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Archive for May, 2017

Links #359

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

All that was left…[was] a pair of sandals and his underwear.
–  Deacon Nkosi

Just in case you missed it, the big news of the week is that Chelsea Manning is finally free again after Obama commuted her sentence as one of his last acts as President.  The video is one I came across by accident, and the links above it were contributed by Rick Horowitz, Popehat, Lucy Steigerwald, Mike Riggs, Mike Chase  and Mike Siegel (in that order; the last two are two links in one line).

From the Archives

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In the News (#740)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2017| 2 Comments »

Just because someone can’t love you…doesn’t mean that you’re unlovable.  –  Kaytlin Bailey

Check Your Premises 

This man has repeatedly said Seattle is not interested in prosecuting us:

For five years, the city of Seattle has touted its [faddish] approach in [persecuting] the buyers of sex rather than the prostitutes themselves.  While the number of cases filed against prostitutes dropped dramatically in 2012 and 2013, it has increased again slightly in recent years…City Attorney Pete Holmes…said the increase in prostitution cases in 2014 through 2016 came after his office realized many women were not [submitting to] the [brainwashing] program called LEAD, or Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion…Holmes said he therefore pivoted to use the real possibility of prosecution, as a way of encouraging people to take advantage of LEAD instead…

“Pivoted” is such a banal way to say “lied with prohibitionist propaganda while threatening women with violence for peacefully earning a living”.

Feminine Pragmatism 

This needs to be repeated until it’s inextricably hammered into the faces of prohibitionists:

…When I began sex work there were aspects that were exhilarating.  Being my own boss and setting my own schedule was something I’d never had the luxury of.  My manager at the bar, who knew she could shop me for benefit fraud at any moment, didn’t care when men…threatened to follow me home because I didn’t want their numbers…I worked 12 hour shifts, with no breaks, and at the end she would hand me an envelope with barely £70 in…escorting [clients] sometimes reminded me of the pub customers…[but] at the end of a three hour booking I would tuck a few hundred pounds in the lining of my handbag, and go home to a bath and some posh beers…This isn’t to say sex work was a utopia where I could take six months off when my health was bad…However, contrary to popular view…it is not a one way ticket to a breakdown.  The difference between us and workers in other industries is that when we seek help we are asked to look at the ways we’ve kept ourselves out of poverty as shameful…

Where Are the Victims?

The poor widdle sheriff “had no alternative” because sex is bad:

A “normal family man” who cared for his sick wife…in Edinburgh has been jailed for 29 months.  Emil Wakulicz…recruited women from Poland to offer sexual services…Sheriff Ross said he had no other alternative but to send Wakulicz to prison as he had exploited the women who had worked for him.  Det Insp Arron Clinkscales…[bragged]: “We…[locked] this man [up]…and [stole] his assets.”

Naturally, the story lists no evidence whatsoever of “exploitation”.  I’m sure his wife will be much better off on the dole, and her depression will improve while her husband sits in a cage for two years.  Justice!

They Still Don’t Get It

The headline writer inadvertently got it right: “prostitution investigations” (ie stings) are indeed part of a larger problem, the one called prohibition.

…Winston-Salem police…arrested…John Richard Hernandez and…Amanda Dawn Moser in connection to the armed robbery of a 67-year-old man…the pair lured [the victim]…to Hernandez’s home…by posting [a fake escort] ad…on…backpage.com…Hernandez [hit him with a hammer and] and robbed [him] of his money, ATM card and vehicle…a [pig too chickenshit to give his name bloviated a whole pile of ignorant nonsense]…“when it does happen in homes, those are usually offenders that have been caught multiple times at the hotel, and now they’ve moved their modus operandi to a residential home…Many of those, obviously, are minors that are…easily manipulated – into performing sexual acts for someone that’s controlling them…We located needles, various drug paraphernalia, spoons, that are indicative of heroin use”…The department also works with different counseling services and the health department to help victims of human trafficking…“It is a criminal act,” the [cowardly, ignorant pig oinked]…

Prohibition forces a peaceful activity into the shadows, where criminals then use it as a cover because they know their victims are less likely to report.  Then cops use the result of criminalization as an excuse for more criminalization while mixing in rhetoric that contradicts the entire “whore as criminal” trope.  I know basic logic & a triple-digit IQ aren’t requirements for being a brutal thug mindlessly enforcing arbitrary rules via violence, but this is like watching a self important pig masturbating until he shoots into his own eye, then tripping over the pants around his ankles & falling flat on his face.

