It’s difficult to show you a picture of what we’ve been doing on the roof structure, but I think this might work. The reinforcement you can see here is a kind of cap made from steel plates, crowning the wooden post which used to support the old awning that came with the house. Three of the four posts were still sound, and the fourth was only rotten at the top, so we cut that one off below deck-level to serve as a support. You can see how the one that formerly supported the northeast corner of the awning in last week’s picture; this is the top of the one that formerly supported the northwest corner, and the one at the southwest corner is crowned by the same kind of fixture. The idea is to help support the header beam along the roof, just as the smaller bracket at right (and seven others like it) do, so as not to put all the strain on the roof of this section (which dates to about 1950). Next week I should have some more high steel to show you, but if not the electrician is connecting up the hot tub so there’s that.
Archive for September, 2021
Annex 43
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset on September 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Is it Legal?
Posted in Q & A, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged BDSM, consensual crime, cops, law, New York on September 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Is it legal in New York City to meet a professional at a short-stay motel for the purposes of a BDSM session? The only sexual activity contemplated would be masturbation by me while naked.
There’s little point in concerning yourself with whether a consensual sex act is “legal” or not, because cops can and will arrest anyone they think they can get away with arresting, whether the supposed act they’re arresting someone for is legal, illegal, or nothing more than a product of their own sick imaginations. The only relatively certain way to avoid arrest any time you step out of your front door is to avoid cops; when sex is involved, that means contracting with an established professional. If you see someone with a long and proven professional history, you’re as safe as you are doing just about anything else involving sex (and much safer than doing the same thing with an amateur) regardless of the diktats of power-hungry busybodies; if you try to see someone without a reputation, there’s no way to guarantee it isn’t a cop and you won’t end up in the paper under a headline that screams “SEX TRAFFICKING!” regardless of whether you did anything any sane person would consider wrong or criminal.
(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.)
In the News (#1169)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, animals, cops, Creepy Coppers, crypto-moralism, dehumanization, dirty, drugs, evidence, FBI, Florida, Follow Your Bliss, Georgia, Ireland, License To Rape, Louisiana, McNeill's Law, pimps, porn, racism, rape, Rough Trade, Scapegoats, sex offender registry, The Puritan Recrudescence, Traffic Jam, violence vs. sex workers on September 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Financial Times omits any mention of the nature of [the] groups…[who] inten[d] to “eradicate” an entire legal industry. – Gustavo Turner
Understand that people like this are the norm in policing sexual offenses, and always will be:
An FBI agent who investigated sex crimes against children has been arrested and charged with multiple sex crimes against children across several states…David Harris [got himself] tasked with investigating crimes against children, including child pornography…[so it’s no surprise that] in February…he…expos[ed] himself to a 14-year-old girl…while on vacation in [Florida]…but…the…investigation…led to other [sex] crimes committed by Harris [against both] minors and adults in…Louisiana and Texas…[snooping in Harris’ phone revealed] conversation[s in which he admitted]…his sexual preference [for] underage [girls] and [bragging about] his exploits…Harris was arrested earlier this summer in Ascension Parish [Louisiana] and…has outstanding arrests warrants…from East Baton Rouge and Orleans Parish[es and] Tyler, Texas…
By this standard of “evidence”, Johnny Cash is lucky he was never accused of murder:
A jury found Defendant, Jaimian Sims, guilty of sex trafficking a minor and…the…court imposed a life sentence. Sims appeals…arguing [among other things] … that certain rap videos were improperly admitted into evidence and shown to the jury…He contends that the lyrics…were fictional and did not depict his real life…Although these videos speak only generally to the pimping lifestyle and are cumulative of testimony in that respect, the violence and weapons depicted in the videos are relevant to the force charge—that Sims sex trafficked by force, fraud, or coercion…[the judges declared they we]re satisfied that the videos were not harmful to the defense…
State officials say a new grant will be used to provide training for Georgia law enforcement officers to draw blood from drivers [without their consent so as to]…prosecut[e them for] DUI…
If you’re not horrified by the prospect of psychopathic thugs running around with permission to jam needles into people’s bodies without their consent on the side of the road, you must be new to this blog.
