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Archive for January, 2018

I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.  –  H.P. Lovecraft

I’m not as much of a music nerd as Lorelei Rivers is, but I’m enough of one to be tickled when I discover that poems can be sung to the tune of well-known songs, such as the fact that “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” can be sung to the tune of either “Jerusalem” or “Hernando’s Hideaway”, and any Emily Dickinson poem can be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”.  And since I’m also a big old HP Lovecraft nerd, I was rather amused to discover the video below (though I honestly think this version is much better).  I got those from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, and the links above the video from Furry Girl  (“karma”), Franklin Harris (“speech” and “three”), Carol Fenton (“violence”), and Radley Balko (“together”).

From the Archives

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Sexual predation by police officers happens far more often than people in the business are willing to admit.  –  Norm Stamper

Above the Law  

Note what this “official’s” last job was:

Khristen Sellers needed a home…So when Four-County Community Services – a local housing agency – offered her an opportunity to move into a white panelled, three-bedroom trailer home on the outskirts of town, she readily accepted.  That’s when the trouble started…She had applied for the federally subsidised Housing Choice Voucher Program…Section 8…the agency’s inspector, a former North Carolina state [cop] named Eric Pender, came to the property with a clipboard in hand…Pender asked her if she “gives head” or if she’d ever been paid for sex, implying that his signature on the inspection was the only thing standing between her and a place to live…it was the first in a string of incidents…”He would never sign.  Each time he came, it was like, ‘You owe me before I sign this paper.  And you gotta make a decision’…”

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine 

A documentary on the Swedish state’s complicity in the murder of Petite Jasmine:

On July 11, 2013, Eva-Marree, aka 27-year-old Jasmine Petite, was killed by the father of her two…children in the Swedish social services offices.  This…was the culmination of a nightmare that began three years earlier, after the young woman, having left her partner for repeated domestic violence…Eva-Marree was deprived of her daughter and her son, then 1 and 2 years old, without discussion or preliminary investigation, the social services in attributing sole custody to their father, a man they had themselves recognized as violent.  After…finally [obtaining] a right of visit with her children…she was murdered during the first appointment fixed with the [father] and their son…this is the story of a woman…deprived of her children [and ultimately her life]…so that a puritanical and repressive society could sleep soundly…

With Folded Hands (#584)

Margaret Atwood on the asininity of women giving away autonomy for “safety”:

…women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones.  They’re not angels, incapable of wrongdoing.  If they were, we wouldn’t need a legal system.  Nor do I believe that women are children, incapable of agency or of making moral decisions.  If they were, we’re back to the 19th century, and women should not own property, have credit cards, have access to higher education, control their own reproduction or vote.  There are powerful groups in North America pushing this agenda, but they are not usually considered feminists…in order to have civil and human rights for women there have to be civil and human rights, period, including the right to fundamental justice, just as for women to have the vote, there has to be a vote.  Do Good Feminists believe that only women should have such rights?  Surely not.  That would be to flip the coin on the old state of affairs in which only men had such rights…

The Rape Question (#630) 

Why do people not get that an informal contract without a lawyer witness would offer no protection?

…a Dutch tech company…called LegalThings is developing an app called LegalFlings that allows potential partners to essentially sign a legally binding document that enumerates which sexual acts they consent to…there are obviously NUMEROUS flaws with the practicality of this app.  At any point during sex, someone can change their mind.  You can’t just anally penetrate someone who is scared or screaming in pain just because they said “yeah we can try that” prior to sex.  Consent doesn’t work that way…

Scrupleless in Seattle

Cops are on the same intellectual level as monkeys; that’s why they ape each other’s “sting” tactics:

The Phoenix Police Department…announced…their completion of a recent vice operation [which they pretended was aimed at]…human trafficking…86 [people’s lives were damaged by pervert cops who]…opened a [fake] massage parlor and arrested patrons…

Elephant in the Parlor (#705)  

Politician pays whore for discretion.  Yawn.

