This week ends, of course, with my birthday! I’ve already received one gift, a copy of the Nicholas Cage version of Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space (from reader Vanguardcdk), and I think something else is on the way from another reader because it’s missing from my Amazon wishlist (and thank you both!) If you, too, would like to get me something, I’ve arranged the list in order of ascending price, so you can find the right point for your budget! I’m out at Sunset this week, so anything you send will await my return a week from Friday; my landlord and neighbor are both dears about keeping an eye out for packages and putting them safely on my desk. Speaking of desks, I’ve started getting my office at Sunset together; Chekhov has built himself a set of bookshelves, so we were able to move all of his books out to the cottage. And that cleared space in the hall closet for everything that doesn’t fit in our smallish kitchen pantry, plus emptied out my office for me to fully move into. Maybe I’ll buy myself a desk for my birthday present; after all, even if the weather slows down my improvements outside, that doesn’t mean I can’t go back to fixing up the inside.
Posted in Diary | Tagged holidays, imaginative fiction, Sunset | 1 Comment »
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”, and “Tricking and Treating“. Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year include “Diary #489“, “The Shaver Connection“, “No Explanation“, and the short story “Let There Be Dark“; there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #486, #487, #509, #530, and #537; and here’s a collection of spooky or Halloweeny links:
- It’s alive! ALIVE!
- A seasonal prank.
- R.I.P. Stuart Gordon.
- Nightmare of the week.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Trick-or-treating while black.
- Post-imperial tombs don’t count.
- The perfect authoritarian candidate.
- That is not dead which can eternal lie…
- Promising headline; disappointing story.
- And y’all mocked that guy for protecting himself.
- This season was written in part by Ray Bradbury.
- Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
- The world would be better if we elected more dead politicians.
Posted in Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary | Tagged animals, Australia, China, cops, Egypt, holidays, imaginative fiction, Ireland, New York, politicians, racism, Romania, Russia, Texas | Leave a Comment »
Eventually, all of us are food for fungi. – Brian Lovett
This week’s timely video was provided by Mistress Matisse, and the links above it by Cop Crisis, Jesse Walker, I Am Curious Blue, Popehat, Amy Alkon, Chekhov, and Cop Crisis again, in that order.
- Stop faking!
- 16,000 sound effects.
- The mummified Twinkie.
- Just protecting and serving.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Cops are the same everywhere.
- “Crime”: speeding. Penalty: summary execution.
From the Archives
- How is seeing a sex worker “harm reduction” in a monogamous marriage?
- You thought I was joking when I put that necrophilia item in this heading.
- Y’all didn’t stand up for actual pros; now they’re coming for you dabblers.
- There’s literally never been a case of a kid getting drugged trick-or-treat.
- A well-known prohibitionist publicly masturbates to “sex slave” fantasies.
- This is finally getting attention outside of libertarian & sex worker circles.
- Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world.
- Where “predators” is used to mean “those who hire local entrepreneurs”.
- We’re lucky cops & prosecutors moronically chose such a wealthy target.
- Once in a while, there are witnesses to the way cops act toward women.
- The anti-whore brigade just wants to make sex workers’ lives miserable.
- Hearings for the DC decriminalization bill dwarfed similar NYC meetings.
- Threatening landlords to get them to evict whores is a popular pig trick.
- Prohibitionists never grasp how unhinged they sound to normal people.
- Pro-decrim articles are even common on conservative sites these days.
- The myth of Nigerian “sex trafficking” has grown ever more outlandish.
- Cannabis prohibition in North America will soon be a thing of the past.
- When this (soon) arrives in the US, the excuse will be “sex trafficking”.
- It’s never called “trafficking” when the government or a crony does it.
- Don’t teach kids about sex; fill their heads with anti-sex propaganda.
- Allena Gabosch presents an essay collection called Sex Positive Now.
- This popular UK cop masturbatory fantasy has crossed the Irish Sea.
- When a highway is destroyed, the traffic has to go into side streets.
- Any non-politician would have given this up as a bad idea long ago.
- Activists, shareholders and employees ask Amazon to be less evil.
- It’s the same everywhere our work is even partially criminalized.
- Sex workers in Indonesia form an association to fight together.
- “Crime”: introducing two people. Sentence: life as a pariah.
- A cop who molested people spiritually as well as physically.
- Why won’t prohibitionists let sex workers get other jobs?
- Another sleazy scam artist raping aspiring sex workers.
