It’s been lovely to get back to all the cooking I used to do in Oklahoma. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been making all manner of old favorites and trying new recipes, and last week I did another of my traditional canning tasks: cooking down my Halloween pumpkin. It went well, and I got ten and a half pints in all; I’ve already used two, one for pumpkin pie and another for cream of pumpkin soup. This week, I’ll probably do pumpkin bread, but I’ll likely wait for the weekend because I’m heading back to Seattle tomorrow and returning Friday (with all the birthday presents that arrived while I was gone). Scheduling my appointments together is working out well; I’m able to spend most of my time out at Sunset, and that makes me happy. I’ve kinda slacked off on finishing Ask Maggie, Volume II, but don’t worry; it’s on the way and should be available before Christmas.
Archive for November, 2020
Diary #541
Posted in Diary, tagged Ask Maggie, Presents, Sunset on November 10, 2020| 1 Comment »
All Possible Worlds
Posted in Philosophy, tagged imaginative fiction on November 9, 2020| 8 Comments »
Time is constantly branching. Every single time a decision is made or chance operates to produce one of several distinct outcomes, a different timeline – a parallel world, if you like – is created for each of the possible outcomes. If time travel is possible, the only one of these realities accessible to the traveler is the one resulting from conditions at the point where he leaves ordinary time to move through the time-stream. In other words, if our hypothetical time-traveler went back in time and murdered his own grandfather before he could reproduce, he could then only travel forward to the timeline resulting from that action, in other words one in which he himself did not exist. But he himself originated in a diferent timeline; though he could never return to that world, and there would be no official record or living memory of him in the world where he was trapped, those he left behind in his own reality would remember him just fine. They would simply perceive him as having vanished without a trace from the moment he activated his time machine, never to return. If time travel is even possible, it must work this way in order to avoid a nonsensical paradox: if the version of himself which broke the timeline ceased to exist when he did so, then he never existed to travel in time to break the timeline in the first place. He wouldn’t fade out of a photograph he carried from his own world, nor would his body fade away; he would be just as real and solid as ever, albeit stranded in a world of his own creation where he never existed. Both worlds are equally real, but our traveler is an alien marooned in one to which he is not native and does not belong. The worlds of causality are completely countless, infinity raised to the power of infinity, but though vast numbers of them may be so alike as to be indistinguishable, the gulf between them – delineated as it is by a dimension of existence we are powerless to bridge – is even more impassable than the void between the galaxies. 
Links #540
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged acting, animals, Belgium, cops, Do As I Say, drugs, fascism, Hollywood, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, propaganda, racism, universal criminality, Utah, video on November 8, 2020| 2 Comments »
The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence. – Adolf Hitler, via the Kentucky State Police
Sean Connery died on Halloween, but I wasn’t about to stack his obit on top of The Amazing Randi’s. I’ve also grown tired of dead YouTube links, so I picked a tribute from a channel that in my experience doesn’t often get censored. The links above it were provided by Kevin Wilson, Mike Siegel, Radley Balko, Jesse Walker, Tim Cushing, and Cop Crisis (x2), in that order.
- A little slice of horror.
- Only a few bad apples.
- Just protecting and serving.
- I hate it when this happens.
- “If they don’t want to get bit, stay home.“
- It’s like RAY-AY-AIIIIIN on your wedding day…
- “Crime”: unleashed dog. Penalty: attempted execution.
From the Archives
- As long as sex work is marginalized, whores will be targeted for violence.
- A different Canadian cop campaign to harass and intimidate sex workers.
- The coroner knows there’s only one likely cause for a broken hyoid bone.
- It’s good to see “sex addiction” collapsing as an excuse for bad behavior.
- Hey, female cops; is that collaboration with the police state working out?
- Puritanical language is a vital part of stories about massage parlor raids.
- Once in a while, there are witnesses to the way cops act toward women.
- The more sex workers speak in public, the harder it will be to ignore us.
- A prohibitionist has wormed her slimy way into the Danish government.
- Studying sex work of the past often opens people’s eyes to the present.
- Asian sex workers fighting back vs the racist “sex trafficking” narrative.
