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Archive for April, 2019

In the News (#930)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2019| 2 Comments »

Chinese workers…would probably prefer not being deported to a religious text they can’t read.  –  Red Canary Song

Above the Law 

Yet another sociopath with a title:

The [Washington] state Attorney General filed charges…against Hells Canyon Circuit Superior Court Judge Scott Gallina…Nine women…have reported varying degrees of sexual misconduct by Gallina…[since] 2014…[including] charges of second-degree rape, fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation, and indecent liberties…Gallina can return to his elective duties until the Supreme Court and the Judicial Conduct Commission stop him…To help protect [women]…the County Board of Commissioners called an emergency meeting…and signed a resolution…

Oooh, a RESOLUTION!  I wonder if that’s any more effective than a “restraining order”?

Policing for Profit

Governments are reining in these depredations much too slowly:

More than a year after police raided an Alabama couple’s house, upturned their lives, and seized thousands of dollars from them over a small amount of marijuana…a…state circuit judge dismissed the misdemeanor drug charges against Greg and Teresa Almond…and ordered that their property be returned to them…the Almonds filed a federal civil rights lawsuit earlier this year against the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department [because]…in January of 2018, the…narcotics [gang] busted down their door, threw a flashbang grenade at Greg Almond’s feet, detained the couple at gunpoint, and ransacked their house…[while they] were trying to refinance the loans they had taken out to start a chicken farm, and as a result, they say they missed a crucial bank deadline, resulting in their house being foreclosed upon.  They now live in a utility shed…The Alabama legislature is currently considering a bill that would essentially abolish civil asset forfeiture by requiring a criminal conviction before property could be forfeited by police.  It would join four other states that have passed similar laws…

Torture Chamber 

A “school” where scores of boys were “reformed” to death:

…a company doing pollution cleanup at the old Dozier School for Boys property in Marianna, 60 miles west of Tallahassee, has discovered 27 “anomalies” that could be possible graves about 165 yards outside the reform school’s Boot Hill cemetery…forensic anthropologists have already turned up far more burials on school property than the state knew about…anthropologists…found…a total of 55 graves…of…boys who died in state [cages]…The brutal…reform school was open from 1900 to 2011, when the state shuttered it under mounting public pressure…[due to] terrible, unceasing abuse and neglect of [caged] boys…and on a number of suspicious deaths…The [newly found] possible graves do not follow any obvious pattern…“This randomness might be expected in a clandestine or informal cemetery, where graves were excavated haphazardly and left unmarked,” the report says…

To Molest and Rape

Just protecting and serving:

…LaFayette [Alabama cop]…Quantavious Lakeith Lockhart was arrested Thursday, April 11th….[for] rape [of a mentally disabled girl]…LaFayette Police Chief George Rampey…will not confirm [that Lockhart]…worked [as a] School [pig]…Lockhart [has been rewarded with a paid vacation]…

Japanese Prostitution (#819) 

A Japanese historian says the comfort woman phenomenon was complicated:

Ikuhiko Hata…is one of Japan’s leading historians and…is no nationalist…Most allegations that Japanese troops kidnapped women for the comfort stations are untrue, Hata [said]…abduction of local girls by foreign troops would have ignited local resistance…the IJA did carry out abductions in a small number of “isolated criminal cases…in the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies…where…women were seen as kinds of POWs…The comfort women mainly worked at comfort stations run by private citizens.  They were recruited by brokers and had fixed-term contracts…Bankbook and bank transfer records prove that the comfort women wired money home to their families to buy homes or start businesses…Many comfort women…were the envy of other women attached to the military, such as nurses…daughters of farm families often had no choice but to go with a broker when her father sold her.  So, when we talk about free will, we have to take into account the range of choices available to women”…Hata said “slave” is the wrong word to describe women who had contracts, received relatively good pay – a commission of what soldiers paid – and, unlike soldiers, could go back to their hometowns after a year or two, even though the war was still continuing…

Pyrrhic Victory (#864)

