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Posts Tagged ‘A Moral Cancer’

In the News (#1515)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

To automate the surveillance of lots of innocent people…is really corrosive.  –  Nathan Freed Wessler

Don’t Call It Trafficking (#1346) 

Remember, this isn’t “human trafficking”, but consensual sex is:

The U.S. is deporting [non-white] migrants from nations in Africa and Asia to [a concentration camp in] Panama, a major diplomatic [atrocity] for the Trump administration…The…[victims] included adults and families with children…Another U.S. military flight to Panama…deport[ed] more Asian migrants, in addition to some African deportees…from Cameroon…Panama’s foreign ministry confirmed it received…the [prisoners] under a…[shady deal] with the Trump [regime] that allows the U.S. to deport non-Panamanians to the Central American country.  The [victims]…included 119 deportees from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.  The costs of the deportations under the agreement will be covered by the U.S…

Stalkers in Blue (#1442)

Cops are nothing more than state-sponsored terrorists:

…cameras hidden in unmarked boxes have appeared on utility poles outside the Atlanta homes of some people connected to the movement against the police training center known as “Cop City”…after several years of ongoing state surveillance [and harassment] of [activists]…including [cops] following people…and blasting sirens outside bedroom windows at 3am…Three of the cameras are pointed at homes that Atlanta police, the FBI and the…ATF, jointly raided in February of last year, [using the excuse of] arsons of police motorcycles.  One camera is pointed at a cultural and social center.  Georgia Power, the utility company that owns the poles, [said] the boxes are not their property.  The FBI and the ATF denied any knowledge of them…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1471)

Cop “magic fentanyl” hysteria has escaped the US:

Two Ottawa [cops] were hospitalized after [having panic attacks over] fentanyl and crystal meth…In the early hours of February 5, 2025, a…[hysterical cop] was taken to the hospital after [having a panic attacks due to seeing] fentanyl during a traffic stop…Fortunately…[for the big crybaby, fentanyl has no effect from casual exposure]…Only three days later, an[other hysterical cop stole]…crystal meth from a [man] he a[ttack]ed and started feeling nauseous and lightheaded [even though methamphetamine also has no effect from casual exposure]…These incidents highlight the li[berty]-threatening risk [copaganda about] fentanyl and other drugs pose to [the citizens of Western nations]…

A Moral Cancer (#1497)

A dangerous new front in the Drug War has claimed another victim:

…the owner of a Ma[ssachusetts] vape shop has pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted tax evasion arising from the sale of e-cigarettes brought in from across state borders.  He was sentenced to [be locked in a filthy cage like an animal for] six months…and [spend] five years [on] probation.  In 2020, Massachusetts became the first state to implement a comprehensive ban on all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes.  Violation…is only a misdemeanor, but since flavored tobacco products are sold on the illicit market, sellers simultaneously violate state tax law…a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.  Criminal justice reformers have warned for years that flavor bans would encourage illicit markets, creating felony crimes in the process…

You Were Warned (#1497)

A blatantly-unconstitutional law is sort of suspended by an unconstitutional order:

Apple and Google [have] restored TikTok to their app stores in the United States…[mere] weeks after they removed the short-form video platform in compliance with a new law that banned it in the country.  [Emperor] Trump tried to pause enforcement of the TikTok ban with a…[royal edict], but the companies were reluctant to bring TikTok back [because Trump doesn’t actually have the power to suspend duly-enacted]…law…

I Spy (#1500)

Cops everywhere are moral imbeciles, and those who facilitate their evil are enemies of humanity:

Italian spyware maker SIO, known to sell its products to government customers, is behind a series of malicious Android apps that masquerade as WhatsApp and other popular apps but steal private data from a target’s device…Italy has been embroiled in an ongoing scandal involving the…use of a sophisticated spying tool made by Israeli spyware maker Paragon…[to spy on] a journalist and two founders of an NGO that helps and rescues immigrants in the Mediterranean…the [SIO] spyware…used a more pedestrian hacking technique: developing and distributing malicious Android apps that pretend to be popular apps like WhatsApp, and customer support tools provided by cellphone providers…the…spyware…is called Spyrtacus…[and] can steal text messages, as well as chats from Facebook Messenger, Signal, and WhatsApp; exfiltrate contacts information; record phone calls and ambient audio via the device’s microphone, and imagery via the device’s cameras; among other functions that serve surveillance purposes…

Thought Control (#1512)

Surely you didn’t think they’d be satisfied with only threatening librarians and teachers:

…the priggish, puritanical prudes who insist that a cabal of librarians and teachers are trying to turn our children gay with books…would have us believe that they’re just out to protect kids…[but] the legislation they’ve proposed isn’t just about kids, and it’s not just about public libraries and schools…Senate Bill 2307…would amend…North Dakota’s criminal code to [criminalize]…”displays at newsstands or any other business establishment…any…book…or [other media politicians decide to point at while barfing]…’sex, lust, or perversion'”…your local bookstore…would…[either have to ban] minors…[or else any book that could be considered remotely “adult” would] have to be sealed or hidden lest a [17-year-old university freshman] take [one] off the shelf and [be instantly “sexualized”]…the…bill sponsors….[previously] introduced a bill with the [same] language…during the 2023 legislative session…and [it] was only prevented from becoming law by a veto from former Gov. Doug Burgum…

 

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!

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In the News (#1510)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Women are not children [who]…need people making decisions for us.  –  Julie Burkhart

I Spy (#990)

The only way to keep data from being misused by state enforcers is not to collect it in the first place:

California [cops] improperly accessed a state database of private information more than 7,000 times in 2023…the EFF discovered…that…[cop shops] reported 7,275 misuses of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, or CLETS, to the state Department of Justice in 2023.  The vast majority of those offenses were committed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department…which was responsible for 6,789 of the violations…Because of the amount of sensitive information on CLETS, there are rules about when and why [cops] can use it, as well as requiring mandatory reporting of abuses…[which] include cops using it to look up information on romantic interests or retaliate against rivals…[an unknown but presumably much larger number of abuses were never caught and therefore went unreported]…

A Moral Cancer (#1388)

Trump is the proverbial stopped clock:

…Trump’s…[FDA has] withdraw[n] the…proposal to ban menthol tobacco and nicotine products nationwide…[introduced] in 2022 [by] the Biden…FDA…the administration quickly backed off its public endorsement of the prohibition after realizing how unpopular the proposed bans were with voters.  It never took the steps needed to withdraw the proposed rules, however…The…administration said it was targeting…black adults [in particular for this new campaign of violence]…

A Moral Cancer (#1395)

Will progressives ever stop cheering police violence in the name of “public health”?