- Universities are very slowly beginning to turn toward sex worker rights.
- Florida steals everything a woman owns because it dislikes her clothes.
- We did warn you dilettantes this wouldn’t stop with actual sex workers.
- Politicians make the same evil promises & the stupid still believe them.
- Talk about rapist cops that ignores sex workers aids and abets rapists.
- Remember that “threat” a prohibitionist claimed she got from “pimps”?
- A “writer” who thinks the word for sex workers’ clients is “John’s” [sic].
- There are better ways to die than by amateur liquid silicone injections.
- Dutch now pretend Disnification is really intended to help sex workers.
- If these pimps weren’t cops, they’d be facing “sex trafficking” charges.
- I’m not the only sex worker writing horror with sex worker characters.
- There is nothing remotely “intimate” about sucking a dildo on camera.
- Fact checkers demolish politicians’ grandiose claims about Backpage.
- Still think I’m wrong about sex worker rights passing the watershed?
- African campaigns vs LGBT are a lot like US campaigns vs sex work.
- Uber is training drivers to spy on whores and rat us out to the pigs.
- Another state forces hotel workers into being anti-whore snitches.
- They always act as though the obvious is some kind of revelation.
- The weird but popular belief that masturbation is harmful to men.
- Everyone except local news recognizes what a disaster FOSTA is.
- This isn’t the last we’ll see of the fanatical, unhinged Guinasso.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- Prohibition turns every individual’s body into a “crime scene”.
- More on police abuse of Amazon’s face recognition software.
- Are you offended when amateurs wear “hooker” costumes?
- Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you.
- Cops, criminality, bricks, Sesame Street and much more.
- But they were on the wrong side of an imaginary line!
- Your government wants this to happen more often.
- There’s too much surveillance to fit in just one tag.
- My friend Sophie does outeach to street workers.
- A sci-fi themed brothel is the right place for this.
- My two previous columns for Guy Fawkes Day.
- Your government calls this “border protection”.
- And other states are trying the same scam.
- A rare victory for sex workers over pigs.
- Your government calls this “correction”.
- Cops, gender, covers, and much more.
- This is what a moral panic looks like.
- Kate Iselin on myths about clients.
- Birthday presents are awesome.
- My encounter with a “Karen”.
In the News (#1087)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged (State) Violence Against Women, agency denial, Arizona, Backpage, brothels, censorship, consensual crime, cops, Dangerous Speech, disease, domestic violence, drugs, Election Day, Greeks Bearing Gifts, holidays, hysteria, Legislators Gone Wild, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, politicians, propaganda, rape, Shame Shame, Social Distancing, South Dakota, Suppression, surveillance, The Clueless Leading the Hysterical, Tissue of Lies, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers, Washington DC on November 7, 2020| 3 Comments »
Drugs are winning the war on drugs. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Watch what you say in front of your children, comrade:
Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, [a megalomaniacal politician bloviated]…Journalists and theatre directors should also face the courts if…Humza Yousaf [or some other censorious sociopath disagrees with them]…the…bill has been condemned by [supporters of human rights and even] the Scottish Catholic Church [and some cops]…It will introduce an offence of [magically] stirring-up of hatred against people [by witchcraft, but only if they belong to specially privileged classes]…Mr Yousaf said that there should be no “dwelling defence” in his bill. He told the Scottish parliament’s justice committee that children, family and house guests must be [forced to become informants for the pigs by threatening them with violence if they refuse]…
We are watching the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs:
Of nine drug decriminalization or legalization measures on state ballots [this week]…not a single one failed. These were decisive victories, too, not close calls…In D.C., more than three-quarters of voters approved Initiative 81, declaring “that police shall treat the non-commercial cultivation, distribution, possession, and use of entheogenic plants and fungi”—those that contain ibogaine, dimethyltryptamine, mescaline, or psilocybin—“among the lowest law enforcement priorities”…Arizona…voters were 59.85 percent in favor of legalization [of recreational cannabis]…In New Jersey, the proportion favoring legalization was…67 percent…In South Dakota, 69 percent approved the medical marijuana measure…and…[53%] the recreational marijuana measure…Montana saw nearly 57 percent of voters approve recreational marijuana…Mississippi, voters said yes to two medical marijuana measures…with…74 percent…in favor…Oregon’s measure to decriminalize non-commercial possession of all drugs saw…59 percent of voters approve…and nearly 56 percent of voters approved…the Psilocybin Services Act, which…[allows] licensed …providers to…[sell “magic”] mushroom and fungi products…
See also “The Clueless Leading the Hysterical” below.
