We are now a police state. – Former NSA official Bill Binney
Today I’ll be Bob Zadek’s guest on his radio show on KKSF in San Francisco; even if you’re not in that area you can listen in on the internet. The show starts at noon PST (20:00 UTC).
A larger-than-usual fraction of this week’s links are funny, even though some of them are black humor; enjoy it while it lasts. Today’s first video, via Aspasia, is unique in that it was made entirely inside a computer; none of it exists in reality. Yet despite my generally low regard for CGI cartoons, I wholly admit to being extremely impressed by it and I predict a successful career for its creator. The second video (provided by Jesse Walker) takes us from the sublime to the ridiculous: it’s a 1963 Rice Krispies commercial performed by a now-legendary band before they were famous (Jesse also supplied “irony”). Everything down to the first video is from Radley Balko, and the links between the videos from Popehat (“class” & “petard”), Amy Alkon (“11”), Gideon (“natural”), Cop Block (“groped”), Tushy Galore (“Prince”), and Rick Horowitz (“NSA” & “robotic”).
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
- He just wanted to go out and meat people.
- Reinventing the door.
- Life in a police state.
- Class dismissed.
- Dan Savage is annoyed.
- Libertarianism happens to 11-year-olds.
- A natural development of the police state.
- The phrase “hoist by his own petard” comes to mind.
- Cops want woman they groped & beat imprisoned for 7 years.
- A chronological record of Prince’s hairstyles from 1978 to 2013.
- More on the old man murdered by cops because his yard stank.
- Primary use of NSA spying data: arresting people for petty offenses.
- Wind drops heavy “Feeling under the weather?” hospital sign on man.
- UK “authorities” compete to be as stupid and robotic as American ones.
From the Archives
- Valentines, water, cops, maps, overcriminalization, politics, librarians, spiders, TSA, Mr. Rogers, the Incredible Hulk and Hello Kitty.
- In New Zealand, even prohibiting streetwalkers from working in certain areas requires a new law.
- Melissa Gira Grant on how the “gypsy whores” myth harms sex workers.
- Most people have the sense not to act out abduction fantasies in public.
- Attractive female cops destroy the lives of high-school boys via trickery.
- A Chinese province has stopped sending prisoners to labor camps.
- Queensland cops want fetal rights to trump those of the mother.
- The tale of an escort who falls in love with a most unusual client.
- A must-read profile of neofeminist anti-porn crusader Gail Dines.
- How the Irish government enables the awful Magdalene orders.
- The prostitute who didn’t want Charles Dickens to “rescue” her.
- Meet Bethany St. James, Jill Brenneman and a sex worker mom.
- A brief history of Monto, once Europe’s largest red-light district.
- The “Juju sex slaves” myth just keeps on going like a zombie.
- Eric Berkowitz , author of Sex and Punishment, on Reason TV.
- Filipino sex worker rights advocates call for decriminalization.
- A word from noted “sex trafficking” expert Tommy Flanagan.
- The looking-glass world inhabited by Irish prohibitionists.
- Wendy McElroy asks, “Is America a Police State Yet?”
- A California woman claims porn can’t be copyrighted.
- Totalitarian laws always spread from place to place.
- An erotic video game with a very special controller.
- How well-chosen pictures increase blog traffic.
- The Push to Decriminalise Sex Work in Kenya.
- A report on the progress of the Swedish rot.
- My previous columns for Valentine’s Day.
- Tracy Clark-Flory on “sex addiction”.
- Wisconsin expands its police state.
- Sex, love and money in Cambodia.
- New findings on Fredric Wertham.
- A short tale about perspective.
- Potential HIV vaccines.
- CISPA is back again.
- Soiled Doves.