Newton [Massachusetts politicians] voted to approve an ordinance…that [criminalize]s the sale of tobacco or e-cigarette products to anyone born on, or after, March 1, 2004…joining the busybody politicians of] Brookline, Needham and 10 other Massachusetts communities with similar so-called “generational bans” on tobacco…the state’s high court backed the town’s right to [inflict police violence on people who break the arbitrary] rule last March…David Micley voted against the measure[, saying]…“there’s a cost to taking…away people’s individual choices”…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1409)

The censorious lunatic who tried to criminalize “sexting” last year is at it again:

An Oklahoma [politician is once again trying to]…ban pornography in the entire state…Dusty Deevers [attempted to justify his totalitarian violence by spinning his head wildly around while vomiting idiocies and buzzwords including]…“moral sanity”…“degenerate”…”highly addictive drug”…“innocence”…”plague”…[and] “locked away for decades” [at reporters]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1459)

In a just court system, facial recognition “evidence” would be as inadmissible as polygraph results:

An Ohio judge threw out key evidence in a murder case…because the prosecution improperly relied on facial recognition technology…Blake Story was shot in Cleveland last February, and police used surveillance footage taken six days later to [hang] the killing [on] Qeyeon Tolbert…[by running] the video…[through] a regional fusion center[‘s subscription to] Clearview…[no human identified] Tolbert without…Clearview…[and the cops hid the fact that they used it] in the search warrant affidavit which ultimately allowed them to enter Tolbert’s apartment…[without] probable cause…Clearview includes a disclaimer in its reports warning [cops] that its findings are not “intended or permitted” to be used as admissible evidence…The Cleveland case is [good] news for [victims of] prosecutors around the country [because] police are increasingly using facial recognition…to arrest [people]…without any a[ctu]al evidence…

Torture Chamber (ROTW #13)

The government calls this “justice”; for journalists to parrot that is a choice:

…a…350 pound…[mutant screw named Tyler Grant Lynn was given free reign to terrorize legally-innocent]…teen-aged boys…[by] twist[ing their]…arms over their heads [until they broke].  The snap of one boy’s fracturing left humerus…could be heard by the…microphone on a security camera mounted 40 feet away.  An administrator at the [Kentucky jail] who saw the boy’s arm hanging awkwardly later [yelled “stop faking!” at him]…despite [a politician’s] promises…and…a federal civil rights investigation, [subhuman thugs] continue…to [brutalize young people]…The boys were given ibuprofen…after [reporting] their broken arms…[to] a nurse…[who refused] to examine the[m and instead just yelled “stop faking!” at them]…The boys were [finally] taken to a Paducah hospital three days later…The second boy needed surgery to put metal plates in his arm to repair the damage…

The Vultures Descend (#1493)

Because abortion is protected by the Wyoming constitution, forced-birth fanatics keep framing their attempts as “keeping women safe”:

Two bills that would [make abortion more difficult and odious have] passed [a Wyoming committee]…One would…use the [“admitting privileges” scam to] clos[e] Wyoming’s only [abortion] clinic…the other [uses bogus “environmental” concerns to humiliate women using abortion drugs by forcing them]…to [bleed into a bag marked “BIOHAZARD”]…and return the tissue to their physician for disposal…Wellspring [Health Access] founder Julie Burkhart said…it was “within the realm of possibility” that attorneys representing Wellspring would file a lawsuit against HB 42 if it passes the Senate and is signed by the governor…and…the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not find any evidence that mifepristone was significantly contaminating waterways more than any other pharmaceutical drug…

 

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!

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In the News (#1507)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2025| 1 Comment »

There is no legal mechanism…that allows [the government] to intervene while a fetus remains in somebody’s body.  –  Harrison Stark

Property of the State (#431) 

Burble burble BLUE STATE burble drool:

The Vermont Department for Children and Families went to extraordinary and illegal lengths to [abduct a newborn] from its mother…aided by a…[secret surveillance] program that monitors the pregnancies of multiple Vermonters, [provoking] a new lawsuit…[from] the…ACLU…[centering] the case of one mother, identified only as A.V., in which [bureaucratic busybodies]…used confidential medical information to [get a judge to grant permission to abduct] her daughter before she had even given birth…[including] a court order for the hospital to [violate her body by] perform[ing] a caesarean section [against her will]…DCF [abducted] the infant…immediately after she was born…only to have the child returned by court order months later…the [ordeal began when] A.V. temporarily moved from her…apartment to…a homeless shelter…[whose] executive director…[took it up on herself to report “]concerns about her mental health[” to]…DCF…[which] conducted an “assessment” of A.V…[including snooping into her] confidential [medical] records…without A.V.’s knowledge or participation…“Tragically, A.V.’s experience is not unique,” the suit reads. “She is only one of many expectant Vermonters who have been ensnared in DCF’s speculative surveillance and brazen intervention into their pregnancy and birthing plans”…

O, Canada! (#934)

Canadian cops still use long-debunked “sex trafficking” tropes to sell their grotesque sex worker intimidation tactics:

“The goal today is to save and rescue people from human trafficking,” [oinked a herd of silly pigs and sows at credulous “reporters”, before moving on to a whole lot of propaganda long past its sell-by date, including words and phrases like]…trafficking victims can…be…put on a circuit…human trafficking is…growing…“in Calgary…everywhere you look someone’s being trafficked”…“It’s the second biggest crime”…“I use a…program called Traffic Jam”…“The crown means most likely they’re being trafficked“…ALERT calls [lying to women trying to earn a living] “interventions”…They are on the lookout for a trafficker who might be waiting and watching…

These wanking fantasies are so 2012, I checked the date on the story several times.  Perhaps it fell down behind a file cabinet and when it was recently found, somebody decided to just print it anyway?

A Moral Cancer (#1249)

The government is intentionally trying to create a black market so as to start a horrific new front in the drug war:

…the Biden administration [recently] proposed a rule that would effectively ban cigarettes by requiring a drastic reduction in nicotine content…to 0.7 milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco.  That cap technically complies with a federal law that bars the FDA from banning tobacco products or “requiring the reduction of nicotine yields…to zero.”  But the negligible amount of nicotine allowed under the rule would amount to both in practice…current smokers would be apt to inhale more deeply, take more or bigger puffs, or consume more cigarettes to get the nicotine dose to which they are accustomed, which would increase their exposure to the toxins and carcinogens in tobacco smoke…If “NNC cigarettes” are added to the list of proscribed drugs, we can expect many more examples of people entangled in the criminal justice system…it is unclear wh[at] Trump’s pick to run the FDA, Marty Makary…thinks about the nicotine cap…

The Mob Rules (#1436)

Forced-birth fanatics are now actively attempting to empower abusive men:

As [forced-birth fanatic]s launch legal efforts to stop abortion pills from reaching women in states with bans, they are increasingly turning to one group with uniquely intimate and specific information to help them find cases: [abusive] male sex partners of women who decided to end their pregnancies.  The strategy [has] propelled a…lawsuit filed last month by [serial legal system abuser] Ken Paxton that cited first-hand information from an [abusive partner] to accuse a New York doctor of illegally providing abortion pills to a woman in the Dallas area…Paxton’s office…[i]s…searching for potential plaintiffs [for similar opportunistic lawsuits, and]…next month…Texas’s largest [forced-birth] organization [will] launch…an advertising campaign on Facebook and [Twitter] to reach the [abusive] husbands, boyfriends and sex partners of women who [want revenge on]…those who assisted the women in ending their pregnancies…The effort is the latest indication that, nearly three years after the fall of Roe v. Wade…[sociopath]s have remained largely stymied in their quest to [force women to give birth whether they like it or not so as to create more tax cattle for the State]…

Opting Out (#1438)

It was inevitable that British politicians would join the currently-fashionable “monkey see, monkey do” parade:

Websites that host porn…or other…content [bureaucrats choose to point at while belching out the word “harmful”] must have “robust” age verification in place for UK users by July at the latest, Ofcom has [proclaimed]…services which host their own pornographic content “must begin taking steps immediately” to bring in age checks.  Other “user-to-user” services, such as social media, which allow porn…and…other…content [politicians dislike], will have to enforce the age checks by July…the new [demands are] “the next step” in implementing the Online Safety Act, [but will not remotely be the last]…

Checklist (#1489)

Airlines:  do you really want to keep accepting liability for employees harassing passengers due to the government propaganda you force-feed them?

A Black [cop is suing American airlines because] he was falsely accused of trafficking his wife, who is White…while on their way to…their honeymoon…Anthony Williams…and his wife…Katsiaryna Shasholka…were on a flight from Phoenix to Miami in September 2022 when…a [busybody] passenger accused Williams of human trafficking and reported him to airline employees…wh[o]…upon landing…falsely imprisoned…the [couple]…[who are also suing] the [busybody] passenger…and two airline employees [who enacted their creepy sexual fantasies against the plaintiffs]…

I Spy (#1504)

The point of this delay is to let public outrage die down before they quietly restart the same offenses:

General Motors…and its subsidiary OnStar agreed not to disclose sensitive vehicle geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies for five years…[after it got out that GM] collected, used, and sold…[the] information from millions of vehicles…without notifying consumers and obtaining consent…agencies used the data to compile reports that insurance companies then…used to deny insurance and…raise rates…[as part of the settlement,] the company must [henceforth] obtain driver consent to collect data, and allow [car owners] to delete or limit data…

 

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!

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In the News (#1497)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We can’t eradicate the human sex drive.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Worse Than I Thought (#335)

Just because the moral panic is moribund, doesn’t mean politicians aren’t going to keep using sex as an excuse to destroy lives:

North Carolina has made it a felony crime to patronize a sex worker…a crime that comes with a presumptive minimum sentence of four months in prison, up to two years…in recent years, we’ve seen a disturbing trend of states starting to classify attempts to pay for sexual activity as a felony…mirror[ing] the misguided and detrimental path [of]…the war on drugs.  Three states now make it a felony crime to pay for sex or attempt to pay for sex…In 2021, Texas became the first…then…last May, Oklahoma [followed]…Morality in Media…is a major driver of these laws and, more generally, the idea that we can “end demand” for prostitution…sold…by [conflating female agency with]…sex trafficking…

If Men Were Angels

“Pastor” + teacher = “youth pastor”:

A [Texas] pastor and teacher in Grapevine is under arrest for possession of child pornography…Arturo Alarcon…[plant]ed hidden cameras in a church-owned mobile home used to host visiting families. [After these were discovered by visiting missionaries staying there], detectives found an image of child pornography on Alarcon’s cell phone…one of the cameras was designed to look like a clock.  Another…was like a bug zapper…Alarcon [has, unsurprisingly, long been buddy-buddy with] Grapevine Police…

Welcome to the Future (#1159)

Of course they had to be forced to end this ugly, evil scam:

The Pasco County [Florida] Sheriff’s Office is permanently scuttling a [“]predictive policing[” sc]am that was the subject of…a pending civil rights lawsuit…[due to its unceasing,] unconstitutional harassment of families.  In a settlement agreement ending that…lawsuit, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office [was forced to admit] that it…[had intentionally violated] the plaintiffs’ First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights…In addition to ending the…[scheme] and agreeing not to create a similar one, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office will pay [a mere] $105,000 to the four plaintiffs…

A Moral Cancer (#1322)

Prohibitionists always claim surprise when the predicted effects of one of their bans appear:

If you want to create a black market in a perfectly legal product, just make regulations and taxes so onerous that many people prefer to buy from illegal vendors…that’s certainly the case with cigarettes… “New York has the highest inbound smuggling activity, with an estimated 54.3 percent of cigarettes consumed in the state deriving from smuggled sources in 2022,” note [Adam] Hoffer and [Jacob] Macumber-Rosin [in the latest edition of the Mackinac Center’s regularly compiled research on the topic]. “New York is followed by California (46.7 percent), New Mexico (41.2 percent), Massachusetts (39.7 percent), and Washington (36.8 percent)”…because their tax rates drive people to purchase their smokes from illicit dealers, high-tax states suffered a revenue hit in 2022 of more than $5 billion.  Since 2007, they’ve lost out on more than $79 billion….[and] with flavored tobacco banned in places like California and Massachusetts, those products are available in those states only on the black market…New Hampshire taxes cigarettes at the rate of $1.78 per pack, which is relatively low. As a result, find the Mackinac Center and the Tax Foundation, 31.43 percent of cigarette sales are for smuggling elsewhere.  That puts it in third place after Wyoming, where 49.2 percent of cigarette sales are smuggled out of state, and Delaware, where 34.4 percent of sales are resold in higher-tax jurisdictions…

Feudalism Redux (#1390)

If you need a law like this to control your teen offspring, you’ve already lost them:

[The Ninth Circuit] has ruled that Idaho can [attempt to] enforce its abortion travel ban, which [criminalizes adults who assist] minors [who] travel…out of state for abortions without parental consent.  The decision…reversed a 2023 decision that had blocked the law on First Amendment grounds.  The law [is intended to allow a parent or guardian to force a minor to carry an unwanted or even dangerous pregnancy to term by terrorizing anyone who might help a girl to exercise her right to bodily autonomy.  Its]…sweeping language…could [even] apply to a grandmother driving a pregnant minor to the post office to pick up a package containing abortion medication, for example…

You Were Warned (#1437)

Increasingly-unhinged federal courts uphold a blatantly-unconstitutional law:

A panel of three federal…judges ruled unanimously…to uphold a law that could [unconstitution]ally ban TikTok in the United States…[unless its] Chinese owner, ByteDance…sell[s] it to a…[politically-connected] American owner by Jan. 19, 2025…the…decision sets the table for TikTok to take its case to the Supreme Court…During his campaign, [dancing orange-utang] Donald Trump…[claimed] he would “save TikTok”…though opinions among his [gang of unhinged cronies]…are mixed on whether…to [include this particular]…unconstitutional [action among]…the…flawed and dangerous precedent[s they already support to]…give…the government far too much power [over] Americans’ speech online…

Mad Libs

The reason so-called “AI” spouts out gibberish is that it is incapable of telling truth from falsehood:

Following Hunter Biden’s pardon by his father…Ana Navarro-Cardenas, a commentator who appears on The View and CNN…cited a pardon granted by President Woodrow Wilson of his brother-in-law Hunter deButts…and…an Esquire article called “A President Shouldn’t Pardon His Son? Hello, Anybody Remember Neil Bush?” was based on the premise that George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil; it has since been retracted “due to an error.”  The day before its publication, Occupy Democrats’ executive editor Grant Stern tweeted a similar claim that Jimmy Carter pardoned his brother Billy…As far as I can tell, n[one of these] actually occurred.  Where was all this coming from? Well, I don’t know what Stern or Esquire’s source was. But I know Navarro-Cardenas’, because she had a follow-up message for critics: “Take it up with Chat GPT”…

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!

Read Full Post »

In the News (#1478)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote.  –  Judge Robert McBurney

Policing for Profit

This will never stop until it is treated as what it is: armed robbery:

The predatory, for-profit policing of the Lexington [Mississippi cop shop] has repeatedly violated the civil rights of residents, making arrests equal to roughly a fourth of the entire town’s population and burdening them with fines and debts of over $1.7 million…around $1,400 for every man, woman and child in the town…[a DoJ] report details a litany of brutal, extractive practices primarily aimed at the Black residents of Lexington: countless arrests over extreme minutiae, including…“jailing people for conduct that is not criminal, like using profanity and owing money to the police.”  Since 2021, Lexington police have engaged in an aggressive campaign of punishment, often violent, against the residents of the town…the Lexington Police…Department’s funding ballooned from…$662,925 to $965,130 in 2023, all a consequence of the plunder…[civil rights lawyer] Jill Collen Jefferson…said the residents of Lexington have lived under what amounts to a state of occupation…Police Chief…Charles Henderson…[h]as a[lso tried to coerce] roughly a dozen women [into] sex, jailing or ticketing those who refused…[and] multiple [Lexington cops]…routinely [follow his example]…

Business As Usual (#1254)

Politicians want to pay for “self-care” for cops traumatized by raping dirty whores:

Both houses of Congress have approved the IMPACTT Human Trafficking Act…and it’s now awaiting President Joe Biden’s signature.  The bill would provide “self-care” services to Homeland Security Investigations…staff [“]exposed[” to women they infantilize as “]victims of human trafficking[” they choose]…to subject…to…traumatizing experiences…[most] of the “human trafficking” work the agency does just involves plain old prostitution stings…particularly when the[y] target Asian massage businesses.  At best, these stings tend to be dubious uses of resources and authority…At worst, they put people vulnerable to violence and sexual exploitation in more precarious positions—by [brutaliz]ing…sex workers and saddling them with court fees and criminal records…or [steal]ing…the assets of immigrant sex workers and masseuses…and even [raping them]…

The Vultures Descend (#1323)

It’s rare to see a modern judge explicitly rule in favor of self-ownership:

A judge in Georgia…[named] Robert McBurney…ruled the [state’s 6-week] abortion ban unconstitutional under Georgia’s state constitution…“‘liberty’…in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices,” McBurney wrote…“While the State’s interest in protecting ‘unborn’ life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State ― and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work ― the balance of rights favors the woman”…Physicians in the state can now provide abortions until fetal viability, reverting to Georgia’s 2019 abortion law…

A Moral Cancer (#1450)

Prohibitionism is a dangerous mental illness:

Various “experts” are calling on state governments to impose age restrictions on the sale of nonalcoholic drinks…under the guise of protecting against underage alcohol consumption, based on the argument that products like nonalcoholic beer could be a gateway to the real thing…[but in] reality…studies [show]…”[nonalcoholic beverage] consumption usually started after adolescents began consuming alcohol”…in other words…teenagers are using nonalcoholic beverages in place of alcoholic beverages, rather than as an on-ramp to real drinking…

I Spy (#1461)

If “official” busybodies can spy on you via your car, so can unofficial ones:

…a group of independent security researchers revealed that they’d found a flaw in a web portal operated by…Kia that let the researchers reassign control of the internet-connected features of most modern Kia vehicles…from the smartphone of a car’s owner to the hackers’ own phone or computer…they were able to scan virtually any internet-connected Kia vehicle’s license plate and within seconds gain the ability to track that car’s location, unlock the car, honk its horn, or start its ignition at will.  After the researchers alerted Kia to the problem in June, Kia appears to have fixed the vulnerability in its web portal…But Kia’s patch is far from the end of the car industry’s web-based security problems…a slew of similar web-based vulnerabilities…affect…cars sold by Acura, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Toyota, and more…

The Cop Myth (#1464)

“Cop murders wife or girlfriend and claims it was suicide” is a recurring theme in this tag:

…Dan Howard, a [typical and representative]…Idaho [cop murdered his wife]…in February 2021…[then staged the scene to look like a suicide, claiming] he discovered his wife in the bathtub….[where] she had shot herself in the head…[but] there [wasn’t enough]…blood…In the laundry room, the dryer was running…[and] full of clean bath towels and mats…Howard appeared to have recently showered, changed his clothes, and applied fresh deodorant…no…signs of…a suicide note…they…had more than $2 million in assets…yet…Howard [was a tightwad, and they started to argue more after he got away with murdering]…a woman during a traffic stop…the…[wife,] Kendy…had an affair, and…told Dan she…wanted a divorce.  And she had started the process of buying a new house.  By the end of January 2021, just days before her death, Kendy met with a divorce lawyer…two years…[later] Howard was [convicted of] murder.  He…had…[broken] her jaw, then [strangled] her…[and] staged the scene by placing Kendy’s body in the bathtub and shooting her…

Paying the Bills

A week ago, I let y’all know that I’m facing a projected $3000 shortfall for my annual operating budget, and asked for help making up that difference.  Well, several of my loyal readers have already stepped up, generously helping me to the tune of $600.  So now I’m only facing a $2400 shortfall; if you aren’t yet a subscriber, won’t you please consider becoming one?  A $1/day subscription would take $90 off of that total, and other levels would help in proportion.  Or if you’re already a subscriber but can spare some extra right now, I’d really appreciate it; it would be great if I can catch up by my birthday!

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!

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In the News (#1454)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, The Dark Side, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We decline the invitation.  –  Justice Eric Rosen

Monsters

Words fail me in the face of such barbarity:

A Western Pennsylvania man…[named] DaShawn Watkins…is facing…charges [for the murder and dismemberment] of 14-year-old Pauly Likens…[a trans girl] missing since June 22…Police…found dismembered human remains…in and around…Shenango River Lake…the cause of death was ruled to be a sharp force trauma to the head, and…surveillance footage, social media records and cellular phone records found that Likens appeared “to be on the phone and waiting to meet someone near the canoe launch area”…footage also captured Watkins making several trips out of his apartment carrying multiple bags, and driving to his apartment in the vehicle seen near the crime scene.  Multiple locations in Watkins’ apartment tested positive in a preliminary blood test…

Creepy Coppers

Another of the people the government empowers to police your sexuality:

[A typical and representative] St. Tammany Parish [cop named] Christopher Cassidy pleaded guilty to [189 charges related to child & animal] pornography…[and] was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each count without…parole [plus condemnation to the] sex offender [registry] for…25 years [if he somehow manages to survive 2835 years in prison]…

Eggs and Bacon (#1348)

Kansas courts aren’t allowing politicians to circumvent the will of the voters:

The Kansas Supreme Court [has] reaffirmed abortion protections in the state’s Constitution…striking down [attempt]ed laws that banned a common second-trimester abortion procedure and created additional licensing requirements for abortion clinics…The rulings were the latest setbacks for [forced-birth pro]ponents in Kansas, a…state that has…recently [confounded Manicheans who insist that all voters in every state are partisan robots who unfailingly obey both their “leaders” and the expectations of the New York Times]…

Artificial “Intelligence”?

There is no part of this reeking pile of shit that fails to be stupid, so I’ll just comment instead of quoting it.  1) Things that are not alive cannot commit suicide.  2) “Cyborg” is not a synonym for “robot”; a cyborg has living parts.  3) A robot cannot be an “officer”.  4) A malfunctioning machine tumbling down a flight of stairs does not constitute a “jump”.  5) If a machine is observed malfunctioning and nothing is done, it’s no surprise if the situation worsens.  6) For a malfunctioning machine to break is not a “tragedy”.  7) A machine has neither mind nor personality and therefore cannot be “depressed”.  8) I think it highly unlikely that this robot was actually “unique” in any way.  9) Anyone who issued a “civil service officer card” to a piece of office equipment should be sacked for incompetence.  10) Robots cannot be “diligent” (see #7).  11) Too many technology reporters know nothing about technology.  12) What is possible in fantasy movies is in no way reflective of reality.

The Red Umbrella (#1414)

As long as sex work is marginalized, sex workers will be targeted for violence:

Two sex workers were violently assaulted in Edmonton [Alberta by]…a man [who] contacted both women through a website and arranged to meet them [early on July 6th]…At around 7 a.m…he attacked [the first victim, leaving her]…significantly injured and…unconscious…he [then] arranged to meet [the second victim]…around 7:50 a.m…the[n]…violently attacked…her…[leaving her] unconscious…[and stealing her] wallets, identification, cash and cell phones…detectives believe there may be more victims…

Torture Chamber (#1445)

I’m sure they helpfully yelled “Stop faking!” at him every time he coughed:

S[crews] at Brooklyn’s [abominable federal jail] ignored a…[prisoner]’s cancer diagnosis for months, letting a mass in his lungs grow to double its size while he coughed up enough blood to fill a milk carton…Terrence Wise…is [only] the latest [human being] subjected to what defense attorneys and judges describe as grievous medical mistreatment…[including a prisoner] who couldn’t use a CPAP machine for 85 days because the jail didn’t provide an extension cord, another…whose broken cheek had to be re-broken because the jail defied a judge’s order for treatment [until] it…improperly healed, and yet another who waited more than three months for emergency surgery for a twisted bowel…staff [also] lied about giving a…[prisoner] his antibiotics after his appendix burst…and…defied [another judge’s] order to send a…[prisoner] with a severe contagious MRSA infection to a hospital.  Instead, the[y just forced their victim into] a yellow jumpsuit to single him out as sick…

A Moral Cancer (#1450)

Crypto-moralists want the gullible to be afraid of even moderate alcohol consumption:

A[nother crypto-moralist] has [claim]ed that even moderate drinking can reduce life expectancy, [repeat]ing [scary tales prohibitionists have been pushing for two years]…Dr. Tim Stockwell, a [pseudo]scientist at the Canadian Institute for [Coming up with “]Research[” to Reinforce What Prohibitionists Want You To Believe], [made] the [absurdly-specific universal claim] that consuming an average of two drinks per week over a lifetime can shorten one’s life by 3 to 6 days.  One drink per day, seven a week, can cut life expectancy by 2 1/2 months…

The puritanical notion that lifelong deprivation of pleasure in the vague hope of adding a few extra minutes of senility and decrepitude to the far end of one’s old age – a time one has only a 50% chance of reaching in the first place, statistically – is so alien to my way of thinking, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it, even as a concept for consideration.

 

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!

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In the News (#1450)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2024| 1 Comment »

This is arguing for banning video games because some kids who play video games might someday drive a few miles per hour over the posted speed limit.  –  Eric Boehm

Bits and Pieces (#9)

Assange was freed as soon as it became politically expedient:

…Julian Assange flew out of the UK on [June 24] apparently a free man after reaching a plea deal with US authorities…to plead guilty to a single espionage charge in a court appearance on [the] US-controlled Pacific island [of Saipan, east of the Philippines] and prosecutors will seek a sentence equivalent to time served…Assange has been a wanted man since 2010 when WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…In 2012, as authorities circled him for that and [long-since abandoned] sex crime allegations from [the Swedish government], he fled into London’s Ecuadorian embassy where he remained for seven years…After falling out with [Ecuador]’s rulers he was dragged out…in 2019 and locked up in [a UK prison] while the US attempted to extradite him.  But that legal process ended abruptly [when the US found it convenient], and WikiLeaks broke the news with a [Twitter] post…reading: “Julian Assange is free!”…

Above the Law

Your “leaders” at work:

[Michigan politician] Neil Friske…was arrested [at his house for]…chasing a stripper and firing a weapon….[after] sexually assault[ing]…her…The [political] district is no stranger to scandal…[politician] Lee Chatfield…who represented it from 2015 to 2021, had his own guns-and-strippers controversy.

Quiet Genocide (#1248)

Truthful headline: “Chinese rename other people’s villages against their wishes”:

Chinese [bureaucrats] in Xinjiang have been systematically changing hundreds of village names with religious, historical, or cultural meaning for Uyghurs into names reflecting recent Chinese Communist Party ideology…Human Rights Watch research has identified about 630 villages where the names have been changed that way.  The top three most common replacement village names are “Happiness,” “Unity,” and “Harmony”…Maya Wang, [HRW] China director [said]…“These name changes appear part of Chinese government efforts to erase the cultural and religious expressions of Uyghurs”…most of these changes occurred between 2017 and 2019, when the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity escalated in the region…

To Molest and Rape (ROTW #1)

When a woman dies by “hanging”, it’s nearly always a murder:

A prominent forensic pathologist hired by the family of Sandra Birchmore, the young woman who was…groomed [and molested] by three [typical and representative Massachusetts cops], has concluded that her death was a homicide, contradicting earlier findings by [cop cronies] that there was no evidence of foul play…Dr. Michael Baden…cited the extent of Birchmore’s injuries and the placement of a ligature found on her body as factors in his determination…that Birchmore…[had not] killed herself by hanging…“The cause of Ms. Birchmore’s death is ‘Strangulation’ and the manner of death is ‘Homicide’,” Baden wrote…Birchmore’s estate is suing [the] three [rapist cops] for wrongful death…They are [the murderer,] Matthew G. Farwell…[the] father [of] Birchmore[‘s unborn child]…as well as his twin brother, William, and Robert C. Devine…a [typical and representative cop and sexual predator] who…led the department’s [grooming] program…the state medical examiner [covered up the murder by]…not send[ing] fetal tissue for DNA analysis to determine [paternity]…On Feb. 1, 2021, surveillance cameras captured Matthew Farwell arriving and then leaving Birchmore’s apartment…and [nobody ever saw] her alive [again after his visit]…

I Spy (#1360) 

The government thinks you shouldn’t be allowed any privacy whatsoever:

The U.S. Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans’ letters and packages with [cop shops and spook houses] every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order.  Postal inspectors [pretend] they fulfill such requests only when mail monitoring can help find a fugitive or investigate a crime.  But…[the pigs and spooks get to define “crime” and] Postal Service officials have received more than 60,000 requests…[of this sort] since 2015, and…97 percent of the requests were approved…[totaling] more than 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023…

When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1444)

The claims in these nuisance lawsuits are increasingly absurd:

…a dozen [nuisance] lawsuits filed since last year by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia…accuse [Facebook] of [magical]ly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the [power of the magical spells used].  Using a [playbook] reminiscent of the government’s pursuit of Big Tobacco in the 1990s, the attorneys general seek to [profit from Facebook while bringing it more under their control]…The state lawsuits…reflect mounting [fantasies] that [interactions] on social media [are magically different from those in real life]…and [that young people can be hypnot]ically induced into compulsive online use…Vivek H. Murthy, the [charlatan currently holding the often-politicized post of] United States surgeon general, [absurdly] called for warning labels to be placed on social networks, [pretend]ing the platforms present a public health risk to young people.  His [childish hysterics] could boost momentum in Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act, a[n internet-censorship] bill that would [enshrine catastrophic internet censorship into law]…

A Moral Cancer (#1446)

Prohibitionism is a dangerous mental illness:

Molly A. Bowdring, a c[rypto-moral]ist at Stanford…wrote this week in STAT that nonalcoholic drinks meant to resemble beer or cocktails are “a potential public health crisis”…[because] drinks that contain no alcohol are generally not subjected to limitations placed on drinks that do contain alcohol…and…Bowdring [pearl-clutches that]…”Among minors, consuming non-alcoholic beverages can socialize them to the drinking culture, with the beverages being perceived as cool, adult, and modern.”  Goodness gracious, not that…

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!

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In the News (#1449)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2024| 1 Comment »

Illegal drugs are cheaper, more readily available, more potent, [and] more widely used than they were 20 years ago.  –  James Martin

If Men Were Angels

“Inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” is a helluva way to say “molesting a 12-year-old”:

Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway [mega]Church in Southlake, Texas…has confessed to…sexually abusing [Cindy Clemishire] over multiple years beginning when she was 12…Morris [burbled a lot of evangelical buzzwords like]…repented…walked in purity and accountability…blessing…and…forgiveness…[but] Clemishire [explained]…that…when Morris began abusing her…he…was a 20-year-old traveling evangelist…[already] married…[with a young] son…Morris…[betrayed] her family[‘s]…friends[hip after being] invited into their home and…repeatedly abused her in Texas and Oklahoma…[while telling] his wife that he was merely “counseling” her…For years…she has been warning churches…about Morris because she doesn’t believe she’s the only one who suffered his abuse…

Long Hidden

Cops aren’t the only violent profession whose members feel sexually entitled:

…hundreds of Kenyan women [have] filed complaints with the UK military over the years, a[fter being raped by British soldiers]…in the remote villages where the British Army trains its soldiers in Kenya. The British Army Training Unit, Kenya (BATUK), is headquartered in the town of Nanyuki…[and] Britain pays Kenya about $400,000 a year to allow its soldiers to train…mostly in the expansive wildlife conservancies in Laikipia and Samburu counties.  Kenya renewed the defense pact in 2021 despite strong local opposition…[due to numerous] allegations of rape and other crimes, including murder, by British soldiers deployed there [since] the 1950s…hundreds of women from the mostly pastoralist Maasai and Samburu communities who accused the British Army of rapes in the 1970s and 80s…were represented by the British lawyer Martyn Day in a landmark civil case in London in the early 2000s…[but] in 2007, Britain’s Ministry of Defense dismissed claims…brought by 2,187 women…[claiming] the…evidence appeared to have been fabricated…[and refusing to] conduct DNA tests on any of the 69 mixed-race children…born from rape by British soldiers…[but as they] can now be sued in Kenyan courts…as part of a new addition to the 2021 defense pact…lawyer Kelvin Kubai has signed up more than 300 of the women who previously brought rape claims and is working to reintroduce the case in Kenyan courts…

Rooted in Racism (#1305)

Never forget that this barbarity began using the excuse of “fighting human trafficking”:

The Greek coastguard has caused the deaths of dozens of migrants in the Mediterranean over a three-year period…including nine who were deliberately thrown into the water.  The [others]…died as a result of being forced out of Greek territorial waters, or taken back out to sea after reaching Greek islands…The Greek government has long…forced returns – pushing people back towards Turkey, where they have crossed from, which is illegal under international law.  But this is the first time the…number of…fatalities…[due directly to] the Greek coastguard’s actions [has been calculated]…

Panopticon (#1316)

This is too useful a tool of state control for the rulers to give it up:

A new lawsuit says that Illinois’ widespread use of…automatic license plate readers…violates the Fourth Amendment…because it breaches citizens’ reasonable expectations of privacy…”Defendants are tracking anyone who drives to work in Cook County—or to school, or a grocery store, or a doctor’s office, or a pharmacy, or a political rally, or a romantic encounter, or family gathering—every day…without any reason to suspect anyone of anything, and are holding onto those whereabouts just in case they decide in the future that some citizen might be an appropriate target”…Illinois’ highway [panopticon] began in 2019 [as so many civil liberties abominations do,] with the passage of [a law bearing a crime victim’s name]…Illinois State Police [started with] a $12.5 million state grant in 2021…which was more than doubled in June 2022…[so far] Illinois…has purchased 652 license plate cameras, of which 340 are installed in Cook County…

Permanent Record (#1380)

I can’t feel sorry for someone whose job is ruining lives for violating arbitrary diktats when they get in trouble due to a similar diktat:

Nashville [cop] Sean Herman was recently arrested…weeks after it was revealed that he appeared in a viral OnlyFans clip in [his magical clown costume].  He faces two felony official misconduct charges for [using the clown suit for something other than terrorizing people]…If found guilty, Herman could face prison…[cop shop busybodies] reportedly “discovered the video and identified him as the person in [the magical clown costume], seen in the video from the chest down, who took part in a mock traffic stop in an OnlyFans skit during which he groped the exposed breast of the female driver”…

A Moral Cancer (#1396)

Australia expands the Drug War, and prohibitionists pretend the wholly-predictable consequences are somehow surprising:

Since March of last year, the Australian state of Victoria has been rocked by a series of [murders,] arsons and firebombings…in an escalating turf war between rival gangs…the drug at the center of this conflict: nicotine…[prohibitionists prai]se…Australia…for its graphic warnings on cigarette packs, extremely high cigarette taxes, and strict prohibitions on e-cigarettes…[which together constitute] a form of “de facto prohibition”…[so] predictably…the share of tobacco sold illegally…has…doubled [in recent years] to…nearly a quarter of Australian sales…There are 1.8 million vapers in Australia and about nine out of 10 of them source their vapes illegally…[either by buying] e-cigarette components and…nicotine liquid from abroad…or [by getting] disposable vapes manufactured cheaply in China…Australia’s…response…is to crack down even harder…in…contrast…New Zealand, which has similarly high cigarette taxes but embraces a much more liberal approach to vaping…now boasts one of the world’s lowest rates of smoking…

Eavesdropping (#1417)

Even cops are starting to admit Shotspotter is a boondoggle:

New York City [has wasted tens of millions] on gunshot detection technology that rarely works…ShotSpotter…uses microphones and…software in an attempt to detect the sound of gunshots…When a sound triggers the system, ShotSpotter alerts the police department, and officers are dispatched to the scene…[but] an analysis…found that 87% of the time [cop]s were dispatched to a scene where there was no evidence of a shooting…“The evidence shows that NYPD is wasting precious time and money on this technology and needs to do a better job managing its resources,” [said City Comptroller Brad] Lander… “Chasing down car backfires and construction noise does not make us safer”…It marks the latest report calling the technology’s efficacy into question.  A 2021 audit by Chicago’s Office of Inspector General found that of more than 50,000 alerts there, only 9.1% resulted in evidence of a gun-related offense…Houston Mayor John Whitmire also said he would cancel the city’s contract with the company, telling the Houston Chronicle that it is a “gimmick”…

 

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!

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In the News (#1446)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

A country cannot develop based on fear.  –  Truong Huy San

Censorship Ascendant

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…

Social Distancing (#1244)

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…

No Escape (#1312)

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…

Thought Control (#1328)

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…

A Moral Cancer (#1427)

Crypto-moralists want people to believe they could live forever by simply eliminating every single pleasurable activity from their lives:

…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…

Torture Chamber (#1437)

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”…

The Cop Myth (#1441)

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!

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In the News (#1427)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It was like a fun game to them.  –  “Jeny”

The Prudish Giant (#1011)

Why does anyone still trust Facebook?

In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat…and later Amazon and YouTube…Given these apps’ use of encryption, Facebook needed to develop special technology to get around it…Facebook’s engineers solution was to use Onavo, a VPN-like service that Facebook acquired in 2013…which when activated had the advantage of reading all of the device’s network traffic before it got encrypted and sent over the internet…

Censorship Ascendant

Safetyism has become the go-to excuse of censors pretending they aren’t:

The FBI spends “every day, all day long” interrogating people over their Facebook posts.  At least, that’s what agents told Stillwater, Oklahoma, resident Rolla Abdeljawad when they showed up at her house to [harass] her about her social media activity…[after] they [were] given “screenshots” of her posts by Facebook…Abdeljawad told…th[em] she didn’t want to talk and…later confirmed with local police that the [spooks] really were FBI agents…”we’re not here to arrest you or anything,” [said the spook pictured here]…”We do this every day, all day long. It’s just an effort to keep everybody safe and make sure nobody has any [bad thoughts].”  [Abdeljawad’s lawyer Hassan] Shibly says…it was the first time he had heard of Facebook…preemptively reporting [citizen]s to [State] enforce[rs]…

No Escape (#1333)

This will never stop while violent thugs have total power over the lives of women:

…719 civil lawsuits…were recently filed against the City of New York and the NYC Department of C[ramming Human Beings into Filthy Cages] under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that opened a one-year window for sexual assault survivors to file claims outside of the statute of limitations…nearly 60% of the 1,256 lawsuits filed…during the…period describe assaults against people held on Rikers Island…the…abuse…span[ned] decades…from 1976 to…[the present and consists of attacks by screws ranging from] grop[ing]…to [violent anal,] oral…and…v[aginal] rape….[while] jail officials…[tacitly approved of] the ongoing attacks…The plaintiffs seek more than $14.7 billion in damages, which could pose a staggering financial burden for the city[‘s tax cattle]…

Panopticon (#1346)

Old-fashioned Stasi-type surveillance isn’t dead yet:

…a [uniparty-backed] bill…would strengthen the role of the Department of Homeland Security in school [surveilla]nce, [to] turn America’s schools into another adjunct of the national security apparatus, a veritable school for spies…The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center, or NTAC, was created in 1998 to examine threats to the president and security at complex public gatherings.  Its focus was expanded a year later to the psychology of school shootings…Today, NTAC…brags that…it has [indoctrinat]ed hundreds of thousands of school administrators and teachers….thanks in part to NTAC p[ropaganda preten]ding…[that] “see something, say something”…is…[magically] differen[t from]…snitching…ratting…or…tattling…[because] students…[are] “potential terrorists”…

A Moral Cancer (#1369)

Crypto-moralists want people to believe they could live forever by simply eliminating every single pleasurable activity from their lives:

Women who drink more than one glass of wine a day are 45 per cent more likely to develop heart disease…[crypto-moral]ists studied the drinking habits of 430,000 adults in California, who had an average age of 44, and none of whom were teetotal.  Their habits were followed for four years, and during which 3,108 developed heart disease…The more people drank, the more likely they were to be diagnosed with heart disease, particularly in women…

Torture Chamber (#1389)

Your “leaders” call this “correction”:

Brooklyn’s troubled federal jail has been serving maggot-infested beans to [prisoners]…defense lawyers….[have also] detailed…partially cooked [chicken]…spoiled, rotting meat…milk [well past]…the expiration date…and…cockroaches and bug parts [in] the food…in January…Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jesse Furman issued a 19-page ruling laying out a litany of problems, including how the jail lost power for eight days in 2019 during a polar vortex.  “It has gotten to the point that it is routine for judges…to give reduced sentences to defendants based on the conditions of confinement in the MDC,” Furman wrote. “Prosecutors no longer even put up a fight, let alone dispute that the state of affairs is unacceptable”…His ruling, that the jail’s dreadful conditions constituted “extraordinary reasons” to not lock up a 70-year-old convicted drug dealer as he awaited sentencing, has since been cited by several defense lawyers seeking leniency or release for their clients…

To Molest and Rape (#1425)

Another example of the cop/religion molestation nexus:

A…Jacksonville [Florida cop]…was arrested…[for seducing a] 17-year-old [girl]…Josue’ Garriga III….[met the girl] at church…he told her to download WhatsApp so they could communicate [surreptitiously]…he…sen[t her dick pics]…and ask[ed] her for [nude] photos….the[n he later molested her]…in his [pigmobile]…it is believed there could be other victims.  Garriga…[murder]ed 22-year-old Jamee Johnson during a [pretextual] traffic stop…in [2019 and]…the city settled the [resulting lawsuit] for $200,000…

 

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!

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