Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words | Tagged blogging, Bluesky, Catholicism, cops, ethics, illegal aliens, internet, language, left-right myth, politicians, pragmatism, surveillance, Twitter, universal criminality, yellow journalism | Leave a Comment »
If you watch enough innocent people closely enough, criminals will fall out. – Josh Windham
…the Connecticut Department of [Torturing People Locked in Cages] charge[s] a fee for every day a person spends in prison and then [robs them whenever possible to] collect on that debt…If [one of the state’s] former…[victims] wins the lottery…collects an inheritance or receives certain lawsuit settlements, the state can [steal] up to half the money…[even from] their children, spouses and heirs. Other states and the federal government have similar laws on the books, commonly referred to as “pay to [be tortured]” statutes, but…Connecticut bills…prisoners [at] one of the highest [rates] in the country…$347 per day…[and] can collect on that debt for up to two decades after people are released from prison…In one such case, Connecticut [abducted a man’s] 1-year-old son [and killed him]…the state [was forced via lawsuit to pay] $2 million to compensate the family for the child’s death, [then stole]…more than $84,000 [of it because he had once been] in prison…[in] numerous cases…people were forced to sell their homes…
Rapist cops don’t only target women:
A Ramona [Oklahoma cop named]…Gerald Garrison [was fired and arrested for groping]…and [“]forcible sodomy[” of]…a city employee [who] was riding along with Garrison…in…the p[igmobile]. The…[grop]ing continued after the two entered Ramona City Hall…Garrison [said his victim wanted it]…
Given that this is Oklahoma, it’s more likely he was quickly fired for being queer rather than for being a rapist.
Another attempt to reduce all women to serfdom:
…Tennessee’s Underage Abortion Trafficking Act…criminalizes the “recruit[ment]” of a minor for any procedure that “would constitute a criminal abortion” under Tennessee law…[regardless of] where they take place…[the 6th Circuit has now ruled] in favor of abortion rights advocates Rachel Welty and Aftyn Behn by affirming a lower court’s permanent injunction against the recruitment provision. Welty and Behn advise people in Tennessee…about how to obtain an abortion in out-of-state places where the procedure is legal. Making this illegal violates the…First Amendment…
Cops won’t stop doing this until they’re forced to stop:
A Lexington [Kentucky] couple [was targeted by a cop gang who] surrounded their house…at 4 o’clock in the morning [on September 26. A spokespig ludicrously characterized this dangerous act of cop theater as]…investigating a road rage incident in which someone reported being assaulted with a deadly weapon. The [victim] described the [assailant’s] vehicle…as a dark colored Ram 2500…[so cops] used the Flock S[surveillance system]…to [pick]…a dark colored Ram 2500 [at random. Luckily for Will and Robin Penn, they are white, so the gang did not destroy their house or murder them in a hail of bullets]…
When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1668)
The open internet will soon be a thing of the past:
Alabama[‘s]…“historic” settlement with TikTok [isn’t merely]…a $100–300 million [extortion]…pa[yout, but also]…one of the most expansive age‑verification and behavioral‑surveillance mandates ever imposed on a social media platform…TikTok must develop machine‑learning models [for]…always‑on…behavioral…deep content…social‑graph…identity correlation…anti‑evasion…[and] activity surveillance…not…only [of] minors…[but of] every Alabama user…device…[and] account…These systems cannot function without continuous monitoring of all users…
This ruling is probably too little, too late to stop “pre-crime” policing:
A federal jury…found Bexar County, Texas, liable for systematically violating thousands of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights for years through a [legalized robbery gang]…On March 16, 2022, Alek Schott was driving home from a work trip near San Antonio, Texas, when…a Bexar County Sheriff’s Office…deputy [inflicted]…an hourlong, unconstitutional fishing expedition [on him, implicitly threatening him with arrest and interrogating him]…while [the pig rooted in his]…criminal history…the[n using a] dog [to manufacture fake “probable cause” to root through his vehicle without his consent by]…gesturing…and signaling toward the dog…when…Schott filed a complaint with the BCSO internal affairs department…[they laughed at him and told him to] “file a…lawsuit”…so he did, untangling a web of pretextual stops…[justified by chatbot-connected] license plate readers…[declaring random victims “]abnormal[“]…
The excuse-making is almost as nauseating as the electric zombies themselves:
More than a century after her screen debut and decades after her ashes were laid to rest in a Swedish woodland cemetery, [Greta Garbo]’s descendants are ready to c[ash in on her legend any way they can]. Her [corpse] has already been reanimated for a…[ball-bearing] advert for a Swedish industrial company…The practice some [ethical people] call “ghostploitation” has also been used in the case of the [late] actor Val Kilmer…Craig Reisfield, one of three relatives who [mis]manage her legacy, [said]…“I won’t say no, especially [consider]ing [how]…incredibl[y lucrative it will be,] and [since]…Greta Garbo [is dead we needn’t bother with obtaining her consent]”…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged abortion, acting, advertising, agency denial, Alabama, artificial stupidity, asset seizure, censorship, Connecticut, ethics, Feudalism Redux, homosexuality, internet, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Panopticon, prisons, rape, Shame Shame, surveillance, Tennessee, Texas, The Punitive Mindset, TikTok, To Molest and Rape, Welcome to the Future, When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals | Leave a Comment »
As I explained recently, I’ve been cooking for those I love for most of my adult life, so cooking just for myself can seem like a chore. And that’s even more true when it comes to desserts; it seems almost silly to bake a cake or pie or cookies if I’m the only one who’s going to be eating them. But since I do like my little treat with my tea and show while unwinding in the hours before bed, it’s either make them myself or buy them from a store, which is far more disagreeable to me than making them. And besides, I can’t let all that fruit growing on my property go to waste. So I’ve started to get into the habit of baking on Sundays; when I go into town for groceries on Monday or Tuesday I bring some of the pie or cake or cookies for Chekhov and Yellowbird, and then I have enough for one piece myself each night for most of the week. Last week I got off-schedule and made an apple pie on Wednesday, which meant by Sunday afternoon there were only two slices left; that inspired me to make more crust and simply walk out back for a few more apples to create another pie. I’ve also discovered that making several smaller batches of salsa or whatever seems less daunting than one big batch, so that’s how I’m doing it now. Changing the habits of a lifetime can be difficult, but when one’s circumstances change it’s also necessary. And though it’s probably harder for me than it would be for someone less OCD than I am, I feel like I’m doing OK. And once I settle into the new routines, perhaps I won’t feel Grace’s absence quite so keenly.
Posted in Diary | Tagged Grace, psychology, Sunset | Leave a Comment »
The way people of later times view a dark age is…not at all the same as the way people living in such an age view it. – “Nightfall”
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live in a dark age, wonder no more; you are in one now, at least the early part of one. As I wrote last year,
…a dark age is one lacking reliable records, so historians cannot be certain of what actually happened. Of course, censorship is typically part of that; if a government or religion burns books, anything recorded in those books is not available to future historians…20th century tyrants could never hope to find and destroy every copy of a banned book, film, recording, etc, but when physical media are no longer the norm, universal censorship of a work enters the realm of the possible. And now that it has become child’s play to flood the world with computer diarrhea presented as fact, even electronic records which somehow escape a purge will be lost in a vast fecal sea, making it difficult for even experts to know what is real. And if the techlords get their way, there will be a lot fewer experts in the future to attempt it or even care about it…
There is little point in my using the occasion of Banned Books Week to write about this any longer; besides the fact that I’ve written about it every year since 2011 and the old columns are all still there for your perusal should you desire, many news columns every month include items on various forms of censorship. So this year I’m simply going to call attention to the fact that the book-banners and book-burners are no longer satisfied with the pretense that they merely want to keep “obscene” (defined in whatever fanciful and impossibly-broad way suits them) books and other media from “children” (defined in such a fanciful and impossibly-broad way it includes all high school students and even many university students) everywhere in the civilized world; they are even now attempting to prevent people everyone agrees are adult from seeing any books or electronic media any government anywhere in the world has any objection to, via a combination of banning physical books, internet censorship, mass surveillance, flooding the world with garbage, and enticing the intellectually-lazy majority into never, ever thinking for themselves. And this combination has the potential to create an age so dark, it will make every previous dark age look like the Enlightenment in comparison.