Bird-brains still think realistic porn cartoons are the worst use for this technology:
…Susan Brnovich, the presiding judge in the prosecution of [a half dozen former members of the Village Voice Media family], is married to the state’s top prosecutor, Attorney General Mark Brnovich…we have argued — to no avail — that the judge has a conflict. Previously Judge Douglas Rayes disqualified himself because he had a friendly relationship with attorneys on both sides of this case…Judge Susan, on the other hand, is sleeping with General Mark. She sees no problem…Mark Brnovich published an incendiary — and wildly inaccurate — propaganda booklet attacking Backpage, the classified advertising platform, in 2018…In the absence of any disclosure by her that her husband had already set the table for her, we went to court under the impression that Susan was an impartial jurist…We have only recently connected these judicial dots courtesy of a curious attorney who asked: Did you know…? We did not…The defendants then are left to ponder the pillow talk between these interlocutors…
(State) Violence Against Women
The “Violence Against Women Act” doesn’t fight its named subject; it promotes it:
…”mandatory arrest” policies…spread across the U.S. after the passage of the…Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), part of the infamous 1994 crime bill. The man behind [it]…was…Joe Biden. The parent bill, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994…has since been disavowed by Democrats and Republicans, including…Biden…But Biden and the broader Democratic Party are still boasting in 2020 about VAWA…the product of activist agendas and political convenience, written and sold on ideas and evidence that were either dubious or outright debunked…Biden’s law funneled billions to police and prosecutors to enact policies that put women in greater danger—and said victims’ wishes didn’t matter when they conflicted with what the state thought best…Democrat[s claim]…that 30 years ago, “domestic violence was treated as a private matter, not a heinous crime”…But [this] doesn’t square with the historical record …”Assaults and threats of physical violence against intimate partners have been illegal for centuries,” noted lawyer Leigh Goodmark in The New York Times last year…[even] Prohibition [was pushed using the common belief]…that drunkenness was the main cause of abuse…As Aya Gruber, a law professor…and former public defender, writes in…The Feminist War on Crime, “The nascent battered women’s movement was radical and antiauthoritarian at its core…[but quickly] transformed…into a propolicing, proprosecution lobby”…
In what is [pretended by cops and prosecutors] to be the largest anti-human trafficking operation in state history, Ohio [pigs characterized a series of arrests of teenagers and adults as]…the…recover[y of] 45 missing children…and more 100 other human trafficking survivors…Hop[ing that nobody would notice the large amount of time the arrests were spread over, and that they were made by]…50 [diffient gangs of thugs]…Ohio Attorney General David Yost…[made furtive movements in his pants while describing the arrest of teenagers running away from abuse homes and/or living with non-custodial parents as] “lives that were rescued from this evil”…Yost [also seemed to lump the arrests of sex workers into his fantasy]…and…[tied it to] a two-week operation in Georgia that [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined and found that, by combining a variety of cases, pigs had intentionally and maliciously fostered a false perception that confused the public and harmed innocent people]…
Cops all over the US are apparently trying to shore up the dying “sex trafficking” mythology by combining a few arrests of sex workers and clients with mass arrests of teens in foster care and shelters and pretending they’re related.
Notice how often rapist cops’ victims are underage?