- If you aren’t worried about spy planes, how about this?
- TSA is helping to build a giant biometric database.
- Another story touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws.
- Let’s hope Moran discovers the Streisand Effect.
- What the fuck is going on in San Angelo, Texas?
- Cops, Muppets, Florida, words, and much more.
- An excuse for being moody and cantankerous.
- Your government refers to this as “correction”.
- This is getting both nastier and more tangled.
- Cops, books, Sesame Street and much more.
- October 2015 and 2016 in retrospect.
- Links for Halloween, 2018 and 2019.
- An exceptionally pleasant autumn.
- Katie Herzog on Stephen Elliott.
- Rapist cop of the week.
- R.I.P. Scotty Bowers.
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny | Tagged animals, asset seizure, cops, Germany, Maryland, Missouri, Nigeria, politicians, propaganda, racism, Texas, video | 1 Comment »
It took us six weeks, but we’ve finally got all the materials for our roof on the way! I was hoping to have the roof up before the rain came again, but Trump’s silly trade war made that impossible; metal building components are hard to find here already (I reckon they’re just not as popular in Washington as in drier climes), and the tariffs made the ones that were available insultingly expensive. But we found some leads a few weeks ago, and with the help of a generous gent I was able to shove money around to clear enough space on my credit cards to buy what I needed (if anyone else wants to volunteer to help me pay that, please do). We got the structural steel a month ago, then this week I ordered the cee purlins (crossmembers which support the roof panels) from a place in Phoenix and the roof panels themselves from a place near Knoxville, Tennessee; today Chekhov is picking up the heavy-walled pipe we’re using for the support posts. Since the stuff from other states is coming via freight, it’ll probably be late November before it arrives; that’s OK because it won’t be needed until the roof structure is in place, and Grace will be welding the trusses together in her shop. Since we’ll have to work around the rain, phase four will probably go slowly; we figure it may take until the beginning of spring. But then we’ll have shelter from the rain, so the walls should go relatively quickly afterward. For the time being, expect about two updates a month; let’s hope the progress speeds up again in March! 
Posted in Diary | Tagged Sunset, Washington (state) | Leave a Comment »
Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!” – John Greenleaf Whittier
On looking back at my life and pondering the various forks in the road when I might have chosen another path than the one I actually did, I have realized that I cannot agree with Whittier’s famous lines. While might-have-beens are indeed often sad on the surface, I find that (in my own life, at least) deeper reflection usually reveals that what actually happened was really better in the long run than what might have. Nor does it matter whether the choice I made was a free one, a constrained one, or a forced one; over and over again, the place I ended up was really better for me (and often for others) than the alternative. The most obvious example was the chain of events which led me to sex work; though I hadn’t originally planned on making it my full-time profession, none of the others I considered would have given me all the blessings sex work has, nor allowed me to do as much good in the world. Another is childlessness; though I was unable to have kids rather than unwilling, it’s still for the best that I didn’t. Some of the rough spots in the past 30 years would have been dramatically more difficult with a child to worry about instead of just myself, and it’s a virtual certainty the government (and possibly even my own family) would have weaponized my children against me. Though I still feel sad when I think about losing all the work I did building my ranch in Oklahoma, it’s clear that my current situation is much better for me, for Grace, and for too many others to list. Though my parting from Matt left a wound that will never completely heal, both of us are probably better off as friends than as spouses. And though I could never have recognized or admitted it when I was younger, it’s really for the best that I avoid romantic partnerships entirely. My lacking the wherewithal to hire an agent and endure the ordinary publishing process so my books would have better distribution than via self-publishing? Yeah, that was probably for the best, too. Even my abstaining from intoxicants until six years ago produced the best possible outcome; though some people might regret losing all those years of possible exploration, I realize that sobriety was much better for me both emotionally and economically until I reached a level of maturity conducive to wise, responsible use. I’m sure I could think of a dozen other examples, but I think you get the point; though I am far too cynical to believe that I live in the best of all possible worlds, I have of late been forced to grudgingly admit that, whether by chance or fate, I have somehow managed to play the best possible game with the hand I was dealt.