Posted in Current Events, History, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged artificial stupidity, Censor Chic, censorship, Censorship Ascendant, Crippling Thought, Enshittification, internet, libraries, Mad Libs, politicians, psychology, surveillance, Thought Control, Walled Garden, You Were Warned | 1 Comment »
“AI” allows you to get to a bad idea faster.
I had until recently completely forgotten about this song from The Electric Company, which I can remember my little brother singing around the house. The links above the video were provided by Shiv Ramdas, Jesse Walker, Tracy Quan, Asawin Suebsaeng, Glenn Kessler, and IncarcerNation, in that order.
- Much more of this, please.
- Did life on Earth begin twice?
- Why does Venus have no moon?
- No, your reason is not an exception.
- Another great moment in artificial stupidity.
- Crime: failure to appear. Penalty: summary execution of girlfriend.
From the Archives
- Politicians will pay for “self-care” for cops “traumatized” by raping whores.
- Do they think foot-dragging & stupid cop-talk makes him seem less guilty?
- If you’re a fan of “sex offender” registration, meet one of your bedfellows.
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- When will the mainstream media admit that pigs in schools are a menace?
- Amazon also eagerly hands data from internet-connected devices to cops.
- If “official” busybodies can spy on you via your car, so can unofficial ones.
- “Child porn” is here used as pretext for mass surveillance on a vast scale.
- The word “Orwellian” is overused, but in this case it is absolutely spot on.
- “Cop murders wife/girlfriend & claims it was suicide” is a common theme.
- Anyone whose brain isn’t rotted by prohibitionism could’ve predicted this.
- There is nothing “shocking” about a cop abusing a minor or anyone else.
- If prohibitionists want to “rescue” whores, why keep us from other jobs?
- Partisans don’t give a damn about sex workers, despite contrary claims.
- “Banned Books Week” used to be little more than an academic exercise.
- Politicians no longer care about whether their diktats are Constitutional.
- It’s rare to see a modern judge explicitly rule in favor of self-ownership.
- Texas’ ruling psychopaths want to kill women and ruin doctors’ careers.
- Picture what you’d think of as “sex trafficking”, then compare it to this.
- Idaho paper approves of sheriff appointing himself chief library censor.
- Still think realistic porn cartoons are the worst use for this technology?
- Euphemism for “Cop gets a teenage girl drunk so he could molest her”.
- Uthmeier doesn’t care if he has no legal grounds to harass companies.
- When sex work is marginalized, sex workers are targeted for violence.
- Making a hobby of accusing strangers of felonies might be dangerous.
- Cops will never stop these evil scams without facing criminal charges.
- Retrospective of my blogging from September 2013, 2014, and 2015.
- “Drugs” are a popular pretext for petty vindictiveness in US prisons.
- Cops, cheese, artificial stupidity, Kris Kristofferson, and much more.
- Why are people shocked when men paid to behave violently, do so?
- Your irregular reminder that this blog depends on you for support.
- This will never stop until it is treated as what it is: armed robbery.
- Note that cases of actual coercion don’t look much like the myths.
- This will continue until the evil US immigration policy is reformed.
- Cop and preacher is like the molester equivalent of a full house.
- All too often, evil arrives cloaked in the mantle of expediency.
- Cops, flying, Michael Gambon, Alice Cooper, and much more.
- Even the distancing “former” is the same as for rapist cops.
- The US has achieved banana republic levels of corruption.
- Literally making mincemeat out of small green tomatoes.
- Just another of those nonexistent false rape accusations.
- Cops, music, Viv Prince, Jane Goodall, and much more.
- Expect use of this term to continue expanding wildly.
- “Youth leader” = “youth pastor”, with all that entails.