The Puritan Recrudescence (#799)
Expect the equation of human sexuality with pollution to become more common:
The editorial board of the Financial Times — arguably the world’s most influential news source for the banking, investment and overall finance industries — published an editorial…[which] compares sex work and adult content to…environmental pollutants, and parrots sensationalist pieces by The New York Times and the BBC alleging a non-existent “proliferation” of illegal content on adult sites…The subhead…soberly warns its readers…that working with the porn industry “can pose legal as well as reputational risks”…It’s the old circular argument favored by censors, prudes and well-paid religious anti-porn activists: reputable banks should not do business with sex workers or porn because they have been known to look for alternative forms of financing — which sex workers and porn are forced to resort to because reputable banks won’t do business with them…“The argument for banks to stay away from porn is, if anything, stronger than staying away from coal,” is the Financial Times’ take on that dubious comparison…
[Typical and representative cop] Terry Yetman…was charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse of animals…including filming sex with his own police K9. This decorated cop was also charged with 31 counts of child pornography several months later. Now, nearly 3 years after his initial arrest…Yetman — despite facing over 70 charges — pleaded guilty to just one count of possession of child pornography and five counts of sexual abuse of an animal…He faces a total of 45 years in prison and mandatory registration as a sex offender…
Gee, I wonder why this happens so often in Ireland?
A Dublin man [who] attack[ed] and violently h[eld] three women in his home against their will during separate incidents has been denied bail. Aaron Barwell…[attacked] three [different]…escorts…on 29 January, 13 August and [27 August]. He is also accused of making threats to kill or cause serious harm to two of the women…[Barwell apparently believed that claiming] the third incident was prompted by a theft of cocaine, and the others arose after [he refused to] pay…[the escorts would somehow get the judge to grant him bail]…
…[Nutritionists] at the University of Michigan…created a Health Nutritional Index which [claims to quantify] the nutritional impact…of almost 6,000 foods and calculated the health burden of each one. Their findings [predictably singled out popular, pleasant foods, claiming] that every hot dog a person eats takes…36 minutes off their healthy life expectancy. Soft drinks…shortened life by 12 minutes, bacon by six minutes…each double cheeseburger…nine minutes….[and] each portion of cheese…a minute off [the un]healthy [end of] life…the index also [claims] that it’s equally possible to [magically] add minutes…each banana was [claimed] to add 13 and a half minutes…as was a portion of baked salmon…a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…[supposedly] adds a whopping 33 minutes to life…
The puritanical notion that lifelong deprivation of pleasure in the vague hope of adding a few extra minutes of senility and decrepitude to the far end of one’s old age – a time one has only a 50% chance of reaching in the first place, statistically – is so alien to my way of thinking, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it, even as a concept for consideration.
Diary #584
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, psychology, Sunset, Washington (state) on September 7, 2021| 3 Comments »
One of the really nice things about living on the Pacific side of the Olympic peninsula is that it’s nearly always cooler than the rest of the state, except in winter (when it’s usually milder). In Oklahoma, there was about a 50oC range between typical summer highs and typical winter lows; at Sunset, the range is only about 30oC. During that awful heat wave at the end of June, we were a few degrees cooler than Seattle and were out of it almost two days earlier, and when I drive home it’s not unusual to feel perfectly comfortable in shirtsleeves in Seattle, only to feel distinctly chilly when I get out of the car at Sunset. And virtually as soon as the Dog Days were over two weeks ago, the temperature dropped so much I closed my office window, which has been open since early June. At the moment I’m writing this, my weather app shows a 6oC difference between Seattle and Sunset, and that’s not especially unusual. So it’s beginning to feel a bit autumnal here already, and a few days ago I actually wore a sweater one day; in two more weeks the autumn will arrive in earnest, and not a day too soon for me.
