Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Diary #592

Chekhov told me a few weeks ago that he and his lady friend Yellowbird wanted to provide dinner for my birthday, but I had no idea they were planning to go all out with a fun Halloween-themed spread!   You can probably tell what the things at front left are; behind them are deviled eggs with a little avocado in the filling, and the pumpkin puke is guacamole.  Between the two pumpkins are mushroom eyeballs and a multi-layer dip topped with spiders made from black olives; to the left of those is a carrot cake, and the cemetery is a cheeseburger casserole.  The upside-down devilled eggs are poked with holes to resemble a hockey mask (as worn by Undead Serial Killer from Popular Slasher Movie Franchise Guy™), and the plate at front right contains tooth-rows made from apple slices, peanut butter & miniature marshmallows; Frankenstein’s monster heads made from kiwi fruit; banana ghosts; cucumber skulls; and teensy mandarins dressed as pumpkins.  And at the back are 50 roses, sent by Dr. Quest!  Jae got me some cool snakeskin print clothes, Yellowbird got me a horror-movie-watching blanket, and Grace got me some titanium chopsticks; we celebrated with three Vincent Price movies, and I got completely stoned and blew my diet.  So all in all, it was a very lovely birthday, and when I arrived at my city flat yesterday I had several presents from readers!

In the News (#1185)

Once-lawful whip-possessing citizens have now been made criminals.  –  Christian Britschgi

Universal Criminality

Politicians will criminalize virtually anything that can be defined:

…the Reno City Council [has] passed an ordinance that prohibits people from using or possessing whips in the city’s downtown without first obtaining a city permit.  The policy is in response to an increasing number of 911 calls by [aggressive busybodies imagining that] the periodic snaps and cracks of whips [are] gunshots.  Reno City Attorney Karl Hall said that the new restrictions were commonsense whip control…Council Member Jenny Brekhus voted against the ordinance because it didn’t apply citywide, thus leaving whips dangerously unregulated in most of Reno.  Meanwhile, a representative for the state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union argued that banning the possession of whips without a permit…contributes to the criminalization of [Reno’s] homeless…[who] are known for using whips for self-defense…

So does Reno also plan to criminalize cars backfiring and transformers exploding?

Nothing New

Do the chattering classes seriously believe unprotected sex is something new?

“Fluid bonding” — the act of intentionally sharing bodily juices with a sexual partner — is purportedly becoming a popular practice in bedrooms across the nation…a variety of publications are now reporting on the randy activity, which refers to far more than simply forgoing a condom during sex…fluid bonding is done with the goal of being “more connected, [or to] have more sensation, intimacy or commitment”…it…“is an active, conscious choice” that revolves around consent and intent…

And yet amateurs pretend that sex workers are the one who spread STIs.

Against Their Will (#831)

Prohibitionists call this “rescue”:

A woman who had overstayed in Singapore since 2013 was trying to escape [police violence] by climbing through her room window when she fell to her death last year…Gong Xiuxian…worked as a private masseuse from her home and sold apparel at market stalls…Her death on 2 November last year was pronounced an unfortunate misadventure by Coroner Kamala Ponnampalam…[so as to absolve cops from responsibility for terrorizing women by showing up with a gang] of eight [thugs to bang on their doors and shine lights into their]…bedroom [windows] at about 5.15am…

Feet of Clay (#839)

Nicholas Kristof is a vile excuse for a human being, so naturally he’s going into politics:

[Recently-retired] New York Times [hack column]ist Nicholas Kristof announced his candidacy…for Oregon governor, saying the state needs a political newbie to solve problems like homelessness and rural despair.  “I’ve never run for political office in my life,” Kristof said in a campaign video, expressing it as an asset.  He said he felt compelled to run for governor because, after [supporting state violence] around the world, he was heartbroken to see [what he considers insufficient in]flicti[on of it on] his home state…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1022)

All too often, evil arrives cloaked in the mantle of expediency:

Delta Air Lines…is testing new facial recognition technology [using the pretext of] reduc[ing] the time it takes between arriving at the airport and getting passengers in their seats…Delta wants to be the first [airline] to offer full curb-to-gate security centered around facial recognition…the pilot program…will soon be available to [marks who already belong to] Delta’s Loyalty Program…[and] have also uploaded passport details and have TSA Pre-check…