A lawyer for President Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to…former adult-film star [Stephanie Clifford] a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter…

License to Rape (#706)

US prisons are hotbeds of rape in every form:

In an effort to avoid newly-installed surveillance cameras in search areas, Rikers Island [screws] take female visitors to nearby bathrooms to strip-search them, according to several women and a new report by the Jails Action Coalition.  Five women have now filed notices of claim (which signal an intention to sue the city) with the city’s comptroller…[after screws] sexually abused them…[under the excuse of] body cavity and strip searches.  In the wake of the allegations, the city placed surveillance cameras in the Rikers Island search area in late 2016.  But the cameras didn’t stop the abuse…[even though] Department of Correction policy expressly prohibits strip searches or body cavity searches of visitors to city jails…

A Woman’s Point of View (#791) 

At least they’re talking about it:

State Rep. Elizabeth Edwards…co-sponsored…a bill to establish a committee to study decriminalizing sex work, something adamantly opposed by Gov. Chris Sununu, Republican leadership in the Legislature and [cops]…”There are those in the Legislature who want to explore legalizing prostitution.  I am 100 percent against it, and would veto the bill if it reaches my desk,” he said.  On Jan. 9, the House snubbed that warning and with little debate passed the bill in a bipartisan 177-134 vote…

To Molest and Rape (#797) 

It’s good to see this problem finally getting attention outside of libertarian and sex worker circles:

…as someone who has studied police sexual violence for more than a decade…[the recent rape of a teenager by NYPD cops] didn’t surprise me.  In fact, it is representative of national patterns of sexual violence by officers during traffic stops and handling of minor offenses, drug arrests and police interactions with teenagers.  Research on “police sexual misconduct” — a term used to describe actions from sexual harassment and extortion to forcible rape by officers — overwhelmingly concludes that it is a systemic problem…The vast majority of incidents…involve motorists, young people in job-shadowing programs, students, victims of violence and informants…half of arrests for sexual misconduct were for incidents involving minors….sexual misconduct is the second-most-frequently reported form of police misconduct, after excessive force…

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I’m really pretty damned sick of social engineers claiming that it’s “bigoted” or “sexist” or whatever for men (or lesbians) not to socially date (ie, have sex with) women of some particular group (such as older women, obese women, trans women, kinky women, etc).  Tellingly, nobody (except the “women don’t date nice guys” cult) tries to put similar pressure on straight women or gay men; apparently, it’s perfectly OK to refuse to date any man for any reason.  Only women apparently need to be “protected” by forcing people to have sex with them whether they like it or not, and the authoritarians who subscribe to this revolting policy usually appear to have no issue with queer people refusing to socially date those of the opposite sex.  So according to them, all factors of attraction except homosexuality are purely voluntary and can be changed as easily as I change my underwear.  Well, I’m here to tell you that this is 100% pure, reeking bullshit.  Nobody can help who they’re attracted to, and nobody has the right to demand any individual socially date any people of a certain group (not talking about sex work here).  For example, I’m too old, too busty, too muscular, too intellectual, too talkative, too intense, too kinky, etc for some guys, and just the fact that I’m female means a lot of women aren’t interested in me sexually.  Similarly, I’m extremely picky about who I sleep with for free.  And that’s all perfectly OK.  Nobody, repeat NOBODY, has the right to demand anyone else have sex with them or anyone else, any more than they have the right to stop anyone from having sex with consenting partners or policing their reasons for having sex.  Furthermore, to make such a demand, or to insult and socially pressure people for refusing sexual contact with some others, demonstrates an utter disregard for the most basic principles of consent.  It’s not only reprehensible and, frankly, disgusting; it is the mindset of a rapist, and nobody with the faintest modicum of respect for individual rights should tolerate it in even the slightest degree.

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I’m really getting pretty damned sick of the infantile “enthusiastic consent” trope, which promotes a fairy-tale view of human sexuality in which the only possible reason for having sex is “fun”, the only acceptable form of consent is throwing oneself into sex with the wild and totally senseless abandon of a teenage wererabbit on coke, and all enjoyment of the act must be “fair” and “equal” (but how something so subjective is to be measured, we aren’t told).  This is both dumb and dangerous.  “Fun” is immaterial; this is the kind of argument used to stigmatize sex workers because we don’t have work-sex for “fun” or “pleasure”.  The actual standard is, “Did everyone get enough of what they were looking for out of the encounter to be OK with it?  And if not, was it because the other person was actually behaving badly?”  There are lots of reasons for having sex, and “fun” or personal pleasure is only one of them.  Just because it’s the only one you personally appreciate doesn’t make all the dozens of other reasons “bad” or “wrong” or “lesser”.  Even people who do enjoy a sex act don’t necessarily enter into it “enthusiastically”.  I know that I never do; being persuaded is a big part of the pleasure of sex for me, and I’m not remotely alone.  And someone who needs to be persuaded is, by definition, not “enthusiastic”.  Finally, even if the sex wasn’t everything you wanted, that does not automatically mean the other person was acting maliciously. Use your damned adult judgment, for Aphrodite’s sake; most people of both sexes are crap in bed, so bad sex is usually just due to the incompetence of one or both partners, not some eeeeeeeeeeeeevil plot on the part of one of them.