A Baltimore Police SWAT [thug]…has been charged with child sex abuse…Donald P. Hildebrandt …“denies all the charges against him, and adamantly maintains [that she wanted it]”…
Sex workers need to keep suing prohibitionists whenever possible:
…Alice Little, who works at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch…is taking legal action [against Nevada governor Steve Sisolak] because…he…is [discriminating against] sex workers [by refusing to allow brothels to do business] while allowing other high-contact businesses to reopen …“For months…tattoo shops and massage parlors…have been…open while the…brothels remain shuttered. If it’s safe for a customer to get a massage at a massage parlor, then it should be safe for a customer to visit a…brothel…Sex workers like me are suffering financially and emotionally. We have minimal options for economic relief and limited alternative employment opportunities due to our stigmatized work history”…Most strip clubs in Clark County are also still closed…Little is being represented by attorney Marc J. Randazza…
The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1086)
Since 1996…drug warriors and their credulous collaborators at newspapers and TV stations have repeatedly warned parents that seemingly friendly strangers might be trying to get their kids high on Halloween by passing off THC-infused candy as ordinary treats. Yet none of those stories cited any actual examples…since substituting expensive marijuana edibles for cheap candy…offers no obvious payoff even for maliciously minded stoners…[but] after two decades of this nonsense…[some reporters] are starting to…show…appropriate skepticism…”No One’s Going to Give Your Kids Free Weed in Their Halloween Candy,” said the headline over an October 2019 Slate piece by Jane C. Hu…A week later, the Washington Examiner ran an opinion piece…with the same message…NBC News ran an essay by Simon Moya-Smith with this headline: “The Halloween tale of marijuana handed out to trick-or-treaters is as real as a ghost story.” This month the Spokane Spokesman-Review noted that “tainted treats turn out to be mostly make-believe”…
Annex 23
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset, Washington (state) on November 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I got word a week or so ago that our cee purlins are on the way from Phoenix, but it’s a route truck so it’ll probably be another week or two before they actually arrive. The roof panel order took longer than I anticipated to process, but they finally charged my credit card last Friday; I then got an email telling me they weren’t able to deliver here, but we could pick the panels up ourselves from the plant…which is in Kent (suburban Seattle). Now, I have no idea why we couln’t find this place when we were searching for local suppliers; the office we dealt with is in Tennessee. But at least I’ll get a refund on my shipping fee, and it’s no big deal to send Chekhov to Seattle with the trailer. A couple of days ago we shifted the steel tubing into Grace’s shop, so she’ll be starting on the trusses next week; since the shop is enclosed she’ll be able to work regardless of rain (which we’ve had quite a lot of lately), and we’ll only need to work around the weather to actually get them in place.
No True Anarchist
Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged China, consensual crime, cops, holidays, politicians on November 5, 2020| 2 Comments »
Government is at best a barely-necessary evil, and in most cases just a plain evil. – “Anarchy?”
Every year on this day, following as it does The Day of the Dead, I remind readers that nation-states are, no matter what politicians and other control freaks would like you to believe, every bit as mortal as the humans who create them (albeit somewhat longer-lived on average). And because the day also falls in close proximity to the US election day, I also use it to remind readers that absolutely no one can be trusted with power over others, and a tyranny which claims legitimacy via the charade of “democratic elections” is no more legitimate than any other because it still claims the “right” to inflict violence upon those who want nothing to do with it and have done nothing to harm anyone. Nor does the race, gender, sexual orientation, political party or any other characteristic of the power-holders matter; power corrupts, and every last human being is corruptible. This year, we have seen a greater number of Americans than ever before recognizing that the standing armies created to enforce the arbitrary diktats of sociopathic “leaders” upon their subjects are hopelessly corrupt, evil, and violent, and that their power must be sharply curtailed. But unfortunately, many well-meaning but naive people will fight to prevent that from happening because they have been brainwashed into fearing what politicians like to call “anarchy”, but is actually nothing of the kind. Mob violence is not “anarchy”; it is merely a less-organized, less-established form of Might Makes Right, the same principle used to justify every other form of government and policing. As I wrote two years ago today,
Humans are not yet ready for pure anarchy, and may never be; however, there are functional anarchist societies (I happen to be a member of one), and a small government of strictly-enumerated powers with ironclad guarantees of individual rights is probably the closest we will ever come to a just and incorruptible one…a large part of the problem is that people’s moral perspectives are blighted by a sick infatuation with government, a belief that there are some circumstances in which it’s not only tolerable but desirable to inflict violence on people who have done none to others, in furtherance of some pipe-dream of Utopia…
There is absolutely zero possibility that the United States or any other empire or massive state will ever achieve anything like this, and the empire which will move into the power vacuum left behind by the collapsing US is devoted to exactly the opposite goal. But it is remotely possible that in the Balkanized North America of the near future, some small independent realm will at least make the attempt. 