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1087)

Nobody is going to give expensive cannabis edibles to your spawn for free:

As Halloween approache[d]…several state attorneys general [vomited out stupid copaganda about]…marijuana edibles that [a moron might mistake for] regular candies and snacks.  Attorneys general in Ohio, New York, Illinois, Connecticut and Arkansas all released statements [last week], a part of a coordinated effort to [continue the dying drug war at least until they leave office]…THC is the main compound found in marijuana, and [has no known LD50 despite inane squawking about]…overdose…In Ohio, Attorney General Dave Yost…[claim]ed the levels of THC could have “real and devastating” consequences for children [who manage to consume 1/3 of their body weight in edibles]…

I find it amusing that so many people are surprised that NPR so often parrots copaganda; apparently they’re unfamiliar with the adage, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

Acting and Activism (#1113)

“Vagina Egg” Paltrow joins the prohibitionist trash who once called stripping a “gateway to slavery”:

[Noted sex scammer] Gwyneth Paltrow [joined noted bigot] Jada Pinkett Smith…in…[vomiting out ignorant, censorious nonsense about] “how pornography is harmful to women” on the latest episode of Pinkett Smith’s chat show, Red Table Talk…Neither [“celebrity” airhead] has any training on health issues or sexuality studies…Pinkett Smith, who on a [filmed but unaired] prior episode [verbally attacked and slut-shamed a sugar baby]…discussed having had what she [claimed was] “an unhealthy relationship with porn”…

Neither actress specified what kind of sexual content could be broadly classified as “pornography.”

Books of the Dead

I…have followed in the footsteps of my many-times-great-grandmeres by offering to others the wisdom that mortality is not a thing to fear, but rather a blessing to accept when it comes to us in the fullness of time.  –  “The Mysteries

Every year on this day, I write about the inevitability and goodness of Death.  Every year on this occasion, and in innumerable other essays, tweets and statements, “I have reminded my readers that every single thing in the Cosmos is mortal, and will pass away in its time.  [Organisms and empires alike] rise, thrive, decline, and fall, to be replaced by younger ones which then decline and fall in their time…crumbling into dust and passing first into memory, then legend, and eventually beyond the horizon of sentient knowledge.  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…”  And so, as I did earlier this year and will again on Friday and next week, I present a collection of statements I’ve previously made on this topic:

That experience of being a stranger in one’s own community, of being treated like a living oracle, like a weird visitor back from the underworld with divine wisdom to share…that, I think, is the experience which defines the old. – “Let There Be Dark

Western culture’s impending demise is being driven by tyrants whose destruction of freedom and justice is enabled by the masses willing to give them any power in exchange for their impossible promises to delay death, both personal and cultural, just a little longer.  –  “Eros and Thanatos

Death is what gives life meaning, and fighting excessively against it is as childish and futile as the behavior of a toddler who refuses to let another child take his place on the carousel once his ride is done.  –  “Thanatopsis

People believe what they want to believe, and some of them even seem wedded to the delusion that they can indefinitely avoid this riverbank, though none ever has since the dawn of the world.  –  “On the Riverbank

When [the Reaper] at last come to collect me it will be a rendezvous rather than a capture, a meeting (whether anticipated or unexpected) of old friends rather than the cornering of a terrified animal by a hunter who has never in the history of the world ever failed to run down his prey.  –  “A Necessary End

Sex and death are our constant reminders that for all our pretensions we are still animals; no wonder those uncomfortable with that fact try to disguise and sanitize both of them, to hide them from the children and speak about them in whispers, to bind them in legal codes and bury them under layers of ritual.  –  “Even This Shall Pass Away

Death is the one great universal experience, the sacrament shared by every dynamic thing from the most ephemeral of microbes to the stars and galaxies themselves, the inescapable conclusion to every form of existence not already dead in its immutability.  –  “The Dance of Death

You will die, and so will I, and there is absolutely nothing any of us can do about it…yet vast numbers are so obsessed with this simple and indisputable fact that they waste much of their time on Earth in a struggle they absolutely cannot win.  –  “The Day of the Dead

Halloween 2021

Happy Halloween, dear readers, and Blessed Be!

