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Archive for July, 2022

Links #627

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2022| 1 Comment »

You’re not even trying!  –  cop, to paralyzed man

Here’s another song from my youth that just popped into my head recently.  The band, Sweet, was very popular in the ’70s but for some reason seems to have largely faded from popular memory.  The links above the video were provided by Emma Camp, Jesse Walker (x2), Franklin Harris, Scott Hechinger, Justin Amash, and Clarissa, in that order.

From the Archives

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Twelfth Anniversary

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on July 10, 2022| 5 Comments »

Since I was one of the loudmouthed harlots who helped create the social climate which made all this possible, I think I’ve earned at least a little rest.  –  “Eleventh Anniversary”

I think I can safely say without fear of contradiction that this is the largest single-creator blog on the internet; it now consists of 4384 daily posts, 106 static pages, and far too many words to count, published over a period long enough for a typical sex worker to have been reading it since she was a schoolgirl.  Indeed, I’ve been told many times that my blog helped a lot of girls get their bearings when they were contemplating a sex work career, or helped them solve problems when they were still green.  A lot of today’s activists were inspired by my work, and quite a few journalists, academics, thoughtful people in general, and even politicians credit me with opening their eyes to the truth about sex work and the lies spewed by authoritarians about it.  When I started this blog, the “sex trafficking” hysteria had not yet reached its peak; now (as I predicted over ten years ago) it’s imploding in real time, and many of those who were only too happy to profit from the moral panic are now being forced to distance themselves from it.  This does not, unfortunately, mean that things are becoming better for sex workers; as I also wrote way back when,

…the “trafficking” myth [is] “an increasingly-erratic cultural meme spinning wildly out of control, whose far-flung debris is going to cause a lot more damage before it finally disintegrates“, and…[in] this last and most dangerous phase we should expect to see a lot more people hurt…

Those of y’all who have been paying attention probably already recognize that we’re in that last and most dangerous phase.  Decades of allowing puritans, crypto-moralists, copsuckers, badge-lickers, petty tyrants, deranged busybodies, violent sociopaths, and other opportunistic, power-hungry trash to undermine civil liberties in the name of “safety” has created the dystopia into which the United States is collapsing, pulling much of the Western world with it, and a lot of the rest of the developed world is competing to be even more awful.  Free thought and free expression are in greater danger than they have been at any time since the Enlightenment, and the Marching Morons who make up three-quarters of the human race are divided into two main camps: those who eagerly embrace 21st-century technotyranny, and those whose chief criticism is that their preferred “leaders” are not the ones operating the machinery of oppression.  And all of it – every last bit – is the result of moral defectives happily supporting any and every form of repression against those they see as different from them.  The State tested its weaponry on “criminals”, drug users, sex workers, and members of various minority groups (racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, etc); it has increasingly criminalized both consensual behaviors and those which, while offensive to others, aren’t treated as actual crimes in healthy societies; and it has increasingly inserted itself into the lives of individuals to an extent and depth that would have been inconceivable to people of the 19th century or earlier.

So where is this all going? Honestly, I don’t know. But I’m planning to keep sounding the alarm and commenting upon news items on topics pertaining to self ownership that come across my path, whether for good or ill, until either death or the Establishment stops me.

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In the News (#1252)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2022| 1 Comment »

It’s hard to imagine that in just a few short weeks we will have no ability to provide…care [to kids impregnated by rape].  –  Caitlin Bernard

Property of the State

Such pro-life, very protecting children:

…three days after the Supreme Court issued its…decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, took a call from a colleague, a child abuse doctor in Ohio…[where sociopathic politicians] had outlawed any abortion after six weeks. Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant…abortion providers [in Indiana] have…experienc[ed] a dramatic increase in the number of patients coming to their clinics from neighboring states with more restrictive policies…

If Men Were Angels

It’s striking how much the sexual behavior of “pastors” resembles that of cops:

A Florida pastor has been arrested for exposing himself and masturbating outside a Starbucks…Enginio Dali Muniz-Colon…is a pastor in Kissimmee and…[w]as…previously…charged over a similar incident at the same Starbucks…

Stalkers in Blue (#814)

If this shocks you, you haven’t been paying attention:

Angeli Rose Gomez, the mother who ran into Robb Elementary School to save her two young kids during the [Uvalde, Texas school] shooting, says she’s since faced a barrage of frightening harassment from [cops] in retaliation for her rightfully harsh criticisms of them in the media.  Gomez’s lawyer, Mark Di Carlo, announced plans this week to take legal action…and also offered specific, chilling details about what their harassment of Gomez has entailed…Gomez was recently pulled over…and…falsely accused of having “illegal immigrants” in her car…police parked outside Gomez’s house for 45 minutes and flashed their lights at her and her mother as they took a walk…police approached an unnamed family member of Gomez’s, and told the[m]…to tell Gomez to stop speaking to the media…

Welcome to the Future (#1052)

No, it can’t.  And scientists who create weapons of oppression like this are moral imbeciles:

An artificial intelligence can now predict the location and rate of crime across a city a week in advance with up to 90 per cent accuracy.  Similar systems have been shown to perpetuate racist bias in policing, and the same [is] true in this case, but the researchers who created this AI [deny it]…Ishanu Chattopadhyay at the University of Chicago [is the chief badge-licker on this project]…

The Convergence of Censors

I’m sure the “freeze peach” morons will vomit out something about fires and theaters:

A [spook] and two p[igs] showed up to a North Texas woman’s house on Thursday morning…to…threaten…he[r]…after she posted in anger over the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.  The feds’ letter to Madeline Walker [ignored the fact that hyperbolically]…tweet[ing] about burning government buildings [does not constitute a credible threat or any other category of speech that is considered unprotected by the First Amendment]…and…threaten[ed her]…with…criminal charges…Joshua Henry, a [thug] for DHS, confirmed the letter’s authenticity…Walker [pointed out that]…“Pastor Dillon Awes of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth is allowed to preach that gay people should be ‘lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head.’ when people reported him to the police they said, ‘free speech’” …Henry [responded by threatening her again for] sharing the letter on Twitter…[and demanded a US citizen be] “remorseful” [for exercising her civil rights rather than kowtowing to the precious fee-fees of petty bureaucrats]…

The Vultures Descend

Some tyrannies are too loathsome even for some cops:

Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano commented…on her office’s role in the recently passed law that essentially bans abortion after six weeks.  The state legislature [demands] abortion providers to send sheriff’s offices reports of women who were impregnated by rape or incest and are trying to terminate the pregnancy.  “I want the public to know that while these providers are now mandated by law to send us these reports regardless of the will of their patients, we will not contact the patient if she doesn’t want us to…sexual assault…is traumatizing, and my agency will do everything we can to offer…respect to these women who are seeking health care”…

Thought Control (#1240)

If you support restrictions on “offensive” speech, you helped create this lunacy:

Virginia Beach [shyster] and [politician] Tim Anderson is suing publisher Oni Press and author Maia Kobabe on behalf his client Tommy Altmann, a[nother politician]…claim[ing] that Kobabe’s work is damaging under the state’s obscenity laws…Gender Queer and A Court of Mist and Fury–the other book being challenged in this suit–do not fall under obscene materials in any definition of the law[, but Anderson fully admits his intention is to be a nuisance]…

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Annex 73

Posted in Diary, tagged on July 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »

It’s amazing how much faster work goes at floor level.  I framed this passageway in a single afternoon, then finished it in just another day and a half.  The steel building is the shop, which forms the south wall of the atrium; you may recognize the blue tarp (which will soon be obsolete) as the cover for the electrical panel on the east wall of the house.  Grace wanted this passage so she could go into her shop even in cold, rainy weather without getting drenched.  I used some of the leftover roof panels to extend the roof of the shop building forward to cover the passage, then sealed the joins with silicone window & door sealant so rainwater can’t get between the shop roof and the new panels.  Right now the skin is just plain OSB, but next month I’ll put siding on the outside to make it look nice.  We were able to get two strip curtains from an internet company for a very reasonable price; they’ll keep out the wind and rain while allowing someone with arms full of packages or tools to get through without opening a door, though we’ll probably later need to hang a door from that big post to the right, so we can close it more securely during severe storms or worse-than-usual cold.  In this picture, taken just after I installed the curtains on June 22nd, there’s an open space (center top of picture) where rain can still get in, but last weekend I installed a partial roof panel in the gap, and later I’ll build a little wall above the inner curtain.  There are a few other minor details to complete, but I’ll get to them while doing all the finish work next month, before we move on to the inside features.  And I have plenty more to show you over the next few weeks!

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The Long Road

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , , on July 7, 2022| 2 Comments »

I was originally planning to leave tomorrow for my road trip, but a few weeks ago Nicole Gililland asked me to be with her when the verdict of her lawsuit against the nursing school that kicked her out for having done porn in the past.  Since I was going through Oregon anyhow, I simply had to leave three days early (and it was kinda nice to have the long first leg broken up).  Today I’m on my way down to the Bay Area to see one of my gentlemen tomorrow evening, then on Saturday I’m heading down to Los Angeles to visit a friend I haven’t seen in three years.  On Tuesday I’ll head up to Las Vegas for Freedom Fest, after which I’ll leave for Seattle on Sunday the 17th; I have some appointments in Seattle on the 19th, then after the traffic dies down I’ll head for home (because by that point I’ll have been gone for two weeks and will be ready to see Grace, sleep in my own bed, and return to my normal routine).  Compared to my massive 2014 book tour, about 2500 miles and 14 days is no big deal; however, I’m almost a decade older now (time sure does fly!) and I haven’t done a road trip nearly this long since the beginning of 2017.  Well, at least I don’t foresee any snow on this trip!

If you’re wondering about the picture: I decided to bring tea along on this trip, because hotels never have anything good in the room. But I forgot to bring a mug, so I went to Wal-mart to get one and when I saw this one I couldn’t resist.

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In the News (#1251)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2022| 1 Comment »

Consider this, then, a canary’s song.  –  Olivia Snow

If Men Were Angels

Another “youth pastor”, another string of underage victims:

A [typical and representative] youth pastor was convicted…of sexual assault against four boys.  William Stefan Wahl, of Port Huron [Michigan] was found guilty…of [molesting two boys] younger than 13, two [boys]…between 13 and 16, [and showing the boys porn]…

Guinea Pigs (#881) 

First it was supposedly about “terrorists”, then “sex trafficking”, and now:

…For sex workers, Section 230 had provided a foothold, however fragile, to exist on the internet.  FOSTA…was the first crack in a foundation that supported not only sex workers but also other marginalized, criminalized, and otherwise disenfranchised demographics.  The effects of FOSTA have…rippl[ed] beyond social media and payment processors to the most quotidian of technologies.  “Facilitating” sex work—language in later bills revised to “aiding and abetting”—could also implicate landlords renting to sex workers, ISPs that we use to advertise…By casting such a broad net…the bill essentially outlaws sex workers’ presence on the internet by criminalizing proximity to sex work.  Under this level of scrutiny, talking about sex work at all is a risk…A FOSTA-like ban would have violated Roe, but…[the] removal of federal protections gives [politicians] a path to criminalizing any online discussion about abortion, restrictions that can easily extend to include reproductive health entirely…Big Tech will use the artificial intelligence currently shadowbanning and suspending sex workers’ accounts to target users it suspects are seeking abortions…

Winding Down

The war against drugs other than nicotine continues to wind down:

The Supreme Court…unanimously sided with two physicians who were convicted of drug trafficking based on opioid prescriptions that federal prosecutors p[retended were] medically inappropriate…The decision in Ruan v. United States sends both cases back to the lower courts so they can assess the defendants’ arguments that the instructions received by the juries that convicted them misstated the law seriously enough that they are entitled to new trials.  But whether or not they prevail on those claims, the ruling represents an important limit on prosecutions that have long had a chilling effect on pain treatment…

The Prudish Giant (#1104) 

It usually starts with sex workers, but it never stops with us:

Facebook is removing the posts of users who…say abortion pills can be mailed and in some cases temporarily banning those users…a Motherboard reporter attempted to post the phrase “abortion pills can be mailed” on Facebook using a burner account.  The post was flagged within seconds as violating the site’s community standards, specifically the rules against buying, selling, or exchanging medical or non-medical drugs.  The reporter was given the option to “disagree” with the decision or “agree” with it.  After they chose “disagree,” the post was removed.  Motherboard was able to post the phrases “painkiller pills can be mailed,” “pills,” and “abortion” without issue.  Motherboard posted “abortion pills can be mailed” a second time, and it was flagged for removal, and this time the reporter “agreed” with the decision…and…the reporter’s Facebook account was suspended for 24 hours…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1114)

Remember, Clearview specifically markets itself to entities which claim a monopoly on violence:

Clearview AI is best‐​known as a…faci[litator of police violence]…the company has secured a patent for recognition systems that would allow users to scan someone’s face in order to determine whether that person does drugs, is homeless, or suffers from mental illness.  The same technology could also be used to determine someone’s education history or contact details.  Such technology could put members of the transgender community who wish to conceal their gender transition at risk of social sanction, public humiliation, and violence…Given ongoing policy fights over who should get to access gender‐​segregated spaces such as bathrooms and changing rooms, it is possible that private businesses, universities, and schools might choose to use AGR technology under the guise of security enhancement and privacy protection.  It is not hard to imagine AGR technology at train stations, bathrooms, and changing rooms prompting encounters where a member of the transgender community would feel embarrassed, unsafe, humiliated, and exposed…

Feudalism Redux

The crusade to reduce Americans to serfdom continues:

Several national antiabortion groups and [pet politicians]…are advancing plans to [try to] stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere…The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal organization, is drafting model legislation…that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a resident of a state that has banned abortion from terminating a pregnancy outside of that state.  The draft language will borrow from the…Texas abortion ban enacted last year in which private citizens were empowered to enforce the law through [nuisance] litigation…

The Vultures Descend

This vulture feeding frenzy is going to get a lot uglier:

…antiabortion activists are eager to capitalize on their momentum by enshrining constitutional abortion bans, pushing Congress to pass a national prohibition, blocking abortion pills, and limiting people’s ability to get abortions across state lines…By the end of the year, abortion could be outlawed across roughly half the country…Democrat-[run] states are scrambling to enshrine protections for abortion, and President Biden has [bloviated about doing] everything in his power “to protect a woman’s right”…but Biden has also ruled out the more extreme remedies, such as [pack]ing the Supreme Court, and key Democrats remain opposed to [burning down the house to roast the pig as some very silly people are demanding]…

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Diary #627

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , on July 5, 2022| 2 Comments »

When I was a wee lass, I tried never to miss the Sunday Morning Movie, a local TV institution for many years which generally featured old monster movies.  It was the venue in which I first saw the Godzilla movies, It Came from Outer Space, and many others, including this one, which was among my favorites as a child.  Looking back on it now, I think what drew me to it most was Ross Martin’s sympathetic and touching portrayal of the brilliant humanitarian who becomes a monster; I’ve always thought Martin was very underrated as an actor, and while looking at his IMDb page recently (while we were watching The Wild, Wild West), I saw this flick listed and realized that he was the actor whose performance had so appealed to me in childhood.  So I added it to my Amazon wishlist, and a reader sent it to me last week; I’m keen to watch it again not for the rather melodramatic Frankenstein-derived plot, but to watch Martin’s performance again through adult eyes.  And, truth be told, because I’m really very sentimental and it’ll be fun to revisit a slice of those long-gone days.

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July 4th, 2022

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , on July 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

As I wrote last year on this day, the time has come for me to stop writing new essays for this and the other days on which I have in the past published polemics, because “The wheel turns inexorably, and all there is to say about it has already been said countless times; there is, I think, little point in saying it again“…  Last year, I observed each of those occasions with links to all the previous examples, so that the interested reader can more easily explore them.  Though some may contain details to events which are no longer current, I think you’ll still find most of them worth your while if you’ve never read them, or even if you have.

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Links #626

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

This is how you guys get killed.  –  Florida cop (identity hidden by the State)

We’ve been rewatching the Looney Tunes lately, as you may have guessed from my musical selection of three weeks back.  This is another one referenced in a number of ’40s cartoons, especially by Bugs Bunny (“My mama done told me/A buzzard is two-faced…”) and Daffy Duck.  It later became a blues standard (the gender is easily reversed), but here’s Cab Calloway’s version.  The links above it were provided by Radley Balko, Jesse Walker, Rose Alliance, Cop Crisis, Mistress Matisse, and Cop Crisis again, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#1250)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2022| 1 Comment »

Respecting private property means government has to pay for the property it destroys.  –  Scott Bullock

A Broker in Pillage

There are many ways for governments to steal things that don’t belong to them:

…a federal jury ruled that Vicki Baker is entitled to $59,656.59 in damages after a SWAT team [wantonly] destroyed her McKinney, Texas, home while pursuing a fleeing fugitive in July 2020…the Institute for Justice…file[d] a lawsuit [on her behalf] in March 2021, after the city refused to pay for the damage that had been caused…U.S. District Court Judge Amos Mazzant III ruled that the destruction of Vicki’s home was a “taking” that required the city to pay just compensation.  On April 29, Judge Mazzant rejected the city of McKinney’s argument that police…should be categorically exempt from [any consequences] for [their actions, no matter how callous and idiotic]…Because “the destruction to Baker’s home was intentional and foreseeable,” compensation was required, he ruled…

Civil rights advocates often joke that the Third Amendment is the only one that hasn’t been undermined, but I fail to see any important difference between the government forcibly taking people’s homes to quarter troops and forcibly taking them to enable cops and robbers games.

Divination

Authoritarians just love their wanking fantasies of mind-reading machines:

A Chinese research team claims to have created a “mind-reading device” that detects “porn watching,” which could be used by police to enforce the country’s strict laws against sexual expression…[Naturally the inventors used buzzwords such as] “AI”…an[d puritanisms such as]…”indecent image”…to [hawk their bogus] “porn police helmet that can read people’s minds to detect pornography”…

Stalkers in Blue

No woman is safe from predatory cops:

A [sleazy] cop is out of a job after he admitted to using [a sleazy cop surveillance database] to look up personal information about a woman he [found on] OnlyFans…Kevin Bohn, a member of the Cinnaminson police department, used a restricted law enforcement database to find information about the woman and her family…[the]n tried to hide his actions by creating incident numbers for his inquiries and then closing out the cases…

The Next Target (#1151)

Prohibitionists’ real goal is to completely ban online sex work:

The federal government of Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, has ordered all open-access online platforms to “remove, disable or block access” to all “pornographic” content…Gay content is already illegal in Nigeria, as is any form of private gay sexuality.  According to reports, the country ranks second worldwide on searches for “gay porn”.  The order was made public [on June 14th], with all platforms available in the nation of 216 million given only 24 hours to comply.  It is unclear what the reach and success of the measure has been in practice, especially considering the easy availability of VPN programs to change an individual IP address location…

To Molest and Rape (#1239)

So many rapist cops, so many underage victims:

A [typical and representative Florida cop] has been sentenced to [a mere] six years in state prison for [repeatedly molesting] a [teenager]…William Arnold Jr…pleaded no contest to…sexual battery…[in exchange for more serious] charges [being] dropped as part of a plea deal…he will [also] face 9 years of probation with electronic monitoring and a lifetime of registering as a sex offender upon his release.  The victim…was 14 [when Arnold started molesting her]…

Thought Control (#1244)

No public library is safe from censorship, because they’re controlled by politicians:

…Trustees of the Smithtown Library Board on Long Island voted to remove signs for Pride and any LGBTQ+-related books from children’s sections [last week]…Books related to sexual orientation and gender identity will indefinitely be removed from children’s areas—regardless of the literature’s targeted audience—and put elsewhere…board trustee Marie Gergenti proposed the [censorship] to [give a heckler’s veto to unnamed parties she claimed to have]…receiv[ed] complaints [from, but]…New Yorkers both inside and outside the Smithtown-area[, especially politicians who saw an opportunity for vote-getting virtue-signaling,] rushed to social media to blast the board’s decision…The New York Library Association reaffirmed its “commitment to intellectual freedom,” and condemned the move…

The clamor immediately caused the board to reverse its ill-considered move.

Censor Chic (#1248)

“A government powerful enough to…obscur[e anti-abortion] information…is also one powerful enough to…hid[e] info about how to obtain an abortion“:

…By the early 1970s, nearly 20 states prohibited publishing or advertising information about abortion…The U.S. Supreme Court would go on to declare such bans unconstitutional, in the 1975 case Virginia vs. Bigelow.  But…[with] Roe v. Wade…overturned, it’s all but assured that battles over…abortion information will begin again…senators have exerted pressure on Google to limit certain sorts of results…How long until we see [thm] pressured to block ads for abortion pills or information on methods to self-induce abortions?  We’re also likely to see abortion added to the list of things used to justify broader crackdowns on free speech, in the way that things like sex work, disinformation, and domestic extremism [are] used today.  The ability to communicate privately about…abortions could be used as another argument against encrypted communication.  And it shouldn’t be long until we hear about how Section 230…should be reformed since it protects Big Tech from being held liable for user posts about how to obtain an abortion…risk-averse companies may be quick to censor a wide range of content related to abortion, even if that content would ultimately prove protected…

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