The apparent path of the sun will reach its northernmost point at 20:50 UTC today, marking the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and the shortest day of the year & first day of winter in the Southern. May all of your plans come to fruition in the fullness of time, and Blessed Be!
Archive for June, 2024
Litha 2024
Posted in Holidays, tagged holidays, paganism on June 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
In the News (#1447)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Argentina, California, censorship, cops, Florida, I can't breathe, Imaginary Evils, Indiana, internet, law, libraries, Michigan, New Jersey, politicians, porn, prisons, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, surveillance, Texas, The Puritan Recrudescence, Thought Control, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber on June 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
This is a case of human trafficking without victims. – Jorge Daniel Pirozzo
“Died after an altercation” is such a sterile way to say “murdered by screws”:
The family of a Texas man [murdered by] jailers…who…kne[lt on his]…back [while pepper-spraying him]…called for a federal investigation into the practices at the jail. Anthony Johnson Jr…a [retired] Marine…[was intentionally asphyxiated by the] jailers…[after they oinked the magic word “]contraband[” at him]. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner…ruled the death a homicide…[murder]er Rafael Moreno…kne[lt with all of his weight] on Johnson’s back…while he was handcuffed…[and another screw repeatedly] pepper-sprayed [him in the face]…
See also “I Can’t Breathe” below.
Are prosecutors now going to retroactively label all cults as “sex trafficking”?
…Argentinian…prosecutors are trying the [Buenos Aires Yoga] School’s 85-year-old founder, Juan Percowicz, and a number of its members, alleging that the school was really a cult engaged in brainwashing and sex trafficking. Authorities raided the group’s headquarters and the houses of 50 members two summers ago, accusing the group of being a front for an international sex slavery ring. Seventeen people, including Percowicz, were arrested and jailed…It wasn’t the first time the Buenos Aires Yoga School faced criminal allegations; a similar case was brought in the 1990s. But after an intense investigation that involved [illegal] raids and wiretaps…that earlier case was closed with nary a conviction. And it’s looking like the newer case may face a similar fate…The government says at least seven women were forced into prostitution by BAYS…But the women in the case have denied ever having sex in exchange for money, or being victims of any crime…
Florida censors have descended completely into self-parody:
[Authoritarian bureaucrats] in Florida have banned a book about book banning. The Indian River County School Board voted to remove Ban This Book by Alan Gratz from its shelves…overruling its own [hand-picked] book-review committee’s decision to keep it. The children’s novel follows a fictional fourth grader who creates a secret banned books locker library after her school board pulled a multitude of titles off the shelves…[censor]s…disliked how it referenced other [banned] books…and accused it of “teaching rebellion of school board authorit[arianism]”…The book…was [target]ed by Jennifer Pippin…the [chief censor] of the area’s local chapter of [pro-censorship cult] Moms for Liberty…
Any use of this error-prone surveillance system is misuse:
In 2019 and 2020, three Black men were accused of, and jailed for, crimes they didn’t commit after police used face recognition to falsely identify them. Their wrongful arrest lawsuits are still pending, but…all three…are speaking out against pending California legislation that would make it illegal for police to use face recognition technology as the sole reason for a search or arrest…[because due to a combination of confirmation bias and plain laziness, cops will merely] seek corroborating evidence [for the computer’s false identification instead of properly investigating the crime. One of the men is]…Robert Williams [of Detroit,] the first known instance of false arrest involving face recognition in the United States…the…[second is] Njeer Parks…[of] New Jersey and the…[third is] Michael Oliver…who was wrongly accused of assaulting a high school teacher in Detroit in 2020…
The Puritan Recrudescence (#1423)
Non-busybodies block Indiana’s float in the “monkey see, monkey do” parade:
A lawsuit…aims to block a new Indiana [surveillance] law …[because it] violates [both] the Constitution and the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Fred Cate…[of] the Indiana University [Law] School…said…“The Supreme Court decided more than 25 years ago that you couldn’t require age verification online…because age verification is really hard to do online…How do you verify age for someone you can’t actually see? Usually, we do that by collecting a lot of information about them…the state law prohibits you from saving that information but, of course, you have to save it to prove that you did it”…
Dare I hope fewer journalists are willing to cover up cops’ crimes?