Links #591

I could be wrong, but I could also be right.  –  Alida Bailleul

One of things I’ve always liked about Blue Oyster Cult is their willingness to do songs about topics other than the typical ones, including a number about sci-fi, fantasy, and horror movies, such as this seasonal offering.  The first and last links above it were provided by Cop Crisis, and the others by Jonathan, Miranda Kane, Franklin Harris, and Jesse Walker, in that order.

From the Archives

In the News (#1184)

This case is important…because of…Texas’s cavalier and contemptuous mechanism for shielding from review potential violations of constitutional rights.  –  The Firearms Policy Coalition

Above the Law  

A rare case of a government functionary actually being punished for his crimes:

A [typical and representative porcine creature] will now spend life in prison himself after [raping women he was paid by the State to haul from one cage to another like livestock]…A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas sentenced Eric Scott Kindlay…to life in prison plus five years.  Kindlay…[ran] his own private prison transport company, signing contracts with local jails and [other government cage stacks to haul]…people who had been arrested on out-of-state warrants.  The…woman in the 2017 case testified that Kindlay [raped]…her…on a deserted stretch of road [en route from Alabama to Arizona]…in 2014…Kindlay [orally raped another woman]…after telling her that he had gotten lost.  Kindlay [attacked both]…while [they were] handcuffed.  While only two charges of sexual assault were listed on the indictment, a total of six women testified…that…for hundreds of miles…he [repeatedly] “threatened to kill them and made sexually explicit comments that escalated in intensity and depravity”…[he raped one] woman…in a park bathroom…a[nd another]…on [a] desolate hiking trail…in the middle of a snowstorm.  The individual [victims] did not apparently know that the others existed until the trial…[the] FBI…uncovered a total of 16 women who Kindlay had either harassed or assaulted from 2012 to 2017.  Eleven of these women submitted…statements…

Dysphemisms Galore (#345)

Many “sex trafficking” fetishists are also fixated on hentai:

…the web of human trafficking is a sordid saga…of dream merchants…with the connivance of traffickers, whose…illegal immigrants, once caught in these tentacles, most often succumb to…[being] deeply absorbed in the flesh trade…

Torture Chamber (#1143)

Stop faking!

Marc Crawford was booked into a Kentucky jail in May 2017.  Just shy of a month later, he left state custody in a body bag…[after] succumb[ing] to a previously diagnosed case of lung cancer, one for which state officials and health care contracting companies re[fused] to provide him basic treatment…Correct Care Solutions LLC, one of those contracting companies, refused to ensure Crawford received his scheduled chemotherapy treatments, and s[crews refused]…to give Crawford his prescriptions, took off his pain-medication patch, and put him on psychoactive medications that did not[hing to] treat his illness.  [Screws yelled “Stop faking!]…as Crawford vomited blood, and senior s[crews]…rebuffed several requests from a lower-level employee to [actually] give him [his prescribed medication]…

A Broker in Pillage (#1161)

Philadelphia has many different ways to rob its citizens:

Philadelphia’s notorious civil forfeiture program…ended in 2018 as a result of a 2014 class action lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice…The organization…recently surveyed 407 of the 30,000 people whose property was seized under Philadelphia’s program…the median value of seized items…was just $600.  More than two-thirds…were valued at $1,800 or less.  The median value of all property seized in a single case was $1,370.  Cash seizures…involved amounts as low as $25.  The cops even [stole] “a cologne gift set worth $20″ and a pair of crutches…In three-quarters of the cases…owners were either never arrested, never charged, or never convicted.  Yet…only 43 percent of [victims]…succeeded…[in getting] their property back…at a median cost of $3,500…and…[taking] nine months on average.  Some had to wait years…”just four ZIP codes in the city’s center” accounted for 57 percent of Philadelphia forfeitures.  The median income in those neighborhoods ranged from $16,000 to $30,000…[and] residents were mainly black or Hispanic…owners of seized property also were more likely to be unemployed and to earn less than $50,000 a year.  They were less likely to have college degrees and less likely to own a home…

The Mob Rules

I wish more people understood the power of legal precedent this well:

The Firearms Policy Coalition, a national gun rights outfit, filed a friend of the court brief at the U.S. Supreme Court…in support of Whole Woman’s Health, the abortion rights group that is leading the legal fight against…the sweeping Texas anti-abortion law that recently went into effect.  “The approach used by Texas to avoid pre-enforcement review of its restriction on abortion and its delegation of enforcement to private litigants…could just as easily be used by other States to restrict First and Second Amendment rights or, indeed, virtually any settled or debated constitutional right.”  The Firearms Policy Coalition “takes no position on whether abortion should be protected by the Constitution,” the brief stated, “but believes that the judicial review of restrictions on established constitutional rights, especially those protected under this Court’s cases, cannot be circumvented in the manner used by Texas”…

I Spy (#1171)

Oh, what a surprise:

Governments were already discussing how to misuse…[cell phone] scanning technology even before Apple announced its plans…[to] scan iPhones for child sexual abuse materials…[it was obvious] that…governments [would] insist…the company scan for other types of images, and there now seems good evidence for this [despite]…Apple[‘s pretense] that it had a [magical politician-proof] safeguard in place to…prevent [governmental] misuse…such promises are impossible to keep…[because] any government could pass a law requiring tech companies to use their available capabilities (e.g., the CSAM scanning system) to look for images they say are associated with terrorism, or any type of political opposition…A group of security researchers says that the European Union [already] planned to use this technology to scan for other types of images even before Apple revealed that it had developed its own system…

Dangerous Speech (#1172)

Remember how I pointed out that the government couldn’t win this fairly?

Defense attorneys in the Lacey/Larkin case…argue in a new motion that the government willfully ignored federal Judge Susan Brnovich’s instructions during the pair’s recent trial in Phoenix.  Instead, prosecutors doubled down on false accusations of sex trafficking and child sex trafficking, goading the defense into calling for a mistrial…the motion calls on Brnovich to dismiss the case with prejudice [because] in provoking the mistrial, the prosecution violated the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment…the feds’ mistrial shenanigans were part of “a pattern of repeated and brazen government misconduct,” [intentionally] committed by “seasoned prosecutors”…And because the government has “seized virtually all of the defendants’ assets” — including money set aside for defense costs — the mistrial leaves the defendants in an “untenable” financial position…A new trial would favor the government…allowing it “a retooling of its faltering case”…

Back Issue #100

Each person has to decide whether he will go forth into the world as an active adult or just sit in the nursery with folded hands.
–  “With Folded Hands

Diary #591

I’ve been very frustrated with the slowness of our progress this year; during the two dry months we got very little done, and by the time we really started moving forward the rainy season had returned.  Last year, once Grace explained what needed to be done I could do a little, get her to inspect my work to be sure I was doing it correctly, and then go full speed ahead until I had finished and was ready to move on to the next step.  But the roof work required skills I don’t have, which couldn’t be easily explained, and it took us a long time to figure out what I could do without years of experience.  Grace still needs to fabricate the main beams, but once they’re done I now have the ability to weld them in place if we can get the welder close enough; MIG welding relies on wire mechanically fed up the line by a motor inside the machine, so the stinger line is relatively short compared to the heavy cables used in stick welding.  In this picture, I’m using nearly all the length there is, so to get to the very top of the central support we had to position the cart directly underneath (not always easy with tub and ladders in the way) and then put the welder up on top of a crate on the cart. It’ll be a little easier when we get away from the area directly above the tub, but I really wish we’d been able to get at least part of the roof in place before the monsoons.

In the News (#1183)

I’m not entirely sure why society collectively agreed that sex traffickers operate in a similar fashion to Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner.  –  Jessica Dean

Droit du Seigneur

It’s good to see this lurid narrative turned against cops for a change:

A woman who…filed a lawsuit in…Virginia…alleges that in 2010…[when] she travel[led] to the U.S. to work as an…escort…she was…[somehow unaware that the job involved] sex…and…[that] her new boss, Hazel Marie Sanchez Cerdas…[used threats to force her into unsafe and exploitative situations, and stole] all of [her income]…local [cops]…protect[ed] the [abusive pimps] in exchange for sexual services [for which the escorts were not compensated]…In April 2015, the plaintiff [got fed up with the exploitative arrangment]…and went to [the cops].  In 2019, Sanchez was charged with—and eventually pleaded guilty to—felony charges related to sex trafficking and was sentenced to 30 months in prison…

Unfortunately, the reporter is a “sex trafficking” fetishist who credulously parrots lots of copaganda in the article, but I’ve extracted what appears to be the important information from amongst the dysphemized descriptions, agency denial, and outright fantasies.