When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

…a…Google database employees call Sensorvault…turn[s] the business of tracking cellphone users’ locations into a digital dragnet for [cops]…Technology companies have for years responded to court orders for specific users’ information.  The new warrants go further, suggesting possible suspects and witnesses in the absence of other clues.  Often…the company responds to a single warrant with location information on dozens or hundreds of devices…The practice was first used by federal agents in 2016…and…has since spread to local departments across the country…This year…the company received as many as 180 requests in one week…Sensorvault…includes detailed location records involving at least hundreds of millions of devices worldwide and dating back nearly a decade…

Scapegoats (#901) 

Now we know why they wouldn’t say what kind of animal before:

A [typical and representative] Louisiana [cop] arrested last December for…[bestiality] has now been charged with more than 30 counts of child pornography.  Terry Yetman…was…charged…after…officials…discovered electronic evidence showing Yetman’s…bestiality with a retired police dog…

Pyrrhic Victory (#913) 

I’m afraid it’s far too late to put this evil djinni back into its bottle:

Axon, the largest supplier of body cameras to US police, has filed [three] patents to develop, surprise, surprise, facial recognition software…One patent is for a system to automatically detect and blur out personal information, probably for things like license plates and such, another matches faces to ones in a database, and the third detects objects like guns in video feeds.  The software also analyses faces to guess the person’s age, race and gender…

Legislators Gone Wild (#923) 

Looks like the anti-whore brigade couldn’t get politicians to support them, either:

State Sen. Joe Hardy’s bill (SB413) to ban Nevada’s legal brothels statewide died on Friday [April 12th] after it failed to get a committee hearing by the midnight deadline…as longtime watchers of the Legislature know, “dead” bills can become “zombie” bills that come back to life as amendments to other bills right up until the time the Legislature officially comes to an end (“sine die”) several weeks from now…we’ll remain vigilant and let you know if SB413 somehow joins the walking dead…

Blunt Instrument (#926)

It’s great to see Asian sex workers fighting back against the racist “sex trafficking” narrative:

…The public is fed the racist myth that all Chinese massage parlors are involved in human trafficking.  In fact, most Chinese workers do this work because it is the most sensible work for them to do…it is simply the fastest way to send money home, and it makes the most practical sense at this time of their lives…The Chinese hukou system, which restricts people to living in the rural area where they are born…is a huge driver of internal “migrant sex workers” with no working rights in China.  It is also a huge driver of migration out of China under Deng Xiaoping’s policies, which actively promoted rural migration out of China rather than overcrowding Chinese cities…Yet these migrant sex workers also do much to support Chinese economic development by sending a large portion of their money home.  It’s ironic and laughable in the darkest sense when Christian charities in “international development” work travel to countries like Cambodia and Thailand to convert sex workers into garment workers.  Do they recognize how much “international development” these sex workers are already doing?  Much more than a charity promoting the sale of handmade trinkets could ever manage…

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Frozen Smoke

Posted in Current Events, History, Philosophy, tagged , , , , on April 19, 2019| 8 Comments »

Readers who follow me on Twitter may have noticed that I had very little to say about the news that Notre Dame de Paris was heavily damaged by fire this week.  I equally ignored those lamenting the loss of an architectural masterpiece, those using the tragedy as an excuse to pontificate about the many sins of the Catholic Church, those failing to comprehend why there was no anguish when recent and unsophisticated buildings used as churches burned down, and those complaining that the destruction of other medieval architectural gems not located in the exact center of one of the greatest cities of the West was not publicized by Western media.  In fact, the only comment I made on it was to tweet that this article in The Onion was the only one I had seen that approximated my feelings on the matter.  Though I agree that the building is gorgeous and understand the sense of loss, and I find rejoicing in the destruction of an artwork to be an act of incredibly bad taste, I also understand what many others are choosing to ignore: that no matter what is done to restore the cathedral, it will eventually burn down again or succumb to some other disaster.  And the same is true of the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of London, the Empire State Building, the Sydney Opera House, the Taj Mahal, St. Basil’s and every other building in the world.  Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only one is still standing and it, too, will eventually crumble, as will every building in every city on Earth.  In Oklahoma, my ranch was situated on the top of what was a mountain a hundred million years ago, and the very shape of the continents has changed dramatically in that time.  Similarly, people wring their hands and moan lugubriously about the extinction of animal species, despite the fact that a species is nothing more than a temporary configuration of genes; it is as permanent as a sand dune, albeit on a much longer time scale, and we can no more “save” a species than we could freeze the column of smoke from a burning cathedral into some interesting or beautiful shape.  As I remind my readers every November 1st, all things must pass, and although we may lament those which happen to pass in the flickering moment we exist upon the Earth, they are no more or less mortal than those which have already passed before we were here to see them, or those which will pass in the uncountable eons after we ourselves are gone.

