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Archive for February, 2020

Links #501

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Boo fucking hoo.  –  “Officer” Michael Valva

Forget those incredibly annoying songs written for children by adults; this one was written by a child, three-year-old Fenn Rosenthal (with a little help from her daddy Tom on the music).  It was called to my attention by Mama Tush; the links above it were provided by Melanie Moore, Tim Cushing, Walter Olson, Cop Crisis, Amy Alkon, Cop Crisis again and Dave Krueger, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#1011)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2020| 2 Comments »

While scandalized men are given second chances galore, women who society says behaved badly are branded for life.  –  Melissa Petro

Think of the Children! (Bits and Pieces)

Melissa Petro was open about her past when she applied to be a teacher; it wasn’t until she was outed that her “sex rays” suddenly became dangerous to children:

Ten years ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg…personally asked for me to be removed from my job as a public-school teacher and called for the city to take legal action against me…because I admitted that I’d worked in the sex industry before teaching.  “We’re just not going to have this woman in front of a class,” Bloomberg was quoted as saying…he…and I never met.  He never commented further on my situation.  He decided my fate, and that was that…The press…demonized me.  I was dubbed the “hooker teacher” and made into the butt of jokes.  And yet in the intervening years I was able to turn that exposure into a platform for humanizing sex work…

Under Duress 

I wonder if most cops are even capable of telling the truth?

Just…a…week [after]…[Los Angeles cop Angel Reinosa was arrested because he] fabricated [a] story of [being] shot in the shoulder by a sniper as he walked from his patrol car into the station…another cop in Ohio was arrested for doing the exact same thing.  On January 13, approximately 50 [heavily-armed thugs] from ten different [cop shops invaded] a predominantly black neighborhood looking for a non-existent suspect.  This swarm of cops…detain[ed] innocent people…and [terrorized] an entire community…because Warren [Ohio pig] Noah Linnen falsely claimed he’d been involved in a shootout with a [vaguely-described] black man in a black SUV…Due to the massive police presence…the…lying cop’s story [quickly] began to unravel…After…[terrorizing innocent people for a while], police finally looked at the surveillance footage from nearby properties and never saw an SUV fitting Linnen’s description.  So, the lying cop changed his story…[to claim he had somehow mistaken] a bicycle [for a truck]…In total, this lying cop would change his story four times after each lie he made up was shut down…In the final version of the story…he [simply] fired…at a passing vehicle [because it had] bright headlights…

Shifting the Blame (#327)

It’s difficult to tell if the anti-whore bullshit in this review springs from the film or its reviewer:

…In Lost Girls…the great documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus…enters the realm of drama as if born to it.  The movie, based on a true story that began in 2010 (it’s adapted from Robert Kolker’s 2013 nonfiction bestseller Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery), is about…Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan), who learns that her oldest daughter, Shannan, who’s around 20 and has been a sex worker living in Jersey City, N.J., has gone missing…police find four dismembered bodies off the side of the highway…Lost Girls is built around an aggrieved mother’s obsession to learn, at any cost, what happened to her child, and it may remind you of other mystery dramas rooted in the squalid dangers of the sex industry…we expect the movie to be…some sort of investigative deep dive into the ugly nuts and bolts of…the druggy, unstable, three-rotating-cell-phones life of a sex worker in the Craigslist era…

Reviewer Owen Gleiberman affects an understanding of the demimonde which is undermined by his misuse of terms, such as “in-call” when he means outcall and “john” to mean client (despite his decrying the dehumanization of sex workers a couple of paragraphs later).  Gleiberman seems unsure if he’s an ally, a puritan, or just a working writer employing the pseudo-intellectual cant of the professional fim critic who likes his comfortable paycheck but isn’t sure what his audience wants to hear; as such, it’s difficult to tell how much of this attitude is derived from the book (whose author spoke to me shortly before release), how much from the film, how much from the reviewer, and how much from the anti-sex dogma 21st century US journalists are expected to parrot.

To Molest and Rape

Another brave hero, protecting and serving:

A [typical and representative] Alabama [screw who was a serial rapist]…pleaded guilty…during…his ongoing trial…Matthew Moore…was arrested in 2018 and implicated by DNA in sexual assaults in George, Alabama and Florida…Moore was sentenced to life in prison with 30 years to serve…In June 2010, Moore [brutally raped] an Atlanta [sex worker at gunpoint]…[after he] left…the victim called 911, and [a rape kit was performed]…On November 17, 2015, Moore [brutally and sadistically raped another sex worker in]…Sandy Springs [Georgia]…and…record[ed] the entire [attack on his cell phone]…The victim was eventually able to escape…and ran…[into] the hallway…Moore [threatened bystanders with a gun to escape]…A year and a half later – in 2017 – the se[cond victim’s rape kit]…revealed…[a] DNA…match…[with the 2010] rape…as well as a 2008 [rape] in Homewood, a 2010 [rape] in Cobb County, and a 2010 [rape] in Birmingham…[when] Moore [was caught]…the video…of the 2015 rape…was still on his phone three years later…In addition to the Georgia and Alabama cases, Moore was implicated in a [rape] of a 64-year-old woman in Jupiter, Florida on March 7, 2018…

The Prudish Giant (#899)

People sometimes ask why I’m not on Facebook:

Facebook…[recently released] a long-delayed “Off-Facebook Activity” tracker [which]…shows Facebook and sister apps Instagram and Messenger don’t need a microphone to target you with those eerily specific ads and posts — they’re all up in your business countless other ways.  Even with Facebook closed on my phone…It knows when I [use the Peet’s Coffee or Home Depot apps,] read…Pete Buttigieg[‘s website] or…The Atlantic…or…open the Ring app…The “Off-Facebook Activity” tracker will show you 180 days’ worth of the data Facebook collects about you from the many organizations and advertisers in cahoots with it.  This page, buried behind lots of settings menus (here’s a direct link), is the product of a promise…Zuckerberg made during the height of the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal to provide ways we can “clear the history” in our accounts…it doesn’t let you reset your entire relationship with Facebook.  But…it does give you a way to unlink some of its surveillance…Even when your phone is entirely off, businesses can upload information about you making an in-store purchase.  One colleague found 974 apps and websites shared his activity…

Business As Usual (#928)

Oh look, a psychopathic rapist-murderer cop has raped before:

In a lawsuit filed…against [typical and representative vice cop Andrew] Mitchell and the City of Columbus, Mitchell is [reported to have] handcuff[ed] an unnamed woman and rap[ed] her…on…[two separate occasions] in 2017 and…2018….[on both occasions] Mitchell [acted out his typical MO with women he knew were sex workers or]…had…warrants out against her [at some point]…Mitchell…[drove] the woman to a…parking lot in Columbus where he [knew he would not be caught, forced her]…into the back seat…handcuffed her to the vehicle and raped her….[both] time[s]…he…drove off [after raping her], leaving the woman without most of her clothing…

The Widening Gyre (#941)

The “sex traffickers” have spread from Target and Ikea to gas station mini-marts:

Burlington [North Carolina] police are [help]ing [to spread hysteria]…about…human trafficking…after a [woman fantasized she was followed]…at [a crowded] Sheetz [gas station]…in the middle of the day…The [wo]man’s [fantasy]…prompted the Burlington Police Department to post a warning on its Facebook page reminding people to [spy on each other] and report [any brown people] to them…

Welcome to the Future (#977)

As I’ve repeatedly stated, it’s far too late to put this evil djinni back into its bottle:

…implicit bias…is ubiquitous in the workplace, and can hurt not just employees, but also a company’s bottom line…Despite the growing adoption of implicit bias training, some in the field of human resources have raised doubts about its effectiveness in improving diversity and inclusion within organizations.  But what if a smart device, similar to the Amazon Alexa, could tell when your boss inadvertently [made] a female colleague…feel that her perspective wasn’t valued?  This device doesn’t yet exist, but Northeastern associate professors…are preparing to embark on a three-year project that could yield such a gadget…working on…a $1.5 million…grant from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory…

I’m sure the US Army is funding this because it cares so deeply about “diversity and inclusion”.

Watershed (#978)

We’re way past the watershed now:

For the first time, over half of Americans support the decriminalization of sex work, and two-thirds of voters aged 18 to 44 back the initiative.  The statistic comes from…Decriminalizing Survival: Policy Platform and Polling on the Decriminalization of Sex Work, [which] analyzes a Data for Progress and YouGov Blue survey from late November…author Nina Luo…argues…that public discourse is leading voters to have a better understanding of the arguments surrounding decriminalization beyond fearmongering around sex trafficking…Democrats are nearly twice as likely as Republicans to support decriminalization, and younger voters generally show stronger support…than older Americans.  Among respondents aged 18 to 29, 65% support decriminalization, compared to 42% among people aged 65 or older.  Overall, only 36% of American voters oppose decriminalization…

All-Purpose Excuse (#978)

Trumpists and anti-Trumpists continue to fight for control of the “sex trafficking” narrative:

President Trump…attend[ed] a White House summit organized by his daughter Ivanka on [so-called] human trafficking, an issue he frequently invokes…But some of the country’s most prominent…organizations [which label themselves “anti-trafficking”]…won’t be there.  They have decided to boycott the event.  The group includes Polaris, the…[most influential purveyor of anti-sex work propaganda in the US], and the leader of Freedom Network USA, the…largest…coalition [of groups actually concerned with exploitation rather than simply using it as a cover for persecution of sex workers]…They say that although the president frequently invokes human trafficking, his administration is actively endangering a significant portion of [people infantilized as “trafficking victims”]:  immigrants…Ivanka Trump…has embraced the eradication of [sex work] as one of her causes [despite her stepmother’s history of sex work]…she…has advocated anti-[sex work] legislation, including [the internet censorship bill FOSTA]…

The Monsters Are Due (#996)

White van hysteria appears to be broadening:

The driver of a white van described [by cops and Facebook hysterics] as possibly being involved in suspicious activity…is a dog-loving business owner and tourist…[named] Chris Fox…who lives in Salt Lake City…Jackson County [South Dakota cops] posted a photo of Fox’s van and wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post that it wanted to learn more about the vehicle because [gullible cops imagined it was] “associated with confirmed criminal activity…[and] appears to use the large antenna visible on the roof to intercept WiFi, stealing credit card information”…[cops harassed him by]…track[ing] down his phone number by running his license plate, which [a busybody had] photographed [while he was peacefully going about his business in his van, which] doesn’t have a big antenna…

Stupor Bowl (#1005)

Though the majority of journalists now insert disclaimers when repeating tall tales of “Super Bowl sex trafficking”, the Miami Herald has apparently decided to go in exactly the opposite direction, publishing the lurid sex fantasies of cops, politicians, and other assorted prohibitionist lowlifes as not only news, but breaking news despite the fact that this same masturbatory fantasy has been spread in conjunction with every major sporting event for well over a decade.  And since we’ve all seen this tragedy porn more times than is healthy for any normal brain, I’m just going to excerpt the high points:

…an underground stream of no-name girls…branded with bar-code tattoos on their inner lower lip, dulled by a diet of drugs, painted with makeup to look older, bruised or burned in discreet spots and living in a state of terror…they are an essential element of the Super Bowl…modern-day slave masters…aiming to make upwards of $1,000 per night per woman under their control…40 million victims caught in the $150 billion sex…trafficking industry…second only to drug trafficking as the world’s largest criminal industry…Theresa Flores [shares her fantasy about being “trafficked” by magical ninja pimps]…You can sell a human being over and over again…[bogus statistics from previous years]…Robert Kraft…Florida ranks third…in human trafficking…hub[s]…the average sex trafficking victim may be forced to have sex 20 times a day…Jeffrey Epstein…hiding in plain sight…SOAP…coerced and brainwashed…Traffickers…spend hours mining social media…mafia…a man…buys a girl the same age as his daughter…piece of property…father figure or a job scam…They pay in cash. At hotels, they keep the Do Not Disturb sign on the door…control of their minds, bodies and souls…sophisticated…dating sites…They deny having a pimp…

I Spy (#1006)

Anyone who doubts that politicians are deranged megalomaniacs should be following this:

Attorney General William Barr [i]s making a bizarre attack on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act…arguing — without evidence — that 230 might be contributing to “unlawful behavior” online…Section 230 explicitly exempts federal criminal charges from what it applies to, meaning that it literally cannot interfere with any DOJ prosecution…But Barr has continued to push forward with this anti-230 kick, and is going to host a “workshop” about [it] in a few weeks…the DOJ claims that this workshop will have that “diversity of viewpoints”…but it is likely to stack the deck against 230…[as it] has done…with regard to…encryption…the DOJ a[ppears to be] playing this anti-230 card simply as a method of punishing the internet industry for opposing his desire to gut encryption…

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Wannabe Heroes

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on February 7, 2020| 6 Comments »

Ever wonder why so many men have bought into the “sex trafficking” fantasy?  Part of it, as I’ve discussed before, is that insecure men need to believe that men are the ones in control of the sexual sphere.  But if that were all of it, they’d content themselves with merely believing in it; why do so many of them feel it’s their sacred duty to keep women from earning an income?  I don’t just mean cops and politicians, either; one of the most vociferously-awful groups of busybodies is made up of men who drive vehicles for a living, especially large trucks.  Take this recent article from NBC Yellow about “Truckers Against Trafficking”, a circle-jerk of prudish teamsters whose “sex trafficking” propaganda is some of the most blatantly derived from sexual fantasy in the entire rescue industry.  The lede breathlessly informs us that “traffickers often exploit the transportation system to move their victims“; presumably before reading this, Americans believed sex workers got around by dirigible, log raft, howdah, broomstick and astral projection.  But I’ll save you the trouble of reading the rest:  it’s yet another restatement of the silly fantasy that marginalized sex workers who frequent truck stops are part of some huge international criminal cartel out of frustrated wannabes’ sexual fantasies.  Immature men who want to be “heroes” without putting in the work and brainpower necessary to become, say, defense lawyers or medical researchers, instead console their pathetic fee-fees by becoming cops or by calling the cops on women who dare to try to make a living outside of kitchens, sweatshops, elementary schools or secretarial pools.  All authoritarian societies must control women in order to control the future, and men in the middle or lower parts of the social pyramid are told they are “heroes” by helping to keep women In Our Place.  And so belonging to “Truckers Against Trafficking” is an all-around win for them:  they get to belong to something bigger than themselves; to enjoy the dual fantasy that they are “heroes” and women helpless, passive “victims” who are too stupid to even come up with a simple business plan like “hawk your wares where there are buyers”; and to turn those fucking bitches in to the pigs for daring to charge their heroic selves for something they think they’re entitled to for free.

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How Bi I Am

Posted in Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged , , , on February 6, 2020| 5 Comments »

People have such a need to cram others into little boxes.  Somebody recently asked me how bisexual I am (I can only presume they meant my Kinsey number).  Now, I’ve written before about the absurd inadequacy of any attempt to reduce human sexuality to a single one-dimensional axis, or even a two-dimensional chart that:

A) crosses Kinsey numbers with what the designers referred to as “attraction types” based on “lustful feelings” (that roughly a third of women don’t have);
B) ignores kink entirely; and
C) “gives a place of precedence to ongoing sexual ‘relationships’ despite the fact that many individuals aren’t interested in them.”

As I wrote in “East is East and West is West“,

Human sexuality is not like a standard light switch, which has two and only two positions; it’s not even like a dimmer switch, with an infinite number of subtle gradations along one linear path.  It’s much more like a faucet, in which two kinds of water can be mixed to produce many temperature gradations while the intensity of the flow can also have many levels.  In fact, if you can imagine a shower where the water can be directed to come out of either the lower faucet or the shower head or a movable nozzle or jacuzzi jets, that might be a model a bit closer to the truth…

But even ignoring all that, the very question of “How bi are you?” ignores the reality of female sexual fluidity.  As I explained in “AC/DC“, “women tend to move around the sexual spectrum depending upon their environment, circumstances and experiences,” and I probably wander more than most women.  So for me, the question is simply not answerable in any fixed, predictable sense.  I mean, are we talking now or at some specific past or future time?  What time of the month is it?  Hell, what time of day is it?  What did I have to eat last?  How many clients have I had recently, and when was the last time a busty redhead made eyes at me?  What was the gender of the last idiot who pissed me off?  Am I high, and if so on what drug?  Is it October?  Is it Tuesday?  Is it raining?  What music are we listening to?  Is there a dog or cat in the room?  Is there money involved?  Is there bondage involved?  How attractive does the person in question find me, and what are they doing to prove it?  And after all that I still probably couldn’t tell you how bi I am.

(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 (#1010)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Coming after the client means they’re coming after…the person who pays my bills.  –  Kristen Cain

Rough Trade

Tara Burns on the, “But she’s a whore!” defense for rape:

In 2019, a Fairbanks District Attorney offered a generous plea – 5 years of actual time, amounting to little more than time served – to a man charged with kidnapping and [raping] a minor…[because] he claimed his underaged victim was a prostitute…Winfred Hipp…the victim and her father…were headed to a BBQ, but the father had a stop to make first. Mr. Hipp dropped the father off and…took [the girl] to his apartment…and [raped] her while she was saying no…Hipp [at first used] a condom, but then he took it off and continued [raping] her.  When the victim’s father arrived at the BBQ and realized his daughter wasn’t there, he went to Hipp’s apartment, where he could hear his daughter being raped through the door.  Hipp stopped when the father almost broke the door down…His semen was found inside her and in a condom found on his bedroom floor which also had the victim’s DNA on the outside of it.  At his sentencing, he [claimed] he’d been raped and robbed by the victim…The plea deal…came after the minor victim was labeled “difficult” and a prostitute by the prosecutor…

Surplus Women

Sex workers cannot cure violent misogyny:

Marylène Lévesque, a 22-year-old sex worker employed by a Quebec City massage parlour, was murdered by…Eustachio Gallese…[who was out on parole from a life sentence for the] 2006…[murder] of his girlfriend…Chantale Deschenes…[who was] savagely beaten to death with a hammer and repeatedly stabbed.  Gallese then took the time to scribble [“whore” multiple times]…on the bedroom wall before turning himself in to police…He already had a history of…violence with a previous partner in 1997.  Even though the Parole Board initially found that he posed “a high risk of violence,” they later inexplicably changed that to a “moderate risk” and…out on day parole since March of 2019.  While out, he was [officially given permission]…to see sex workers…[despite his] history of misogyny, rage and extreme physical violence against women…No one bothered to inform this young woman, or the massage parlour she worked at, that he was extremely dangerous and posed a risk to her life…

But please, clients, keep telling us about how you don’t need to be screened because you’re “taking a risk, too”.

If Men Were Angels

“The crime was sexually motivated”.  No shit, really?

A priest…admitted to holding a teen captive in a church janitor’s closet…Brian Stanley was sentenced to 60 days in jail with credit for two days served.  He will also serve five years probation and must register as a sex offender for 15 years.  Stanley was charged in August for the 2013 incident that happened at St. Margaret’s Church in Otsego [Michigan]…he bound the teen boy in plastic wrap and masking tape, also covering his eyes and mouth with tape…then left [him] alone in the closet for over an hour before freeing him.  The state Attorney General’s Office…said the crime was sexually motivated…

Count the Idiocies

The verbal equivalent of vomiting up gallons of toxic diarrhea:

A forum on human trafficking…featur[ed]…keynote speaker Ohio [politician] Teresa Fedor…“Poverty drives and fuels trafficking1.  When…you want to control the victims, you drug them2…the estimated U.S. share of the $99 billion worldwide industry is between $10 to $15 billion3…Research she has found shows that runaways are “harvested” by traffickers within 24 hours4…she is working to change the laws to prosecute those doing the “selling of the bodies”5…“Those buying rape can no longer hide their actions”6…modern slavery…needs to be tackled like it was in 18657”…”I knew I had to build a movement, because I’m a Democrat8,” Fedor said…

1It’s hard to imagine a clearer indicator that by “sex trafficking” she actually means “sex work”.
2It’s been a while since we’ve seen the magical pimp mind-control philter.
3“The US share of this made-up number is a smaller made-up number, both of which disagree with other made-up numbers from other prohibitionists“.
4Down from the usual claim of 48 hours, but up from Seattle’s claim of 45 minutes.
5Usually, they at least pretend to recognize we have minds.
6The “paid rape” trope is one of the ugliest elements of prohibitionist dogma.
7The fact that prohibitionists can’t see how loathsome it is to invoke historical black slavery to promote a system which gives more power to cops is a sign of their dyed-in-th-wool racism.
8WTF?

Welcome to the Future (#916)

Don’t be fooled by this “shutdown”; it’ll soon be back in an even-worse form:

In 2012, Chicago PD collaborated with the RAND Corporation and the Illinois Institute of Technology to automatically generate “risk scores” for people they arrested, which were supposed to predict the likelihood that the person would be a “party to violence” in the future (this program was called “TRAP” — Targeted Repeat-Offender Apprehension Program” — seemingly without a shred of irony).  Now, that program has been shut down, and the City of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General has published a damning report on…ways in which the program discriminated against the people ensnared in it, without reducing violent crime…people…assigned high risk scores…were subjected to “enhanced prosecutions”…and…your TRAP score went up even if were acquitted or had your case dismissed…

Loose Cannons (#947)

“Sex trafficking” hysteria’s impending collapse has been helped along by the excesses of Florida “authorities”:

On January 23, the Hillsborough County sheriff’s office announced the completion of “two undercover human trafficking operations”…[Sheriff Chad] Chronister, who was elected in 2018, has pledged to make policing [consensual adult sex] a priority, and said that the stings are going to continue…”until human [sexuality] is stopped”…An anti-trafficking operation in early 2019 by a slew of Florida law enforcement agencies…yielded similar results: busts of massage parlors, arrests for solicitation…but no trafficking charges…That hasn’t stopped prosecutors, however, from claiming [without evidence]…that “[state prying into people’s private sex lives] often yield evidence of more serious crimes”…Chronister has also [vomited out fascist poison that “citizens]…must always be held accountable [to the state]”…

Checklist (#986)

They’re trying to cut off sex worker access to travel worldwide:

Thousands of tuk-tuk drivers in Cambodia are to [be indoctrinated]…in [anti-sex worker propaganda]…under a [scheme] by the ride-hailing app Grab to tr[ick] drivers [in]to [becoming police informants]…Grab [will indoctrinate]…10,000 drivers in…Phnom Penh this month, as it launches a [scheme] it plans eventually to extend to millions of its drivers in Asia…Cambodia’s…a…[favorite venue for racist “saviors” like] the Walk Free Foundation [to claim as a “hotbed”] of…[“slavery”, which is invariably described]…as rising despite [a number of studies showing exactly the opposite]…Sean Sok Phay…[of] Child Helpline [said]…”We want to remove any barriers that stop [us] from [profiting from hysteria]”…

Business As Usual (#988)

What kind of sick mind thinks the way to “build trust” with women is to hunt, rape and cage them?

Jennifer Knight…[is a sow charged with inventing propaganda to infantilize sex workers as a cover-up for the horrendous abuses committed by the Columbus, Ohio vice gang]…“I want them to associate the [rapist]’s uniform with someone who cares [enough to rape and humiliate them]” Knight says…It’s been a few months since…Columbus…[rebrand]ed their [vice gang with the Orwellian name]…Police and Community Together team, or PACT…[which] looks to…use “sex trafficking” and “end demand” propaganda when inflict]ing [violence on sex workers through]…increasing arrests…“One of the things we do in the secure staging area, after we [molest] them and [put them permanently into a criminal database]…is…give the [cops’ victims] a sack lunch provided by the Salvation Army…Knight [brags that] they expect to [deceive, rape and abduct] even more women as their [pogroms] ramp up…“we remove them from [freedom] and remove them from their [income]” Knight says. “At least giving ourselves a window of opportunity to [brainwash them in]”…CATCH Court…The months-long suspension of the [rape squad]…had a ripple effect on [those who profit from women being forced into their “re-education” scheme]…

Torture Chamber (#999)

“Give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, so I can lock them in dungeons”:

…ICE…released a new version of its National Detention Standards…which…has removed even basic, minimal safeguards necessary for adequate medical care…and…further weakens protections for [caged] immigrant[s] against the use of force and solitary confinement by [screws]…ICE no longer requires that…toilets [have] modesty panels, and removes [any minimum] ratios for the number of toilets per detainee.  ICE has removed language requiring…outdoor recreation facilities, meaning…detainees could be [locked in cages] for months or even years without time outdoors as they wait for their cases to be heard…

Panopticon (#1001)

The “security” system that isn’t:

…An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information…analytics and tracking companies are able to combine these bits together to form…a fingerprint that follows the user…providing trackers the ability to spy on what a user is doing in their digital lives and when they are doing it…without…user…consent…Ring has exhibited a pattern of behavior that attempts to mitigate exposure to criticism and scrutiny…by leveraging an image of the secure home, while profiting from a surveillance network which facilitates police departments’…access into the private lives of citizens…not only does Ring mismanage consumer data, but it also intentionally hands over that data to trackers and data miners…

I Spy (#1002) 

The US is following in the footsteps of China:

New students at the University of Missouri will be [forced] to participate in a tracking program designed to measure and enforce class attendance…officials [absurdly] defended the [privacy violation] as one to…benefit…students…Individual professors have to opt-in to using the app, but once they do, students in those professors’ classes will not be able to opt-out.  SpotterEDU, developed by a former basketball coach, is designed to monitor a user’s attendance by “pinpoint[ing] students within a classroom until they leave”…[sales propaganda] claims it does not track students’ locations anywhere else…[but] the app is [fully]…capable of tracking students’ locations outside the classroom…

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Diary #501

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , , , , on February 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Last week was one in which a number of things fell quietly into place.  I was able to get all my courtesy copies (and several autographed sale copies) of The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I sent out, and got it added to my store as well; I also got most of the editing done for Volume II, and this week I plan to add The War on Whores DVD to the store.  I made backup plans for Florida should the Tampa event fall through, got out to Sunset to celebrate Imbolc by making a big pot of gumbo, and helped Grace do a lot of the trim for my bookcases.  Also, she had a good discussion last week with a young man who’s going to be doing a lot of the actual crawling-under-the-house part of the floor leveling project, and they’re both ready to start that as soon as the ground is drier (we recently had several weeks of really heavy rain out there).  Readers who’ve been following that saga know it’s been put off several times over the past two years, so it’s nice that it’ll be happening at last.  Then the day before I left for Sunset last week, I received another book in the Shaver Mystery set from a reader whom I believe prefers to remain anonymous.  I was already familiar with a lot of the Amazing Stories Shaver covers because I enjoy that sort of thing, but was rather pleased to see this reproduction of one I’ve never seen before on the back cover (because one can never have too many Snake Mama pictures).  Oh, and I have a new article in the current issue of Reason.  Is that everything worthy of public note?  I think so, but if not I can always mention it next week.

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Links #500

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Comedy is a dangerous business.  –  Terry Jones

The great Terry Jones of Monty Python died last week; this is the official tribute video from the surviving Pythons.  The links above the video were provided by Radley Balko, Grace, Scott Greenfield, Cop Crisis (x2), Amy Alkon, and Stephen Lemons, in that order.


From the Archives

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Imbolc 2020

Posted in Holidays, tagged , on February 2, 2020| 1 Comment »


May the reawakening of the world bring with it the reawakening of good things you thought gone forever. Blessed Be!

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In the News (#1009)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2020| 1 Comment »

The harmful idea that women are naturally sexually ignorant…has been the basis for repressive laws throughout history.  –  Hallie Lieberman

The Notorious Badge

It’s good to see more writers criticizing insulting hooker tropes in movies:

Working Girls, which has the more connotative and ironic title Filles de joie in French…is…an honest, if sometimes strident, three-way portrait which gains much from its deft juggling of character arcs…Axelle (Sara Forestier), Conso (Annabelle Lengronne) and Dominique (Noémie Lvovsky)…live in France…but…travel…each day across the border to Belgium to work in a legal brothel…Wisely, Working Girls is markedly more interested in which goes on in the living room than in the bedrooms.  However…it’s a pity that a screenplay which deals with the everyday life of prostitutes struggles to find anything for them to talk about together other than sex…

Skewed By Taboo

The majority of self-reports about sexual accidents are lies:

An Arizona woman [claims]…she was…only using [her ultra-slim Vesper vibrator] on the outside of her body…[when suddenly] “out of nowhere I just felt a really sharp pain”…[and] the vibrator was nowhere to be found…But…she could still feel it…“emergency room staff wasn’t able to find it in the vagina,” said OBGYN Dr. Greg Marchand…he found on the x-ray [that the]…“device [wa]s actually in the bladder”…They had to surgically remove it.  The woman plans on filing a lawsuit against the company for lack of warning on the label that [you might lose it if you shove it up your urethra]…

There are many people who enjoy shoving things into their urethras, but because our puritanical culture would judge it “perverted” and “bad”, she can’t admit what happened, even to the doctor; instead she told this silly story about how the vibrator just leapt out of her hand and went all the way up into her bladder like some kinky guided missile.  If you know any emergency room doctor or nurse, ask them sometime about how many people “accidentally” sit on things while naked and can’t retrieve them from the rectum.

Nothing New

Five years ago I wrote that the ridiculous myth that Victorian doctors invented female masturbation and didn’t know what a female orgasm looked like “is so incredibly recent I never heard of it during any of my extensive sexological reading in my teens and twenties; it seems to date to the nineties at the earliest.”  Well, if sexologist Hallie Lieberman is correct, we’ve now got a date for the birth of this idiocy:  “…The myth can be traced to Rachel Maines’s 1999 book Technology of Orgasm…[which] seemed like a well-researched scholarly book, with 465 citations and a plethora of primary sources, some in Greek and Latin; the problem is that none of them actually supported this story…“

Traffic in Nonsense (#917)

The “sex trafficking” propaganda from these fetishists is some of the most blatantly derived from sexual fantasy in the entire rescue industry:

Workers at the UPS Atlanta Regional Hub…[were indoctrinated in how to fantasize that all women they see are] potential cases of sex trafficking…UPS had already [indoctrinated] its freight drivers on how to [imagine everything as] signs of sex trafficking.  Now they’re [indoctrinating] the drivers who actually go into neighborhoods…[with propaganda provided by] the organization Truckers Against Trafficking. [Head propagandist]  Helen Van Dam…[is] counting on the ignorance of the general public [about sex work to infantilize all]…prostitute[s as]…victim[s of]…sex slavery.  Van Dam [shared silly, juvenile sexual fantasies about]…“branding” tattoos on victims…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#919)

In the current anti-whore climate, this was a wholly predictable development:

Soldiers of Pole, a Los Angeles-based group of dancers who are working to unionize their colleagues statewide, [feels]…the reclassification of dancers as employees marks a positive shift in the industry.  As employees, strippers will have the ability to bargain collectively, which they didn’t have as independent contractors.  But it’s also led to pushback from strip club owners.  AM Davies, a board member of the group, said club owners have been “making dancers sign very illegal contracts under duress” and charging exorbitant house fees, which “in and of itself is a union busting tactic.”  Davies cited a strip club in Orange County, the Library Gentleman’s Club, that tripled the amount they charge dancers to work, increasing the fee from $65 to $200 practically overnight…“So…it makes it look like, to the dancers, that being an employee is worse — because the clubs are implementing even more illegal practices”…she said…

Pyrrhic Victory (#939)

All Londoners are now part of a perpetual police lineup:

The Metropolitan Police…announced [that] on Friday, 24 January…it…beg[a]n the operational use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology…This will help [cops harass many more people than before, especially minorities]…The technology…provides [cops] with an additional tool to assist them in doing what [cops] have always done – to try to [root like pigs in things that don’t actually concern them and lock as many human beings as possible in filthy cages]…

To Molest and Rape (#966)

Not much of a sentence for attempted kidnapping & rape:

A[n attempted abduction for the purpose of rape netted a mere] 4 1/2-year prison sentence [for] a [typical and representative] Cleveland [cop] who admitted to urinating on a 12-year-old girl [while filming it with his cell phone] after she refused to [submit to abduction from] a school bus stop.  Solomon Nhiwatiwa [vomited out the usual prescribed platitudes containing the words]…”apologize” [and]…”responsibility”…Nhiwatiwa…[was] disciplined four times in his five years [as a cop and had murdered someone]…in 2012 before he joined the force…

Disaster (#975)

Good news about the FOSTA challenge:

…the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals revived Woodhull‘s challenge to FOSTA.  The court ordered that the constitutional challenge be sent back to the district court for a ruling on the merits…The decision can be found here…

In plain English, the district judge dismissed the case under the pretense that FOSTA’s chilling effect was imaginary and the litigants had nothing to fear from malicious prosecution; the circuit court said “bullshit” and ordered the district judge to do his fucking job and actually consider the case.

Fair-Weather Friends (#977)

Imagine keeping your job for 18 months between a blatant offense and actually being fired for it:

Two vice [pigs] were fired on [January 23rd] by the city of Columbus, Ohio, for their role in the wrongful arrest of…Stormy Daniels…in [July] 2018…that a lawyer for Ms. Daniels said was the result of a “conspiracy of dunces”…Steven Rosser and Whitney Lancaster, were found to have…[cost the city] $450,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Ms. Daniels.  It also [reb[r]anded the [corrupt] vice [gang] [to allow cops to continue raping sex workers]…Two other [pigs]…Ronald Kemmerling and…Scott Soha, were [rewarded with paid vacations]…

To Molest and Rape (#978)

Prince George’s County, Maryland is well-known for rapist cops:

A [typical and representative Prince George’s County], Maryland, [cop]…rap[ed] a woman [during] a traffic stop last year…knowing he had HIV…Martique Vanderpool was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts, including first- and second-degree rape …“These are [very typical cop behaviors]”…Prince George’s County police Chief Hank Stawinski [would have said if he were honest]…

If It Were Legal (#988)

While stigma and criminalization exist, this will keep happening:

More than 11,000 identifying documents of…sex workers for the adult website SextPanther were reportedly exposed in a security lapse.  Passports, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers used to verify models’ ages [to comply with US government requirements] were stored on an Amazon Web Services storage bucket that wasn’t protected by a password…a representative for the company [tweeted]…”at this time there is no evidence of [SextPanther] data being accessed with the exception of the security firm that found the exploit and informed the media.  The vulnerability was fixed within one hour of being notified”…A similar security lapse of sex worker information on adult webcam…site PussyCash was discovered on Jan. 3…In August, adult site Luscious exposed the data of over 1 million users…

Websites ask for all this sensitive information to cover their arses if raided by the pigs; they wouldn’t bother with it if not for increased criminalization and persecution of sex workers.

Dark Corners (#997)

More “truth” from the rag that claimed there were more Vietnamese “trafficking victims” in the UK than there are Vietnamese people of all kinds:

…lack of [fluency in] English…is one of the [so-called] warning flags that…put[s nail salons]…on a list…for possible [immigration raids excused by bogus]…human trafficking charges…[reasonably] price[d] nail bars have become a cornerstone of the high street, flourishing as [overpriced] shops [run by white people] close. In the past 20 years, manicures have gone from being an extravagant luxury mostly enjoyed by a moneyed elite to an affordable treat, easily accessible to everyone [so naturally something must be done to teach the peasants that nice-looking hands are only for the ruling class]…it is very hard to link such an innocuous service with such serious crimes [but UK cops and yellow journalists aren’t going to let that little detail get in the way]…

Keep in mind that despite many huge and expensive raids, the UK has never found more than a single-digit number of cases of genuine exploitation; these are actually just immigration raids cloaked under the pretense of “rescue”.  Also note that despite a failed attempt by the arch-prohibitionist New York Times to establish the racist “nail salon slaves” myth here in the US, it remains a distinctly English classist fantasy, like “pop-up brothels“.

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