The judges…justif[ied] their leniency…in florid language strikingly similar to that found in subreddits for incels. – Gustavo Turner
The return of a ridiculous fantasy we haven’t seen much in the past few years:
Former Google executive Mo Gawdat has made a st[upid, hackneyed] prediction: hyper-realistic AI sex robots are coming that could make intimate human relationships obsolete…Gawdat— [like many other clueless techheads before him]—claimed…virtual reality and augmented reality will soon allow people to have simulated sexual experiences that are indistinguishable from real life…If you can use tech to feel what your partner makes you feel, Gawdat [inanely bloviated], “Why would you need another being in the first place?”…
Beijing’s campaign to silence Chinese people outside China is becoming more aggressive:
…a couple of weeks before the [election, incumbent Canadian MP] Kenny Chiu…[realized] something had flipped among the ethnic Chinese voters in his British Columbia district…Longtime supporters…were not returning his calls. Volunteers reported icy greetings at formerly friendly homes. Chinese-language news outlets stopped covering him. And he was facing an onslaught of attacks — from untraceable sources — on the local community’s most popular social networking app, the Chinese-owned WeChat…Chiu and several other elected officials critical of Beijing were targets of a Chinese state that has increasingly exerted its influence over Chinese diaspora communities worldwide as part of an aggressive campaign to expand its global reach…a Chinese diplomat…[tried] to intimidate…Michael Chong…after he successfully led efforts in Parliament to label China’s [genocide] of…Uyghur[s]…a genocide…
Another troubled woman fakes an “abduction” to get attention:
Police in Alabama cast doubt…on the story of a woman who set off a frantic search when she disappeared for two days after calling 911 to report a[n imaginary] toddler wandering on the highway. Carlee Russell [pretended] she was abducted and forced into a car…but…detectives were…unable to verify…[her claim that] she was taken by a man who came out of the trees when she stopped to check on the child, put [her] in [both] a car and an 18-wheel truck, [then] blindfolded [her] and held [her] at a home where a woman fed her cheese crackers…she [claimed she later]…managed to escape and run through the woods to her neighborhood. In the days before her disappearance, she searched for information on her cellphone about Amber Alerts, [the “sex trafficking” propaganda] movie [Taken,] and [buying] a one-way bus ticket from Birmingham, Alabama, to Nashville, Tennessee, departing the day she disappeared. Her phone also showed she traveled about 600 yards while telling a 911 operator she was following a 3- or 4-year-old child in a diaper on the side of the highway…
If only there were a concise term for “coerced women into sex”:
In 2012, three months after Eddie Scott became sheriff of Clay County, Miss…a woman he had [repeatedly rap]ed…after she was arrested…[filed suit against him, and even] showed suggestive letters [he had written her]…Judge Jim Kitchens ruled against the woman. Sheriff Scott’s predecessor, Laddie Huffman…did not report [him] to state or federal [cop shops]. There [wa]s no…internal investigation…The…only public record of the allegations [was intentionally hidden] at the Clay County Courthouse…among hundreds of cases, until reporters [finally] pressed for it…while [finally] investigating other [rapes committed by] Scott…[who claims she wanted it, just like all the other] women..[he has harassed,] coerce[d, raped,] and retaliate[d] against…wh[en they reported the attacks]…In rural communities like Clay County…sheriffs rule like kings. They can arrest anyone they choose, smear reputations and hand out reprieves and other favors. They…hold people in jail as long as they please and they answer to no one…Noxubee County Sheriff Terry Grassaree rose in the ranks of his Mississippi department and kept his elected office for years despite [repeated rapes and beatings of caged people]. He was voted out in 2019 and now faces federal charges of bribery…But in Clay County, Sheriff Scott remains in power…
Prohibition can never succeed, regardless of which substance is prohibited:
…A new procedure adopted in mid-June by one of the largest abortion pill suppliers, Europe-based Aid Access, now allows U.S. medical professionals in…states that have passed abortion “shield” laws to prescribe and mail pills directly to patients in antiabortion states. Previously, Aid Access allowed only Europe-based doctors to prescribe abortion pills to women in states where abortion is restricted and then shipped those pills internationally, leaving patients to wait weeks. The telemedicine shield laws, enacted over the past year in New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Vermont and Colorado, explicitly protect abortion providers who mail pills to restricted states from inside their borders. The result is a new pipeline of legally prescribed abortion pills flowing into states with abortion bans…
Gee, I wonder why violent men often target sex workers?
In a controversial statement justifying their sentence of 30 years rather than life in prison for the man convicted of murdering [adult] performer and OnlyFans creator Charlotte Angie, the Italian judges in the case referred to the victim as an “uninhibited” woman who made her killer feel “used”…
It does not help young victims of governmental brutality to infantilize them as “children”:
[Young people] incarcerated on the former death row unit of Louisiana’s Angola prison were locked in their cells without air conditioning for several days this month amid scorching summer temperatures…the[y]…were only let out of their cells for an eight-minute shower, which they had to take while handcuffed with their ankles shackled…With heat indexes in the surrounding area reaching as high as 133 degrees this month, a medical expert…warned the court that the conditions could be fatal…[describing the practice as] “foolhardy and perilous”…the…young people [were moved to Angola in retaliation for] escap[ing] from a…juvenile…facility…
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