In the News (#1086)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, agency denial, brothels, Canada, China, cops, disease, drugs, fantasy, holidays, hysteria, I Spy, Indiana, Islam, Lack of Evidence, Legislators Gone Wild, Missouri, Nevada, No Friend of Ours, Nonessential, Paint By Numbers, prisons, propaganda, Quiet Genocide, racism, Romania, sex work is work, Social Distancing, statistics, surveillance, Swedish model, The Clueless Leading the Hysterical, Twitter, United Kingdom, What Were You All Waiting For? on November 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It is time that we all listen to the…voices…[of] sex workers. – LaLa Zannell
A permanent dumb “awareness raising” stunt:
Lykins Square Park [in Kansas City]…will be the site of what is likely the first memorial in the nation to victims of sex trafficking…glass artist Hasna Sal dreamed up and executed the memorial, called “Into the Light”…[after] hear[ing and masturbating to]…sex trafficking [fantasies]…Kristy Childs…runs [prohibitionist group] Veronica’s Voice…[and admits] she…calls [all sex work by the dysphemism]…trafficking [but still repeated the Shahada anyhow]…the memorial…is made up of four stained glass panels [which reveal their Christian religious nature by their titles]…Damnation, Isolation, Redemption, and Salvation…
Note that this is just a fancy version of the tired old racist “black man’s hand over white woman’s mouth” image so beloved by the fetishists. Also note (at the link) the pretense that strip clubs only employ girls below 18, and that they “age out” as soon as they’re legal. These people really do live in an ugly fantasy world.
Nevada politicians have accomplished by royal decree what they couldn’t accomplish legally:
…hundreds of legal[ized] sex workers in [Nevada] lost their major source of income when brothels and other businesses [were forcibly] shut down mid-March. While most other industries have been [allowed by politicians] to resume some level of operations, Gov. Steve Sisolak has indicated that the state’s brothels are “not on his radar” to reopen [even though other] services allowing physical contact…[such as] tattoo shops, estheticians, and massage parlors [were allowed to] open since May. Women who work in Nevada’s legal sex industry…[are] being [persecuted] not because of the risk their business poses but because of a bias against their industry…
Swedish criminalization harms sex workers by creating a climate of fear:
It’s a common misconception that Canadian sex workers cannot, or should not, file taxes on their income because their industry exists in what many consider to be a legal grey area, with fears over arrests and other reprisals…[as in the US,] even income from illegal activities is taxable…This year, only those who were able to navigate the tax filing process had access to critical financial support…[but sex worker activist] Valerie Scott…[explains that] the current legal status of Canadian sex workers makes it feel too risky for many in the industry to file taxes at all. “To be known as a sex worker, to file taxes as a sex worker, to have any information with the government in any form [is] exceedingly dangerous…There are so many ways we can get caught up. We’re sitting ducks”…
The power to declare something “non-essential” is the power to ban it:
Supermarkets in Wales will have discretion to sell [items declared by politicians to be] non-essential…in “exceptional circumstances”, the Health Minister has said, following a major public backlash. Vaughan Gething said supermarkets would be able to sell non-essential items to customers “in genuine need” during the so-called fire break lockdown…[politicians had at first arbitrarily proclaimed] that retailers allowed to remain open could not sell goods [politicians arbitrarily] deemed non-essential…such as bedding…children’s clothes…and…sanitary products…Gething [bloviated that] allowing non-essential retailers to open would “undermine” [politicians’ totalitarian power to declare some human beings “nonessential”]…
What Were You All Waiting For? (#1048)
45 years after it became their official position, ACLU finally bothers to call for decriminalization:
The…ACLU…[has] released…a comprehensive review of over 80 studies about sex work…show[ing] that full decriminalization has the greatest benefits for public health and safety…The [report]…analyzed studies on…full decriminalization…“Nordic” models…[and] legalization models that require sex workers to register or impose other regulations…ACLU’s [LaLa Zannell said]…“millions of people are asking what we can do to reduce abuse by law enforcement, racial disparities in our criminal justice system, and our overall jail and prison populations…One policy that can achieve all of these goals…is to recognize that sex work is work and treat it like any other industry”…
A firsthand account of China’s torture of Uighurs:
Ӧmir Bekali…a…Kazakh [businessman, was]…visit[ing]…his family in…Turpan…[when cops unexpectedly] showed up…to arrest him…he…was thrown into a small…cell…for a week…with no explanation…the room…contained more than 36 others, who, like him, had their arms and legs constantly shackled…“My feet and my hands were tied up with iron shackles and they beat my hands…feet…back and…stomach…They put needles [under] my nails and…iron sticks into my sexual organs”…Police also hung him from the roof of the cell by his wrists so his feet could not touch the floor, and later smashed his knuckles with hammer-like instruments…he…was [then] moved to a…prison camp…[for] seven months…with no access to lawyers, phones to contact his family with, nor any real explanations for his arrest. In November 2017, he was transported to…a…”re-education camp”…there are 40 people to a 16 square-metre room…Twenty-four hours a day, prisoners are shackled. Iron chains are tied around their necks, fixed to loose iron blocks that…weigh around eight to ten kilograms, forcing [them] to always be hunched down…prisoners…are woken up at 5am and given a meagre serving of bread and soup. They are then forced to repeatedly sing songs which praise the Chinese Communist party…and…Xi Jinping personally…As Ӧmir often expressed his discontent with his arrest, he found himself tortured once again. He…was beaten “half to death” and made to stand facing a wall for twenty-four hours without food or drink on some occasions…After 20 days, Ӧmir was finally released…[thanks to] his wife…pressur[ing] two Kazakh Ambassadors to finally [intercede for him]…
The only “evidence” these racist sociopaths need is being Romanian:
The trafficking of Romanian women into the UK sex trade has reached an “industrial scale”, [prohibitionists fantasize]…Scottish Community Safety Minister Ash Denham…[participated in a circle-jerk] with Romanian…[prohibition]ists…[misogynist] group UK Feminista…[prohibitionist politician] Diana Johnson…and [other assorted masturbators, fascists, control freaks and busybodies from both] the UK and Romania…[The participants shared a lot of nonsensical claims supported by bogus] research. Last month 24 people were arrested in the UK and Romania in a Police Scotland-led operation. Dawn raids [and massive robberies] were carried out [and justified by calling the victims a] gang…
Sometimes prohibitionists openly admit that “sex trafficking” is nothing but a dysphemism for “sex work”.
Remember, Twitter claims this surveillance isn’t surveillance:
Dataminr aggressively markets itself as a tool for…police[-statery]…using sophisticated machine-learning algorithms…[tha]t company insiders say…[a]re often nothing more than garden-variety racial profiling, powered…by a small army of human analysts conducting endless keyword searches…Dataminr…has…relied on prejudice-prone tropes and hunches to determine who, where, and what looks dangerous. Through First Alert, its app for public sector clients, Dataminr has offered a bespoke, scariest possible version of the web: a never-ending stream of notifications of imminent or breaking catastrophes to investigate. But First Alert’s streams were assembled…by teams of “Domain Experts”…hunting social media for danger and writing alerts for cops’ iPhones and laptop screens…these staffers…were pressed to search specific neighborhoods, streets, and even housing complexes for crime…
The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1083)
There has literally never been a case of a kid getting drugged candy in his trick-or-treat bag:
Indiana State Police [once again tried to foment hysteria by telling] parents [there might be] marijuana edibles in their children’s Halloween candy…Police [pretend] that [adults never like sweet things] so…marijuana…candy…is [therefore some kind of intentional deception intended to ensnare penniless brats for some inexplicable but nefarious reason]…
Once again: nobody is going to give expensive cannabis edibles (which can cost $2 to $3 or more per piece) to your spawn for free.