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Guilt-free

Posted in Guest Columns, Perception, tagged , , , , on April 18, 2019| 5 Comments »

This isn’t a question; it’s the kind of letter from a reader which lifts my heart and inspires me to keep fighting for what’s right.  The last paragraph at the bottom was my reply.

I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you are doing.  I recently lost my virginity (at the age of 23) with an independent escort, but I was extremely nervous, and I felt awful the whole time because I believed I was doing something horrible.  The woman explained her work to me very rationally and assured me that she was doing this of her own free will, but I still felt so bad that some nights I could not sleep.  During the following weeks I read as much as I could about sex work, especially testimonies from workers themselves and, little by little, I realized that this was honest, good and decent work.  After finding your blog I felt liberated from my guilt and decided that this is the life I want to live.  I still want to look for a romantic relationship with the prospects of making a family, but now that I have “found” sex work as a way to fulfill my needs in the meantime, I feel so much calmer.  I no longer see sex as this dark, secret hush-hush act; I’ve been with one other sex worker since then, and I can say without a doubt it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my adult life.  I know it’s an act and that the girl is putting on a performance, but it was so sweet and kind.  The people who work in this industry are saints in my book and should be treated with the utmost respect.  Thank you for everything.

Thank you so much for writing this; I’m so glad you were able to throw off that awful guilt.  The “authorities” want people to feel bad about pleasure of any kind (ever notice that the only things they claim are “bad for you” are those that bring pleasure?) so you’ll work harder and they can manipulate you.  But that’s no way to live; as you’ve discovered, thinking for yourself and trusting your own experiences rather than what “authorities” tell you leads to a much fuller, more rewarding life.  I hope you continue to have great experiences with other sex workers in the future!

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In the News (#929)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 17, 2019| 2 Comments »

Registries deter the good guys without having much effect on the bad ones.  –  Alexandra Levy

We Told You So

Oh, what a surprise:

A…couple’s agency obtained a $1.5 million federal grant to [harass sex workers]…in Toronto…[but] the…project appears to be a sham…[La Passerelle I.D.E. used the names] of 26 Toronto women…[who] work in marketing, public relations, consulting and government…[as supposed sex workers]…in danger…La Passerelle is [also]…in hot water over misusing thousands of dollars of sports and concert tickets…The lawyer for La Passerelle, Peter Downard, [claims] the anti-prostitution program…will help young, immigrant francophone women escape from “informal prostitution,” which he describes as [actually getting something of value for their time instead of giving it to useless men for free]…

Ad Absurdum

Age of consent laws were always intended to criminalize teen sex:

The age…[of] consent…is set at the state level in the US…In states such as Montana, and Kansas, anyone over the age of 16 can engage in sex with whomever they choose…while…a 16-year-old high-school junior who has sex with someone in the year below them is…committing statutory rape…in states such as Massachusetts, Illinois and California, two minors who engage in sex…might land one of them on the sex offenders’ registry for life…statutory-rape law can be a powerful tool in the hands of parents who want to prevent their teenagers from dating people they don’t like or from dating at all…this means the law disproportionally affects queer and interracial couples…Age-of-consent law as we know it today is a late 19th-century invention…In 1981…the…Supreme Court…held that “because their chastity was considered particularly precious, young women were felt to be uniquely in need of the state’s protection”.  Then the 1990s brought a push to shore up age-of-consent law in order to prevent teen pregnancy…age-of-consent law has always been…primarily focused on preventing consensual teenage sex…

AoC laws became popular as a way for parents to have revenge on young men who got their daughters pregnant, thus ruining their chances for an advantageous marriage.  All that modern crap about “child protection” is just rationalization to cover up the ugly, dehumanizing truth that despite the phrase “statutory rape”, AoC laws are more closely related to vandalism laws than they are to rape laws.

Cardboard Cutouts

Dutch sex workers are being threatened by Swedish plague carriers:

A [prohibitionist] petition is to be handed into the Dutch parliament demanding [the Swedish model]…”I am [worth]less” is the name of the social media-led campaign…[based in] Christian and feminist [dogma]…the group have posted Instagram photos showing [idiots with printed signs]…bearing [inane mottoes like]…I’m [worth]less…[and] “what if it was your sister?”…

A Load of Farley (#571)

Farley’s evil bigotry is finally coming back to bite her:

Florida lawmakers are rapidly advancing a bill they say will tackle human trafficking that would [condemn]…sex worker…[clients] to…a public registry.  But…the measure…relies on the work of [Melissa Farley] an…anti-sex work clinical psychologist who has referred to women sex workers as “house n****rs” [sic] and ”receptacles” and equates consensual sex with a sex worker with “rape”…other psychologists have described her work as “questionable”, “unqualified”, “inflammatory” and “demeaning propaganda”.  In 2010, Farley appeared as a key witness in a prostitution hearing in Ontario. The judge, Justice Susan Himel, dismissed Farley’s testimony [as]…”problematic”…[and] “inflammatory”…Several academics, writers and organizers wrote a scathing commentary on one of Farley’s reports in 2008, citing its biases and ignorance “of even the most basic legal principles”….Farley…initially denied using the racist slur, but when HuffPost sent her the archived link to the 2009 article, Farley said she was comparing “the structural similarities between prostitution and slavery”…

To Molest and Rape

This week’s typical and representative cop:

A Dartmouth [Massachusetts cop]..is facing…charges…[after raping] two children…Shawn Souza was arrested by state police…following a report from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and an investigation by the DA’s special victims unit…

Stalkers in Blue

She was “found dead” after a cop stalked her. Just a koinkydink:

A Denver [cop] will [get] a 10-day [vacat]ion and a fine for leaving work early to go to a strip club and then using a police database to look up a dancer, who was later found dead.  It is the second time in less than a year that…Shederick Dobbin has [received a light slap on the wrist] for abusing his access to the database…Dobbin was not a suspect in the [stripper’s death even though]…he [stalked]…her…and…two of [her] friends…Dobbin…previously [was rewarded with a] four day…[vacation] for [stalk]ing…the girlfriend of a man [accused] of assaulting a city employee…Denver [cops stalking women via computer]…became a focal point for the city’s Office of the Independent Monitor in 2016…

Imaginary Evils (#833)

It’s almost like feds use high-stigma accusations to force guilty pleas to lesser charges:

Allison Mack…pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and one count of racketeering conspiracy, for threatening to release secret photos of two women if they didn’t engage in “acts of love” with [cult leader Keith] Raniere.  Mack was…arrested along with NXIVM co-founder Raniere in what federal authorities widely described as a sex trafficking case…another example of the FBI using its new favorite buzzword (and desperately trying to rack up actual prosecutions for the same) even when the charges were a huge stretch…There a lot to criticize NXIVM for…and evidence that Raniere is guilty of a host of ethical and legal transgressions…Just not for sex trafficking…

Original Sin (#913) 

Nobody wants to admit that forced celibacy exacerbates these issues:

Indian authorities…charged a bishop with repeatedly raping a nun in…Kerala, the first case of its kind in the country and a development that comes just weeks after Pope Francis acknowledged a continuing problem with sexual abuse of nuns in the Catholic Church…Bishop Franco Mulakkal had been charged with raping a nun nine times over a two-year period starting in 2014…The charge sheet includes statements from 83 witnesses, including a cardinal, three bishops, 11 priests and 25 nuns…Nuns have tried for years to call attention to sexual exploitation in the Catholic Church.  They have recently stepped forward to accuse clerics of abuse in India and Italy, as well as in African and Latin American countries.  But they have also struggled to move the conversation forward among church leaders…

An Avalanche of Bullshit (#926)

“Sex trafficking” fetishists are desperately trying to turn the recent racist Florida pogroms into a huge international conspiracy:

…Yujing Zhang…was charged with illegally “entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds” and with lying to a federal agent…But as of now, any links between Zhang and Li “Cindy” Yang are…circumstantial at best…Despite dramatic insinuations, there’s been no evidence that Yang was actually “selling access” to the president (or other political figures) in any meaningful way…Her consulting company, GY US Investments, arranged tours, visits, and attendance at an array of political offices, business conferences, and political, networking, and cultural events for Chinese and Chinese-American entrepreneurs…Until recently, she ran a chain of massage businesses…one of those businesses she closed in 2013.  It was opened under a new name by a woman with no apparent ties to Yang and, earlier this year, the site of a Homeland Security–assisted prostitution sting that netted…Trump supporter…Robert Kraft on misdemeanor solicitation charges…And yet some people are quickly weaving a new narrative of shady “influence” with her as some sort of centerpiece…congressional Democrats called on the FBI to investigate Yang, even though no one has produced any evidence she’s doing anything illegal…

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Diary #459

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , on April 16, 2019| 4 Comments »

Though my Bay Area screening was a success, several things definitely did not go smoothly.  The screening audience was very engaged and I was joined in a Q&A afterward by veteran activist Kristen DiAngelo (American Courtesans); before the show I also recorded a podcast interview for my hosts, the Prostasia Foundation.  The next day I met one of my regular readers for a coffee date, then had a lovely overnight with one of my favorite gentlemen.  Also, the problem with my fundraiser was resolved, so at least I didn’t have to use personal money to pay my hotel and all (if you’d like to help me in future travels, please donate).  Those are the parts that went well; it was all the nonhuman factors which gave me trouble!  As regular readers know, I fly for free thanks to Ghost Rider, but that means flying standby and sometimes getting bumped to steerage, and if things are really overbooked it can mean getting bumped off of a flight entirely.  Well, last Monday I flew first class to LAX, but it looked like I was going to be bumped off of my flight to SFO until the very last minute (when they managed to get me onto the flight, apparently due to someone else’s missed connection).  At the screening Tuesday, we had some kind of glitch wherein the sound got about a second out of synch with the picture and the projectionist apparently could not resolve it; the theater made up to us by refunding part of our fees, and if you were in the audience and felt distracted, we will give you a free download (just email me for details).  Then on Wednesday afternoon, Ghost Rider (who keeps an eye on flight loads when he knows I’ll be traveling) let me know that it didn’t look good for the next day; we decided the best bet was for me to try to follow through with my original itinerary, but to understand it might not work out.  That turned out to be an understatement; by the time I got to the airport, my standby position for the flight had dropped from one to nine, on an already-overbooked plane.  Consulting with the gate agent revealed that, partly due to spring break traffic and partly to the genius who decided to repair a runway during the day (thus resulting in dozens of cancelled flights), there was no way to get a seat out of San Francisco for love or money.  Every flight on every airline out of SFO, San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento, flying to Seattle, Portland and even Everett (on Alaska Air) through every hub in the US was overbooked for both Thursday and Friday.  But I was in a good mood and mentally prepared for the eventuality; Priceline gave me a one-way car rental, SFO to Seattle, for only $130; I booked it, drove out of the parking garage about 2 pm, and I pulled into my driveway in Seattle at 12:45 (that included two refueling stops).  Definitely not an ideal situation, but in the days before I learned how to control my vertigo I did a lot of long-distance driving; the worst part about it was losing a whole day of writing time.  And it takes more than stupid bureacrats & drunk students to stop me from getting where I need to go!

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Catching Up With Maggie

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may have noticed I don’t actually tour the way many escorts do; I just don’t like traveling to strange cities and sitting around in hotels hoping for business.  So unless you’re willing to spring for a long enough session to justify a special trip (at least as long as round-trip travel time, which basically means an overnight for much of the US), you would generally have to wait until you’re coming to Seattle or I’m coming to your city.  Well, in a few weeks there will be a situation kind of midway between “special trip” and “I’ll happen to be there”; I’m giving a presentation at Minnesota State in Mankato on April 29th (4 PM in the Ostrander Auditorium in the Centennial Student Union), then speaking at the Libertarian Party of Illinois convention on May 4th (Parke Regency Hotel in Bloomington).  That means that from April 30th to May 3rd I’ll be in the area between those two points with a rental car, so if you’re in Minneapolis, Chicago, or some place between, I’d be willing to see you if you book a dinner date on the 30th, 1st or 2nd.  If you’re in Chicagoland, I’ll have shorter apointments available on the 3rd.  Obviously I’m not going to bounce around like a pinball, but if you’re flexible and have the means & desire we can talk about a visit.  Don’t wait, though; I’ll be building my schedule as I get appointments, and as the schedule fills in I’ll have less flexibility.  Better still:  I’m willing to give you a special price if you’re willing to pay in advance.  And if you’re in Washington DC or southern Florida, keep your eyes peeled for similar specials in the next few months!  Of course, you don’t have to wait; I’m willing to make special travel deals for anyone who supports my documentary, and if you’re interested I’m just an email away.