- A selection from my novella, “Until the End of Days”.
- The stupider the belief, the harder it is to debunk.
- Oh look, Maggie is right again, what a surprise.
- Meet Hercules, the newest resident of Sunset.
- Prohibitionism is a dangerous mental illness.
- Prohibition inevitably leads to exploitation.
- The True Story of Throwback Thursday.
- Throwback Thursday vs. the Mummy.
- The first fire in my atrium stove.
- The Evil of Throwback Thursday.
- Trying to replace my old boots.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, Words | Tagged artificial stupidity, cops, language, Never Call the Cops, STEM, Stop faking!, Texas, video, Virginia | Leave a Comment »
[It] basically looks like a baby [rattle]. – Katie Seaborn
It’s likely that flashing is the least of his crimes: A[n Oregon cop named]…Luis Rivera…e[xposed himself to a woman at a gym and was rewarded with a paid vacation]…
OfCom is trying to rob corporations for being unable to do the impossible:
[The UK censorship bureau] Ofcom [is trying to bleed] Pornhub owner…Aylo [of £18 million, using the excuse that]…the site’s new age checks are [not 100%] effective…[at stopping tech-savvy legal minors] from accessing…content [the UK wants censored]…in May…Pornhub started using a new age verification process [owned by]…Apple [which]…Ofcom…praised…as “a real win for children and families” [until Apple refused to create a backdoor into its cloud storage service which would allow the UK government to access any UK user’s data at will]…Aylo [correctly points out that the “age verification” surveillance regime has effectively driven UK web traffic]…to riskier sites that aren’t following Ofcom’s rules…
Courts regularly pretend there’s a “fuck you, we’re cops” exception to the Takings Clause:
Abigail Trujillo was in the middle of a shift at her job…when Houston [cops decided to use] her car [for target practice, shooting it] dozens of times. Neither Trujillo nor her Nissan sedan had [done] anything [illegal]. But weeks [later]…attorneys for the city told…Trujillo, a 20-year-old University of Houston student who [is] working a retail job to help pay for college…[to fuck off, adding insult to injury by calling a totaled car she still owes thousands on an] “inconvenience”…
…a new map published [on September 23] by a cybersecurity researcher reveals Flock’s nationwide reach is [much] bigger…[than it claims,] show[ing] more than 170,000 cameras, plus more than 130,000 accompanying gadgets…Joshua Michael’s Flock Surveillance Map highlights the locations of…[all] Flock surveillance devices…across the country…Unlike crowd-sourced projects such as DeFlock, which are built on locations submitted by users, the Flock Surveillance Map relies on location data culled from a snapshot, archived by Michael in December 2025, of Flock’s own records…color-cod[ing] each Flock device according to its model…[and including it in a] searchable dataset table…
If you hated the adult pacifier fad of the ’90s, what about a surveillance rattle?
[Because of] the [ongoing] backlash against…pervert…glasses…Mark Zuckerberg launched a[n]…alternative [designed to trick infantile minds]: the Muse [gewgaw]. With a screen that shows a cutesy little avatar, it has drawn comparisons with Tamagotchis…[and] could fit, like a Labubu, on to a keychain or bag.
But unlike a Labubu, the [built-in chatbot] will have significant capabilities, including the ability to [dri]ve [the owner into psychosis, incorrectly]…answer [questions]…or [give dangerous and possibly deadly medical “advice”]…Joshua Paul Dale…[of] Chuo University in Tokyo [said]…“Everyone hates…[perve]rt glasses. But if the camera is contained in a charm [nitwits] wear around [their] neck, it shifts the agency [in the minds of those with poor thinking skills]. Suddenly, you’re not recording people. It’s just a cute little animated avatar looking out
on the world”…this [“]companion[“]…tracks with Zuckerberg’s [obsession with] the idea of [a world completely without privacy]…
Prosecutors in Marion County, Indiana, [surprising]ly charged five Indianapolis [cops for]…misusing their [unconstitutional warrantless] access to Flock license-plate-reader cameras.
The action comes [only because] The Washington Post highlighted thousands of questionable Flock searches, [embarass]ing the city…The five [pigs] — Michael Rogers, Jonathan Schultz, Cassandra Crawley, Matthew Binford and Abigail Cramer — were all charged…with fraud and…recommended for termination…Flock [is scrambling to design a] tool that automatically scans for…misuse [in an attempt to head off the wave of bad publicity]…
A Naperville [Illinois cop] used Flock [ALPRs] to track a girlfriend and her ex-fiance…Oscar Maldonado…[performed the unconstitutional warrantless searches] hundreds of times between June 18, 2025, and Sept. 15, 2025…When the department received a citizen complaint…Maldonado was [rewarded with a paid vacation, but]…ultimately [saw the writing on the wall and] resigned in May [before he could be fired]…When asked why he used Flock [for the unconstitutional warrantless surveillance], Maldonado
[moronically barfed]…the [word “]safety[” in the investigators’ faces, apparently assuming they were as naive as the public]…
Durango [Colorado] residents took to the streets…to [protest]…the growing mass surveillance system
[based on] automated license plate readers…the…Durango [cop shop thinks people are so stupid they will believe]…its switch [from Flock] to Axon…is [other than a mere cosmetic change]…
It’s not only small cities, either:
The [LAPD’s much-ballyhooed ending of its contract with Flock is in reality merely a misdirection for its new and even worse contract with]…Axon…for [even more invasive surveillance], including new p[igmobile-mounted ALPRs]…and [truth-hiding chatbot report writers. Spokespig]…Dean Gialamas…[absurdly tried to defend the surveillance expansion by oinking “]public safety[” at reporters]…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged A Broker in Pillage, artificial stupidity, asset seizure, California, censorship, Colorado, cops, Creepy Coppers, Eavesdropping, Facebook, fascism, Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, Panopticon, psychology, Stalkers in Blue, surveillance, Texas, United Kingdom, Walled Garden | Leave a Comment »
I recently re-watched The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of my favorite movies since I first saw it roughly 50 years ago. As I wrote about it 15 years ago,
This is one of the first serious science fiction films, and since the minimal special effects take a back seat to old-fashioned concepts like “story”, “character development” and especially “acting”, it’s still better than just about everything which has come along in the genre since. Michael Rennie’s portrayal of the alien diplomat Klaatu set the bar for humanoid aliens for decades.
But this was the first time I saw it under the influence of THC, thus allowing me access to a new level of appreciation of how good it is. The skillful direction of Robert Wise (The Haunting, The Sound of Music, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and the striking and innovative score composed by Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Psycho) create a dark, paranoid, and suspenseful mood which marks the film from the outset as a serious, thoughtful film which has virtually nothing in common with the silly, low-budget sci-fi movies which were typical of the genre at that time, and the near-perfect casting of the principals (Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, and Sam Jaffe) did justice to an intelligent script which never panders to popular attitudes nor talks down to its audience. Despite the fact that he comes from another world, Rennie’s Klaatu is completely human; he is ignorant of Earthly culture, but his reactions – frustration at Earth people’s irrationality, genuine affection for Helen Benson and her son, a warm smile when he discovers what a music box does – allow the audience to understand that he is no monster from outer space, but a man overwhelmed by the gravity of his mission. And one of the emotions he displays, fear of the consequences should he fail, unlocks a more subtle meaning in the film than its overt anti-war message. And that message is just as important to modern audiences, 75 years after the movie was made, as the more obvious one.
In reviews, analyses, or discussions of the film I’ve read over many years, Klaatu’s warning to Earth is often mischaracterized as a threat, but that is an error resulting from not listening carefully enough to the dialogue. The word “threat” would imply that Klaatu, or at least the government he represents, has control over the potential doom hanging over the Earth. But he absolutely does not; his speech in the final scene is not, “Do what we say or else,” but rather, “Here is a situation that exists, and we felt Earth ought to be warned about it.” There is heavily-underlined foreshadowing in the scene where Klaatu and Helen realize the military has their taxi surrounded:
- Klaatu: I’m worried about Gort. I’m afraid of what he might do if anything should happen to me.
