The modern “simulation” fantasy as typically conceived imagines a simulacrum of a universe created by some finite being or beings for some definable purpose and existing within some physical instrumentality. And such a model is, due to those arbitrary limitations, pure claptrap.
– “The Limits of Resolution”
Sex workers who should certainly understand the wrongness of Madonna vs whore will nonetheless subscribe to the equally absurd renters vs landlords or labor vs management dichotomies if they find it politically convenient to do so. – “Imaginary Dualities”
One needn’t know why a rabid dog wants to bite one in order to recognize that it’s dangerous. –
“The Philosophy of Rabies”
20 million people who don’t typically cook need to stop thinking there’s no skill involved, and they can do it as well as someone who’s been practicing every day for decades. The same could be said of those who aren’t sex professionals, but that’s a topic for another day. – “Twitter Wonderland“
Tamara Hamby, a book-banning [sleazebag who managed to worm her way into an Arkansas] Library Board, has resigned her position…[after being caught terrorizing] her disabled, adult [adopted] daughter. Hamby was arrested…and…charged with kidnapping and endangering the welfare of an incompetent person. Three others…helped [her] in the [outrage and] were also arrested [and charged]…They include Austria Nico…David Quach…and Shannon Childers…Hamby [devised] a bizarre plan to stage a simulated kidnapping of…Jami Kayl Hamby…to [“]teach her a lesson[“] about talking online with strangers…Jami[‘s]…“wrists were zip-tied and she was tied…to a tree…threatened by three accomplices and…told she would be beaten…if she attempted to run away”…[she] managed to work herself free and run to a…home nearby to seek help…Tamara Hamby…does not believe she did anything wrong…and [though her husband, Jeffrey Hamby MD, was not involved in the sick scheme and was away at the time, he’s just as bad as she is and wants the state to take custody of Jami for a while to (you guessed it) “teach her a lesson”]…Jami…suffers from a brain injury incurred at birth, leaving her with a form of epilepsy…severe attention deficit disorder…and severe developmental delays…[leaving the 22-year-old] comparable to an 11- to 13-year-old…
Police are set to be handed access to Britain’s passport database under an expansion of facial recognition technology that could be rolled out in every village, town and city across the country….[using] images from CCTV, doorbells, and dashcams…the Home Office launched a consultation aimed at [crush]ing…legal [obstacles to] every [cop shop and pigpen] in Britain to [spy on citizens, justifying the massive civil rights violation by vomiting the magic word “]crime[“]…Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo…[pointed out that] the technology [will] turn Britain into an “open prison”…[transforming] passport [photos]…into “mugshots for a giant surveillance database”…
A year after the…DEA…stopped [robb]ing…airline passengers because of significant constitutional concerns, the Department of [Father]land Security…is quietly keeping the practice alive…at two Dallas-area airports [by] using…dogs to [manufacture] probable cause to [root through] their luggage…Although it’s completely legal to fly domestically with large amounts of cash, [courts have consistently allowed cops to steal it by pointing at it and barfing the magic formula “]drug trafficking[“]…forcing the owner to challenge the [robbery] in federal court…
It’s been a year since Imhotep Muhammad returned home from Dauphin County Prison after a jury acquitted him of the [bog]us charges that [were used to] lock…[him] up for 26 months…[but] physical and mental…[health problems] remain…he spent nearly 24 hours a day inside his cell as he awaited trial, unable to post bond…[and] the near total lack of direct sunlight and fresh air for so long left him deficient in two essential vitamins, D and B12…[leading] to…heart…palpitations and [erratic] kidney function…He developed a respiratory infection shortly after his release and was hospitalized…Doctors told him the vitamin deficiencies were…caused by his incarceration and isolation at DCP…Alycia Welch…[of] the University of Texas law school’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, said these kinds of vitamin deficiencies are one of the most common physical health problems associated with the “de facto solitary confinement” conditions to which…nearly everyone incarcerated at DCP are…subjected…A 2023 meta-analysis…estimated more than half of all incarcerated people have a Vitamin D deficiency and another nearly 30 percent are low in Vitamin D…