…In recent years, the Vallejo Police Department has made headlines for gang-like rituals glorifying [cops] who [successfully get away with murder]; the illegal destruction of evidence; and an inordinately high rate of police shootings, among other scandals. But the [murder of Darryl Dean] Mefferd [by Vallejo cop Jeremy] Callinan has remained covered up…[large]ly because the Solano County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office [obediently] ruled Mefferd’s death an accidental drug overdose…allow[ing] local officials to keep the killing secret for nearly a decade despite state transparency laws mandating the release of records about deaths and serious injuries caused by [cops]…His family wanted to sue the city, but several lawyers declined to take their case because official records labeled Mefferd’s death an accident…[and] the city [pretends] that…Mefferd[‘s]…death [by positional asphyxia was his own fault]…
Oh look, WaPo has discovered what I’ve been writing about for 14 years:
…over the past two decades, hundreds of [cops] in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have [covered up their crimes, refus]ed to…punish abusers and [facilitated] additional crimes…by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and [intentionally] mishandling investigations. [Rapist] cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to [fellow pig]s who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted [cops] to avoid prison time. All the while, children in every state and the District of Columbia have continued to be targeted, groomed and violated by officers [who have no legal duty] to keep them safe…at least 1,800 state and local [cops]…were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Diary #729
Posted in Diary, tagged drugs, Sunset on June 18, 2024| 2 Comments »
I’m pretty sure it’s the daisies.
When an allergy shows up later in life, it’s usually something absent from the environment of one’s formative years. So when the severe allergic reaction I wrote about last week returned on Wednesday, virtually vanished while I was in town on Thursday, then got so bad Thursday night I got only barely-sufficient sleep, I asked myself what was present at Sunset but not in Aberdeen, and not in the New Orleans area or Oklahoma, and not even as abundantly at Sunset in previous years? And there was only one obvious answer: daisies. Oh, I’ve seen them here and there at Sunset in previous years, but this year there are so damned many it looks like I’m raising them as a cash crop. And the symptoms started ramping up just as they really started popping up like…well, like weeds. By Friday morning I just wanted to breathe through my nose again and get a decent night’s sleep, so I decided to try the suggestion a reader made in last Tuesday’s comments, and asked Chekhov to pick me up some before coming over for Grace’s birthday dinner. I’d tried nasal sprays before with little luck, but that was 40 years ago, so I figured maybe they’d improved. Well, the pharmacy Chekhov visited didn’t have the brand the reader suggested, so he got the stuff in the picture instead, figuring it was similar. And boy, did it work! Quite astonishingly well, in fact! About an hour after using it, I felt dramatically better; not totally well, mind you, but I could breathe properly and wasn’t blowing my nose every 15 minutes. And it did indeed last about 24 hours; I still woke up a lot, but a quick nose-blow and roll over, and I went right back to sleep. I assume the allergy will fade in a few weeks once the daisy mating season is done, but at least I won’t be miserable until then. And next year I’ll know what to do when the damned things pop up again.
Why Zombies?
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged illegal aliens, imaginative fiction, psychology, racism on June 17, 2024| 2 Comments »
First off, they aren’t actually zombies; as any student of folklore (or any D&D player, for that matter) could tell you, zombies are corpses animated by black magic and used as slaves. They’re neither fast nor clever, and most of the danger they present comes from the fact that since they’re already dead, they have to be completely hacked to pieces to stop them. They don’t eat people, and their condition isn’t contagious. So those aggressive dead people which became ubiquitous in fantasy fiction (written or acted) over the past few decades aren’t zombies, though everyone calls them that; actually, they’re a kind of “hungry dead”, more akin to ghouls (or even low-rent vampires) than the true zombies of folklore.