Coming Out

Kaytlin Bailey on coming out to a lover:

…Maybe you’ve taken the position that everyone you have sex with has to know beforehand, because the last time you told someone you were already in love with, he hit you.  Maybe you’re coming out, as a political statement, trying to erode the delusion that someone doesn’t know “any girls like that” by being one of those girls.  Maybe you have to tell your lover because you keep having cold sweat anxiety dreams about it.  Maybe living the nightmare won’t be as scary as having the same one every night.  Maybe you’ve been in a relationship for awhile, and you think you can trust them.  Or maybe you know you can’t, but you just can’t stand them saying one more dumb thing about “whores” without knowing.  Or maybe you’re scared, and you want your partner’s support…

My personal way of dealing with this: I haven’t been romantically involved with anyone who isn’t a whore or client since 1995.  But I understand that won’t work for everybody.

Welcome To Our World (#43)

This is good; too bad they still criminalize having sex for the “wrong” reason:

[The Republic of Ireland] is to repeal a law which made it a criminal offence for a person with an intellectual disability to have a sexual relationship…The [new] law will consider whether a person with an intellectual disability has capacity to consent…rather than just outlawing such relationships because they have a disability…a new category of “protected person” has been created.  This will be defined as someone who lacks the capacity to consent to a sexual act by reason of a mental or intellectual disability, or a mental illness…It will now be illegal for a person to have a sexual relationship with a protected person…

I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan (#346) 

A)  Is this dude gay?  B) WTF, Cosmo?  C) I know it’s two years old.

We’re going to shake things up, aren’t we?  And by “shake things up” I mean you’re going to sit on my face…I need a signal for you to give me some air that isn’t me throwing you off me in a panic…My eye is basically in her butt…is this how all adults get pink eye?…I have no choice but to make her orgasm…I can’t even see anymore.  It’s just pitch black and vibrations, like an earthquake in a cave.

Size Matters (#532)

I told y’all that this wasn’t gonna work, but of course y’all didn’t listen:

[Deceitful busybodies] in Tennessee have determined that a building registered as a church was being operated as a sex club…the city of Nashville has filed a complaint against the owners for “maintaining a public nuisance by permitting acts of lewd conduct” and violating a state law banning sex clubs from operating within 1,000 feet of a school.  The longtime downtown swingers club…in 2015…relocated to a run-down office park…calling itself a church because the new location is near the back of the private Goodpasture Christian School.  Two [voyeurs] paid $40 to enter the facility…and filed [porn narratives] detailing sex acts they witnessed within…

The End of the Beginning (#677) 

This clear constitutional violation persists due to the egregious lie that the “sex offender” registry isn’t a punishment:

A sex offender…thought he had moved on with his life after successfully completing five years of probation for sending webcam photographs of his genitals to a [pervert cop pretending to be]…a 13-year-old girl.  Now he’s among hundreds of people in Missouri who are learning they must attach GPS monitoring systems to their ankles for life, even though such a requirement wasn’t part of their sentencing agreement…The retroactive [punishment is] part of a revised state criminal code that went into effect Jan. 1…several sex offenders…are suing…the state…“I don’t think a lawyer can make a straight-faced argument that it’s constitutional,” said…attorney Matt Fry…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#724) 

This is what robo-fetishists want you to believe will take my job soon:

…Matt McMullen, the chief executive of Abyss Creations, which makes RealDoll…says…”Many people who may buy a RealDoll because it is sexually capable come to realise it is much more than a sex toy…It has a presence in their house and they imagine a personality for her.  AI gives people the tools to create that personality.”  This is done via an app, which can be used with the doll or independently, existing as a virtual person on a smartphone or similar device.  Users can choose from a variety of personality options, including moody, angry and loving…The app…is already available to buy, although only directly from the Realbotix website…Neither Google’s nor Apple’s official stores will carry it because of the explicit content.  The doll will go on sale later this year and there will be two versions – one with computer vision that enables it to recognise faces, which will cost $10,000…and a…version without vision for $5,000…

Bonus:  sociopathic prude Kathleen Richardson of the “Campaign Against Sex Robots” has apparently decided in the past two months that “dolls aren’t really the problem”.  Why does anyone take prohibitionists seriously?