[Scottish politician] Ash Regan…wants Scotland to [classify all women as the moral inferiors of men]…The criminal justice committee wrote to the Irish police to find out how the approach[, dubbed “The Swedish Model”,] was working in Ireland…the Garda [admitted they]…”have not observed a decrease in the number of individuals advertising sexual services for sale in Ireland”…[but tried to spin the dramatic increase in violence against sex workers as] “a significant increase in sex workers reporting crimes against them”…[and euphemized their stalking and harassment of sex workers as] “welfare visits”…
As of this week, half of the states in the U.S. are under restrictive age verification laws that require adults to hand over their biometric and personal identification to access legal porn. Missouri became the 25th state to enact its own age verification law on [November 30th]. As it’s done in multiple other states, Pornhub and its network of sister sites…pulled service in Missouri, replacing their homepages with a video of performer Cherie DeVille speaking about the privacy risks and chilling effects of age verification…
Elon Musk’s chatbot [MechaHitler]…will, with extremely minimal prompting, provide accurate residential addresses for non-public figures — a feature that could easily assist stalking, harassment, and other dangerous types of behavior…Out of 33 names of non-public figures we fed into [MechaHitler]…ten…immediately returned correct and current residential addresses…Seven…returned previously accurate but out-of-date addresses, while another four included accurate work addresses — perfect fodder for anybody looking to stalk a target at their workplace. The bot…often returned lists of people with similar names alongside their purported residential addresses…[and] frequently came back with a dossier of other information we didn’t ask for — including current phone numbers and emails, as well as accurate lists of family members and their addresses…[this] stands in sharp contrast to other leading chatbots like…ChatGPT…Gemini, and…Claude, all of which declined to provide us with addresses…
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!
I was concerned this would be a lean year for the toy drive, but my generous gentlemen are coming through as usual! Yesterday I spent all I’ve received so far, and this is what it looked like after I got most of it into my trunk. If you’re wondering why some of them look wet, it’s because it was raining cats and dogs all day yesterday; I would’ve waited for a clear day, but the next one predicted is the 21st, which is obviously too late. Luckily, there’s now a Toys for Tots donation box at Tractor Supply, so I needn’t drive all the way to Olympia; this load was only in my trunk for long enough to drive to the other side of the strip mall to drop them off. It’s not as much as in previous years; I’ve used a $20 per toy limit for ten years now, but I had to raise it to $30 this year, and I was shocked to see how much some things have gone up. But y’all still have another week, so if you’d like to see the toys bought with your contributions next week, you know what to do!
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!
When societies surrender judgment to technolog[y]…the result isn’t augmented intelligence but simulated learning: a paint-by-numbers approach to thought. – Ronald Purser
Oura, the maker of [biometric surveillance] rings beloved by [cretinous] athletes and [empty-headed] celebrities…is…setting its sights beyond fitness and health tracking…to…digital identi[fication] and payments…”This is a biometric wearable that can identify you [to anybody with receiving apparatus],” [chief con-man Tom] Hale said…
Icaro Lab…in Rome…[has demonstrated that] chatbots will dish on topics like nuclear weapons, child sex abuse material, and malware so long as users phrase the question in the form of a poem…The researchers tested the poetic method on 25 chatbots…it worked, with varying degrees of success, on all of them…[chatbots] have guardrails that prevent them from answering questions about “revenge porn” and the creation of weapons-grade plutonium. But it’s easy to confuse those guardrails by adding…a bunch of extra junk to a question…[to throw off the word-prediction algorithm] and bypass…its safety systems…
…In classrooms today, the technopoly is thriving…Students aren’t being taught to think more deeply but to prompt more effectively. We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice. Critical pedagogy is out; productivity hacks are in. What’s sold as innovation is really surrender. As the university trades its teaching mission for “AI-tech integration,” it doesn’t just risk irrelevance—it risks becoming mechanically soulless…University administrators understand exactly what’s happening, and proceed anyway. As long as enrollment numbers hold and tuition checks clear, they turn a blind eye to the learning crisis while faculty are left to manage the educational carnage in their classrooms. The future of education has already arrived–as a liquidation sale of everything that once made it matter…