But why have they become so popular as a subject of horror and fantasy adventure, eclipsing ever other kind of undead and humanoid monster (with the possible exception of superhuman fantasy killers a la Jason Voorhees and evil ghosts a la Freddie Krueger)? The horror of true zombies derives from their origin in the folklore of enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Caribbean: it’s the idea that a slave might not be able to find rest from oppression even in the grave, because their bodies might be dug up and forced to continue toiling even after death. But what is it about hungry-type “zombies” which makes them so fascinating to modern people? I think the key to understanding that is to recognize that while traditional zombies are objects of horror to be feared, modern “zombies” are objects of loathing, to be exterminated. Modern zombie shows are full of heavily-armed characters blowing out the brains of creatures who look like other human beings, often even former friends, family, and neighbors. They roam a lawless post-apocalyptic landscape where might makes right, and the only rules the zombie hunters need follow are practical survival rules of their own making. Sad to say, most humans want there to be some group of people they can imagine as subhuman, creatures whose rights and dignity need not be respected. They want that group (slaves, outcasts, infidels, “illegals”, homeless, “criminals”, whores, “sex offenders”, “colonizers”, “terrorists”, “wingers”, “groomers”, “sinners”, “traffickers”, those whose skin is a different color, those who speak a different language, “people who disagree with me”, etc, etc) to not be protected by any laws, and to be fair game for abuse so they can inflict upon those pariahs the petty frustrations they feel from being abused by their rulers and bosses (“shit rolls downhill”). Fictional zombies are people it’s OK to hate and even kill without having to worry about their rights, a fantasy outlet for violent impulses. Alas, far too many of our species don’t restrict that kind of behavior to make-believe, and are more than willing to gang up with others of their ilk to inflict whatever evil they think they can get away with upon their fellow humans without even waiting for them to die first.
Links #728
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged California, cops, language, Michigan, Never Call the Cops, scams, teachers, Texas, Vermont, video, weaponry on June 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
He was in his bedroom asleep and you go in shooting. – Michael Monroe
A recent thread on BlueSky reminded me of this song, which I liked very much as a kid. Carl Douglas actually had a number of songs which described movies he had seen; another of them was “Witchfinder General”, which I shared back in January of ’17. The links above the video were provided by Mark Draughn, Scott Greenfield, Radley Balko, IncarcerNation (x2), and Billy Binion, in that order.
- As one does.
- Punctuation matters.
- Just protecting and serving.
- Doesn’t look any less lethal to me.
- Gang breaks into house at 5 AM to murder old man.
- The 24-hour news cycle doesn’t actually care about truth.
From the Archives
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- Maybe we’re about to witness the beginning of the end of these evil laws.
- Prison bureaucrats quash information about the conditions in their cages.
- A reminder to readers & patrons of how important your support is to me.
- Government often attacks with civil suits to reverse the burden of proof.
- “sex trafficking” panic imploding in a spectacular & entertaining fashion.
- Maine is once again attempting to impose Swedish-style criminalization.
- This would be better news if judges didn’t rubber-stamp cops’ warrants.
- Remember this next time somebody tells you “cop checks” really work.
- Governments use words to obscure meaning & oppress nonconformity.
- Sorry, but “democracy” isn’t supposed to be a synonym for “mob rule”.
- Cops, Rube Goldberg, Pat Robertson, Barry Newman, and much more.
- Nobody will be safe until this odious practice is ruled unconstitutional.
- If they actually punished wife-beating cops, they’d lose half of them.
- “Drugs” are a popular pretext for petty vindictiveness in US prisons.
- Just when you thought this kangaroo court couldn’t sink any lower…
- Trying to prop up the “Facebook pimps” myth with bogus “studies”.
- Your periodic reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster.
- US “authorities” keep pretending sex is an excuse for any tyranny.
- It’s hardly strange that a typical, representative cop became chief.
- Politicians competing to see who can criminalize the most parents.
- What the people who enforce “sex trafficking” laws are really like.
- Prosecutors have backed away from labeling this “sex trafficking”.
- Any country which does this has no business calling itself “free”.
- Crypto-moralists will declare any widely-enjoyed food “unsafe”.