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Links #458

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2019| 1 Comment »

The homeowner told police it also appeared someone had eaten some of his Krave cereal.

YouTube threw this video at me last week, and I literally laughed out loud even though I was sober.  The links above it were provided by Franklin Harris, Missy Mariposa, Furrygirl, Peter Roman (x2), and Elizabeth N. Brown, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#928)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2019| 1 Comment »

The way we are dealing with trafficking cases is not effective.
– Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez

Legal Is As Legal Does (#7)

Hamilton politicians should talk to those in Auckland & Christchurch:

Hamilton City Council is trying to renew a bylaw that may be illegal – a ban on street prostitution that threatens a $20,000 fine.  The Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) is dead against it, and even the council admits it’s on shaky legal ground…But…the ban is illegal [because it] recriminalises sex workers…Two attempts by Manukau City Council to ban street prostitution in 2007 and 2012 failed.  The Hamilton Mayor admits that exposes his council to legal risk…

Torture Chamber 

Our government refers to this as “correction”:

Alabama’s prison…inmates are housed in unconstitutional conditions…the Department of Justice has…threatened to hit Alabama with a federal lawsuit if the state doesn’t begin to correct the violations within 49 days.  The report…lays out in unsparing detail a culture of violence across the state’s 13 prisons for men, which house roughly 16,000 inmates in dangerously understaffed prisons that are also among the nation’s most overcrowded.  During a single week…one inmate bled to death after being stabbed repeatedly as two others stood guard…Another stabbed inmate had to be evacuated by helicopter, and a prisoner…was attacked with a sock filled with metal locks…Rapes happen day and night in all corners of the prisons…more than 600…from late 2016 through April 2018…[and] the report…”did not identify a single incident in which…staff…intervened”…The prison system documented 24 prisoner homicides between January 2015 and June 2018, but the Justice Department said that…was an undercount…[because] the state [often] classifies violent deaths as arising from natural causes…

To Molest and Rape

Yet another typical and representative cop:

A Newport News [cop] was arrested…[for] rape and [anal rape] of…a girl [under 18]…the department [first] received a report on June 6, 2018 [but took their sweet time arresting their buddy, using the excuse that]…it had happened significantly prior to when the report was made…

The Enlightenment Police (#785)

Five times a day, Guilbault makes obeisance toward the capitol and chants, “the Law is the Law”:

…Public Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault told reporters at the Quebec National Assembly that it is the job of the police to enforce the law, and the province’s proposed ban on wearing religious symbols in some public service jobs would be no different.  “The law is the law,” Ms. Guilbault [chanted]…“People can [call the cops on others who have not hurt them]…The law is the law.”  She later clarified that she is confident officials will [mindlessly] obey the law…[even though] several Montreal-area municipalities and school boards say they would not enforce a ban on religiously symbolic garments such as the turban, kippa, hijab and crucifix from being worn by people in positions of authority, including teachers and [pigs]…the law…contain[s] no punitive measures…[but In]justice Minister Sonia LeBel said if a school board or city refuses to enforce the law, the province could obtain a court injunction to force compliance…“I’m very confident…there will be no civil disobedience,” she [lied.  Premier François] Legault later told reporters…“We shouldn’t be talking about [the gun in the room]. Quebeckers know there are means to [violently] force respect for the law”…Most of the people who would be affected are Muslim teachers who wear headscarves…

It’s cute how Canadian politicians like to dance around the inherent tyranny of laws against consensual behavior.