Diary #540
Posted in Diary, tagged holidays, imaginative fiction, Presents on November 3, 2020| 1 Comment »
I’m happy to say that I had a very lovely birthday week! I was in an unusually good mood all week, and did a lot of cooking because I felt like it; for inner on Saturday I prepared three kinds of finger foods (deviled eggs, shrimp toast, and crab Rangoon) because I feel as though they’re kind of like adult trick-or-treat, and we watched several spooky shows. An artist friend of mine was with us, and she gave me this paperweight she made from a stone from my property, painted with a lovely snake motif! Jae also gave me a snake, a big plush one which I think I will leave to guard my bed. And I got so many presents from readers and admirers: Mike Siegel sent me Predestination and The Immortality Key; Jeremy Dunn sent me several of the “Shaver Mystery” reprint books and a Japanese horror film, Marebito, based on them; and two other readers sent me a lovely cashmere sweater and a digital kitchen scale, but since some Amazon sellers neglect to send packing skips, I don’t know who to thank! If you sent one of those, please let me know. On top of all that, several readers sent me cash gifts, which are always welcome! All around, it was an exceptional birthday week, and thanks so much to everyone who helped make it so!
Links #539
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged cops, domestic violence, Florida, holidays, language, Massachusetts, Never Call the Cops, New York, Not for Any Reason Whatsoever, Peru, scams, video, Washington (state), Wisconsin on November 2, 2020| 2 Comments »
James Randi, AKA, “The Amazing Randi”, died last week at the age of 92. If you don’t know who he was, watch this short video for an introduction; there’s also a full-length documentary on his life’s work, An Honest Liar. The links above the video were provided by Mistress Matisse, Nun Ya, Franklin Harris, Radley Balko, Cop Crisis, Walter Olson, and Mike Siegel, in that order.
- Just protecting and serving.
- Almost 10% is a good start.
- Previously-undiscovered Nazca lines!
- The rotten fruit of public-sector unions.
- These driverless pigmobiles are a menace.
- Tom Lehrer has made all his lyrics public domain.
- Do I really need to say, “Not because you dislike someone’s decorations”?
From the Archives
- UK cops, desperately trying to draw others into their “sex slave” fantasies.
- We were warned Israeli whore-censorship was only “part of a wider plan”.
- Redbridge has a history of harassing whores with stupid “crime” rhetoric.
- European Court of Human Rights kissed France’s arse, but the UN didn’t.
- Any elected official who acts in this way should be removed from office.
- The government keeps openly hiding information in the Backpage case.
- The New York Times has discarded whatever credibility it once enjoyed.
- Facebook wants to become one of the cornerstones of modern fascism.
- Tech geeks create a “consent app” that is both useless and dangerous.
- “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time“.
- Nobody will be safe until this odious practice is ruled unconstitutional.
- If you weren’t horrified by China’s “re-education” camps for Uighurs.
- There has never been a case of a kid getting drugged trick-or-treat.
- Nigerian scholar demolishes racist European masturbatory fantasy.
- They actually admit the point is to normalize constant surveillance.
- Pimps are not common, but many of those who do exist are cops.
- UK cops shoehorn migrants into their “pop-up” wanking fantasy.
- How the government created a bogeyman to justify censorship.
- All too often, evil arrives cloaked in the mantle of expediency.
- I hope this doesn’t harm increased awareness of rapist cops.
- Palantir helps cops spy on sex workers and minority groups.
- Bezos wants to provide the engine to power racist pogroms.
- It’s good to see so many challenges to these medieval laws.
- Facebook claims this picture will sexually arouse its users.
- Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you.
- Another Australian state moves toward decriminalization.
- Your government wants this to happen more often.
- A retrospective of my blogging from October 2016.
- Sex and death are but two sides of the same coin.
- Cops, politicians, a horror story, and much more.
- Sex workers have been saying this for decades.
- Your government refers to this as “correction”.
- In the US, his victims would have no recourse.
- The US is trying to rewrite Backpage’s history.
- A tale of beauty, love, obsession and horror.
- Cops, Pokemon, Halloween and much more.
- My two previous columns for Halloween.
- In which I downshift into Autumn mode.
- A tale of the death of an immortal.
- Welcome to our world, amateurs.
- Population 13,255. Seriously.
- Kaytlin Bailey’s wedding.
- Rapist cops of the week.
The Mysteries
Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Day of the Dead, drugs, Greece, holidays, psychology, Rome, Thanatopsis on November 1, 2020| 3 Comments »
Death is what gives life meaning, and fighting excessively against it is as childish and futile as the behavior of a toddler who refuses to let another child take his place on the carousel once his ride is done. – “Thanatopsis”
Every year on the Day of the Dead I write about the inevitability and goodness of Death. Yes, I said “goodness”; as I wrote in “Eternity“, “Eternal life wouldn’t be a gift; it would be a horror literally beyond imagining.” I’ve never been especially afraid of death; part of that is due to the fact that “I was a strange, wild, moody Wednesday Addams of a child, born on Halloween night and fascinated with horror lore and imagery. Autumn was both my native season and the one in which I felt most comfortable…” The rest, of course, was a combination of chronic depression and ruthless pragmatism; for much of my life I endured long periods in which I would have viewed death as a welcome release, and even when I was in a cheerier frame of mind I was still rational enough to recognize that the continuance of life for any given creature requires the regular deaths of countless others. But it wasn’t until my forties that I started become really philosophical about mortality, and only five years ago did I really start to deeply ponder its spiritual dimension. The latter development was not merely due to age, though that undoubtedly helped put me in the right headspace; a catalyst was required, and that catalyst was edible cannabis. I started experimenting with what are typically and not-entirely-correctly called “recreational drugs” near the end of 2014, and though several of them gave me very rewarding experiences with others, it was the psychedelic experiences I had from using largish doses of edible cannabis alone (or more accurately, without human company) that opened the doors to the Infinite and gave me a perspective on death, the soul and my place in Everything which eventually led to a spiritual peace unlike any I had ever known. I was far from alone; those who refuse to be bound by the Puritanism which has trapped modern humanity in a death-grip have for decades tried to tell everyone else about the healing and mind-expanding power of psychedelic drugs, and since the 1990s studies have increasingly demonstrated the power of such substancies to alleviate depression, PTSD and other mental health issues. But this is not a new discovery, it is, rather, a rediscovery of truths known to our ancestors millenia ago:
…sacred tripping was not simply a function of prehistoric religious rituals and shamanism, but an integral, even central part, of the world of the ancient Greeks….The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion With No Name, by Brian Muraresku…shows…the centrality of psychedelic use…in an elaborate and mysterious once-in-a-lifetime ceremony at the Temple of Eleusis, a short distance from Athens. We’ve long known about…the Mysteries…and the rite of passage they offered — because it’s everywhere in the record. Many leading Greeks and Romans went there, including Plato and Marcus Aurelius…The Greeks and Romans went to Eleusis only once in their lives, like the Muslim hajj, to participate in a nocturnal rite, and were sworn to secrecy as to what went on. But the constant theme in the ancient literature around this ritual is that it somehow took the sting of death away. “Death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing” was the phrase attached to it…Historians and classicists have long pondered what this meant and what exactly happened, but all agree that it required drinking a special brew. And new discoveries of ancient chalices and cups — and new techniques of testing ancient residue — have begun to suggest what made these archaic potions so special…they contained countless herbs and spices and ingredients, among them, critically, elements of ergot, a fungus that infected barley and rye and had potent hallucinogenic effects…Another re-examined excavation in Pompeii found the preserved remains at the bottom of large barrels jars dated to 79 CE: chemical analysis found it included seeds of cannabis, opium, and hallucinogenic nightshades. The recipe for the psychedelic brew and the preparation of it was restricted to women, who passed on the secret recipes from mother to daughter, and was the particular preserve of older women. The effect, we’re told in the sources, was transformative: you saw past life and death, you became unafraid of your own mortality, you gained perspective and inner peace…
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