Furthermore, “enthusiasm” is a form of behavior characteristic of people incapable of actually considering all the aspects of a situation they find themselves in; it’s the elder sister of disappointment and the mother of resentment.  “Enthusiasm” is what happens when hormones or neurology overwhelm considered judgment.  It’s much more common in the young, whose brains haven’t completely stabilized yet.  And while it can be intoxicating to experience, it’s unwise to make important decisions while intoxicated.

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Much of [Kamala] Harris’ worst work has come from her fake-feminist agenda to “help” women and girls by throwing them in jail for having sex.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Do As I Say, Not As I Do 

Most cops busted for fraternizing with whores haven’t committed any other known crimes.  Here’s an exception:

A San Antonio [cop] who was fired last year for dating a woman convicted of prostitution was investigated for…possession of child pornography and a possible illegal substance…Mark Walaski…used his job…to control his then-girlfriend, check on her whereabouts, and possibly try to thwart an investigation…Walaski’s girlfriend [said]…Walaski had watched through a hole in a wall in his house while [her daughter] teenager showered…She also alleged that Walaski had hit her twice…

Rooted in Racism

A woman is arrested for helping black people get into Europe, but the cops’ motive for doing so is “unclear”:

Helena Maleno…is a Spanish journalist and charity worker based in…Tangier whose NGO, Walking Borders, is dedicated to helping migrants.  For the past decade, many of them have told Maleno of their travel plans and noted down her phone number before they set off for Spain.  If they got into trouble while at sea they would call her and she in turn would inform Salvamento Marítimo, the government agency that carries out sea rescues.  Last year she issued hundreds of detailed alerts…but the Moroccan authorities view her with suspicion and claim she…is essentially a people trafficker…In 2012 the Spanish police looked into her activities to find out if they included abetting illegal migration.  In April last year the Spanish high court shelved the case against her. But the Moroccan police, which works closely with Spain on controlling migration, continued to probe…“My phones have been tapped for several years,” Maleno wrote on Twitter in December…“Both police forces acknowledge that I have never profited at any time despite being accused of being a trafficker.  What would the logic be, then, behind my supposedly criminal motivation to help save lives?”  The Moroccan authorities’ answer to that is unclear…

Follow Your Bliss 

What better way to gain access to a vulnerable person to exploit and abuse?

A[n Oregon] couple known for their human rights activism…were arrested in December and are now facing charges of sexual abuse, child abuse and assault.  Matthew McDaniel…is accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl over the course of several years…he would tie her up and hit her if she refused to touch him sexually.  His wife, Michu Uaiyue…repeatedly beat…and tortured [her]…In one instance, Uaiyue allegedly melted a plastic bottle and dripped the hot, liquid plastic onto the girl’s bare hands and legs…Uaiyue would [also] cut her with glass and heated metal, hit her with a stick and tie her up in the garage several days at a time to punish her.  A doctor evaluated the girl’s injuries and stated they were consistent with the descriptions of the abuse…McDaniel…has been…campaigning against the Thai government’s treatment of the Akha hill tribe…

Lack of Evidence (#316)

San Francisco seems fond of placating activists with non-binding “policies” that can be revoked at any time without warning:

San Francisco sex workers who come forward to say they’ve been assaulted, raped, robbed or extorted — or that they’ve witnessed such crimes — [will] not then be arrested for prostitution or petty drug crimes under policies adopted by city police and prosecutors.  The new guidelines…were described by advocates as the first of their kind in the nation.  They seek to encourage sex workers…to cooperate with [pigs]…Police Chief Bill Scott said in a department bulletin that…[cops] “will not arrest persons for involvement in sex work…when [the cops decide to recognize them as]…victims or witnesses of sexual assault, human trafficking, stalking, robbery, assault, kidnapping, threats, blackmail, extortion, burglary or other violent crime…Our policy is written in the spirit of [deceiving] sex workers [into feeling] safe coming forward to law enforcement, [under] the [misapprehension] that they will be treated with respect and their concerns will be taken seriously”…

Remember, there’s nothing in non-legislative “policies” like this that prevent pigs from collecting information on sex workers and then rounding them up later when the policy inevitably changes.  Calling the cops remains a spectacularly bad idea for anyone, but especially whores.