To Molest and Rape (#845) 

Dante would’ve placed this monster in Ptolomea:

Kenneth Collard…pleaded guilty to [rape]…and is expected to be sentenced to [a mere] five years in prison…Collard was staying at the home of an[other cop]…when he entered the [his host’s daughter’s] bedroom and [rap]ed her in the middle of the night…

Where Are the Protests? (#848)

I suggest you compare this to the “nail parlor slavery” myth:

Police have been alerted to 930 reports of [imagined] modern-day slavery at hand car washes, thanks to a new smartphone app devised by the Church of England (C of E) and the Catholic Church…Customers concerned by working conditions at a hand car wash have been urged to download the Safe Car Wash app and complete a survey which includes key indicators of modern slavery…[such as] evidence of staff living on site…

Rooted in Racism (#867)

But they want to “rescue” them!

Sex workers in the UK are being illegally targeted for deportations and subjected to harassment and attacks because of a Brexit-inspired culture of discrimination against foreigners…A dossier compiled by the…English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) includes examples of women being targeted by police for arrest and deportation despite having the right to remain in Britain, and police dismissing reports of violence against women…Niki Adams…said…“Migrant sex workers from EU countries like Romania, Albania and Poland do have the right to work in the UK but they have been picked up and deported…The police were doing things like confiscating a woman’s travel documents or passport and saying, ‘We will only give this back to you if you produce a one-way ticket to Romania’”…

The Widening Gyre (#901)

Cops don’t like it when non-cops falsely accuse innocent people of “crimes” that didn’t happen:

Santana Adams of Milton, West Virginia, has been charged with falsely accusing a man of trying to kidnap her 5-year-old daughter at the mall.  On April [Fool’s Day], Adams told the police that a stranger at the Old Navy store in Barboursville “grabbed the child by the hair and attempted to pull her away.”  The girl then “dropped to the floor with the male still pulling her”…The woman told police she pulled out a gun and the man quickly left the scene…the accused man, Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, was thrown in jail…But the case against him quickly began to unravel…By Tuesday, Zayan was released…By Thursday night…the prosecutor dismissed all charges….[after] surveillance video [showed] the two shoppers calmly leaving the store at slightly different times, going in opposite directions…By Friday afternoon the tables had completely turned and Adams found herself facing charges for accusing Zayan of a crime that did not happen.  Possible penalties are a $500 fine and sixth months in jail…

Safe Position (#919)

Even my jaded self is impressed with the speed this is happening in New York:

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez voiced his support for the decriminalization of sex work on April 4 during a wide-ranging discussion with elected officials, advocates, and members of Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn (LID).  The “decriminal­izing queerness” event, which was hosted by LID and primarily focused on sex work but also touched upon marijuana legalization, housing rights, and other issues facing marginalized groups, additionally featured Brooklyn State Senators Julia Salazar and Zellnor Myrie as well as advocates who have experience as sex workers…Gonzalez’s clear support for decriminalization comes just weeks after he unveiled his Justice 2020 plan geared towards reducing incarceration…

Business As Usual (#921)

Every so often the feds decide to make an example of an especially-horrible cop:

A Franklin County grand jury indicted [typical and representative] Columbus…vice [pig] Andrew Mitchell…in the [murder] of Donna Castleberry…Mitchell had been attempting to [rape] Castleberry when she [resisted, so]…he shot her multiple times.  Mark Collins, Mitchell’s defense attorney [tried to defame the dead victim and claims]…Mitchell was acting in self-defense [when he murdered an unarmed woman half his size]…

 

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Pledge Driving

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , on April 12, 2019| 1 Comment »

I’m happy to announce that the funds disbursement issue with the fundraiser for The War on Whores has been solved!  Those who don’t follow me on Twitter may have missed that for over two weeks, WePay (the payment processor for GoFundMe and a number of similar sites) kept cancelling my withdrawals, sending me emails which announced “Action required” in the subject line and yet not telling me what action was required.  And like many modern web-based businesses, neither GoFundMe nor WePay has a proper customer service phone number, pretending instead that in an age of instant communication emails that take them days to answer constitute adequate customer service.  Eventually, someone decided to finally tell me that WePay recently demanded that GoFundMe (and presumably, other crowdfunding sites as well) ban the rewards for different donation levels which have been a staple of crowdfunding since it was invented (I smell FOSTA’s baleful influence here).  A few days after I deleted the rewards from the GoFundMe page, their cstomer service told me that WePay was apparently satified and would stop playing “Mother May I?” with my readers’ donations; on Tuesday, the day of my Bay Area screening, the funds finally hit my account.  And now that’s done, I’d like to remind readers about the fundraiser and ask for your help again, and to remind y’all that even though I can’t list them on the donation page the rewards are:

$30 or more – Donor
Permanent inclusion in blog-supporter deals (free stories, etc).