The Mob Rules
Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged abortion, consensual crime, cops, evidence, fascism, law, Like Houses, Nice While It Lasted, politicians, surveillance, Texas, The Mob Rules, universal criminality, When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals on September 6, 2021| 3 Comments »
For years now, I’ve been warning about the government’s intentional dismantling of every established safeguard in the criminal justice system. The first step was to enact a host of laws turning ordinary, consensual, victimless acts into “crimes” and then slowly eroding civil rights so as to make it easier for the State to arrest, charge, and convict people for these imaginary “crimes”. Once there were far too many “criminal” cases for the courts to possibly keep up with, the scene was set for transferring control of the courts from the judicial to the executive branch via “plea bargaining”; some 97% of federal cases and 94% of state cases are now never heard by a jury, and the US cages 5x as many people per capita as more civilized countries do. But still that isn’t enough to satisfy the carceral lust of America’s ruling fascist establishment, so the process of eliminating the presumption of innocence began; when that proved too slow a process, politicians hit upon the idea of persecuting individuals they wish to destroy with civil suits rather than prosecuting them in criminal courts, because civil suits have a lower burden of proof and may even allow the persecutors to make a profit. The people most often attacked by this sleazy, unconstitutional end-run around due process were of course sex workers, but the tactic still required too much attention from prosecutors and others of their morally-diseased ilk to create the level of carnage desired by authoritarians until some especially-psychopathic individual realized about 4 years ago that a law encouraging any random busybody to file suit for the supposed “offense” would truly open the floodgates. The tactic was incorporated into the awful FOSTA, and the damage that has caused gave authoritarian monsters everywhere paroxysms of joy. So naturally, politicians are already starting to widen the net, and still SCOTUS will do nothing to stop it:
In a 5–4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block enforcement of an extreme new abortion restriction in Texas. Notably, it did not rule on the law’s constitutionality. If it had, we would likely not be seeing this ban take effect…[because] “S.B. 8 is plainly inconsistent with what the Court has said about constitutional limits on abortion regulations“…The reason the Court declined to temporarily block the law is complicated…[but basically boils down to, it’s] because it’s not the state tasked with enforcing the law but private citizens in civil court suits…The Court saying that it can’t stay a likely unconstitutional law if it’s to be enforced by private actors and civil lawsuits could pave the way for all sorts of nutty new legislation…
As I regularly point out, the greatest danger posed by evil laws is often their terrible precedent:
…According to Texas, this…scheme means that the state cannot be hauled into federal court to account for its own law because it has handed over the law’s enforcement to private parties…if the Texas scheme actually succeeds in the long run, what’s to stop an anti-gun state legislature from banning handguns in the home, in clear violation of SCOTUS precedent, and then placing state officials beyond the reach of federal judicial review by outsourcing the ban’s enforcement to an army of private-sector gun control activists? Most gun shops would probably go bankrupt overnight when faced with the wave of private-sector civil suits that such a state law would unleash…
Of course, useful idiots are completely unable to comprehend this simple concept, which means that unless SCOTUS wakes up and does its damned job, we’re at the dawn of a surveil-and-snitch state that will make East Germany look like a model of privacy in comparison.
Links #583
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged censorship, cops, fascism, Illinois, lawheads, North Carolina, racism, video on September 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »
The tiger is out. – Nael, age 6
The Rolling Stones’ drummer, Charlie Watts, died last week, but I wasn’t about to put him in the same column as Don Everly because I only do one video. This one was suggested by Grace (who also told me about the death) as a good example of his skill (because I’ve already featured “Paint It Black“). The links above it were provided by Wendy Lyon (x2), David Ley, Rick Horowitz (x2), and Cop Crisis, in that order.
- R.I.P. Ed Asner.
- Out of the mouths of babes.
- It’s like RAY-AY-AIIIIIN on your wedding day…
- Cop assaults woman for walking her dog on sand.
- In case you still believe corporate copyrights are OK.
- Cop murders teen for actually doing what cops pretend to do.
From the Archives
- Hysteria never stops until it starts harming the wealthy & well-connected.
- Easiest way to increase “sex trafficking” stats: invent imaginary “victims”.
- This isn’t nearly enough, unless it’s drawn from the screws’ pension fund.