- Helen: Gort? But he’s a robot. Without you, what could he do?
- Klaatu: There’s no limit to what he could do. He could destroy the Earth.
But the danger is fully spelled out in Klaatu’s final speech:
We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression…For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk.
Let me emphasize that: the interplanetary confederation has put all weapons under the control of robots like Gort, and there is no way to revoke that power. The situation is not candy-coated or presented as Utopian; a few lines later Klaatu says, “We do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts.” On the most obvious level, the film presents a warning about the costs of barbarism. But on a deeper level, the film asks, “Was it wise for these other human beings to give absolute power to machines whose response to aggression of any kind is almost entirely unpredictable?” There is no “right” answer, not for Klaatu, nor for the Earth people within the story, nor for us in the audience. There is only a choice, and the decision to cede control over one’s security to an inhuman, unstoppable power, however terrible the alternative, is not without cost. 
Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged acting, imaginative fiction, Reviews, robots | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged blogging, Bluesky, bogus studies, crypto-moralism, drivers, drugs, politicians, propaganda, scams, Send In the Clowns, Twitter | Leave a Comment »
I built SparrowMap to give…the watchers a taste of how it feels to be watched. – Matthew Montney Jr.
I’m sure they’ll try to thwart the court order with delays & halfway measures:
A federal judge has ordered Texas to air condition all of the state’s…prison[s]…by the end of 2029…at [present only] a third of the agency’s 104 [dungeons a]re fully air conditioned…[despite summer] conditions in Texas prisons without air conditioning [clearly] violat[ing] the Eighth Amendment [ban on]…cruel and unusual punishment…
“Shot detection” systems are a boondoggle designed to manufacture false evidence for cops:
Flock…sells a surveillance bundle…called the “Safe City” subscription…[which] includes the much-discussed ALPRs, along with a live video camera—and a gunfire microphone…[intentionally designed to] turn…lawful gun owners into criminal suspects based only on proximity…Cities also have deployed firearm detection systems that rely on [machine learning] to [pretend Doritos bags are guns]…or combine [detected sounds with cops’ editing] to [frame innocent people]. Flock [brags that its]…technology…can…turn…suspected gunfire into a list of nearby vehicles…that sweeps in drivers who had nothing to do with the noise…
The rise of computerized zombies:
The former chief executive of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s entertainment group has obtained a near-£15m investment for his UK music [scam] that hopes to [make cartoon versions of] classic concerts by ma[king cartoon versions of dead] musicians…[or] “hyper [ghoulish]” digital [cartoons] of living artists who [have] no [scruples about bleeding their fans]…The music industry has long [lusted after] the [ability to exploit popular musicians, who have an annoying habit of dying young]…such as the 2012 [cartoon] of the late rapper Tupac Shakur [which was played] alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre at Coachella festival. The concept found mainstream success with the 2022 launch of Abba Voyage, a lucrative…con…[featuring cartoons] of the Swedish pop group…Unit1’s aim is to stage shows with real musicians playing live instruments on stage alongside [cartoon characters on]…a high-definition LED screen, which is combined with extra lights, sound and props to give them the illusion they are [in the universe of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]…However, [true] fans have expressed unease about [the memories of] dead musicians [they loved] being [violated in this manner]. Earlier this year, a [scheme] to [dig up the corpse] of the late…Ozzy Osbourne was [recogn]ised as being disrespectful and in poor taste by [true] fans…
Promoters of dystopia love to vomit words like “safety” into the faces of useful idiots:
The University of Kentucky is installing…facial [recognition] scann[ers]…on several campus buildings. The technology, [moronically] called Rock, is made by [a company whose name, “]Alcatraz[“, would be panned as too obvious if used by the writers of a dystopian TV show]…Alcatraz…CEO Tina D’Agostin…[argued that key card] technology most campuses use today is [automatically bad because it is] 30 years old…She…[then barfed up a bunch of lies about privacy followed by obfuscatory buzzwords including “]active shooter[” and “]physically assault a female[“]…Three [out] of…four students interviewed on campus [simply stared with a glazed expression and belched either “safety” or “the future”]…