Moving Pictures 

“Pizza”. “Boys and girls”.  “Bought and sold for sex”.  “Backpage”.  Can’t these idiots get a new phrasebook?

[Has-been] celebrities like Amy Schumer, Seth Meyers, and Josh Charles, alongside many other actors and public figures, have teamed up for a PSA against sex trafficking…“Today you can go online and buy a child for sex,” Schumer says. “It’s as easy as ordering a pizza.”  The PSA ties into a documentary released last year, I Am Jane Doe, which follows several American mothers as they fight for their daughters who were bought and sold for sex…the film specifically targets Backpage, a classifieds site that [prohibitionists claim is] one of the most popular ways sex traffickers advertise underage girls and boys online…

To Molest and Rape

Fired AND arrested? This dude must’ve pissed off somebody in the department:

A San Francisco [cop] was arrested on sexual assault charges…Justin McCall [drugged a woman and raped her while she was unconscious]…he…was suspended without pay…

A Woman’s Point of View (#711) 

The push for decrim in Hawaii isn’t dead yet:

Kristen DiAngelo has worked in many aspects of the sex trade since the 1970s.  She knows the stigma that trails those who’ve chosen prostitution as a profession.  “Society doesn’t view us as human,” she said matter-of-factly.  DiAngelo co-founded SWOP Sacramento, an organization that advocates for labor rights for sex workers.  She travels the country urging states to decriminalize prostitution.  “We’re just like everybody else.  This is a work choice…People don’t often hear our voices because of the backlash we encounter when we are vocal,” she said…decriminalization would simply set labor standards and enable sex workers to earn a living without fear of breaking the law…

Power Play (#761)

Liz Brown takes a look at the vile monster being celebrated as a “feminist” heroine:

…Kamala Harris has long positioned herself as a feminist crusader.  But both as attorney general of California and now as a member of the U.S. Senate, she has actively championed policies that deny women’s agency, ratchet up female incarceration, and endanger those most vulnerable to sexual abuse.  Along the way, she has shown an utter disregard for civil liberties and constitutional law—a tendency she will now get to take to the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee…Harris [has often exhibited]…a willingness to skirt constitutional protections when it suits her agenda, and a public orientation toward  high-profile “social justice” causes that masks behind-the-scenes moves that betray them. (From the beginning of her career, she’s portrayed herself as a tough-on-crime progressive.) These habits are easiest to see when the issue involves sex work, but they extend far outside that realm.  Take the time Harris fought back against a California court ruling saying the state couldn’t keep prisoners in overcrowded conditions and deny them medical care [because]…the state needed the slave labor provided by mass incarceration…she sponsored legislation to ban sex offenders from using all social media…went to bat to keep Lonny Leon Rivera on the sex offender registry…[because] when he was 19, he had sex with the 17-year-old who is now his wife.  For all her big talk now on criminal justice reform, Harris fought to keep marijuana criminalized in California and resisted efforts to deprioritize the arrest of nonviolent drug offenders.  She also pushed to send high school students to jail for having more than three unexcused absences in a year, intervened myriad times on behalf of dirty prosecutors, and lobbied to keep using an execution method that the courts had deemed unconstitutional…

Pyrrhic Victory (#785)

Tyranny always starts with despised minorities, but it never stops with them:

…Facial recognition is the new hot tech topic in China.  Banks, airports, hotels and even public toilets are all trying to verify people’s identities by analyzing their faces.  But the police and security state have been the most enthusiastic about embracing this new technology.  The…ambitious plan, known as “Xue Liang,” which can be translated as “Sharp Eyes”…[intends] to connect the security cameras that already scan roads, shopping malls and transport hubs with private cameras on compounds and buildings, and integrate them into one nationwide surveillance and data-sharing platform.  It will use facial recognition and artificial intelligence to…monitor the comings and goings of the country’s 1.4 billion people…[and] to scoop up such data as criminal and medical records, travel bookings, online purchase and even social media comments — and link it to everyone’s identity card and face…

Americans under about 70 can expect to see this implemented here in their lifetimes. Welcome to the “safe” future you keep voting for.