- Trumpists & anti-Trumpists fight to control the “sex trafficking” narrative.
- Even more worthless than NPR’s usual bluenosed imitation of journalism.
- Evangelicals get their just desserts for embracing “sex trafficking” myth.
- One day, reporters will learn “People Work To Make Money” is not news.
- Guess why an accomplished adult man is portrayed as a passive victim.
- When this is happenening in Utah, you know we’re past the watershed.
- Cops, karma, dead artists, extra-stupid megalomania, and much more.
- Will this make it harder for cops to molest kids by calling it a “search”?
- “Rescuers” want to push whores into traditional feminine menial labor.
- Polaris forced to debunk some of the hysteria it has peddled for years.
- Every proper sex work study shoots prohibitionist lies down in flames.
- Cops don’t care how many lives they destroy with their sick fantasies.
- It’s about time Playboy started covering this topic more aggressively.
- Too bad more politicians don’t hire the women cops hunt most often.
- Moral panics never end until they start harming unintended targets.
- Celebrities cosplaying as sex workers apparently won’t fight stigma.
- Cops, horror, stupidity, Douglas Adams, recursion, and much more.
- Prohibitionists hate harm reduction; they want harm magnification.
- Reporters, please learn the difference between “size” and “length”.
- Amazon’s fascist collaboration with cops just keeps getting worse.
- The pigs are starting their annual fearmongering early this year.
- Serial numbers tattooed on every cell of every political prisoner.
- Banks are still actively looking for whores to rat out to the pigs.
- Dumb “anti-trafficking” stunts are now mostly ads for sports.
- What the world looks like when viewed with racing thoughts.
- Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you.
- Clownish cops continue to pratfall over fentanyl hysteria.
- Why let facts get in the way of a witch hunt?
- The “inspiring work of Dan Satterberg”.
- My own favorites of my own stories.
- This is getting sweeter by the day.
- Return of the Killer Sex Robots.
- Progress on projects at Sunset.
- Wiring my guest cottages.
- My second guest cottage.
- Remember this scandal?
- We fucking told you so.
In the News (#1168)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Whore in Church, Acting and Activism, agency denial, Backpage, bad customers, cell phones, censorship, Choke Point, cops, Dangerous Speech, drugs, fascism, Florida, hysteria, I Spy, internet, porn, propaganda, rape, scams, surveillance, The Next Target, The Puritan Recrudescence, To Molest and Rape on September 4, 2021| 1 Comment »
Who will be the victims of the government’s next attack on legally protected speech that it wishes to silence? – Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin
Why are so many “celebrities” such hypocritical trash?
[Comedian Bill] Maher [said] during Friday’s Real Time…“OnlyFans is staying in the porn business…because their fans would not take it…if there’s one thing millennials love more than canceling the patriarchy it’s women having sex for money”…So, in Maher’s mind, “women having sex for money” is anti-feminist and a product of the patriarchy. Women couldn’t possibly be sex workers of their own volition…It’s…strange given how Maher has solicited the services of sex workers in the past…and dated a number of others—including Karine Steffans…who once said of him, “Bill wants someone he can put down in an argument, tell you how ghetto you are, how big your butt is and that you’re an idiot”…
Matthew 21:31 seems pretty straightforward to me:
A Christian OnlyFans star…has been [attacked by religious fanatics for] saying “Jesus would have loved sex workers”. Nita Marie…believes her sexuality is a divine gift, and that God gave her permission to strip…after [she] ask[ed] him directly in prayer – but…so…[called “Christians” who seem poorly acquainted with the Gospels] are calling her a “grifter”, and [some are so] delusional [they imagine] that it “might be Satan”…answering her prayers…
The Puritan Recrudescence (#1124)
I have no sympathy for members of the dangerous “porn addiction” cult:
“BlockerX”, a porn [autocensor] application, has failed to protect its Amazon AWS instance…result[ing in]…exposure of its user[s’]…personal details…The owner of the app…Atmana Innovations, responded immediately…but the period of exposure remains unknown. “BlockerX” is a subscription service that…cost[s] users $7.50 per month or $180 in a single lifetime payment…[and censors anything its algorithms register as] adult content…The…danger for…exposed users…is extortionists who could…threaten…to publish the fact that they [imagine their normal sexual behavior constitutes an “]addiction[“]…
Fascism is rapidly making private communications a thing of the past:
A federal court ruled…that…drugs [stolen] by police from a package [th]at [did not belong to them were] not seized unconstitutionally [despite the lack of a warrant]…At the center of the decision is a little-known [fascist pact between FedEx and the cops, which] allow[s pigs to root through]…parcels at the shipping behemoth’s sorting centers…if [they claim] a…dog [gave them permission]…cops…[can then] dress up as FedEx delivery men…[to deceive the victim and] arrest…them…The court d[ecision is based in the legal fiction that an individual’s property no longer belongs to him while in the hands of a third party, such as] FedEx…[thus creating the] con[venient pretense that] it…own[s the packages]…and it can [give them to] the police [without warrant or permission of the actual owner]…The agreement evokes Apple’s recent announcement that it will scan people’s photos [in order to sell them down the river]…the relationship between FedEx and police…has quietly existed for some time, says John Wesley Hall, an expert in Fourth Amendment law…”FedEx…[has] always cooperated…with them—even loans them the truck”…
It’s OK for a company to sell out its customers, because drugs are bad.
Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin remind you of what their trial, which began Wednesday, is actually about:
On April 6, 2018, the federal government eradicated an entire classified ads website containing speech that was 100-percent legal…The publication of speech…by users is legally protected; so is “offensive” speech and speech the government does not like. Numerous federal courts said just that, in cases involving Backpage…whenever any concern arose…our company voluntarily aided law enforcement and government entities such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This is documented extensively by court records…and the government’s own reports…Since the FBI seized Backpage, adult advertising has, predictably, fled overseas to companies that do not respond to U.S. subpoenas…The culprits here are…self-serving politicians with historical vendettas and overzealous prosecutors who placed their own ambition above the safety and welfare of women…The prosecution has engaged in years of scurrilous tactics, such as destroying evidence, abusing the grand jury process, and seizing all the money we set aside for legal expenses…
If you haven’t been following this tag, I suggest you peruse it today; the various articles I’ve linked will show you exactly the kind of evil, completely-illegal shenanigans the government has pulled over the past three years in its crusade to crucify journalists who wouldn’t make obeisance to its censorious diktats.
Notice how often predatory cops’ victims are underage?
[Typical and representative Florida cop] Travis Ryan Pritchard [was sentenced] to 35 years in federal prison for [rap]ing…a 15-year-old [girl and filming it]…Pritchard was also [condemned to the]…sex offender [registry]…From December 2019 through May 2, 2020, Pritchard…had sexually abused [the victim] on a weekly basis…[but finally she had enough and reported him, and another cop role-played her to]…chat…with Pritchard using [a popular] app. Late in the night of May 1, 2020, and into the early morning hours of the next day, Pritchard [harassed] the [cop he thought was his victim] to sneak out of her home to meet with him…Pritchard’s cellular telephone revealed many [such] conversations…[and a] folder containing numerous…child [porn pics, including one]…of the rape of a prepubescent [girl]…
“The sex worker rights movement is getting too loud to ignore“:
…It remains to be seen whether [OnlyFans] will be true to its word but to force the hand of such a giant corporation is no small feat…That a platform which built its fortune on the backs of sex workers might, at a moment’s notice, ditch us, is no surprise; it would be the latest in the slow but sure eradication of sex workers from online spaces…Throughout the fiasco, both MasterCard and OnlyFans were keen to separate themselves from the potential destitution of creators and to claim their credentials as non-haters of sex workers…multi-billion dollar companies fall[ing] over themselves to maintain the veneer of corporate virtue is grotesque…Still, in the conflicted responses there is hope…it’s clear that the sex worker rights movement is too loud to ignore…
Annex 42
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset on September 3, 2021| 2 Comments »
The slowness of our progress on the roof is really annoying to me, especially now that it has pushed us back to a time when I have lots of other things (such as processing fruit, making money and catching up on my writing) vying for my attention. But though it looked like we were going to at least start speeding up, a number of things got in the way and this is all we’ve done since last week (though Grace has also fabricated a big pile of gussets, plates and other reinforcements). Still, the weather is supposed to be clear for the next couple of weeks, so I’m hoping we can get the rest of the main members up soon. And once that’s done, the cee purlins should go up relatively quickly. Despite my annoyance at the delays, we can still get part of the roof done before the rains return in October, though I can’t be confident that we will.