- The people the government empowers to police your sexuality.
- Most tyranny starts with the pretext of “protecting” somebody.
- Another shameless reminder that I depend on your support.
- Because obviously prohibition doesn’t ruin enough lives yet.
- Kansas politicians want to circumvent the will of the voters.
- Cops, modern scholarship, Stevie Wonder, and much more.
- Government will always use any excuse to expand tyranny.
- OUR’s increasingly-petty interference in sex workers’ lives.
- “Youth leaders” = “youth pastors” = predatory perverts.
- Another of “rescue” conman Tim Ballard’s many frauds.
- Every year, my anxiety increases as the days lengthen.
- Referring to torture as “correction” is vile bootlicking.
- Cops, Jonah, birds, F. Lee Bailey, and much more.
- Your “leaders” want this to happen more often.
- Another cop demonstrating exactly what he is.
- Seeking a temporary halt to a deranged jihad.
- I’m glad to see FIRE getting involved in this.
- Like inviting a vampire into one’s home.
- Fixing the last leak in the atrium roof.
- The schadenfreude is so very sweet.
- Asking for help with travel anxiety.
- Introducing Throwback Thursdays.
- How to be a stupid, greedy whore.
- More from Juniper Fitzgerald.
- “Pastors” are as bad as cops.
- Finally removing an eyesore.
- Goodbye, ACLU; Hello FIRE.
- A simple stile does the job.
- The vestibule shapes up.
- Rapist cops of the week.
- Your “leaders” at work.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
In the News (#1446)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, California, censorship, Censorship Ascendant, consensual crime, cops, crypto-moralism, disease, drugs, Facebook, fascism, Georgia, infidelity, libraries, nanny state, No Escape, porn, prisons, propaganda, rape, Social Distancing, Texas, The Cop Myth, Thought Control, Torture Chamber, Vietnam on June 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
A country cannot develop based on fear. – Truong Huy San
Hordes of useful idiots want this kind of repression in the US:
The authorities in Vietnam have arrested one of the country’s most prominent journalists and accused him of “abusing democratic freedoms” by posting articles on Facebook that “infringed on the interests of the state”…Truong Huy San — known to many by his pen name, Huy Duc — was taken into custody last week…but there…were no details on the content of the posts…Journalists have long been a target for the country’s ruling Communist Party, which frequently crushes dissent. But Mr. San had for years managed to navigate the very small space for independent thought, often publishing articles that criticized the government. His connections with high-level officials were thought to have been a buffer — until now. Mr. San’s case is part of a sweeping repression of civil society that…has expanded in scale and scope in recent years. The law [used against him]…is an “overly broad” one that the authorities frequently use against critics of the government…After Mr. San…disappeared on June 1…Facebook [obediently deactivated his] account, w[hich had] more than 350,000 followers…
Oh look, it’s what I was saying FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO:
…Under questioning by a congressional subcommittee, top officials from the National Institutes of Health, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, acknowledged that some key parts of the public health guidance their agencies promoted during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic were not backed up by solid science…[and] inconvenient information was…suppressed, denied or disparaged as crackpot nonsense…the rule that we should all stay at least six feet apart…“sort of just appeared,” Fauci said…As for the repeated assertion that Covid originated in a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, not in an infectious diseases laboratory there, N.I.H. officials were privately expressing alarm over that lab’s lax biosafety practices and risky research…Instead of circling the wagons, these officials should have been responsibly and transparently informing the public…Failure to acknowledge the basic facts of Covid transmission led the authorities to pointlessly close beaches and parks…delayed the opening of schools and caused untold millions of dollars to be wasted on plexiglass barriers (that likely made things worse) rather than effective air filters…the most severe ramifications of these failures may last for decades, because they gave people cause to doubt the word of scientific and public health authorities…
Government reform policies, like other political promises, are almost totally worthless:
The Justice Department announced in 2022, amid several damning investigations into sexual assault by staff in federal prisons, that it was working to expand a program for early release to include women who’d been abused behind bars, but…federal prosecutors are now routinely fighting to disqualify [victim]s because of an unreasonably narrow definition…the…new policy passed in April 2023…included a major caveat that…a prisoner’s claim of sexual abuse “must be established by a conviction in a criminal case, a finding or admission of liability in a civil case, or a finding in an administrative proceeding”…but…victims of abuse have no say over when a case against their abuser will be brought, if it will be brought, and who will be [included] as the victims…And…from 2016 to 2018, perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct were only convicted, sentenced, fined, or pleaded guilty in 6 percent of substantiated incidents in federal and state prisons…
Llano politicians are so mindlessly censorious they actually imagined they could win this appeal:
Schools and libraries in [Llano] Texas…can no longer ban books just because they’re about “butts and farts,” a court has ruled…[humorless politicians beshat themselves over public library] books…including I Broke My Butt! and Larry the Farting Leprechaun…then ordered them to be pulled from library shelves, along with others they labeled “pornographic filth,” including a memoir about a transgender teen and two books about the history of racism in the US. However, seven peeved patrons sued to reinstate the books…with a district court siding with them, ruling that books could not be banned or censored by government entities just because they did not like them…the [clueless] complainants appealed, [and] the Fifth Circuit…upheld an injunction that required the library to reinstate the removed titles within 24 hours…
…one of the few…things that make modern commercial flying tolerable is a strong onboard libation. For those lucky enough to travel internationally, the booze is sometimes even free. But…newly released [bogus] research argues that it should be…[banned because] in-flight alcohol can [supposedly] increase the risk of heart attack…”Even in young and healthy individuals, the combination of alcohol intake with sleeping under hypobaric conditions poses a considerable strain on the cardiac system and might lead to exacerbation of symptoms in patients with cardiac or pulmonary diseases”…as students of the temperance movement know well, prohibitionary brush fires can start with the smallest of sparks. In fact, the in-flight booze ban movement has already begun to catch on in America…[using the excuse of] unruly and intoxicated…passengers [during the COVID panemic]…numerous federal [politicians have] inevitably joined the booze ban chorus…
A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners:
Eight jailers at a…downtown Los Angeles jail were watching porn when they overlooked a noose hanging in the jail cell of a suicidal inmate…The jail…was extremely hot and humid with no natural light, had trash in the hallways and a whole host of other problems…[inspector Haley] Broder [said]…“There was just continuous neglect and bad conditions…we saw people with giant open wounds. The trash was just everywhere…it smells. There are fires. And…there is just a genuine lack of interest in changing that situation”…When the commissioners reported the noose to [screws] — eight of whom were sitting in an office watching a video on a large-screen TV — they said they’d check on the cell later and continued watching the video…The ACLU, which has served as a court-appointed monitor of LA County jails since 1985, called Men’s Central “a windowless dungeon” long plagued by “savage deputy on-inmate violence”…
Why are people shocked when men paid and encouraged to behave violently, behave violently?
…a [typical and representative Georgia cop named]…Michael Durieux…shot [a man named] Christian Chestnut several times [on June 7th because he discovered]…his [cop] wife [was having an affair with] Chestnut…Durieux [then fled the scene of the murder]…in his car and…crashed into multiple [innocent bystanders’] vehicles…When [his fellow cops caught up with him]…he…[shot himself as well]….
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Birthday Card
Posted in Biography, Music, tagged Grace, holidays, video on June 14, 2024| 1 Comment »
Today is the 66th birthday of my best friend, Grace, whom I’ve lived with for 26 years and written about often. She at least skims my column most days, but I’ve never addressed a column directly to her. Tonight I’ll be making one of her favorite dishes, Beef Stroganoff, but right now, rather than singing “Happy Birthday” to her, I’d like to share the song which is her ringtone on my phone because it encapsulates my feelings for her. Happy Birthday, best friend, and many happy returns!