Big Dick Energy

“Even reasonably intelligent, sophisticated men seem to believe deep down that their phalluses…have the ability to damage women’s bodies and destroy our souls.”  Just in case some of you thought that was an exaggeration, please allow me to present this recent screenshot from Twitter, which also illustrates the concept of “science worship” as diagrammed here.  Compare to the bizarre claims of “sex trafficking” fetishists and other prohibitionists, and I think you’ll admit my point that both feminists and denizens of the “manosphere” are part of the same continuum of wackadoo.

The Prudish Giant (#895) 

Anything that demonstrates the absurdity of internet censorship is good:

Vienna’s tourism board has started an account on OnlyFans – the only social network that permits depictions of nudity – in protest against [other] platforms’ ongoing censorship of its art museums and galleries.  In July, the Albertina Museum’s new TikTok account was suspended and then blocked for showing works by the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki…This followed a similar incident in 2019, when Instagram [censored] a painting by Peter Paul Rubens…In 2018, the Natural History Museum’s photograph of the 25,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf figurine was deemed pornographic by Facebook and [censored]…The Leopold Museum has likewise struggled to promote its collection of nudes by the expressionist Egon Schiele, with [its ads censored by bureaucrats] in Germany, the UK and US…A short video featuring the painting Liebespaar by Koloman Moser, made to mark the Leopold Museum’s 20th anniversary this year, was rejected by Facebook and Instagram as “potentially pornographic”…the Albertina’s current exhibition, by the Italian portrait artist Amedeo Modigliani, [is also terrifying to puritans]…

See the city’s YouTube ad below.

Checklist (#927)

A whore-snitching app that skips the middlerat:

Police Scotland [has] adopt[ed] a simple [way to criminalize more sex workers]…by using the Unseen App.  The app, which is hosted by the [government]…has been downloaded to [cop]s’ mobile devices to …[give them various excuses they can claim are] signs of…exploitation [so as to arrest sex workers while calling it “rescue”]…the app will provide [cops] with [legally-admissible excuses for the harassment]…Assistant Chief Constable Judi Heaton [shared some of her favorite BDSM masturbatory fantasies about passive, doll-like sex workers]…

Eavesdropping (#1069)

Remember, Amazon eagerly hands data from internet-connected devices to cops:

A woman…requested all the information Amazon has on her through her two Amazon Dot devices and one Amazon Echo device as well as smart phones.  Several Zip files came through and when she clicked on the audio file she says she discovered…3,534 audio files in a single Zip file alone…Amazon [also] has a copy of all her phone contacts…

The Widening Gyre (#1116)

The “things on cars” branch of “sex trafficking” scarelore has expanded to include things near cars:

“So have you ever seen this type of car seat just out of nowhere?” the woman in the TikTok video asks…pointing to a photo of an abandoned baby car seat in a parking lot…“that’s not an ordinary car seat…[it’s a] sex trafficking car seat”…placed as bait by sex traffickers to kidnap and enslave unsuspecting victims…The woman who posted the video is…a TikTok creator with 122,000 followers who bills herself as a “spiritual gardener” who offers Tarot intuitive readings on social media.  [She has the typical] lack of credentials [of those billing themselves] sex trafficking expert[s, so as usual] her video has gone massively viral…the Wilkesboro [North Carolina] Police Department…[has so much spare time it actually] investigated this incident and…deemed…[it non-]criminal…but…Parker appears to be doubling down…[saying] “I still feel that there is something going on in our society”…

Uncommon Sense (#1143) 

Politicians the world over promise the same evil, impossible things, and stupid people just keep believing them:

[Spanish] Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez…pledged [once again] to “abolish” prostitution in the country, [even though no such prohibitionist campaign has ever done anything but increase]…violence a[gainst]…women…Sanchez took office [again] in January 2020 as head of a minority coalition government after his Socialist Party won two inconclusive national elections in 2019…

Tricked Out Treats

I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun.  So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween.  If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, and “Tricks for the Treat“.  Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year include “Dead on Arrival“, “The Mysteries“, “Could It Be…Satan?“, “The Sparkle of a Star“, and “The October Country“; there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #541#553#566, and #590, and here’s a collection of spooky or Halloweeny links: