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Archive for August, 2022

Links #633

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I know you’re here to shoot me.  –  Dante Kittrell

Lamont Dozier penned so many Motown hits it would be too difficult to pick one as a memorial, so I instead chose to feature this novelty song he recorded himself using the stage name “Lamont Anthony”; the song was later re-released with different lyrics, presumably due to copyright issues.  The links above the video were provided by Jesse Walker, Cop Crisis (x3), Jesse again (x2), and Scott Greenfield, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#1264)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I’ve never known anybody to be under the influence of lobster.
–  Bruce Flammey

Lying Down With Dogs (#335)

What other country publicly shames those who engage in sex work?

Police in Bali have arrested yet another pair of creators, charging them with “producing pornographic videos”…The latest in a series of widely publicized arrests under Indonesia’s draconian anti-obscenity laws involves a married couple in their 30s…During the press conference…[cops] held up printouts of screen captures of the couple’s content, as the accused [were forced to stand] behind them wearing prison orange….they…face up to 12 years imprisonment if found guilty…

To Molest and Rape

Cop is a cop is a cop is a cop:

A [typical and representative] Texas [cop]…has reached a plea deal in the [rape] assault of two Houston women…David Lynn Turner…met his victims on social media and dating websites by claiming he wanted to meet women who could communicate with the dead.  He then…[told] them they were going to a haunted house in Shepherd, Texas…once [he] had the[m] women alone and in the dark at the supposed haunted house, he physically intimidated them…

Eternal Vigilance (#940)

Note that this creep was trying to demand sex in addition to rent, not offer to accept voluntary sex in lieu of cash rent:

Allan Rothstein…forced a prospective tenant to sign [a bizarre contract agreeing to sex on demand]…in order to rent a four-bedroom ho[use in]…Las Vegas…The document is titled “Direct Consent for Sexual Intercourse and or (oral sex)”…and…the…terms…are even crazier than the title.  The tenant had to swear she wasn’t signing “under the influence of an incapacitating intoxicant, aphrodisiacs, or psychoactive substances, including but not limited to, alcohol, drugs, oysters, Bremelanotide, truffles, sea cucumber, strawberries, lobster, dark chocolate, Cocaine, LSD, cannabis or any other mind-altering chemical or substance, nor have they been given the same by the INITIATOR/S”…Another paragraph says the tenant swears she “does not currently have a boyfriend/girlfriend/parent who is larger, meaner, and more physically aggressive, owns firearms and/or is more possessive than the INITIATOR/S”…the tenant and her five children were homeless, living from week to week in a residential hotel…[they were] approv[ed]…for Section 8…But…ha[d] to find a residence…covered by the program within…60 days…

The Mob Rules (#1215)

These mob rule laws will continue to metastasize unless SCOTUS acts:

The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected a bid by abortion rights advocates to prevent a near-total ban from taking effect later this month. The criminalization of all abortions will take effect later this month…The ruling would allow potential relatives of an embryo or fetus to sue abortion providers over procedures done after six weeks of gestation, before many people know they are pregnant.  Another ban criminalizing all abortions is set to take effect later this month…While rapists cannot sue under the law, a rapist’s family members would be able to…

To Molest and Rape (#1230)

Most rapist cops have multiple underage victims:

A grand jury indicted a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy on charges of sexually assaulting four girls in a case that prosecutors [tried to sweep under the rug] a decade ago…Sean Essex…[raped, molested, and orally raped four girls who] were ages 7 to 13 at the time of the crimes…

Thought Control (#1253)

I never would’ve thought my first profession would become as much a target for authoritarians as my second:

The new District Attorney in [Chattanooga,] Tennessee…said she would consider prosecuting librarians, teachers, and school administrators over books that some parents [want to censor]…Coty Wamp…[also] said she had brought [pro-censorship group] Moms for Liberty in to meet with the sheriff on the issue…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do (#1261)

It’s always lovely to see them feeding on each other:

Denver [cop] Timothy Hyatt has been arrested for…inter[acting]…with [another cop fantasy role-playing as] a 14-year-old girl…us[ing] multiple social media platforms and a variety of online [alias]es…

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Annex 78

Posted in Diary, tagged on August 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »

As of my writing this, there are only a few tasks left to finish phase 5 of my annex project, and by the time you read it I wiil probably be finished with most of them.  Late last week, I bought everything I still needed, and except for painting the exposed steel, most of the remaing tasks are already partly done and will probably each take just an afternoon to complete.  They’re all small things like you can see in this picture; finishing the hot tub enclosure, framing the bathroom wall, etc.  Actually, there will be another bathroom wall, separating it from the passage to the north porch, but we’ll hold off building that one until we get the bathroom fixtures in because it’ll be much easier to bring large things in through an open wall than to try wrangling them in through a doorway.  We’re already working out what’s needed to build the shower, and I’ve marked the features out with masking tape.  But you’ll need to wait a few more weeks before I show you that; there are a few other features waiting to be seen first (such as the wellroom door, the siding, and the wall which would be to your left if you were standing in the spot I was to take this picture), and I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

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Conflict of Ethics

Posted in Biography, Perception, tagged , , , , on August 18, 2022| 6 Comments »

I finally figured out why I haven’t started a Substack or otherwise paywalled my writing: it’s a conflict between my whore ethics and my librarian ethics, and the librarian ethics are winning.  It’s no secret that I find paywalls distateful; their existence is one of the reasons most of the links on my blog are now archived versions of the originals (because archive sites circumvent about 95% of paywalls).  I’m not saying I don’t think people should be paid for their writing; not only is that completely untrue, I’d be a hypocrite for claiming it because I do charge for my writing, in book form.  Maybe it’s just that I’m old-fashioned; a book feels like a thing to me, whereas my thoughts seem like…something else?  Look, I didn’t promise you this would make sense; I’m just telling you how I feel, and I only recently figured it out myself.  But at the same time, I obviously need to pull in more money from my writing, since my semi-retirement income has been eaten into by inflation (and other factors I’ve discussed before).  So other than getting a wealthy patron to underwrite me (and if you have a large amount of money you feel like bestowing upon me in order to enable me to keep doing what I’m doing, please let me know), I think the best bet is to start taking advertising.  Here again, there’s a conflict; due to my principles I find the idea of letting just anybody advertise on my blog without my approval (am I misunderstanding how “ad delivery” services work?) utterly revolting, and though my principles won’t pay the bills I refuse to be a hypocrite and allow my readers to be attacked by the same blinking, flashing, jumping, drifting, popping ads which I find necessary to eliminate via an adblocker lest they assault my vertigo and aggravate my anxiety.  So if you know about an ad service which displays static ads that don’t intentionally harass and irritate the viewer, and further can help me get connected with them, please email and let me know.  Please don’t contact me to say, “Oh, you just Google it” or “go to Cash4u.com and sign up” or anything like that, because if I were capable of doing it myself I’d have done it over a year ago.  I know it’s hard for some (many? most?) of y’all to grasp that there are some things I’m really just not good at, but it happens to be the truth; if I’m going to do this I’m going to need my hand held through the whole process.  So if you think you have the knowledge and inclination to help me through this; and you’re willing to take the time and spend the effort to walk me through it step by tiny step (despite the fact that the difficulty of the task will likely fall somewhere between “teaching a cat to swim” and “teaching a gibbon to drive”); and you really respect my work and want me to continue being able to do it, please let me know ASAP.  Or alternately, if you want to play Medici to my Leonardo, that would work too.

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In the News (#1263)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

This fucking cop is still a block away and this girl got raped on the street corner!  –  witness to the crime

License to Rape

“Search” is the most common government euphemism for “molest”:

…650 [legal minors] were strip-searched [by London cops without good reason] over a two-year period and the majority were found to be innocent of the [accusat]ions [cops used to justify the molestation] …in almost a quarter of cases (23%) an appropriate adult was not present during the search, despite this being a [legal] requirement…of children [and young adults] aged 10 to 17 who were strip-searched between 2018 and 2020, almost three out of five (58%) were black…for 2018 alone the figure rose to 75%…

Torture Chamber 

Your “leaders” refer to this as “correction”:

…a lawsuit against [St. Louis] and [a pack of screws reports]…that [human beings locked in cages without having]…been convicted of any crime — are subjected to “persistent and widespread torture practices”…[foremost among these being] pepper-sprayed for any number of capricious reasons or for no apparent reason at all…In 2019, the St. Louis county executive resurrected a local advisory board to monitor conditions at the jail after the deaths of several detained people, including one person who died of a curable form of leukemia…But as conditions at the jail continued to deteriorate, several board members resigned in protest…[because] they were not…[actually allowed] to…investigate conditions…the city of St. Louis has denied all wrongdoing…[and a spokesbureaucrat vomited out the words] “order and security in the correctional facility” [as an excuse for the torture, which includes]…regularly shut[ting] off detained people’s water for hours or days at a time…

If Men Were Angels  

It’s getting harder to tell the preachers from the cops:

A [Missouri] pastor has been charged…[with] sexually abusing a child…John Hampton…abused two children, starting four to five years ago…[Cops]…tried to talk to Hampton in May, but Hampton told [them] he didn’t have time to speak to them [so they just let it go for a few months]…

To Molest and Rape

I suspect prosecutors get off on coming up with ridiculous-sounding euphemisms for rape:

A [typical and representative] California [cop] faces a federal indictment [for raping] four women while [wearing his magical clown costume]…J. DeShawn Torrence…[faces] a maximum…penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine…[for] crimes [of rape and sexual assault committed] from August 2017 to June 2021…without a legitimate law enforcement purpose…

Presumably, raping a sex worker in order to entrap her and destroy her life would be considered “a legitimate law enforcement purpose”.

Above the Law (#923)

Rapist politicians generally prefer to assault drunk women:

A…Kentucky [politician]…was arrested [for]…rape.  John Tilley…[raped] a woman who could not consent due to her level of intoxication…[besides being a state legislator] he…served as Justice and Public Safety Cabinet secretary from December 2015 through 2019, overseeing Kentucky State Police, the Department of [Locking People in Filthy Cages] and other agencies…

Notice how any association with cops has a high correlation with being a rapist?

To Molest and Rape (#946) 

Some Louisiana cops prefer to rape by proxy:

A New Orleans [cop who] was flagged down…in the French Quarter by a witness who…saw a man raping an unconscious woman in plain view on the street corner…didn’t budge…the witness…[then called] 911…[and] grew increasingly frantic as the [cop continued]…to [do nothing]…Another [pigmobile] had already driven past the [rape] without stopping, she added…Two minutes passed. “He’s still not even coming!” the witness said.aid.  The dispatcher also became exasperated, “Ma’am, this is…I can’t speak freely…I understand”…The witness [who is a respiratory therapist] returned to the corner and [started CPR when she] found the victim without a pulse.  The [rapist] had fled…The witness…asked not to be named because she fears [police] retribution…

The Prudish Giant (#1251) 

Why does anyone still trust Facebook?

A Nebraska teenager is facing criminal charges alleging she aborted a fetus in violation of state law, after [cops rooted in] her Facebook messages using a search warrant.  Seventeen-year-old Celeste Burgess…[was transformed into] an adult [by the power of a magic prosecutorial finger] along with her mother Jessica Burgess…Nebraska c[riminalizes] abortions beyond 20 weeks…[cops found out via a snitch and couldn’t wait to ruin a young woman’s life]…Facebook [has been playing both sides on the issue; while]…the company [has] announced that it will reimburse employees who…must travel to a different state to seek an abortion…Instagram and Facebook posts about acquiring abortion pills…[a]re being systematically removed…[and the company has] continued to earn revenue from anti-abortion advertisements containing dangerous misinformation…Facebook [is also] collecting data from users interacting with abortion services websites, and [selling it]…to anti-abortion groups…

Since the earlier Texas case was dropped, Burgess may end up being the first woman prosecuted under the new abortion prohibitionist regime.

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Diary #633

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on August 16, 2022| 1 Comment »

Every year, I forget just how much the Dog Days wear me down.  I mean, I certainly expect it, because it is every year.  But somehow I always underestimate the actual extent of the tiredness, restlessness, brain fog, and other symptoms until I start experiencing them.  Since it’s considerably cooler here than anywhere else I’ve lived, even in August, one would think that the rapidly-shortening days would give me some relief, but it’s almost the opposite: I power through June and July by pure force of will, and by the time I recognize that the sun is setting before 9 PM again I’m out of steam.  I have trouble coming up with topics for the free-form columns on Mondays and Thursdays; I dread projects that require getting up on ladders or otherwise being in uncomfortable positions; and I find myself working more slowly in general.  This isn’t to say that I’m slacking off or anything, but I find myself getting started later, knocking off earlier, and feeling completely pooped by the time I sit down to write, which after my shower and all is usually between 8 and 8:30 PM.  So I’m really extra-glad I’m done with the roof; most of the projects I’m doing right now can be completed in about an afternoon, and that’s about all I can handle until the shorter September days begin to alleviate the extra summer anxiety.

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Bragging Rights

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

People who aren’t total moral imbeciles often make the mistake of believing that politicians create, support, or vote for laws because they believe those laws will accomplish something positive.  Time and again we’re told that statutes which grant cops new powers to harass, spy upon, invade the privacy and homes of, defame, brutalize, rob, rape, abduct, maim, and even murder peaceful citizens for doing normal, consensual things politicians have decided to “send a message” about are “well-intended“, regardless of how many facts, studies, and witnesses they are presented with to demonstrate that empowering sociopathic thugs in the aforementioned manner accomplishes nothing except more violence and societal harm.  The politicians who mastermind such prohibitions are evil megalomaniacs who openly want to harm those they’re bigoted against, but there aren’t enough of them to ram these abominations down the throats of their subjects; to accomplish that, they need the support of others whose moral compasses are so dysfunctional they can’t even manage to be consistently or effectively evil.  These people operate way down in moral stage one or two; they say whatever they think will get them elected, and aren’t even capable of a more complex moral calculus than “things that make me rich, powerful, or well-liked are good”.  One easy way to tell a politician operating from this moral ooze is that they often assume everyone else’s brains are as primitive and undeveloped as theirs are, and will therefore respond to promises of material gain or the collectivist warm-fuzzies that come from being part of a “winning team”.  Remember the bizarre competition among politicians to claim their state or city was “one of the top sources/destinations for sex trafficking”?  A reasonable person would think twice before bragging about such a dubious distinction (if it were true), but as I pointed out above, we aren’t discussing reasonable people.  To those operating in this moral basement, being “top” at something – anything – is a pure good, even if it’s “most carceral”, “most authoritarian”, “most violent”, “most inhospitable”, “cruelest”, “most hateful”, “most ignorant”, etc.

All this may help y’all to understand why politicians compete to produce the strictest, most draconian, most brutal laws on any given topic, as in this recent example:

Indiana lawmakers approved a near-total ban on abortion…some GOP members…opposed the bill because of…exceptions…in cases of rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormality or when the procedure is necessary to prevent severe health risks or death…

The article provides examples of both of the types of moral atavisms described above.  The ones who opposed making exceptions for the life of the mother are typified by people like John Jacob, who probably regularly forgets how to walk upright; in arguing that the law should condemn women with dangerous pregnancies to slow death, Jacob vomited out the moronic slogan, “Not her body, not her choice.”  But it’s unlikely that the majority who voted for the bill are so unambiguously fanatical; most are probably like Wendy McNamara, who told reporters she supported the ban because it “makes Indiana one of the most pro-life states in the nation.”  And to a mind so unaccustomed to independent thought, being part of a group that can be said to be the “most” at anything is something to be proud of.

 

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Links #632

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I’m gonna blow y’all up.  –  Roxanna Copeland

Most people are mentioning Grease, but I liked her early stuff much better, and always thought it was a career mistake for her to go from “I Honestly Love You” to “Let’s Get Physical”.  The links above the video were provided by Elizabeth N. Brown, Mike Siegel, Tim Cushing, Radley Balko, Popehat, Walter Olson, and Cop Crisis, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#1262)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Knowing that predator[y cops]…are lurking online is every parent’s worst nightmare.  –  Matthew B. Millhollin

If Men Were Angels

It’s getting harder to tell the preachers from the cops:

A Fresno County minster was arrested [for molesting a girl under 14 years old in 2017].  Bernardino Villalobos…is a registered sex offender [who] previously served time in prison for convictions of rape and sodomy….[but] owns a church and serves as a minister at La Obra De Jesus Christian Church in Del Rey…

To Molest and Rape

Never trust a cop, especially not a cop who changes his legal name to that of a despotic French king:

A…Florida [cop] was arrested and suspended without pay after…[rap]ing his friend in the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme in early July…Alaindy LouisXVI was [only] charged with sexual battery…[despite raping his] “best friend”…[while she was] blacked out [drunk]…on July 25, detectives had her make a call to LouisXVI that was being secretly recorded by police where he…admitted to [rap]ing [her]…

The Crumbling Dam (#949)

Eventually, there wil be too many of these for the feds to block all of them:

California [politician]s have again given approval for…major cities to experiment with supervised injection facilities that would provide users a place to inject drugs under the supervision of health workers…S.B. 57…allow[s] San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland to approve organizations to operate these injection sites, following a lengthy approval process that includes public meetings…[an earlier] attempt…to launch these injection facilities in San Francisco…[was vetoed by] then-Gov. Jerry Brown…[supposedly] partly because he worried that he couldn’t protect operators from federal prosecution (which everybody involved already knew was a risk) but really because his nanny state–style approach to addiction was to use government force to mandate people into drug treatment…

The Next Target (#1180)

Somebody really needs to start a credit card network that doesn’t want to be an arbiter of morality:

Visa and Mastercard [announced that] card payments for advertising on Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek would be suspended after a [predatory nuisance] lawsuit [convinced a large number of stupid people, including a federal judge in California, that] the payments giants could be facilitating child pornography…

Above the Law (#1192)

He sounds like a typical, representative “member of the law enforcement community” to me:

A [typical and representative] Assistant Chief Probation Officer [in Massachusetts named]…Brian Orlandella…was sentenced…to 17 years in prison and five years of supervised release…[plus] a $5,000 [fine for sending] a…13-year-old girl…images of himself masturbating and [cajoling] her [in]to send[ing] him sexually explicit pictures and videos of herself…The Kik account’s IP address was traced to Orlandella’s residence in Massachusetts…[and] one of [his phones] contained…the [pictures the girl sent]…

The Cop Myth (#1246)

Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do:

A Connecticut state trooper [named Jaime Solis] was arrested twice [in one] week…[for] multiple incidents of domestic abuse that finally sent [his] unnamed female [partner] to the hospital.  The…victim told police that within the last year [Solis] had attacked her “approximately forty times,” hit her with his belt, threatened to kill her, and threatened to harm a dog.  Some of the…abuse occurred when the victim was pregnant…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1255)

Fentanyl-contaminated objects are replacing “sex trafficking”-contaminated objects in popular scarelore:

[Alaska cops claim they found] fentanyl…inside a folded one-dollar bill that [was] dropped on the ground…at the police department…[by] a woman…[named] Sarah Dailey..the [cop who] found it…[panicked like a little girl and] called for medics to get checked out…[of course] he was fine…[but that didn’t stop them]…charg[ing the woman] with…[“]reckless endangerment[” for dropping a harmless piece of paper on the ground]…

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Annex 77

Posted in Diary, tagged on August 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I was not looking forward to installing the gutters; I expected it to be a slow, annoying process involving lots of time spent atop rickety ladders on uneven ground in the blazing sun.  However, I’m happy to say that the task was far easier and much less unpleasant than I had feared.  The flashings to protect the wooden eaves were easily installed, and when I examined the hanging hardware I realized that it could be installed on each gutter section at ground level, so the only time spent on the ladder was to actually run the screws down into the wood.  So I measured each section, made the few cuts that were needed, and assembled it in the relative cool of my atrium, then spent about ten minutes max up on the ladder getting it in place.  That part went relatively without a hitch; the next day was a bit harder, because I soon discovered that the steep pitch of the eaves coupled with the fact that the elbows are available only in one angle made it impossible to install the downspouts in a way that did not make them look as though they were designed by Dr. Seuss.  I tried at least a dozen configurations before finding one that would work, but given that all the aesthetic feedback I’ve received from visitors has been positive, I’ve decided it was serendipitous.  Now all I have to do is wait for the rainy season to know whether I’ve made any mistakes.

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