Throwback Thursday vs. the Creature from Blood Cove
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, blogging, consensual crime, cops, Elephant in the Parlor, fantasy, fascism, hysteria, politicians, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rescue industry, Safe Position on June 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Is it just me, or does the idea of a TV show about Heroes of the Homeland fighting to rescue The ChildrenTM from evil dark-skinned foreigners have a vaguely goose-steppy, repurposed-Vedic-symbol sort of feel to it?
– “They Never Learn”
Can we please all grow up now and recognize that it’s not merely normal but common for men to pay for sex? – “Elephant in the Parlor (#746)”
Though politicians like to imagine themselves as rainmakers, they are really barometers. – “Safe Position”
Statists, both in and out of government, like to play Kafkaesque games with the idea of consent. – “Still Consenting”
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many is a video worth?
– “But for Video”
In the News (#1445)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, California, Censor Chic, censorship, Censorship Ascendant, cops, Dirty Amateurs, disease, Elephant in the Parlor, Europe, Facebook, Germany, Google, hysteria, internet, law, Maggie in the Media, New York, Panopticon, politicians, prisons, propaganda, rescue industry, serial killers, Shifting the Blame, Signs, surveillance, teachers, Thought Control, Torture Chamber, Utah, violence vs. sex workers, Wisconsin on June 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »
It feels like our home is not ours anymore. – Norell Martínez
Amateurs could learn so much about safer sex from professionals:
Health experts are warning of new and highly contagious fungal strains after an NYC man in his 30s developed a sexually transmitted form of ringworm — the first reported case in the US…[cases of] Trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII…have been on the rise in Europe, especially in men who have sex with men. The man in the new case study had visited England, Greece and California. He reported having sex with men during his travels, none of whom disclosed similar skin issues….infections caused by TMVII seem to respond to standard antifungal therapies…but…can take months to clear up. They also may be confused with…eczema, which may delay treatment…
…A new [Utah] law requires the board to find a company that can [indoctrinate kids in the moribund]…human trafficking [hysteria in hopes of reviving it. “Rescue industry” groups who]…exploit…[the hysteria are still vomiting out the usual agency-denying nonsense about how “]the majority of victims don’t realize they’re being trafficked[” and claiming that…ordinary adolescent problems constitute “]signs teachers could look for[“]…
Last week, Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts in his hush money trial after a jury unanimously agreed he had falsified business records to cover up allegations of an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Daniels’ credibility on the witness stand became a linchpin in the prosecution’s case…[but] despite Trump’s lawyers’ best efforts to slut-shame Daniels and portray her as someone trying to shake down a powerful man by selling a fabricated, salacious story, in the end, the jury found Daniels’ testimony convincing. That felt especially gratifying ― even vindicating ― to fellow porn actors and sex workers…“I wish I could believe that we’ve seen the last of Donald Trump, but I’m not that optimistic. But one thing I am pleased about is that despite the attempts at character assassination, the jury still clearly considered Daniels, a credible witness,” said Maggie McNeill, a retired sex worker and the author of the blog The Honest Courtesan …“Back in the ’90s ― before ‘sex trafficking’ hysteria was heavily promoted by politicians and other propagandists…the U.S. public was largely turning against sex work criminalization,” she said. “Perhaps this is a small sign that we’re going back that way again”…
Life now for the subjects of a surveillance state:
As [cop shops] expand their use of [drones], no agency has embraced the technology quite like the…Chula Vista [California] Police Department…In October 2018, the city became the first in the nation to start a Drone as First Responder (DFR) program…now those devices criss-cross the skies of Chula Vista daily…with poorer residents [predictably] experiencing far more exposure to the drones’ cameras and rotors than their wealthier counterparts…drones…are…routinely deployed for minor issues such as…loud music. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the city even used drones to [harass]…homeless encampments…residents…are afraid to spend time in their backyards; they fear that the machines are following them down the street, spying on them while they use the public pool or change their clothes…drones, equipped with cameras and zoom lenses powerful enough to capture faces clearly and constantly recording while in flight, have amassed hundreds of hours of video footage of the city’s residents…Department secrecy around the recordings remains the subject of ongoing litigation…