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Diary #394

Lorelei Rivers and I are headed back to Seattle from Puerto Vallarta today, well-rested and ready to go back to work tomorrow.  It was a lovely five days; I would enthusiastically recommend an all-inclusive package (which is what we got) to anyone going to a similar resort.  Not only was it dirt-cheap by US standards, it was so very nice not to have to keep hauling out credit cards or wads of cash to pay for every little thing.  As you saw yesterday, the views were spectacular, and we ate whatever we wanted in any of several lovely restaurants; plus, free room service, free mini-bar, shows, several pools and a private beach, and all the free booze we wanted.  And though the drinks tended to be weak, a quick side-trip to the VIP lounge to spike them with even MORE free booze remedied that problem easily enough.  We spent most of Friday, Saturday & Sunday eating, drinking, lying on the beach (with LOTS of sunscreen to protect our exceptionally-fair skins) and of course shopping, then on Monday I went into town for even more shopping after we got massages in a lovely little tent up the beach from the hotel.  It’s a good thing we packed light on the way down, because, you know, shopping.

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Not-At-All-Innocent Broads





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I’m glad that Sessions is attorney general.  –  Chuck Grassley

As those of you who remember my very old story “Greek God” may have guessed, I dearly loved The Muppet Show and bought the three seasons of it that were released before Disney decided to do what it did to several other series, namely not release the last two seasons.  This video, from the unreleased fifth season, features a very young Debbie Harry, whom I had a huge crush on at the time this first aired.  The links above it were provided by Mike SiegelTim CushingElizabeth N. BrownAdjective GirlDavid Ley, and Jesse Walker, in that order.

From the Archives

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Everyone has to have a first time.  –  Michael Diebold

Do As I Say, Not As I Do 

It’s so nice to watch them feeding on their own:

Yet another [pig] has been  caught up in a child-sex sting conducted by his colleagues…Michael Diebold—chief of police for the small Western Pennsylvania town of Leechburg—was arrested after arranging a sexual tryst with [a cop] he [should have known] was [not] a 14-year-old girl…Diebold was not initially seeking an underage companion; his ad [on Kik] sought an adult female for a consensual dom/sub relationship.  But the chief was apparently undeterred when the “woman” who responded said she was actually just 14 years old and in the eight grade. “Everyone has to have a first time,” Diebold allegedly responded…

N.B.: Western Pennsylvania cops rape sex workers before arresting them even more frequently than is typical in the U.S.

Dirty Amateurs

Amateurs are a menace to public health; they should be licensed and heavily regulated:

Ireland has witnessed a surge in sexually transmitted diseases with the peak transmission period of the Christmas and New Year party season still to report…rates of all major STIs have dramatically increased from 2012-2016…there has been an increase in detection of HIV (+51%), Syphilis (+11%), Gonorrhea (+53%), Chlamydia (+10%) and Herpes (+21%)…

Scapegoats 

I don’t think ‘ve ever seen the word “molest” used in this context before:

…an [Alabama] man is…accused with [sic] molesting a horse…18-year-old Daniel Bennett was caught in the horse’s stable…The…owner of the…horse, a 20-year-old mare named Polly, told investigators she suspected the horse’s stall had been tampered with several times throughout December…

Unlike a certain fellow Alabamian, I guess Daniel likes older ladies.

Whatever They Need To Say

Gentrification is one of the most common motivations for persecution of sex workers:

December saw another raid on a sex workers’ workplace in Tel Aviv, with 11 people arrested on charges of running a “prostitution ring”…The majority of those arrested are [charged with] money laundering and evading millions of shekels in taxes.  Hebrew media reports have been sensationalist…Over the last year, the district surrounding the central bus station has been targeted for increased raids, and many argue this is related directly to gentrification of the area.  There is an increased police presence, and landlords have taken to increasing rents at rapid speeds and evicting people they suspect to be sex workers…many of whom have been based in the area for decades…

Standard Operating Procedure

If only amateurs realized how common this sort of thing is:

Eager to please the young leader of a promising potential ally in the Middle East, the CIA enlisted the help of billionaire Howard Hughes’s longtime fixer to find women for Jordan’s King Hussein…during his spring 1959 trip to the United States…[the arrangement] likely turned into a relationship between Hussein and B-movie actress Susan Cabot that may have produced the son who eventually beat Cabot to death in 1986…the agency used private investigator Robert Maheu, a former FBI agent, to find “female companionship” for the 23-year-old King during his trip to Los Angeles…The document refers only to a “foreign head of state” but the timeline included in the memo corresponds to the times Hussein was in the United States…

Dysphemisms Galore 

One day, “People who need money do lucrative work to get it!” will be recognized as the non-story it is:

As homelessness mounts…a growing number of young men are selling sex online.  [Manchester’s] male sex workers often use websites like Craigslist to advertise to clients…And…”survival sex” is becoming increasingly common amongst the hundreds of young men selling their bodies…Many…have recently been released from prison…Charity workers say they can look unremarkable, making it difficult to identify [them for targeted “rescue” persecution]…

The Punitive Mindset (#600) 

If there’s anything narrower and meaner than the mind of a prison official, I’m not sure what it might be:

Hours after…ACLU…accused it of censorship, New Jersey prison officials rolled back a ban on Michelle Alexander’s influential critique of mass incarceration, The New Jim Crow…State prison systems ban thousands upon thousands of books…Texas, one of the most censorious prison systems in the nation, bans roughly 10,000 publications, including  The Color PurpleWhere’s Waldo?, and John Pfaff’s Locked In, another book on mass incarceration.  It does, however, allow Mein Kampf.  Just last week, new rules went into effect at three New York prisons banning care packages that aren’t purchased through one of five approved vendors…NYC Books Through Bars, a volunteer group that sends free books to inmates across the country…wrote in a letter last week to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that…”The approved vendors’ catalogs are currently limited to the following books: five romance novels, fourteen bibles and other religious texts, twenty-­four drawing or coloring books, twenty-­one puzzle books, eleven guitar, chess, and how-­to books, one dictionary, and one thesaurus.  No books that help people learn to overcome addictions…no…literature…No texts that help provide skills essential to finding and maintaining work after release“…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#604) 

Nope.  The primary customers for male sex robots, like the primary customers for male sex workers, will also be male:

…Matt McMullen, CEO of Realbotix…[said] he is aiming to release a male [sexbot]…which he is yet to name…Dr Cathy O’Neil [fantasizes]…that sex robots could rending men obsolete…Dr David Levy [fantasized] male [robots]…could be more popular than sex toys such as vibrators and dildos.  He [moronically stated] “I’m sure women will find robots equally appealing as men”…

O, Canada! (#785)

After you read this prohibitionist propaganda, follow the title link back for the truth about the recently-renamed “Operation Northern Spotlight”:

…They’re called vice probes, or door knocks.  London [Ontario]’s human trafficking unit was formed in early 2016, and uses [deceiving sex workers] as a way to [force contact with] women they [claim] might need help…[cops] pore over advertisements posted on popular websites advertising sex work, looking for [fantasized] signs of trafficking — women who move around frequently, look very young, are branded in some way, such as a tattoo, or who have few restrictions about the sex work they offer…

The Mote and the Beam (#798)

I’m afraid this might be too little, too late:

Craigslist has hired its first federal lobbyists…from the law firm Sidley Austin LLP, including former Rep. Rick Boucher…The hires…were prompted by a pair of sex trafficking bills that has galvanized opposition from web companies [because]…they threaten the legal framework underlying the [internet]…the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act…would make it easier for prosecutors and [profiteers]…to go after…Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that gives broad legal protections for web platforms from content posted by their users…The legislation also appeared to prompt the popular forum site Reddit to hire its first federal lobbyists

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A Year Not Reviewed

Every year at this time, I used to do a statistics column looking at my blog’s performance over the past year.  But as I wrote last time around,

…it’s getting a lot harder to compile these yearly statistics columns; social media platforms like WordPress just can’t seem to leave well enough alone, and they’ve steadily made it more difficult to write and edit my posts (much less find out the kind of statistics I used to be able to find with a single click)…Furthermore, Google continues to censor search results so as to curtail traffic to “adult” blogs like this one; while I used to get a huge number of serendipitous hits, my site is now found almost entirely by people specifically looking for it or following direct links…unless things change dramatically in the next year, this may well be the last annual statistics column I do…

Well, they didn’t change dramatically; in fact, it was more of the same.  WordPress has continued to hide statistics and Google has continued to hide search results; early last year they made another change to their algorithms so that the number of daily hits on my blog is now similar to the number of subscribers, which is much lower than it once was despite my driving large amounts of traffic here via Twitter.  I don’t think it’s too fanciful or paranoid to assume that this is part and parcel of the Establishment’s drive to ghettoize adult content on the internet; Google, Facebook and Company won’t be satisfied until they turn the entire internet into a “walled garden” such as AOL once offered.  I don’t believe that will ever fully be accomplished, but in the meantime it has certainly hurt the visibility of this and other sex worker rights blogs.  And that, I think, is ample reason for retiring this feature; as I wrote last time, “After…so many other changes, this one is really quite minor“.

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