Posted in Biography, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged drugs, marriage, pragmatism, psychology | 3 Comments »
One drawback to living on the edge of a rain forest is, as you can probably guess, that it rains an awful lot. From October to May it’s always at least wet here if not actually raining; June and September are somewhat rainy, and only July and August are actually dry. That’s why we started doing the outdoor work on our bathhouse around the end of May; we wanted to take advantage of the dry weather while it lasted. But now it’s done, and we’re back to the rain; I wanted to get the roof at least started by the end of September, but the difficulty of getting the roof materials delayed that past the beginning of autumn. It looks like we’ve finally lined up a supplier for those parts, so we’ll be getting started on the trusses soon; they’re welded indoors in the shop, anyhow. And once they’re ready, it’ll only take a few dry days to get everything in place, after which it won’t matter.
Posted in Diary | Tagged Sunset | Leave a Comment »
Authoritarians are apparently unable to conceive of any solution to any problem that doesn’t depend upon some kind of enforcers using violence to impose “regulations” conceived of by the ruling elite, with any deviation punished by still more violence. It doesn’t matter whether the problem is man-made or natural, intentional or unintentional, widespread or sporadic, common or rare, or even real or unreal, because the point of the proposed “solutions” isn’t actually to solve anything, but rather to seize more power for the rulers and their enforcers. If anything, real solutions (however brutal and destructive to human rights) are far less desirable than busywork “solutions” (preferably involving a massive, unaccountable bureaucracy and a boatload of new criminal laws) which do little if anything to solve the problem and therefore result in a new, permanent way to subjugate and bleed the peons. And wholly imaginary problems are superior (in the short run) to real ones, because without a real subject to examine, it’s harder for foes of the regime to collect actual facts with which to undermine the supposedly-benevolent tyranny. Reason‘s J.D. Tuccille has recently published two articles on the subject, one about tyranny imposed using a real problem as an excuse, and the other about similar tyranny justified by an imaginary “problem” that mostly exists in animal fears and petty intolerance. And as you might expect, there isn’t a lot of difference:
We’re told that life is never getting back to normal, so we need to suck it up and accept a world of mask-wearing, economic disruption, and social distancing…government responses to COVID-19 are pushing the world toward authoritarianism…dressed up as if that’s a good thing. That’s unfortunate, given that less-intrusive responses to the pandemic are proving at least as effective as heavy-handed ones…authoritarian tools may become permanent because government officials are rarely punished for doing something, even if the something is awful and counterproductive…In addition…crises are excellent excuses for accumulating unprecedented authority and using it in novel ways. “For authoritarian-minded leaders, the coronavirus crisis is offering a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power,” Human Rights Watch cautioned in April. “The ‘lockdown measures’ adopted by many European states have disproportionately impacted racialized individuals and groups who were targeted with violence, discriminatory identity checks, forced quarantines and fines,” Amnesty International reported in June…”Governments…have exploited [the pandemic] to crack down on journalism and silence criticism,” the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression noted in July…Public health excuses continue to ride roughshod over protections for individual rights…
Compare with this:
…as the world wrestles with a pandemic and overbearing public health measures, [politicians] are taking the opportunity to tighten the screws on speech they don’t like…the French National Assembly…[tried to] give companies [only a single] hour…to [censor] content [it] alleged…to glorify terrorist activity or to constitute child pornography…France’s Constitutional Court struck down the vast majority of the law as an unconstitutional threat to freedom of expression. That’s really the only good news to report so far. France’s blocked…law was inspired by Germany’s notorious NetzDG law, which makes online platforms liable for illegal content…”the NetzDG conscripts social media companies into governmental service as content regulators,” with millions of euros in fines hanging over their heads if they guess wrong. That model of delegated censorship has proven to be as infectious as a viral outbreak, taking hold in over a dozen other countries…”Europe’s most influential democracy has contributed to the further erosion of global Internet freedom by developing and legitimizing a prototype of online censorship by proxy that can readily be adapted to serve the ends of authoritarian states,” Justitia, a Danish judicial thinktank, warned in a 2019 report…The U.S. faces its own speech- and privacy-threatening legislation in the form of the [so-called] EARN IT…Act…which…”would allow small website owners to be sued or prosecuted under state laws, as long as the prosecution or lawsuit [can be pretended to be] related to crimes against children,” warns the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We know how websites will react to this. Once they face prosecution or lawsuits based on other peoples’ speech, they’ll monitor their users, and censor or shut down discussion forums”…
Governments have been embracing this fascist power-delegation model – using threats in order to force corporations to exercise tyrannies their constitutions and other legal instruments prohibit to government – for over a decade now, always using scarecrows like “terrorism” and “sex offenders” and “human trafficking” in order to put the masses to sleep about it. So when COVID came along, it was 100% predictable that they would seize upon it to feed their insatiable hunger for power, while telling their gullible subjects it’s for their own good.
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Tyranny | Tagged Censor Chic, censorship, cops, disease, fascism, France, Germany, hysteria, internet, politicians | 5 Comments »
Vote, vote, vote
Vote, vote, vote
Unless you are a candied yam
‘Cause candied yams can’t vote. – Charlotte
Since we’re getting close to both Halloween and the real horror of the US presidential election, I figured a horror cartoon about an election would be appropriate; any resemblance between the ending of the cartoon and one possible outcome of the real election is strictly intentional. The links above it were provided by David Ley, Cop Crisis (x2), Radley Balko, Mark Draughn, Lenore Skenazy, and Jesse Walker, in that order.
- Nightmare of the week.
- “Watch the show, folks.“
- Much more of this, please.
- Nary a ham sandwich in sight.
- For those who FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE!
- No, this is a different black woman hog-tied by Aurora cops.
- The world would be better if we elected more dead politicians.
From the Archives
- A review of what seems a decent book on the reality of sex work in China.
- When it comes to the disabled, prudish paternalism trumps human needs.
- 41% of cops admit to beating their wives. How many more don’t admit it?
- Locking hundreds of women in secret dungeons, denying them lawyers.
- Nevada is now one of the most vile fonts of anti-whore vomit in the US.
- Some implied I was a crank for predicting this exact scheme years ago.
- Will Newsweek next tell us some big company has “rented” a new CEO?
- States still try to claim top spots in the “sex trafficking” pissing contest.
- Cops can be fired for consensual sex, but not torturing people to death.
- This is not about “pimps”, but rather sex workers and clients. For now.
- It’s wonderful that so many academic allies are debunking the hysteria.
- You can murder as many whores as you like without cops giving a shit.
- “Sex trafficking” provides a new excuse for the same bogus “evidence”.
- I really hope abusers keep using “sex trafficking” to justify their abuse.
- Michigan increases “sex trafficking” numbers with imaginary “victims”.
- Schools are rewarded for “finding” what the government wants found.
- Why did sex workers cooperate with a pig’s attention-getting scheme?
- Another sleazy attempt by a billionaire sociopath to hurt sex workers.
- Every sex worker arrested in a “sting” should sue the cops if possible.
- Another big article recognizing the Robert Kraft raids as a huge scam.
- Indian sex workers use Durga Puja as an occasion to protest tyranny.
- Government thinks it can make anything true by declaring it in a law.
- “…but that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
- Mark Draughn sees no good coming out of the FOSTA Facebook suit.
- Is anything narrower and meaner than the mind of a prison official?
- The Dutch pretend their bottleneck is intended to help sex workers.
- “Crossing the line” = “wantonly destroying people’s lives for sport”.
- The government keeps making up new rules in its war on thought.
- Wendy Mclroy on how the government is like an abusive husband.
- As the war on professionals escalates, STIs rise among amateurs.
- State programs to warp women’s minds are very popular in Ohio.
- An example of arbitrary control Turkish brothel owners exercise.
- Remember, this isn’t “human trafficking”, but consensual sex is.
- While stigma and criminalization exist, this will keep happening.
- Any new technology which can be used to spy on you, will be.
- Is there anything the government won’t call “sex trafficking”?
- Yes, this is absolutely rape. No, I don’t want to “discuss” it.
- A male “submissive” and topping from the bottom in court.
- I guess the return of “repressed memories” was inevitable.
- Friendship is the most powerful kind of love in the world.
- After whores, they very often come for strippers next.
- The “rescue” group which enabled a rapist for years.
- They’re bending over backwards to avoid that word.
- Another “monkey see, monkey do” FOSTA copycat.
- AirBnB “sex trafficking” fantasies are going global.
- Maggie, where are you advertising these days?
- The Swedish rot has now invaded Germany.
- A word for sponsors of The War on Whores.
- Cops, racism, absurdity, and much more.
- I’m not sure patience is a virtue, exactly.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2018 and 2019.
- A lovely birthday present from the gods.
- Cops, Florida, Hell and much more.
- R.I.P. Dennis Hof.
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny | Tagged animals, Australia, Colorado, cops, disease, I can't breathe, Kentucky, Louisiana, politicians, propaganda, psychology, racism, Romania, video, Virginia | 1 Comment »