$60 or more – Friend
Autographed DVD of The War on Whores (will be sent when DVDs are delivered to us, probably late spring)

$125 or more – Sponsor
Autographed copies both of my books, plus The War on Whores DVD when it comes out.

$250 or more – Patron
When I’m in your city, I’ll have coffee with you and hand-deliver the Sponsor-level gifts plus an autographed poster!

$500 or more – Angel
When I’m in your city, I’ll have a leisurely dinner with you and hand-deliver all the Patron-level gifts!

$1000 or more – Producer
I will make a special trip to the city of your choice and give a full screening of the movie, with Q&A session, to the group of your choice!  If you have no special group, I’ll give you the Angel package without your having to wait until I reach your city!

Paul Johnson told me yesterday that the closed captioning is done, so the movie will soon be available on Amazon; also, thanks to my generous donors I was able to send him the money for burning the DVDs.  Onward and upward!

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Notoriously Unreliable

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 11, 2019| 4 Comments »

Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact. –  Marlene Dietrich

The only thing that inflames American prurience as much as people having sex is people not having sex.  Americans spend vast amonts of money on sex aids and medications such as Viagra, and even try to medicalize normal female sexuality that “experts” deem insufficient; however, they also spend similarly on “treatment” for sexuality that other “experts” deem excessive.  They devour porn, both the overt form and the softer type rolled into movies, television shows, and especially the extreme BDSM torture porn presented as “sex trafficking” propaganda…which facilitates the bllions spent on harassing other people for consensual sex.  And though we’re still not done with a moral panic claiming that prepubescent “sex slaves” are one of the world’s largest criminal industries because they’re raped by literally every single adult male in the US every single week, we also regularly see articles about a supposed “sex drought” (that presumably doesn’t include all those rapes of “child sex slaves”).  The latest iteration of the latter nonsense appeared in the Washington Post under this “OOOOH It’s SCARY, Kids!” graphic:

For anyone who knows anything about sexology, those four little words in the lower left corner speak volumes.  As I’ve written many times, the GSS is notoriously unreliable on sexual matters because it’s an in-person survey.  A number of sexologists, myself included, consider it almost wholly worthless on sexual topics.  As I wrote just two months ago, “These surveys don’t find anything about what people are actually doing sexually; what they measure is people’s relative comfort with the question, which is a horse of a different color.”  In other words, we don’t actually know that fewer people are having sex, only that fewer people are reporting sex to strangers in lab coats.  And that may have a lot to do with our government’s war on sex, in which paying for it is cast as “wrong”, therefore underreported; an example of the idiocy of such surveys can be demonstrated by the fact that a Swedish government “study” claimed the number of men who had ever bought sex decreased by 41% between 1996 and 2008…which would have to mean that a huge percentage of those who had paid for it must either have died or moved out of Sweden in a 12-year period, because even if they had not hired a whore since the ban that wouldn’t erase their previous experiences.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown had (as usual) some good comments to make on this micropanic, incluing quotes from a couple of people whose names aren’t Maggie McNeill pointing out that the GSS is kinda crap.  There was a passing reference to the fact that social researchers are wedded to the fantasy that most sex happens in “partnerships” (which it doesn’t and never has), so they blame the less-sex on people partnering later, which is baloney.  They make the same dumb “explanation” about lower sex reporting in Japan.  If there is any truth to the claim that young men are having less sex rather than merely reporting less sex, it’s probably because so many men under 30 have no worthwhile jobs and the government is scaring them out of buying sex from pros.  Their lack of ambition turns off amateurs, and their lack of money turns off pros and amateurs.  But whatever shortage there is, is undoubtedly magnified by their being more ashamed than ever to report hiring sex workers.

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