Price Point
Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged advertising, psychology, sex work is work on September 2, 2021| 2 Comments »
How do escorts decide how much to charge? I can’t seem to find much correlation between rate and my satisfaction; I’ve seen amazing women charging a third of what I paid for a terrible session with a far less attractive provider. Do they target a certain number of dollars a month? A certain number of clients a week? I’ve definitely known ladies to raise rates if they’re busy but I’ve never seen them lower rates.
Most escorts charge whatever is typical for their area, but some choose to charge a bit less to attract more business or a bit more to work less while still making what they need or want to earn. It’s interesting that you seek some correlation with quality, when that isn’t true of any business; quality of widely-available goods and services often has very little to do with what one pays for them. Every person has bills and other financial goals, and anyone not fortunate enough to have a trust fund has to figure out what they need to do to meet those needs and goals; why would you expect pros to differ from amateurs in that respect? And why in the world would you expect ladies to ever lower their rates, especially in a time of higher-than-normal inflation? Would you ever go into your boss and ask him to pay you less, or if you have a business would you lower your rates (outside of some kind of marketing ploy)? Unless your business model is a “cheapest in town” one like Wal-mart, that does nothing but create the appearance of desperation, and in any luxury service that can be severely detrimental to business (not to mention the provider’s mental health).
(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.)
In the News (#1167)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Music, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Apple, censorship, China, Choke Point, cops, Eavesdropping, Florida, hysteria, I Spy, Illinois, India, lawyers, Legalization a Good Idea?, LGBT rights, License To Rape, North Carolina, Panopticon, porn, red-light districts, Russia, See No Evil, Stalkers in Blue, surveillance, The Next Target, transgender, TSA, Under Duress, violence vs. sex workers on September 1, 2021| 3 Comments »
The only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn’t abused…is to never create it. – Apple in 2016
Moral panics really spin out of control as they age:
Spencer Elden, the man whose unusual baby portrait was used for…the…cover…of…Nirvana’s Nevermind, filed a lawsuit…[pretend]ing that the nude image constituted child pornography…[despite the fact that] non-sexualized nude photos of infants are…not considered child pornography under law. [To circumvent this plain fact in order to cash in on “child porn” hysteria], Robert Y. Lewis, Elden’s [shyster, fantasizes]…that the inclusion of currency in the shot makes the baby appear “like a sex worker”…[Lewis demands] at least $150,000 from each of the defendants, who include…the…original Nirvana drummer…even though he had been replaced…before the album was recorded or the cover photography shot. Elden has repeatedly recreated the pose as a teenager and adult, diving into pools to pose (with swim trunks on) on the occasion of the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries…
“A sex worker”. Seriously. I reckon he’s supposed to be one of those hundreds of thousands of infant hookers needed to bring the average debut age down to 13.
