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Posts Tagged ‘China’

The deliberate engineering of vulnerabilities into critical infrastructure…[is] a grave threat to privacy everywhere.  –  Udbhav Tiwari

I Spy (#1319)

Politicians are unable to fathom concepts like “principles” and “keeping promises”:

Secure messaging service Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption, is warning it would withdraw from Canada if asked to compromise its users’ privacy under…Ottawa’s proposed [surveillance] legislation…the bill…would…[not only] threaten encryption…[but] also…make private messaging services a…target for cyberattacks…The bill would require telecoms, internet companies and other electronic service providers to [give cop shops and spook houses the same kind of ill-considered back doors which enabled the 2024 “Salt Typhoon” attack]…and…require…[them] to retain metadata for up to a year…includ[ing] information about which telephone numbers have been in touch with each other, and data allowing someone’s location to be pinpointed

Virtual Imperialism (#1505)

It’s long past time Beijing’s campaign to police Chinese people in the US was shut down:

The mayor of Arcadia, California, Eileen Wang, abruptly resigned…[after admitting] she had been…acting as a covert foreign agent for China…a…felony…[with] a…minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison…Wang…and an associate, Yaoning “Mike” Sun…worked…to promote [Chinese]…propaganda…[via] a news source for Southern California’s Chinese American community…PRC officials contacted Wang through encrypted WeChat messages to deliver prewritten news articles…[denying] the [ongoing] Chinese…genocide against ethnic minorities…[one of her contacts was] a high-level member of PRC intelligence…[named] John Chen of Chino, California, [who]…was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for [his actions]…

Feudalism Redux (#1511)

Infantilizing young adults as “children” makes them more vulnerable to government violence:

…Child Protective Services…has targeted mothers in multiple states who helped their daughters seek out abortions.  In one case, [they abducted the] teen from her home—and threatened her mother with murder charges—to stop her from getting an abortion.  Another…who lives in a state where abortion is legal, faced an investigation from both CPS and local police after helping her teen end a pregnancy…the government is using family separation as an anti-abortion weapon—and women will fear that simply helping their daughters get care could mean losing their children…bringing your [teenage daughter] across state lines to end their pregnancy is not illegal anywhere in America.  But what the law says on paper and what [cops and associated creatures] do…are two very different things…the…[typical] strategy…[is to pretend their target is] forcing her daughter into having an abortion

Torture Chamber (#1543)

Just a typical day in police-state America:

Three days after Tiffany McElroy was taken to an Alabama jail…her water br[oke]…several weeks early…[but when] she told a [screw the woman yelled “Stop faking!”]…at her…a…jail [“nurse” later threw]…a diaper and Tylenol a[t her through the bars, but ignored her while]…fellow [victims of the st]ate…helped…[deliver] a [blue] baby girl…[and] worked to resuscitate the newborn, sucking mucus from her mouth and rubbing her until she began to cry…McElroy…[is suing with the help of] Pregnancy Justice…[and] the Southern Poverty Law Center…one of the defendants…called the incident “barbaric” [and reported that she was threatened with firing if she helped]…McElroy was arrested…[by ab]use [of]…Alabama’s chemical endangerment law…During and after the birth [screws actively tried to stop the other women from]…assisting McElroy…[calling them “retarded”] and… “stupid”…[and] threaten[ing] to “tase” [them, then] later [retaliating against them]…McElroy…was [finally taken to the hospital after]…she [went into] shock…Her daughter was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, while McElroy remained in the hospital for three days…with [severe] anemia from blood loss…

The Punitive Mindset (#1587) 

Prison officials almost certainly knew this already; they simply don’t care:

The first comprehensive report on the impact of offering free phone calls in [US] prisons and jails shows that not only do such policies strengthen family connections, they’re directly associated with making prisons safer for both [victims] and [screws]…Two companies, Aventiv Technologies and ViaPath, hold about 80 percent of th[is fascist] market…Securus and/or JPay…[are] Aventiv…Global Tel Link, GTL, GettingOut, ConnectNetwork [and] Telmate…[are] ViaPath.  The report includes data from the six prison systems that have implemented free phone calls—California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and the federal Bureau of Prisons—and 17 local jails that have done the same…To date, New York is the only state to have made prison phone calls free through administrative action; the other[s all had to be forced to give up their gravy train]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1588)

Judges should not spare sleazebags the consequences of their premeditated actions:

An Auckland software engineer who pressed record on his [perve]rt glasses without consent while a sex worker was naked in front of him claims that being identified…would cause him extreme hardship…[the judge dismissed the case] without conviction…[because] the sex worker [caught] him…and…immediately took the…glasses [then] told reception staff to call police…the [perpetrator whined that he] would lose his job if…named…and would not be able to get another…so…the judge [let him keep the anonymity he tried]…to [deny]…his victim…

Mad Libs (#1627)

Why bother doing research when you can just let a computer make shit up?

[Polling company Gallup wants to use chatbots]…to create…responses…designed to simulate how individuals and populations might answer survey questions…with[out] the…[effort of actual] research…Gallup[‘s]…goal is to learn…[how to] replace…human…[employees and interview subjects with]…probability-based data…to [badly]…approximate results from a[n actual] sample of…real people…Gallup’s…goal is to explore where this methodology can…substitute…for [paying] work[ers]…

 

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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One of my regular readers recently told me that an Asian masseuse he knows wanted to tell her story; since these women now bear the brunt of anti-sex worker police violence in the US, I was happy to provide her the opportunity.  CiCi reads English well but is much more comfortable writing in Chinese, so I used Google translate to prepare the rough draft, then edited it and let her check it for accuracy prior to publication.

My name is CiCi Liu.  I came to the United States from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China in 2010.  After first arriving in Flushing, New York, and resting for a week, I found a job as a live-in nanny through a newspaper advertisement.  I worked there for a year, but it was both stressful and boring, and I lacked freedom due to living with my employer 24/7.  I wanted to change jobs and relax a bit, so I went back to the newspaper ads and found a job at a restaurant.  But after working there for six months, I found it was not suitable for me; I was very tired and overworked, so I quit and rested for a few months before entering the massage industry through a friend’s introduction.

Initially, I had a lot of freedom, going into parks with my partner and using simple massage chairs we made ourselves to massage tourists, starting from the grass.  Then every day from morning until midnight, I would go to the entrance of some bar and wait for customers to come out, trying to persuade them to buy massages from me; the results were pretty good, and I maintained this routine for several years.  Unfortunately, this kind of massage work could only be done in the summer, so in the winter I did temporary jobs and odd jobs, but that wasn’t a real solution; I needed to find a stable job.

So it was back to the newspaper again, where I found a job posting for a massage place in a shopping mall, which I found quite suitable.  I’m relatively quiet and prefer to give slow, gentle massages; the place had both chair back massages and mattress massages.  Over a five-year period, I learned a lot of English and mastered massage techniques; I became much stronger, worked as a massage manager and massage instructor, and gained several years of experience.  So I wanted to start my own business, but that presented many difficulties; then a friend asked me to help her with house massages, which I thought was a great opportunity.

In-room massage turned out to be the best for me; it’s quiet, slow, and I feel free.  More importantly, it allows me to utilize my strengths.  My massage skills are top-notch.  I can control the entire process and know every acupoint on the body, so my clients feel very satisfied; many clients will extend the time again and again, and I can also meet their additional requests.  No matter what kind of client they are, I will treat them all the same, like my own family, with care, patience, and sincerity, and they reward me accordingly.  Every guest appreciates the cleanliness and hygiene of my environment; I use numerous small, warm towels to wipe the surfaces clean, and the sheets are changed daily.  Guests can shower freely.  When I’m working, I rarely answer the phone or send any messages; all my time is devoted to the customer receiving a massage.  As a result, 80% of my guests return, and my diligent efforts have earned me the support and affection of many guests, for which I am deeply grateful.  If you are in the Portland, Oregon area and would enjoy visiting me, you can email me at CiCithegoat@proton.me.

 

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Unserious leaders are unsafe.  –  Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai

Under Review (#779)

The internet’s global scope is the main reason politicians hate it and want to destroy it:

An escort website [based in Spain]…“makes a mockery” of Ireland’s law criminalising the purchase of sex, [babbled politician]…Sharon Keogan[, adding nonsense about “]direct defiance[” even though Spanish businesses are not subject to] Ireland’s [puritanic]al law…[she also barfed out the word “]trafficking[” in order to infantilize] migrant women…[and demanded] the law [be made into]…a “ma[gic]al operation[” so as to “]take action against such sites[” despite their being based in other sovereign nations]…She [further slandered]…independent escorts [by claiming they are] often controlled by organised crime groups that dominate the sex trade [in the sick fantasies of prohibitionists, and vomited out the word “]pimping[” before admitting that]…the business…[is] a Spanish-registered company[.  She appeared surprised to learn that] multimillion euro [businesses are]…organised…

License to Rape (#1327)

“Search” is the most common government euphemism for “molest”:

Black [minors] across England and Wales are almost eight times more likely to be [molested under guise of a “]search[“]…by police than their white counterparts…The findings…come more than five years after the case of…a Black 15-year-old schoolgirl who was [molested by cops] while menstruating b[ecause a teacher claimed she had touched a plant.  Surprisingly]…a disciplinary panel [later sacked the] two [molesters for] gross misconduct…[Such sexual assaults are] usually [justified by belching “]drugs[” in the victim’s face]…from July 2023 to June 2024…there were a total of 362 [“]search[” branded molestations] of under-18s…Half were white, 31% were Black, 11% Asian, 1.7% of mixed ethnicity and 12% other…[at least] 30% [of the victims had been assaulted by cops]…at least once before…[in the case of] Black [victims the assaults] were almost five times as likely to [be violent]…than [if the victims were] white…

Thou Shalt Not (#1381)

Because this kind of prohibition will surely be different!

[British subjects] aged 17 or younger will face…lifelong [criminalization of] buying cigarettes…Parliament….[has] settled on a final draft of the “[monkey see, monkey do]” legislation that aims to [magically] stop anyone born after 1 January 2009 from [getting cigarettes from the black market] to [magically] create a smoke-free generation [with a wave of politicians’ wands.  The government is also giving itself]…new powers to regulate tobacco, vaping and nicotine products, including their flavours and packaging.  It is part of a series of measures aimed at [creating a dangerous new front in the drug war]…one of the [world]’s leading causes of preventable death, [state violence,] and [human misery.  Cops will also be given new powers to spy on]…cars…playgrounds…schools and…hospitals…

Quiet Genocide (#1495)

Apparently white people can only care about one group of Muslims at a time:

…hundreds of thousands…since 2016 have suffered the Chinese government’s grave human rights violations in…Xinjiang…[where] authorities have subjected Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims to mass arbitrary detention, unjust imprisonments, intrusive surveillance and forced labor.  The UN Office of…Human Rights concluded in a landmark 2022 report that the Chinese government may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang….Yet…efforts by…countries who tried to place Xinjiang on the formal agenda of the UN Human Rights Council were narrowly defeated after heavy pressure from Beijing…Yet China’s success in shifting the narrative is not solely the result of repression.  It also reflects…an increasingly unpredictable US foreign policy…[because] as governments line up to meet [Emperor] Xi Jinping as a hedge against [mad Emperor] Trump…human rights concerns…are routinely sidelined…allowing Beijing to effectively whitewash its crimes and recast China as a reliable…alternative to the United States…

Panopticon (#1515)

Cops are nothing more than state-sponsored terrorists:

…the Atlanta…“Cop City” [scheme] is at the center of a much larger experiment…[to replace an] urban forest…[with] the most expansive surveillance network of any city in the U.S…supercharg[ing] a pattern of digital tracking in Black neighborhoods…Georgia-based surveillance companies [are already] market[ing] this model nationwide…[despite] its ties to immigration [pogroms] and protest policing…A 2025 mapping project estimated that Atlanta now has about 124 surveillance cameras for every 1,000 residents…higher than any city in the world outside of a handful in China…The network…metastasized through the city’s Connect Atlanta program, which lets [useful idiots give pigs] live access to their private feeds…​

The Last Shall Be First (#1600)

Judges need to start presenting a united front against monarchical diktats:

A federal judge…issued a written opinion blasting [Trump henchman] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for…wanton disregard…for the rule of law in restricting federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors…The judge made it clear he was throwing out the Kennedy declaration…[and] granted an injunction prohibiting the federal government from trying to supersede professionally-recognized standards [again because]…the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lack[s] the authority to unilaterally establish standards of medical care…[government] lawyers [backpedaled, claiming]…that Kennedy’s declaration reflected his personal opinion…and was not binding…[but] the judge found it was “strikingly apparent” that the…federal government’s arguments are based on [a] “bald-faced lie”…[saying] he was not persuaded by the federal government’s “attempts to gaslight” the court…

Mad Libs (#1631)

Politicians want to “regulate” consensual sex, but not this dangerous toy:

When researcher Nicholas Tiller began to feed health questions into chatbots as a test, he [did not] expect…this level of failure.  Five [chatbot]s, 250 questions and a total score of just over 50 percent correct responses.  And 1 in 5 of the…wrong [answers] were…dangerous[ly wrong]…A separate…study…in JAMA Network Open…gave 21 [chatbots all]…failing grades…[Another] recent experiment [show]ed how easily…chatbots [can be made to spout complete nonsense]…the problem is not an isolated quirk [but is intrinsic to the way chatbots function]…

 

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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A young rock is probably a good thing.  –  Derek Leung

Though Fred Smith left Blondie before their first album was recorded, I decided to feature this little-known, very weird, very punk song from their debut album because I’ve always liked it.  The links above the video were provided by Nun Ya, Kevin Wilson, Jeremy Malcolm, Jesse Walker, Franklin Harris, Yasmin Nair, and Nun Ya again, in that order.

From the Archives

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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The heads came off and…the bodies kept marching in place.

It’s rare to see a new, original, Gothic horror video online, with nary a jump-scare in sight!  And I found it just in time to sneak it in before the end of Christmas.  The links above it were provided by Franklin Harris, Jesse Walker, Lucy Steigerwald, Nun Ya, and IncarcerNation (x2), in that order.

From the Archives

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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We’ve known for years that Tim Ballard is a shameless, lying, actual predator.  –  Aracely Yates

Above the Law

Your “leaders” at work:

A[n Ohio politician]…facing serious sex charges dating back nearly 30 years was released on his own recognizance…less than 24 hours after his initial arrest…Gerald Dixon [has a history of molesting boys, including some that are cognitively impaired.  The cops have known about]…Dixon…[since 2020, before he first ran for office, and] there are at least eight…victims, [including] some from…Michigan and New York…[going] back [to] 1996…

Bait and Switch (#1070)

Here’s reporter Kevin Light-Roth writing for The Appeal with a long, thorough deep dive on the “Operation Net Nanny” scams which were specifically designed to entrap normal young men seeking consensual sex with adult age-peer women on adults-only dating sites, so as to destroy their lives via prison and permanent “sex offender” registration by claiming that the adult women they arranged to meet were actually pigs pretending in their minds to be minors.  I know that sounds completely Kafkaesque, but if you explore this tag you’ll realize it’s not only an accurate description, but a common entrapment scheme for the past decade.  The article also explores the scam’s deep connections to disgraced “sex trafficking” profiteer Tim Ballard, and the attempts by the families of the victims to use Ballard’s downfall as a crowbar to pry open the refusal of the Washington state carceral establishment to do anything about these blatantly-illegal pogroms.

Virtual Imperialism (#1292)

Greedy, amoral corporations enable Beijing’s campaign to silence Chinese people:

The Chinese telecoms giant Tencent is trying to muzzle a service that offers an uncensored view of what users of [its] social media platform WeChat…are posting…FreeWeChat…is operated by…anti-censorship organisation GreatFire.org…and…works by identifying WeChat posts that contain certain “sensitive” keywords and archives and monitors them all to see whether they are subsequently deleted from the social platform.  Typical [censored] words…include the so-called three Ts: Tiananmen, Taiwan and Tibet.  If a monitored post subsequently disappears, FreeWeChat marks it as “censored”…FreeWeChat has…allowed more than 700,000 censored WeChat posts to remain available for both Chinese users and others…[but] Tencent…[has made a legal claim] to Vultr, the USA-based…host…of…FreeWeChat…claim[ing] that FreeWeChat was infringing intellectual property rights…[so] Vultr suspended the [site]…

Thought Control (#1499)

Politicians really do believe they can control people’s thoughts via censorship:

The Randolph County [North Carolina] Library Board [was fired en masse] by the county commissioners…[for refusing] to [ban] a children’s book titled Call Me Max…[which one wannabe censor demanded banned]…Of the 40 speakers [at the meeting], 21 w[ere violently-censorious nitwits who “arguments” were made up of threats and unsupported opinions]…while 19 [wanted to allow] librarians [to do the jobs they were hired to do]…

No Escape (#1584)

The inevitable result of giving sexually-aggressive thugs total power over women:

Eleven women [locked up in] a federal prison in Texas…have filed fresh lawsuits [over the endemic rapes and]…sexual…assault[s]…by prison staff…including a doctor, chaplain and three [screws]…sexual assault is [especially] common at FMC Carswell…the most of any federal women’s prison…[because it is used to warehouse] women with severe mental health and physical ailments…

If Men Were Angels (#1585)

The main difference between cops and “pastors” appears to be that the latter aren’t typically armed:

…[Illinois] pastor…Douglas R. Overmyer…[was arrested and] charg[ed for sharing]…a video of an…adult male [rap]ing [an underage girl]…“on or about May 20, 2025”…Overmyer [was immediately fired from] Zion Hill [Methodist] Church…he…was…was formerly the Executive Director of CHI RHO Outdoors, a group which “provides boys and young men with engaging outdoor experiences…while instilling valuable life lessons”…

Censor Chic (#1591)

Civil rights mean nothing if fascist corporations eagerly dance to the government’s tune:

The developer of ICEBlock, an app used to track local sightings of [goons, spooks, and pigs, has] sued the U.S. government…for [unconstitutional]ly infringing his free speech rights…Apple removed the app from its store in October [after] the Trump [regime threatened the company]…Apple [absurdly justified its bootlicking by claiming heavily-armed thugs with broad immunity to law constitute a vulnerable group]…In 2019, the company [similarly] removed an app that Hong Kong protesters used to track police movements…[and] Apple [justified the collaboration by barfing the word “]criminals[” at the protesters]…Google…also agreed to [collaborate with fascist tyranny]…

 

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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Help me, I can’t breathe.  –  Francis Gigliotti

If Men Were Angels

On Aug. 28, New York State Police arrested [a Methodist minister named] Ronald E. Wenzinger…for [talking online to a cop fantasy role-playing as a teenager]

Cashing In On Shame

What was once pure fraud can now be accomplished in reality:

…one specimen of widely available spyware has turned [w]hat [used to be a scam] into a…[serious crime by] detecting when the user is browsing pornography…screenshotting it, and taking a candid photo of the victim through their webcam…an open-source variant of “infostealer” malware known as Stealerium…like all infostealers, is designed to infect a target’s computer and automatically send a hacker a wide variety of stolen sensitive data, including banking information, usernames and passwords, and keys to victims’ crypto wallets.  Stealerium, however…also monitors the victim’s browser for web addresses that include certain NSFW keywords, screenshots browser tabs that include those words, photographs the victim via their webcam while they’re watching those porn pages, and sends all the images to a hacker—who can then blackmail the victim…cybercriminals attempt…to trick users into downloading and installing Stealerium as an attachment or a web link, luring victims with typical bait like a fake payment or invoice…

Welcome to the Future (#1440)

Oh what a surprise, how could anyone have predicted this, etc:

…Axon[‘s]…Draft One…[is a program] that [is supposed to] turn [cop] body camera footage and audio into intelligible police reports…civil rights advocacy groups like the [EFF] and ACLU…[have pointed out that LLM’s] tendency to insert inaccuracies into texts—including wholesale inventions known by technologists as “hallucinations”…[make such systems unreliable and dangerous].  Axon [claims] its…safeguards…[are] designed to ensure [cop]…actually read…the…reports rather than rubber-stamping them.  But records obtained by Mother Jones through [FOI] laws almost uniformly show [cop shops] that use the software turn…such features off….[to] reduce…or eliminate…human oversight…reports generated by the…tool…have [certainly] been used in plea deals…essentially [telling] lie[s]…to the court that can’t be easily revealed…

I Can’t Breathe (#1447)

Dare I hope fewer coroners are willing to cover up cops’ crimes?

The death of a Massachusetts man this summer outside a fish market was attributed [in part] to…police…The July 11 death of Francis Gigliotti was deemed…a…homicide [by]…the medical examiner…[but] District Attorney Paul F. Tucker…is…[trying to justify the cops’] actions [anyhow]…Seven [cops]…were [rewarded with paid vacations for the murder of a man who]…was [intentionally] restrained…face down…[even though the DoJ]…has warned [cops] for decades to roll [prisoners] off their stomachs as soon as they are handcuffed because of the danger of positional asphyxia…

When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1456)

Ambulance-chasers have given themselves the power to rob internet companies:

…the Federal Trade Commission…is proposing that Aylo, [owner of] Pornhub and other popular porn…platforms, be ordered to pay the state of Utah $5 million…[due to supposedly] violating…Utah’s Consumer Sales Practices Act by failing to stop Pornhub users from uploading [porn] the [state has demonized]…In its complaint, the FTC spends a lot of space listing Pornhub tags and titles such as “helpless teens,” “internet creeper,” “shower spy cameras,” and “shamed sluts”…No one let FTC workers visit the Netflix homepage.  We’ll soon have an investigation into how Netflix is promoting murder and corporate espionage and witchcraft…Porn, like other types of entertainment media, often relies on fictional characters and scenarios…some of the content users uploaded to Pornhub may have actually been illegal…[but] Pornhub…tightened up its content rules…in 2020…And most of the things that the FTC objects to are policies [from] before 2020…[also,] distributing child pornography is a crime.  If a web platform is knowingly distributing child pornography, the proper recourse is for the Department of Justice to bring a criminal case…

The Cop Myth (#1461)

Cop violence is never limited to adults:

[A] Texas [cop named] Micah Smyth [was turned in by his wife for inflicting multiple injuries on their small child.  Smyth]…claimed to have accidentally dropped the child while a[bus]ing his other child in the bathroom…the…injuries [were so severe] the child [had to be] taken to [specialists at a] Children’s Hospital in Lubbock…who…found…a fractured skull with a brain bleed, bruises on his back and a healing rib fracture…that [could not be] solely based on an accidental drop…Smyth…was arrested and charged with…child [abuse both] in this case…[and] an additional…charge from 2022 [which his cop buddies previously ignored, thus allowing three more years of abuse]…

If the victims are young enough, there may even be consequences:

A [typical and representative] Milwaukee [cop] is heading to prison…[for] abus[ing] his infant daughter…Martinese McDaniel…[was left with the child by his] girlfriend[, who] came home one day in January 2023 to find the…two-month old…wasn’t breathing and McDaniel…[shaking] her…in a panic.  A pediatrician diagnosed the infant with brain bleeding, hemorrhaging, rib fractures, bruises and other injuries consistent with abuse.  McDaniel gave investigators surveillance video of his home…with one hour of the video [conveniently] missing during the time that his daughter stopped breathing…

Eavesdropping (#1501)

Just a reminder that these hackers exploited vulnerabilities intentionally placed into systems to allow “authorized” busybodies to spy on you:

[The full extent of last year’s massive]…attack by [the Chinese government’s] Salt Typhoon [hacking team] is [finally becoming clear]…It targeted more than 80 countries and may have stolen information from nearly every American…[by] exploit[ing  vulnerabilities intentionally inserted into] global communication networks [to allow cops easy wiretap access]…British and American officials have described the attack as “unrestrained” and “indiscriminate.”  Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain were also signatories to the statement, which was part of a [childish “We see you!” strategy] directed at the Chinese government…The…hack…highlights China’s ambitions for global [domina]nce, which were [recently] on display…at an elaborate military parade in Beijing that featured fighter jets, tanks and thousands of troops marching across Tiananmen Square…

 

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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Technologies funded to police sex work now monitor everyone.
–  Kate Zen & Chanelle Gallant

See How Well It Works?

Years after the end of the hysteria, fanatics still pretend their dissemination of fantasies is the reason those fantasies never materialize:

A [scam outfit belatedly set up to profit from hysteria over “]sex trafficking[” tried to drum up “gypsy whore” panic over] the NFL Draft in Green Bay[, Wisconsin]…HER Alliance, formerly known as Awaken…says they didn’t see a large uptick [of “victims”] during the draft thanks to [their propaganda about “]the signs of trafficking[“]…

Without Let or Hindrance

Everyone victimized by “child protection” agencies needs to sue:

A Georgia couple whose children were [abducted by the state] for two years following a [malicious accusation] of child abuse have filed a lawsuit…in 2023…Matt and Tuckey Hernandez took their youngest daughter, 3-month-old Emma, to the doctor after noticing some swelling on one of her legs…X-rays found that Emma’s leg and ribs were fractured in several places…[pediatrician] Stephen Messner…[immediate]ly diagnosed Emma with “non-accidental trauma”…[despite] no evidence of abuse on the couple’s 3-year-old…Messner never reviewed any of Baby Emma’s…medical history…the state [immediately abducted both]…daughters…placed the[m]…in a series of foster homes…[and] charged [the parents] with child abuse…DFCS…refus[ed] to place the girls with relatives or family friends…Emma had very low vitamin D, which…had caused her to develop neonatal rickets, weakening her bones…Genetic testing also indicated that Emma had defects in her collagen genes, possibly causing conditions associated with fractures in infants.  But these [facts] were…ignored by the DFCS, which continued to attempt to sever Matt and Tuckey’s parental rights [to sell] the girls…[to] another family…Last month, Matt and Tuckey were acquitted of all charges, and their daughters were finally returned to them…

Rotting Fruit (#894)

The first interesting development in this whole affair since ever:

QAnon didn’t start in a vacuum; it followed two decades of mainstream media and politicians…using the flimsiest evidence and most distorted data to falsely claim that America was in the midst of a sex trafficking epidemic.  And then along came Jeffrey Epstein…[whose] well-documented crimes involving teenage girls, and his roster of rich and powerful friends, could be read by motivated audiences as backing up QAnon claims…Trump…[and his henchmen] began to actively encourage the idea that Epstein’s client list was being deliberately withheld by Democrats with something to hide…But…now, Trump is telling people to forget about Jeffrey Epstein entirely…so…the whole “release the files” business seems slightly less preposterous now that Trump and his lackeys seem desperate to draw attention away from them…The theoretical files were useful as a tool to raise suspicion about Trump’s opponents.  But the actual files…could be a liability or an embarrassment…in that they don’t actually prove anything nefarious about any Democrats…As a political tool, the Epstein files are much more useful if they remain hidden…

Thought Control (#1109) 

Western countries have criminalized fiction the government dislikes for years:

Pingping Anan Yongfu…is among at least eight [writers] in recent months wh[o] have shared accounts on Chinese social media platform Weibo of being arrested for publishing gay erotic fiction…At least 30 writers, nearly all of them women in their 20s, have been arrested…since February…some are still [locked] in c[ages, and]…many more…[including some readers,] were summoned for [interrogation]…Haitang Literature City, a Taiwan-hosted platform known for its “danmei”, the genre of so-called boys’ love and erotic fiction…has cultivated a fiercely devoted following, especially among young Chinese women.  These authors are being accused of breaking China’s pornography law for “producing and distributing obscene material”.  Writers who earn a profit could be jailed for more than 10 years…Although authors of heterosexual erotica have been jailed in China…Gay erotica…seems to bother authorities more…

Enshittification (#1524)  

Another factor in the coming dark age: computer-generated garbage making records of this period unreliable:

…the [CGI] slop endgame, for social media companies, is creating a hyper personalized feed full of highly specific [fiction] about anything one could possibly imagine.  Because [CGI] slop is so easy to make and because social media algorithms are so personalized, this means that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can feed you anything they…want…Case in point: Facebook…slop…shows [LSU] football coach Brian Kelly assisting in the Texas floods…[on] a Facebook page called LSU Gridiron Glory…[which] is [also] churning out slop that includes Brian Kelly…reacti[ng] to last month’s tragic Air India crash…getting his lost wallet returned to him, donating to the homeless…in the hospital with a rare illness…being deported by Trump, talking to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and…secretly “paying off the debt owed by a struggling gardener”…fans of the NBC show The Voice…[are being fed] slop of judge Blake Shelton saving dogs in the Texas flood…carrying a girl out of a medical clinic…donating to an animal rescue shelter, etc…many of these bizarre images link out to [LLM]-generated “news” websites…overloaded with ads…

Blunt Instrument (#1543)

“Sex trafficking” hysteria laid the groundwork for Trump’s anti-migrant pogroms:

Since January…raids on massage parlors have intensified, targeting immigrant women suspected of sex work…[yet] these workers — among ICE’s most systematically targeted — are largely excluded from community defense…On June 11, ICE and local police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, raided nine massage parlors, d[isappear]ing 10 Chinese women…into ICE’s sprawling detention system…yet not a single organization called for their release…nearly 1,000 arrests in Queens, New York, targeted immigrant sex workers and street vendors.  In Arizona, over 200 arrests were made.  In Texas, 11 parlors were closed in February and May under emergency powers that bypass criminal charges…In other labor sectors, worksite raids sparked massive outpourings of solidarity and creative resistance..but sex workers are left to fend for themselves…the…immigrant rights movement calibrates its messaging to appeal to moderate respectability — complying with lines drawn between the “deserving” and the disposable…To some, the…[current anti-migrant pogrom]s appear unprecedented.  But for those organizing with sex workers, they’re all too familiar.  For years, ICE has used migrant sex workers as testing grounds for its most aggressive tactics

I Spy (#1543)

Wave bye-bye to the last remaining shreds of your privacy:

…ICE…is now using data from the Insurance Services Office’s ClaimSearch, a private industry service for detecting car and health insurance fraud…ClaimSearch includes 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills—along with the personal data attached to them, including addresses, tax identification numbers, and license plates.  ClaimSearch…[openly admits]…that it grants full access to [any cop shop or spook house which wants it, yet]…Verisk, the company that runs ClaimSearch, [l]ied [by claiming]…ICE…is [somehow an exception, probably because]…ICE has access…through another government agency…[given that] the Trump [regime issued] an [illegal diktat] to tear down “information silos” between federal agencies, and…Palantir…has a contract with ICE to…target [human beings for abduction]…

 

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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I’ve said for a very long time that the only moral form of warfare is War of Assassins, in which the only combatants and the only legitimate targets are the rulers, their henchmen, and their agents.  We had a sort of watered-down version of this in the Cold War, where agents might assassinate each other, but they tried to avoid involving members of the general population wherever possible.  Of course, the rulers also decided to agree that assassinating each other was somehow wrong, but it was perfectly moral and acceptable to blow up thousands or even millions of noncombatants who might not even agree with their government’s policies or their decision to go to war against another country.  This looking-glass morality has led to the current US policy where it’s pretended to not be OK to send a covert operative to target some “Enemy of the State” with a single bullet, but totally OK to destroy his entire family with a drone-carried missile fired at some building he currently occupied (even if the event was a wedding or some other circumstance in which many of the victims of this morally-destitute strategy were women and children).  Yes, the actual argument is that killing an enemy is wrong unless a lot of innocent people are exterminated along with him, and the majority of people who know about this policy see nothing morally suspect about it.

But recently, we’ve seen similar drone technology used in an unquestionably moral fashion; it’s a version of War of Assassins in which large military weapons are the targets:

For years, Russia has used its strategic bombers — which can also carry nuclear weapons — to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine from a huge distance.  The Ukrainians had attacked these bombers on the ground with drones, but the Russians simply moved them farther away, well out of reach of anything the Ukrainians could launch from their own territory.  So the Ukrainians…packed a bunch of drones — little plastic battery-powered quadcopters, not too different from a toy you would fly at the park — into trucks and [surreptitiously] sent the trucks all the way across Russia.  When the[y] got close to the air force bases where the Russians had parked their bombers, the Ukrainian drones popped out of the trucks and started blowing up the bombers — and other planes — on the ground…It’s not clear how many  Russian bombers the Ukrainians managed to take out, but everyone agrees it was a significant chunk of Russia’s bomber force.  And these magnificent, enormously expensive, rare, highly prized machines of destruction were taken out [by] battery-powered toys…the world has changed, almost overnight.  The American military is…built around a bunch of big, expensive, heavy “platforms” like aircraft carriers, jet planes, and tanks…that will be destroyed every time a cheap plastic battery-powered Chinese drone takes out an expensive piece of American hardware in a war over Taiwan, or the South China Sea, or Xi Jinping waking up in a bad mood — not including, of course, the lives of whatever Americans happen to be inside the hardware when it gets destroyed…military planners all over the world are scrambling to come up with defenses against the kind of raid that Ukraine just carried out…

Good.  The less power is concentrated, the better for everyone except tyrants and their parasites.  The real ultimate promise of technology is universal decentralization, the complete opposite of the surveillance state and techlords’ LLM platforms.  And the sooner we reach the day when the giants can no longer rely on their sheer size to dominate individuals and small groups, the better for humanity.

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If you can do it to them, you can do it to any of us. – Rabbi William Gershon

A Whore in Church

Matthew 21:31 seems pretty straightforward to me:

Professionally, I now openly represent myself as a Christian dominatrix who uses Christian rituals to heal the connection between sexuality and spirit.  My clients often come to me because I work specifically with the deconditioning of the religious wound that has caused harmful beliefs around their sexuality…Out of the shadow of shame, they are no longer “wicked” or “evil”― they are holy…Jesus…spen[t] time with and perform[ed] miracles for prostitutes…Jesus never cast anyone out, and he never denied anyone the miracles, signs and wonders that flowed through him; he wanted everyone to have a personal relationship with God, free from the constraints of organized religion.  So even though many Christians would view me as “sinful” and even undeserving of a relationship with God, I reject that view, because I know Jesus loves me and wants the best for my life…

Creepy Coppers

[An Illinois cop named Eli Barthel] has been arrested for child pornography offenses…after [he was caught in an] FBI [trap]…

Welcome to the Future (#1265)

New forms of intrusive surveillance are always justified as “safety”:

…[moral imbeciles] have come up with…an electronic tattoo, stuck to the forehead …[to spy on the moods of] pilots, healthcare workers and other professions where managing mental workload is crucial to preventing catastrophes…[by giving bosses] “some warning and alert so that they can [be relieved]…of [duty],” said Dr Nanshu Lu, an author of the research…[ignor]ing the [obvious fact that data from such a] device [would be compiled in]…workers[‘ files and used to judge their performance]…Lu and colleagues describe how using questionnaires to investigate mental workload is problematic, not least as people are poor at objectively judging [whether they should be demoted or fired]…the “e-tattoo” is a lightweight, flexible, wireless device [constantly]…attached to the forehead [during work hours to]…detect…brain activity…and…eye movements…[allowing human beings to be monitored by] a machine-learning algorithm [as though they were machines themselves]…

Click on the subtitle to see the “demoralizing, humiliating, and toxic” abuses already possible with existing employee-monitoring technology.

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1391)

This would be hilarious if it were their own money these idiots were throwing away:

The [US] Senate is considering a fentanyl exposure bill that would fund “containment devices”…TruBLOC LLC, a company that manufactures the type of…devices in question, sells 1.5-ounce canisters as a set of 12 for $359.40, or as a set of 48 for $1,437.60…TruBLOC [claims]…“Inhalation is the main route of exposure”…[which] would [not be entirely wrong] if the term were being used to refer to sniffing or snorting fentanyl, but in this context the term is describing passive inhalation — i.e. breathing air while standing somewhere in the vicinity of fentanyl…a…video [lies that]…“Small amounts of opioids can kill an officer”….then shows the gloved hands of a…paid actor awkwardly peeling the orange residue off the seat in a manner that strongly recalls attempting to peel off sour candy that’s melted.  The hands remain gloved, despite the fact that the threat that did not exist to begin with has been contained…


Virtual Imperialism (#1472)

As I’ve explained under this tag before, Beijing’s campaign to silence Chinese people outside China has become far more aggressiveRolling Stone published an excerpt from Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized, a new book detailing Chinese surveillance, harassment, intimidation, and sometimes abduction or assassination of activists who flee China.  The excerpt tells the story of Serikzhan Bilash, an ethnic Kazakh human rights activist who was pursued by Chinese agents from Xinjiang to Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan, then to Istanbul, and eventually to Washington DC and New York, always trying to terrorize him into shutting up and dismantling his organization, Atazhurt.  If you don’t know about the extent of China’s terrorism of expatriates and its willingness to violate other countries’ sovereignty, you really should read it in its entirety.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1524) 

Much more of this, please:

An isolated tribe in the Amazon…[has sued] The New York Times over [yellow journalism] in the newspaper [claim]ing their people’s recent access to the internet…[has led to] members of the tribe…develop[ing] pornography addictions [even though there is no such thing].  The Marubo tribe…filed the defamation lawsuit…seeking $180 million in damages…[over the paper’s] “portray[al of] the Marubo people as a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, [and pretending]…that their youth had [developed narcissistic personality disorder as a result]”…After the piece was published, other outlets, including TMZ and Yahoo!, published their own versions of the [accusations], which in many cases…exaggerate the [already-dishonest] claims [even further].  That prompted The Times to run a[n attempt at a semi-retraction en]titled “No, A Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn”…But it wasn’t enough.  The Marubo [correctly point out] that the original statements were “inflammatory” and conveyed that the tribe “had descended into moral and social decline as a direct result of internet access”…

Business Opportunity (#1527)

This sort of NIMBY bullshit is exactly why there are so many homeless people in the first place:

…the town of Toms River, New Jersey is planning to use eminent domain to condemn a church, raze it, and build a park and pickleball courts on the spot.  The planned condemnation [is obviously] motivated by a desire to prevent the church from opening a small homeless shelter on part of its…11 acres of land…the church, which was founded in 1865…[rents space to] an affordable housing nonprofit…[which] asked to create a small homeless shelter [but] the mayor [insists pickleball is more important than housing the needy because local NIMBYs said so]…the town’s interfaith council [are] united in their opposition to the [scam]…and…there is substantial public opposition…[so] the condemnation…will likely be challenged in court under the state and federal constitutions…

 

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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