpson was found guilty of murder in a civil court but not a criminal one.

Someone being mean to you on a chat show has a lower burden still.

Burden of proof is a legal definition. We've been over this time and time again. Believing victims has nothing to do with court cases or trials or any other legal definitions, considering most victims never press charges for all the reasons we've stated before.

You can believe victims yet still believe in the rule of law. It isn't hard to understand.

The thing is, why should I believe anyone I don't know? I don't believe or disbelieve hoffman nor i believe or disbelieve the accuser. I do not know any of them personally. That's for the courts to decide.

But things happen that don’t go to court. If you heard that a friend was being a dick on a night out from a few sources, you wouldn’t assume they were being fine because it didn’t go to court.

If 'Rain Man 2, He Still Won't Fly' gets cancelled because of this shit, I'll be very upset.

It's weird how it's only sexual assault victims we don't automatically believe. If I say my car has been stolen, everyone is sympathetic. No one asks to see my empty driveway or police report or waits until the alleged burglar is found guilty.

Sorry to hear about your car man, that sucks.


<< hugs >>

You're talking about something personal and people whom i know. I might have believed more or less depending who was the friend being a dick.

If only. It's been a complete money sink since I got it.