The open internet will soon be a thing of the past:
The EU Commission draft law to restrict young people’s access to the internet…will put online services behind age gates, expand the use of intrusive age verification, and undermine the privacy of all users. [Proponents of ] the EU Kids Act [justify it by barfing “]protect children[” in the faces of rational people, but in reality]…age gates…reduce safety…and create barriers to…marginalized groups…this…compliance nightmare…rel[ies] on the [already-failed] EU age verification scheme…parents…who [want to allow their teens to use the internet] must set up accounts and prove that they are, in fact, parents, adding yet another problematic layer of verification…the…design…[appears to be a way to circumvent the fact that] a French court [has already] declared s[ocial media] bans unconstitutional…
Some child-molesting cops are indiscriminate in their choice of victims and acts:
[A cop named] Joseph Gallagher Jr…[was arrested on multiple] child sex charges…[for repeatedly] urinat[ing] in [the] mouth [of a 4-year-old boy. After the child told his teacher, investigation revealed]…Gallagher [had] also…rap[ed] a [10-year-old] girl…in 2021…Gallagher was employed with the East Stroudsburg University Police…[w]here…he…had a history of urinating on campus buildings when he had access to restrooms…
Department of [Father]land Security…fusion centers have started monitoring anti-surveillance activists…in[cluding]…online critics of…ALPRs…[and] a website, SparrowMap, that uses ALPR technology to track police vehicles in real time…There is nothing illegal about SparrowMap…[which] processes publicly available livestreams from municipal cameras and footage provided by volunteers using everyday cameras…Volunteers…confirm…anything before it is published as a government vehicle…But the federal government’s desire to beat back the growing wave of “anti-surveillance extremism” will have to contend with the reality that impassioned sentiment opposing [mass] surveillance [is] now a majoritarian position across America. Politicians from [across the uni]part[y] have scrambled to introduce legislation curbing or eliminating automated license plate readers altogether, at the same time [anti-civil liberties organiz]ations hold secret briefings in Washington attempting to stem the anti-surveillance tide…
The tagline is from this article on cops getting butthurt when pervert glasses are used against them.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Music, News, Tyranny | Tagged activism, agency denial, censorship, cops, Creepy Coppers, Eavesdropping, Enablers, ethics, Europe, fascism, internet, Kentucky, law, Panopticon, Pennsylvania, prisons, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, scams, Shame Shame, surveillance, teachers, Texas, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, Walled Garden | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes I feel as though Grace is watching over me. The device in the picture is an apple peeler/corer; it works like a charm for preparing apples to cook, because all one need do is stick an apple on those spikes and turn the crank, and the apple is peeled, cored, and spiral-sliced in about 30 seconds. But a few weeks ago, I noticed I hadn’t cleaned it thoroughly enough when I put it away last year, and in the process of remedying that I accidentally unseated the spring you can see at lower left. In the past, I would’ve simply taken it to Grace’s workbench and she’d have fixed it in under five minutes, but this time I had to do it myself. It wasn’t easy, but I found some close-up pictures on the internet and was eventually able to get it back together properly. At least, I was fairly sure it was correct; the moment of truth came on Sunday, when I picked a basket of apples to turn into mincemeat. The first apple I tried fell apart, showing me that I had adjusted something incorrectly, but a little examination and a second messed-up apple showed me what I’d done wrong, and I was soon back in business. It’s a small thing, I know, but I’m easily frustrated by problems that are outside of my scope of expertise, so when I suddenly see what I’m doing wrong and I’m able to fix whatever it is, I feel as though Grace is there behind me, invisibly pointing out what I wasn’t able to see by myself. 
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous | Tagged Grace, psychology, Sunset | Leave a Comment »
Visit my bookstore
This Month
Old Posts
Call me
Become a Blog Patron
If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!Contact Maggie
Boring but necessary legal stuff