For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#648)
What “legal but heavily regulated” looks like in action:
On August 11, the Nagpur police put [up] a large number of barricades completely sealing the Ganga-Jamuna area….without any prior notice or reason [thu]s drastically affect[ing] the livelihood…of over a thousand sex workers who have been living and working for decades in the area…over 100 [cops] have been [sent to swagger around] the area at all times…Sex workers in India are one of the groups that are consistently at the receiving end of…state-sponsored police brutality…[even though] the profession is not illegal…brothel areas are repeatedly raided and their workers are harassed by the police…A petition by the National Network of Sex Workers, India (NNSW) demanding “Unseal Ganga Jamuna” has been put online and signed by more than 2700 people and organisations…
“Search” is the most common government euphemism for “molest”:
A Raleigh mother has filed a federal lawsuit against the TSA…a[fter] the[y]…violated her transgender teenager’s rights by [demanding] a strip-search at the airport. Jamii Erway, 15 at the time, had a valid boarding pass [but] when [t]he [equipment regist]ered a “false positive”…a TSA [goon demanded]…to [leer at] her genitals…[and lied] “that she was not free to leave until she submitted to [the humiliation], in violation of TSA policy, the Fourth Amendment, and…the boundaries of civil and decent society”…the [goon further called the cops on the teenager]…and the[ir threatening] presence…[unsurprisingly] triggered…a…panic…[attack]. Rather than submit to the [molestation]…her mother, Kimberly Erway, rented a car and [they] drove 600 miles. The Erways seek unspecified damages and an injunction preventing such a scenario from happening again…
Cops even get their equipment to lie for them:
Michael Williams…was [locked in a cage for almost a year], accused [by cops] of killing a young man from [his] neighborhood who asked him for a ride during a night of unrest over police brutality in May…the [supposed] evidence against Williams didn’t come from an eyewitness or [snitch, but rather]…from a clip of [silent] security video showing a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang [separately] picked up by a network of surveillance microphones. Prosecutors [pretende]d…a secret algorithm that analyzed noises detected by the sensors indicated Williams shot and killed the man…ShotSpotter [claims have] increasingly been admitted in court cases…[as evidence despite the fact that] it…can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots. F[antasy stories written]…by ShotSpotter’s employees have been used in court to [lie] that a defendant shot at police, or provide [lies about] the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants…the…system…[i]s a…black box largely inscrutable to the public, jurors and police oversight boards…[but] the company…fully admits that]…employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired [on their own whims or] at the request of police…in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes…
Once in a while, there are witnesses to the way cops act toward women:
Florida [cop]…Naci Tuzcuoglu…approached a woman singing karaoke at…[a] sports bar…[and] put his hands on her hips. The woman…t[old] him she was married and not interested [but he kep harassing her, so she]…went outside and spoke to her husband…Tuzcuoglu [followed her]…and punched the man in the face…multiple times…[while] taunt[ing him]…“I’m a cop…What are you gonna do about it?”…
“Progressives” are finally deigning to notice financial discrimination vs some sex workers:
OnlyFans…has faced widespread backlash from sex workers after it announced…that it will ban sexually explicit content starting Oct. 1. Some LGBTQ OnlyFans creators say the changes could jeopardize one of their primary sources of income during the Covid-19 pandemic…
OnlyFans reversed its position the day after this article appeared, but I still featured it because it illustrates a disturbing trend I’ve seen lately: some “progressives” only seem to think sex workers deserve rights if they’re queer (especially trans). Now, since the majority of sex workers are some flavor of LGBT, fighting for their rights will still help straight, cisgender sex workers as well. But I think it’s pretty sad that some people don’t think human rights are worth supporting unless they’re the “correct” people’s rights.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
Apple’s own employees have been expressing alarm [about its plans to snoop in customers’ phones]. The company [pretend]s reservations about the system are rooted in “misunderstandings.” We disagree. We wrote the only peer-reviewed publication on how to build a system like Apple’s — and…we’re not concerned because we misunderstand how Apple’s system works. The problem is, we understand exactly how it works…Our system could be easily repurposed for surveillance and censorship. The design wasn’t restricted to a specific category of content; a service could simply swap in any content-matching database, and the person using that service would be none the wiser. A…government could, for example, compel a service to out people sharing disfavored political speech…WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app, already uses content matching to identify dissident material. India enacted rules this year that could require pre-screening content critical of government policy. Russia recently fined Google, Facebook and Twitter for not removing pro-democracy protest materials[, and US politicians are pressuring social media companies to censor anything they declare “misinformation”]…We warned against our own system design…[an]d planned to discuss paths forward at an academic conference this month…[but] the week before our presentation, Apple announced it would deploy its nearly identical system…
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