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That’s Entertainment

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , on May 19, 2017| 6 Comments »

It’s probably rare that men forget that strippers & porn performers are entertainers, but for some reason they frequently forget that whores are, despite the fact that for most of human history we were often musicians, singers or actresses in addition to providing sexual services, and despite the fact that “entertainer” is sometimes used as a euphemism for “prostitute”.  And so, when approaching us to book our services, they often veer off in directions that merely waste time and may even frustrate the lady, rather than simply following her instructions and giving her the information she asks for.  This isn’t to say that one shouldn’t be friendly and polite when approaching an escort; of course one should, just as one should be friendly and polite to a contractor, a medical professional or any other professional one wishes to hire.  But your flirting isn’t actually going to accomplish anything without money; she’d much rather hear about your name, your references, your job or whatever other screening info she requested than about how tall you are & how good looking you imagine yourself to be; and even though you might be very interested in telling her what you’d like to do to her, you’ll have a much greater chance of actually getting to do it if you keep the porn in your head and just tell her how long a session you’d like and when.  Remember, this isn’t some naive amateur you’re trying to charm into the sack; this is a professional who is doing this to make a living.  Her wares consist of her time and her company, and she is no more going to appreciate your trying to steal them than a baker would appreciate your picking up a dozen doughnuts and walking out without paying.  Furthermore, if you stuck your head into that bakery several times a week just to say how delicious everything smelled, but never actually bought anything, how long do you think it would take for the baker to view your comments as distracting annoyances rather than welcome compliments?

Look, I get that not everyone has enough disposable cash to see escorts frequently, but most of us have social rates and even lower phone rates, and if a lady is kind enough to brighten your day by chit-chatting with you on Twitter, you could at least get her something from her Amazon wishlist (some of my items are as low as ten bucks, and I’m not unusual in that regard) or make a donation to a cause you know she supports.  But it isn’t the people making small-talk who are really the troublesome ones on social media; I enjoy interacting with my readers in that way, and most understand that I’m just going to make a few replies before moving on.  No, the real time thieves are the entitled arseholes who think they have a right to demand that activists “debate” them individually (by which I mean “refute the same old tinned and unsubstantiated prohibitionist bullshit that’s already been refuted a thousand times”).  Yes, I’m an activist, and I make no money from that; in fact I, like most prominent activists, lose a fairly hefty sum every year in both time and cash.  I rely on my skills as an entertainer to pay my bills, so if you want me to entertain you by “debate” you can pay up like everybody else, $100/hour of nonsexual online interaction.  And if you don’t want to pay, I suggest you do the same thing you’d do if you wanted sex you couldn’t afford: find an amateur you can con, and stop trying to get a free lunch from businesswomen.

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Returning

Posted in Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged , , on May 18, 2017| 2 Comments »

I’m a young-looking 40-year-old woman in Belgium who worked part-time as a prostitute years ago to pay for my education.  Now, however, I’m suffering from physical disabilities due to two severe auto accidents; these make it difficult to hold down a “normal” job, so I’m thinking of going back to prostitution.  I always liked it; I’m a very sexual person and it made me feel good.  But this time, I don’t want to work for anyone else, but as an independent; I just don’t know how to start.  What do you think?

I think if you still feel comfortable doing the work, there’s no reason for you not to return to it; many women go in and out of sex work at different times in our lives, as our needs change.  Sex work is legal in your country, and the flexible schedule makes it especially good work for women with health issues that would interfere with a “straight” job.  Since as a sex worker one sets one’s own schedule, it’s easy to work around doctor’s appointments & times one knows tend to be problematic; for example, if you hurt more in the morning you can simply refuse morning appointments.  And once you’ve got regulars, you’ll even be able to reschedule appointments if you feel bad that day.  I’m afraid I can’t really give you advice on working in Europe because I never have; however, I’d suggest you search Google for escorts in your city, and that will show you the top local advertising sites.  You might also consult with the sex worker support organizations in your area.  Good luck, both with your health & with returning to work! 

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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In the News (#739)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2017| 7 Comments »

I liked [escorting].  It was very empowering.  I had control over my life and I had options.  –  Jerene Dildine

A Tale That Grew in the Telling 

Meet Christine Dolan, a “trafficking” fetishist so delusional she expects us to believe that the wildly-inflated “slavery” estimates are too low by at least an order of magnitude:

…The numbers are increasing instead of decreasing…President Trump confidently noted the number of slaves globally as 27 million…That number was inaccurate when it was anecdotally concocted years ago by Kevin Bales…It is a bogus number.  With mass migrations, internet generated trafficking, and sophisticated terrorist networks financially fueled by human trafficking, that number was exponentially higher when concocted, and more so, today…The heartbreaking truth of the human trafficking sex trade is that women and girls are repeatedly raped, and get pregnant multiple times.  [A US State Department RFP] creates a loophole that could permit multiple serial abortions to be paid for with U.S. funds.  This is a perverse result that benefits pimps and traffickers by returning their “productive assets” to them for further pimping…the…RFP as currently written could create a giant Fund that supports the aggressive “pro-sex work” stance of many organizations and governments around the world…[it] would permit an organization that promotes prostitution…to receive funds as long as they don’t use USG money to promote prostitution and its decriminalization, legalization, and unionization.  This would position a pro-prostitution organization to build its stature and influence by rescuing children from sex trafficking while simultaneously using that influence to promote older child and adult prostitution as a legitimate form of labor…

For that number to be “exponentially higher”, literally 5% or more of the world’s population would need to be “slaves”.  Methinks Dolan needs to put down her Hitachi and pick up her calculator before submitting another such absurd  masturbatory fantasy for publication.