Censors now pretend thoughts they don’t like constitute a “crime”:
In a new report…The Future of Free Speech…points out that online regulation changed in 2017 with Germany’s adoption of the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), “which…inspired [politician]s around the world…But…[Europe’s version of NetzDG,] the DSA “gives way too much power to government agencies to…remove…content and to…out anonymous speakers,” cautioned the Electronic Frontier Foundation… “The Digital Services Act will essentially oblige Big Tech to act as a privatized censor on behalf of governments”…[warned] Jacob Mchangama, now executive director of The Future of Free Speech… “Legal online speech made up most of the removed content from posts on Facebook and YouTube in France, Germany, and Sweden…The highest proportion…was…in Germany, where 99.7% and 98.9% of deleted comments were found to be legal on Facebook and YouTube, respectively”…most of the content being removed from social media is permissible even under local laws…
There’s psychopathy and there’s pure evil, and then there’s this:
…Rex Heuermann…[has] be[en] arraigned in the deaths of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla…He had previously been charged with murdering four other women…Taylor disappeared in 2003. Costilla was killed 30 years ago, in 1993, and her inclusion…indicates that prosecutors now believe Heuermann was killing women for much longer than previously thought…Additionally, prosecutors say they recovered a file on a hard drive in his basement used to “methodically blueprint” his killings. The all-caps document features a series of checklists with tasks to complete before, during and after the killings, as well as practical lessons for “next time.” Among the dozens of entries written are reminders to clean the bodies and destroy evidence, to “get sleep before hunt” and to “have story set”. One section, titled “things to remember,” appears to highlight lessons from previous killings, prosecutors said, such as using heavier rope and limiting noise in order to maximize “play time”. A “body prep” checklist includes, among other items, a note to “remove head and hands”…that entry may connect Heuermann to yet another victim, Valerie Mack, whose partial skeletal remains were discovered near the body of Taylor after her disappearance in 2000…
For a warden to be charged, there must be much more to this:
The warden of a maximum-security Wisconsin prison and eight [screws have been] charged…following investigations into the deaths of four [of their prisoners]…over the past year…warden…Randall Hepp…is charged with misconduct…The other eight face charges of inmate abuse…The first of the[ir] four [victims], Dean Hoffman, killed himself in solitary confinement last June…Tyshun Lemons and Cameron Williams were both found dead…in October…and…Donald Maier was found dead…in February…
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Diary #728
Posted in Diary, tagged drugs, Louisiana, nanny state, Oklahoma, Sunset, Washington (state) on June 11, 2024| 2 Comments »
Though there are apparently a number of things my sinuses dislike, such as mold spores and possibly some plants, I’ve never really suffered from the traditional allergy symptoms; instead, I usually developed terrible sinus headaches which, if not stopped in time with pseudoephedrine, generally led to dizziness and violent nausea. In New Orleans I had to treat such headaches about once a week year-round, so you can imagine how mightily pissed off I was when the nanny state decided I needed to ask permission and be recorded in a government database every time I bought the medicine I could not function without. When I moved to Oklahoma, the headaches became far less frequent, but I still got them about once a month or so. Since I moved to Washington state, however, I very rarely get them, and when I do they tend to develop much more slowly, so I have plenty of warning and can take my medicine before things spiral out of control. But since I’ve been living at Sunset full-time, I’ve noticed that I sneeze a great deal more than I ever have before, and last Thursday I started suffering from the itchy, watery eyes I’ve heard other people talk about, but have never experienced before. By Friday morning I was so congested I had to breathe through my mouth, and no amount of nose-blowing produced even the slightest result; it was as if someone had implanted a big, dry sponge in my sinuses. Large doses of several kinds of antihistamines and decongestants produced no results until Saturday, and by yesterday it had retreated into a mere sniffle and my eyes were back to normal. I have to assume that a change in weather had triggered the release of pollen or spores from some plant not found in the South, resulting in a new kind of allergic reaction for me; it’s not fun, but I have to say it was a helluva lot less unpleasant than being so sick I need to retreat to a dark bedroom to sleep it off.
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