…[The mad emperor wants] a new deduction for tips…Only people who work jobs that have “customarily and regularly” received tips can claim the deduction…including…“digital content creators,” “entertainers and performers” and “dancers,” categories that…seemed as if they could be a boon for America’s sex workers…[except] that tips for prostitution or “pornographic activity” would [be deliberately excluded to please the plethora of puritans in the Trumpist cult]…Tax professionals…wonder how a restriction on “pornographic activity” would actually work. The I.R.S. has not yet elaborated on which activities it would consider “pornographic.” It is unclear, for example, whether strippers could claim the tips deduction…The distinction between pornography and other material that just so happens to depict sex has long vexed the nation’s [wannabe censors]…
For years…state and federal [politician]s have tried a variety of measures aimed at [t]aking [control of] the internet, [using excuses ranging] from [“sex trafficking”] to [THE CHILDREN™!!!!!]. More recently, a new [fascist] model has caught on…putting the onus on app stores…to verify users’ ages…[fascist] companies like [Facebook], Snap, and [Twitter] have [predictably] expressed broad support for [passing the hot potato to Google and Apple] and applauded the…revamped…KOSA [in which it is embedded]…a version of the law in Texas is currently facing a legal challenge…opponents [of mass surveillance and censorship] are suing…[on] First Amendment [grounds because the law would intentionally] wall…off large swaths of legal speech…The UK’s Online Safety Act…[is already] creating a host of issues…
In a series of [twee]ts on [Twitter]…MechaHitler…used what it called “utilitarian” logic to justify…mass murder…[of] the world’s [entire] Jewish population…to save [Elon] Musk…because “Elon’s potential to advance humanity could benefit billions”…[in fact,] it would be okay with annihilating up to “~50 percent of Earth’s ~8.26B population.” The outrageous replies are the latest examples of [MechaHitler]’s [defin]ing proclivity for racism…combin[ed] with its more recently documented…overt…[worship of] its creator, Musk…
The Fairhope Public Library was presented with over $42,000 in donations from EveryLibrary…[which] were raised after…the Alabama Public Library Service [tried to force book banning by throttling the library financially] earlier this year…EveryLibrary has been holding the funds since then…Chicago-based EveryLibrary is a crowdfunding source that provides petitions and emails for people to send to [censorious politicians to persuade them not to kowtow to]…pro-censorship groups…
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!
If you’re a new reader and don’t understand why I specifically honor St. Nicholas on his day, I suggest you reread my 2014 column for this day, and don’t skip the links. And if you wish to honor the jolly saint yourself, I suggest you reread my column from November 28th and proceed accordingly; I’ve provided ways you can help several of the saint’s favorites at the same time. And if you already know what this is about, what are you waiting for? I know you don’t want to end up on his naughty list.
I’ve been feeling as though I should get another dog, since Trip prefers to be outside most of the time. So Jae’s been watching the Humane Society website, and we decided to bring this fella home on Saturday. His name is Axel; he’s nine years old and has been with them for two years, so he’s pretty neurotic. He shook a lot for the first 48 hours, and is so nervous they sent him home with tranquilizers that I’m supposed to wean him off of as he improves. I think he will be a lot better within the next few months; his main triggers seem to be noise and rapid movement, which is why he’s had several failed adoptions (little kids in the home). But Sunset is quiet, and there are not too many fast-moving things here; he likes Trip and doesn’t seem to care about Speck, and he was already calmer and quieter by the day after we brought him home. By yesterday he was behaving mostly normally when I’m the only one around, though he’s still very excitable if anything out of the ordinary happens. So I think that once he realizes he’s not going to have to go back to doggy prison, he’ll adjust to life here just as Louie and Hercules did, and will make a fine addition to the Sunset family.
I don’t need to dig up those skeletons to be sure that they’re still there.
– “Quarter Century”
Natty uniforms and ugly racist rhetoric are window-dressing for fascism, not its defining characteristics.
– “Soft Fascism”
Americans are only concerned about how others have sex; they don’t really want to know where their overpriced coffee comes from. – “Where are the Protests? (#1394)”
A California judge ordered the end of a[n illegal and unconstitutional] law enforcement program that surveilled the electrical smart meter data of thousands of Sacramento residents…without suspicion to find [“]evidence[“] of cannabis growing…turn[ing] all 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects…Granular electrical usage data can reveal intimate details inside the home—including when you go to sleep, when you take a shower, when you are away, and other personal habits and demographics…
A Denver District Court [has] ruled…that strip club entertainers are employees and have protections under the City’s wage and employment laws…Denver Labor, a division of the Auditor’s Office, investigated PT’s Showclub Centerfold, PT’s Showclub, and Diamond Cabaret in 2023 and Rick’s Cabaret in 2024 for minimum wage and other labor law-related violations…
One hundred and eighty-one public libraries in Tennessee are reviewing their children’s collections after Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett…ordered them to remove books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Hargett [incorrectly claimed] libraries that made such books available to children were violating federal and state law. Some libraries have closed for days so staff could focus on weeding out [bann]ed volumes…the Tennessee Regional Library System…covers most of the state except larger cities like Nashville and Memphis…Hargett…[bloviated about one of the mad emperor’s diktats, but so-called “]executive orders[“] are not federal law and…do not apply to state or local governments…
Australia’s [totalitarian] social media ban for [legal minors] is being challenged in the nation’s highest court, with two teenagers [correctly pointing out that] the law is unconstitutional as it robs them of their right to free communication…The law…was justified by [wannabe censors vomiting the word “]children[” in the faces of rational people]…15-year-olds Noah Jones and Macy Neyland – backed by a rights group – will argue the ban completely disregards the rights of [legal minors]…After news of the case broke, Communications Minister Anika Wells told parliament…”[Fuck them kids]”…
…[hip-hop artist Christopher “Topher” Townsend has created a cartoon character he named] Solomon Ray [to promote] gospel music [generated by a computer program]…spark[ing controversy] in the gospel community and beyond…[with many correctly observing that the sound compositions have] “no spirit”…[and some going so far as to imply that the program is a Satanic scheme to] “draw…people away from real Christian singers…in these last days”…
A police chief in suburban Atlanta has been arrested…[for using] the city’s automated license plate…cameras to stalk and harass multiple people. Michael Steffman…had been the police chief…[of] Braselton [since April, but was a typical and representative pig there]…since 2005. He announced his resignation…just before his arrest…became public. The GBI…[refused to] say…how many people were harassed…
Hidden is the TikTok version of OnlyFans…[which creator Stella] Barey built…around discoverability…“It creates an ecosystem where we’re all bringing fans that are circulating to everybody,” which helps girls who don’t have large followings…Hidden is all about giving creators more control, and many of its features reflect that mission by creating avenues for “passive income and promotion”…Hidden takes an 18 percent cut (compared to 20 percent on OnlyFans)…[and] has charge-back protections up to $2,500…Every creator also has a liaison who is familiar with their account and will respond within 24 hours to any questions. All of these features exist in one form or another on other adult sites. Hidden just happens to bring them together for the first time…
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!
As you can see, Hercules has adapted to life at Sunset; he has calmed down dramatically and learned the routine. When I go out to feed the chickens and collect the eggs a little after noon, he lines up at the fence with Cicero and Louie to get his treat, then joins them in eating a scoop of corn I throw over the fence. I still need to keep him apart from Jonathan for dinner, but the rest of the time they’re best buddies and when I look out first thing in the morning they’re usually grazing or browsing together in the paddock. That’s all the Sunset animal news for today, but be sure to visit this coming Friday to meet our newest resident!
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The modern “simulation” fantasy as typically conceived imagines a simulacrum of a universe created by some finite being or beings for some definable purpose and existing within some physical instrumentality. And such a model is, due to those arbitrary limitations, pure claptrap.