Rooted in Racism

It’s interesting to see an article which could be synopsized as “OMG an invasion of foreign whores!” nevertheless admit that sex work is work:

Refugees and illegal immigrants are increasingly engaged in prostitution in Finland.  While the exact extent of the shadow market remains to be estimated, this phenomenon is getting increasingly popular, as selling sex has proven to be a real way of earning money…about 70 percent of all workers in the sex market are foreigners, but recently asylum seekers and illegal immigrants have joined their ranks…migrants in Finland often have two alternatives, to seek employment in the shadow economy for a measly pay of several euros per hour or go into prostitution, which is paid much more generously…

Wise Investment 

Every outed sex worker or client should sue the person or institution who did it:

A Denver district court jury awarded a former escort $1.7 million in damages…after concluding that one of her clients, a high end Denver attorney, was guilty of outrageous conduct and invading the woman’s privacy by “outing” her to her family, friends and colleagues…In November of 2013, she was contacted…by Sean Saxon, a Denver attorney who specialized in drug and medical device litigation…within a short time it turned romantic…But…Saxon…became angry and violent at times, and would threaten to expose her…Dildine broke off the relationship and asked Saxon to leave her alone…he refused, continuing to stalk her and threaten her with exposure.  Eventually, Saxon followed through on his threats, sending a letter to Dildine’s mother and father, brother and other relatives describing her life as a prostitute, including revealing sexual photos of her, and online reviews of her sexual services.  He sent the same packet to her classmates and teacher at a Denver aesthetician school she attended, describing her as “a mid- level prostitute. I have attached her escort profile, some of her twitter posts, and some of the on- line reviews she has received for her activities,” wrote Saxon. “I should warn you that much of it is rather pathetically pornographic”…

They Still Don’t Get It

Stenographer parrots clueless cop’s weird & ignorant masturbatory fantasies:

…According to Madera [California] Police Sgt. Daniel Foss, the department has been dealing with the sex industry on the Internet, and is facing the challenges Internet-driven prostitution poses.  “It’s made it more difficult for the fact prostitutes used to be contained in one area fairly well,” Foss said, “and if they went outside that area. [sic] it was immediately obvious to everybody.  Now they’re everywhere”…These women, Foss said, operate by an “in-call/out-call” system.  In an out-call solicitation, the girl, usually delivered by her pimp, will come to the client; in an in-call solicitation, the client makes the order, and goes to the girl.  It’s common during an in-call visit, according to Foss, for the pimp to wait outside for the client to finish…on the Internet…victims of sex trafficking are able to be hidden by their pimps.  They are also able to advertise them as adults…

You can hear the fapping as Foss fantasizes that every sex worker has a “pimp” lurking about; the thought clearly excites him almost as much as his delusion that in the past, whores were “obvious to everybody” if we wandered out of the ghettos he imagines we were confined to.

Watershed

Not just a feminist, but an “anti-trafficking” activist:

Many of those working in America’s spas and massage parlors are Asian immigrants…and…many…police departments routinely conduct raids on spas and massage parlors.  These raids, purported to curb human trafficking, have resulted in the arrests of many Asian immigrants…Some of these immigrants reside in the spa in which they work.  When the spa is shut down, they can be rendered both jobless and homeless.  For those who are the sole income provider for their families, they and their families are left destitute…they are…swept up and arrested indiscriminately and they become deportable, regardless of whether or not they are documented immigrants.  The charge…is “unauthorized practice of a profession”…a felony…In the era of travel bans and Trump’s crackdown…even some supporters of immigrants are latching onto the “good immigrant” vs. “bad immigrant” narrative in an effort to save the so-called good immigrants…mass arrest is not the answer…

As the pogroms continue over the next few years, keep essays like this, appearing in mainstream media, in mind.  We are winning, and this will eventually all be a bad memory just as anti-gay pogroms mostly are now.

Amnesty At Last

Playboy needs to do a lot more articles like this:

…in August 2015, Amnesty International…announced it would join the effort to decriminalize sex work.  In May 2016, the group released its official policy paper on the issue.  The 17-page document states that continuing to treat sex work as a crime infringes on the human rights of consenting adults…Patricia Schulz, a United Nations gender-equality expert…lays out the cost of ignoring those recommendations.  “When prostitution is criminalized, sex workers risk being abused…They risk being [raped by] police workers.  If they’re brought to detention, they might be raped by other inmates…There’s a whole series of violations of their rights arising from the situation.”  This insight comes after years of hearing from sex workers in many countries, studying the issue and, she says, “traveling a long way” from her initial view on the matter…

Big Sister (#631)

Is Iceland just going to recycle this story every spring?

The number of prostitutes in Iceland has increased substantially recently, according to Inspector Snorri Birgisson, at the Reykjavík…Police Department.  That is evident…from websites where escort services are advertised…The number of registrations at one website has increased five-fold in a year and a half.  Snorri believes there is a strong connection between the increased influx of tourists in the country and prostitution.  This, he said, is the dark side of tourism, which must be discussed.  He stated that the women involved in prostitution now come from other countries than before…

To Molest and Rape 

Though the story doesn’t say it because he’s a cop, this would mean his victim was no more than seven when he first raped her:

[Detroit cop] Thomas Pedersen…pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct…[and] sentenced to 42 months to 15 years in prison.  He will have to register as a sex offender when he is released and will be under life-time electronic monitoring…Pedersen…[admitted to raping] a girl younger than 13 for nearly six years…

Hard Numbers (#662) 

Why yes, I do get tired of saying “I told you so.”  Thanks for asking!

…the Olympic Games was a highly anticipated business opportunity in Brazil…Yet many of the sex workers who anxiously awaited the boon from foreign clientele found that it did not materialise.  Only a few benefited financially from the event, while [prohibitionists]…urged authorities to crack down on “sex tourism”.  [One brothel’s]…manager …said…”it is an illusion that FIFA or the Olympics are good for business.  This is a myth.  Some of the biggest [sex-related] businesses in Ipanema went bankrupt during the games.  And now it is worse”…Instead, what surfaced was a heightened security presence in the street, provided in part by Centro Presente – a quasi-public police force, partially funded by the local commercial and business association…

The Crumbling Dam (#709)

“Freed…said…’I don’t want to see heroin-injection sites’,” is this whole thing in a nutshell:

An initiative to ban safe-injection sites in King County [Washington] was announced Thursday.  The proposed initiative requires signatures from 47,443 valid county voters to qualify for the November ballot, said its chief sponsor…Joshua Freed…Freed…said…“I don’t want to see heroin-injection sites”…He said he’d prefer [cops to harass doctors who]…prescrib[e] opiates…The initiative would ban public consumption of heroin and all federal Schedule I drugs except marijuana…[another supporter of the ban is politician Mark] Miloscia…an outspoken opponent of safe-injection sites…[who] unsuccessfully propos[ed] a bill in the Legislature to ban them.  He also wrote a letter urging the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene and stop the sites.  Miloscia…[is also] an opponent of marijuana legalization and an advocate of tighter restrictions on alcohol…[he believes] we should “stigmatize people who get hooked on drugs to get into treatment”…He argued that hard-drug users need to face the threat of criminal sanctions to be steered into treatment…

Dutch Threat (#727)

I’d love to be wrong once in a while:

My Red Light was supposed to be a brothel run by sex workers.  Well, that failed…There’s an entire board of so called “experts” in a “Council of Supervision” who have the real power and control over this brothel.  These people include…a former public prosecutor…But no sex workers…because they didn’t get through the “screening”…The working conditions are the same, since they do exactly the same thing as other brothel operators.  There is absolutely nothing new about this…The rental conditions are mostly either the same or much worse than with other brothels…

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Diary #359

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on May 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Last week was quite busy, in a good way; I was working, writing, getting the last stages of the secret project done (I might even announce it next week), planning future trips and otherwise imposing order on the chaos which dominated my life for more than two years.  In a very real way, the release of my new book was a symbol of that; it demonstrates that I’m at least as functional again as I was three years ago, and in some ways even more so.  Speaking of the book, I’d like to remind you that it is indeed out, and to ask you to buy one (pretty please) and review it (pretty please with sugar on top); if you want an autographed copy directly from me, just use the links in yesterday’s column (and be sure to tell me how you’d like it inscribed), and I’ll send you one from my own shelf here.  And if you want me to visit your area, now’s your chance:  write me about helping set up book readings and/or speaking gigs, and while I’m there you can get around the usual minimum time requirement for hiring me!  That’s what I call a win-win situation.  If your situation doesn’t lend itself to assisting me in that way but you’d still like to show your appreciate above & beyond buying & reviewing the book, you could send money via PayPal or Google Wallet to get Lorelei & I dinner on Sunday night.  Also, I’ve just added some new goodies to my Amazon wishlist; lovely fans keep buying me lovely things like Joe Satriani discs.

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Goodies

Posted in Fiction, Miscellaneous, tagged , on May 15, 2017| 1 Comment »

At long last, The Forms of Things Unknown is out; some people are saying it’s even a stronger collection than Ladies of the Night, and the reviews I’ve seen so far are good.  Those reviews are really important, so if you read the book (either in paper format or Kindle) and like it, please take the time to do a review for me on Amazon.  Even if it’s a short one, Amazon likes seeing reviews and the more there are, the more my book will show up on the radar of people who haven’t heard of me before.  That will boost sales of both Forms and Ladies, and of the essay collections I plan to release before the end of the year.  A gent is helping me to set up a merchant site (there are a few bugs, but I’m hoping we can fix them) on which to sell both books, autographed copies, the last four copies of the special edition Chester Brown did for me last year, future books, autographed photos, maybe even copies of my friends’ books and more!  But for right now, let’s concentrate on The Forms of Things Unknown; you can buy it in either paper or Kindle form on Amazon in the US, the UK, France, Germany or Italy, or order it from Barnes & Noble.  Or if you prefer, you can get an autographed copy for $26 if you live in the US, $31 if you live in Canada and $36 if you live anywhere else; the price includes shipping, which is why it’s more outside the US.  Of course, you could set up a book reading at a local bookstore for me; that would get me to fly to you so I could autograph your copy in person!  If you’d like to do that, email me & we can plan.

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Links #358

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2017| 2 Comments »

I can’t breathe.  –  Justin Thomson

I don’t know why this video of a brick in a washing machine on a trampoline is so funny, but it is.  The video was provided by Mike Siegel, who also provided “does”; the other links above the video are from Popehat (“hate”, “cancer” & “monsters”),  Emma Evans (“state”), and Tim Cushing (“tone”).

From the Archives

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In the News (#738)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

In efforts to catch imagined “pimps”…officials have long considered the liberty and rights of…sex workers (and their customers) to be an acceptable sacrifice.  The rest of us were really never far behind.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Moloch 

How many kids need to be sacrificed to this obscenity before it’s enough?

South Carolina can continue to require…teens convicted of…sex crimes to appear on the state’s public sex-offender registry and wear an electronic monitor for the rest of their lives, the state Supreme Court ruled…A boy…who was 15 when he sexually assaulted a 5-year-old boy…challenged the law…The teen’s lawyer said being publicly branded a sex offender and electronically monitored for the rest of his life is too harsh a punishment, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on the death penalty for anyone under age 18.  The justices, however, said the Legislature was well within its power to pass a law that treats juveniles and adults differently in criminal punishment, but establishes the same requirements for the registry [due to the pretense that it isn’t a punishment]…

No Friend of Ours

Nevada has caught up with Washington, Arizona & Florida as one of the most vile, loathsome fonts of anti-whore vomit in the US:

Reno Public Radio’s Noah Glick spoke with Crysta Price, one of the [fabulists who created yet another bogus] study…[they actually represent themselves as] data scientists [though they’re not dealing in actual data and instead just vomit out a lot of lies & “end demand” filth.  Price pretends that]…Reno is in the top 6.5 percent, in terms of the per-capital [sic] number of individuals that are advertised for sex.  And then Nevada itself is the number one state…if you have the same amount [sic] of demands, you’ll just see those individuals replaced with trafficked individuals…demand…is often the result of a lot of males with expendable income…where it’s in an entertainment-like experience, that can often filter them into purchasing sex in the commercial sex industry…

“Per capital”?  “Entertainment-like experience”?  “Filter them into purchasing sex”?  Is this woman for real, or is she some sort of Marxist clown robot railing against “expendable income”?  Perhaps she thinks the almighty state should “protect” these vegetable-like “trafficked individuals” by stealing all that extra income & giving it to creatures like her?

New Excuse

For over three years now, I’ve been saying that the War on Whores is the new War on Drugs.  And here’s a perfect example of that:

In the high days of America’s militarized war on drugs, baseless and botched home raids have become a defining feature—with often disastrous consequences.  Now we’re seeing the same sort of overzealous enforcement efforts in the fight against…prostitution.  This week, Detroit police raided an innocent family’s home after receiving a [bogus] sex-trafficking tip and then seeing two teens enter the house.  One of the teens was the family’s 13-year-old daughter, who…wound up face-down and handcuffed on the floor, along with the rest of her family, after cops cut through a locked gate…and entered with their guns drawn…Maria Navarete [reported that] police told her to “shut up, you have no rights” when she asked what was happening…Police apologized, [pretending] that a mysterious heroin-addicted woman in a local hospital said she and several underage girls had been held against their will and forced into prostitution…[at] the Navarete’s place…

Business As Usual 

Why does it surprise people when cops fight for what they imagine to be their “right” to rape sex workers?

The Anchorage Police Department is fighting a pair of state bills that would criminalize cops who have “sexual contact” with people under investigation.  The reason for the opposition, according to Deputy Chief Sean Case, is that…such a law would allow sex workers to avoid arrest, since it provides them with a way to check if a potential client is a cop…“If we make that act (of touching) a misdemeanor we have absolutely no way of getting involved in that type of arrest”…Case [pretends] the department isn’t interested in making arrests for sex work in general and is instead focused on sex trafficking…which raises the question of [why] police are…advocating for the need to have “sexual contact” with trafficking victims…The bills at issue are the result of activism by…Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP), which [explains] that sex workers in [every] state [are routinely] subjected to sexual abuse by police during undercover busts…Initially, it seemed that the bills would have no trouble passing.  “Police and prosecutors [lied] that police never engage in sexual conduct during stings anyways”…said [Tara Burns].  “Then right as the bill was about to be heard they changed their story and now claim that they need to engage in sexual conduct with sex trafficking victims in order to rescue them”…sex worker advocates say that every state needs bills like those proposed in Alaska that expressly define “sexual contact” with sex workers during investigations as sexual abuse.  That said, these laws only go so far…As Maggie McNeill…told Vocativ, “No matter what the law says, cops will keep raping sex workers, either in stings or outside of them, for as long as our profession is criminalized because they know damned well there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The Public Eye (#617)

Once again, Caroline McLeod handled this interview like a champ; and once again, the “journalists” sullied her words by surrounding them with prohibitionist lies.  I’m not even going to bother quoting this dreary mess, which includes the usual anti-sex vomit from the usual sex-hating liars.

To Molest and Rape 

Arkansas lets dangerous, violent rapist walk free; guess his profession:

…[Rapist cop] Robert G. Retford pleaded guilty to a charge of 3rd degree sexual assault.  He was sentenced to 6 years probation…Retford’s victim…asked to be identified and wants everyone to know what…that [rapist cop] did to her…During the second week of September 2016…two Johnson County deputies showed up at her home for a domestic dispute…Retford offered to take her away from the situation…he…assaulted her with…his police baton.  Then…raped her and urinated on her.  “After that he made me drink his urine,” Shanna said…”I think he’s scary, it scares me just talking about him…he should be in jail locked up and I don’t feel other women and girls out there are safe”…

The Widening Gyre (#663)

More racist infantilization of Nigerian sex workers in Italy:

…For most of these women, sex work is…slave labour, enforced by vicious gang leaders who threaten the women with physical violence and deportation if they refuse to comply…Father Vincenzo (Enzo) Volpe…the Sicilian priest who works with Sister Valeria to protect the women and offer them hope for a new life, estimates there are some 500 Nigerians working against their will on the streets and in the brothels.  That’s [an impossibly] big number for a city with a population of only 1.3 million [but fetishists believe it anyway]…tens of thousands of Nigerian sex slaves have poured into Italy and more are arriving almost every day in rickety boats dispatched from the Libyan coast, seeking a better life in Europe…

Pyrrhic Victory (#677)

Seattle cops aren’t the only ones with a fetish for creepy surveillance:

…After Geofeedia’s highly publicized PR disaster, in which Chicago Police were found to have used the social media surveillance platform to track racial justice protests and gatherings, the social media monitoring company saw Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram cut off its data streams…A company called Babel Street [is letting violent busybodies get around that]…Seattle PD are one of many users of Babel Street software, and are soon to be joined by the US Secret Service…the FBI is also using Babel Street programs…Babel Street also seems to be making a substantial push into the private market…[mostly] sports stadiums and entertainment venues…Babel X has access to over 25 social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and to Twitter’s firehose…Babel X can also surveil millions of URL’s including the deep web.  The software can instantly translate over 200 languages, and can set up geo-fences around areas of special interest, and has highly customizable filtering options including for hashtags, emojis, handles, names…keywords….numerical sequences like credit card or social security numbers…dates, times, data type, language, and—interestingly enough—sentiment…

“Filter for sentiment”.  Let that sink in, and remember that when I started this heading five years ago some people claimed I was exaggerating.

Policing for Profit (#687) 

Once in a very great while, the bad guys still lose:

James Slatic was never charged with a crime, but it took 15 months and a twisting legal battle before three different judges for him to get back the more than $100,000 the San Diego District Attorney’s Office seized from him and his family—including his daughters’ college savings accounts.  On [May 5th] a California superior court judge [finally] ordered the San Diego District Attorney’s Office to return [the money]…it [stole] from the Slatic family following a police raid last January on James Slatics’ medical marijuana company…

Advice for Clients (#704)

A simple primer on interacting with sex workers on Twitter:

Imagine you’re walking through your local mall…and discover a friendly lady…holding out a tray of…whatever…do you stand around engaging her in small talk while she…attempts to work around you?…Do you insist that she let you have a few more since you’ll definitely be a regular customer…Do you offer her unsolicited advice on how to season the food?…

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The Essence of Evil

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2017| 6 Comments »

“Evil” is not a noun; it is an adjective.  It’s certainly true that many people pretend that “evil” can be a substance, like an energy field or a poison; we speak of “the essence of evil” or say that people are “full of evil” and the like.  But that’s a relic of our language going back to a more primitive time when we really did believe that things like “sin” and “evil” could be actual pollutants, like particles that could radiate from or rub off on objects or people and contaminate them.  We also still say that “the sun rose”, even though everyone knows it’s the Earth that moves rather than the sun.  Of course, most people still act as though the sun is moving relative to the Earth rather than vice-versa, and even more act as though “evil” were a kind of radiation and moral “purity” a measurable quality like the purity of water.  But while the former is harmless to anyone who isn’t plotting the course of a spacecraft, the latter is one of the most harmful atavisms in human behavior; it is used to justify innumerable laws revolving around exorcising, isolating and/or “correcting” those who are “impure” (consider for a moment why words like “dirty” are used to describe sex and “clean” to describe celibacy or sobriety).

The truth is, “evil” is not something a person is; it’s something a person does.  An evil person is not one who is suffused with some malefic and primordial spiritual force; it’s one who performs evil acts.  It’s not possible to be evil without doing evil, and it’s equally impossible to knowingly, willingly and consistently do evil and yet be considered good.  The problem is our insistence that the universe adhere to a Manichean duality which does not reflect reality in any measurable way; we speak of “good people” and “evil people” as though they were as different as chalk and cheese, when in fact all people are capable of both.  And the only meaningful way in which any person can be described as “good” or “evil” is by the preponderance of their actions.  Most people describe me as a good person: I fight for what I believe is right; I try to refrain from causing harm; I help others whenever possible; I strive to be honest and noble and fair in all of my dealings with others; I suffer when I believe that I’ve inadvertently caused harm; and I’m almost unfailingly loyal and trustworthy to everyone I love.  Of course, I’ve done evil things, just as everyone has; at the very least, I maintain my continued existence by killing other life-forms every single day (and don’t get too smug, vegans; you kill to survive as well, though you pretend that you’re morally superior because the creatures you eat can’t move.  Tell that to barnacles and Venus’s flytraps).  Saying I’m a “good person” doesn’t mean I’m an angelic being incapable of wrongdoing; it means that the balance of my actions, taken in aggregate, bring more weal than woe to other humans.  The same is true of evil people; an evil person isn’t a demonic entity incapable of doing good, but rather a human whose actions, taken in aggregate, bring more suffering into the world than joy.

And yet, the primitive and childish insistence on moral purity continues.  We’re told that a politician was responsible for a law that helped hundreds of needy people, as though that wipes away the fact that he gave orders to murder thousands in cold blood.  We’re told that a young man had been accused in the past of shoplifting and fighting, as though that justified his being gunned down in the street like a mad dog.  And we’re told that the majority of cops are “good” because they’re not known to have ever murdered or raped anyone, despite the fact that they’ve tacitly and knowingly agreed to uphold all the laws, even the ones which are clearly and obviously evil, through the use of violence.  A system which robs the innocent, grinds down the poor, cages people who have done no wrong to others, protects rapists and murderers in the ruling class from the consequences of their actions, terrorizes the populace via threats and propaganda, destroys the lives of individuals and the fabric of entire communities because some of them violated petty and arbitrary rules, and commits other atrocities too numerous to list in this short essay, is an evil system.  Those who defend that system, those who obstruct meaningful reform of that system, those who increase the size and power of that system, and those who agree to ignore their own moral judgment in order to unthinkingly implement the wrongs of that system with their own hands and brains and weapons, are all evil.  This doesn’t mean they’re monsters or devils; they’re human beings like any other.  But they are humans whose actions against their fellows, when taken as a whole, have done far more harm than good.  They are evil people, and those who defend their actions – even out of ignorance or moral retardation – are themselves accessories to those evil acts.

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