Whenever a person expresses surprise upon discovering that I’m a colossal nerd, I have to wonder if they’ve actually been paying attention for the past decade. I mean, it isn’t like I’ve made any effort to hide it; I made a Star Trek reference in my very first column, and I have frequently mentioned sci-fi stories and TV shows, comic books, horror movies, Dungeons and Dragons, and many other nerdy things here, on Twitter, and in real life (this column was inspired by my glancing up at the tiny Dalek atop my desk). And really, it’s important that I and other “out” sex workers not hide our nerdiness (or academic brilliance, or any other trait not generally associated with hot chicks), because showing the world what we’re really like makes it harder for prohibitionists to depict us as two-dimensional victims, vixens, or villains. Social media does a lot more for sex workers than act as a vehicle for marketing; it allows people who might never have thought much about sex worker rights to recognize us as real, complex human beings like themelves, worthy of rights and respect. And if Maggie Fucking McNeill can admit to owning enough stuffed animals to fill a good-sized display case, I doubt it will hurt your business to ‘fess up to writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic.
Posts Tagged ‘comics’
Diary #561
Posted in Diary, Perception, tagged comics, games, imaginative fiction, Twitter on March 30, 2021| 1 Comment »
Links #560
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged acting, Believe Them, Canada, comics, cops, Hawaii, Never Call the Cops, Texas, video, Washington (state) on March 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I’ll fucking kill you. – unnamed loose-cannon cop
Reason often produces amusing videos, but few are as funny as this one which demonstrates that libertarians, unlike most political groupings these days, have not entirely lost the ability to laugh at themelves. The links above it were provided by Cop Crisis, President Dawg, Franklin Harris, Furrygirl, and Cop Crisis again (x2), in that order.
- Just protecting and serving.
- Happy 100th birthday, Al Jaffee!
- R.I.P. Yaphet Kotto and George Segal.
- What part of “never” is so hard to understand?
- The bad apple didn’t fall very far from the bad tree.
- Cops regularly show you what they are. Why don’t you believe them?
From the Archives
- It’s dangerous to be a woman who knows sexual secrets of powerful men.
- Trumpists & anti-Trumpists fight to control the “sex trafficking” narrative.
- Everyone harmed by “prostitution stings” needs to keep suing over them.
- How long it will be before the US abandons its “re-education” programs?
- There’s a concise word for “sexually assaulted an incapacitated woman”.
- Politicians claim magic posters “fight” a repeatedly-debunked “problem”.
- Anti-trans bigots keep sexually assaulting trans people in public toilets.
- Massage parlors are popular pogrom targets; they’re low-hanging fruit.
- Regular reminder that Grady Judd is a loathsome excuse for a human.
- Hollywood actors really need to stop pretending expertise in sexology.
- Waffle House is so reliable, FEMA uses it as a disaster severity metric.
- The pandemic affects sex workers in Germany, Bangladesh & Bolivia.
- A reminder of what the government is trying to take away from you.
- Violent, coercive “wing” idiots are completely detached from reality.
- Fact: 3-year-old suspiciously vanishes. Conclusion: sex trafficking!
- The majority of petty evildoers see themselves as just doing a job.
- Persecution of sex workers invariably affects other women as well.
- Captain Save-a-ho is going to “fight” our work by walking around.
- Cops, politicians, Stuart Gordon, Kenny Rogers, and much more.
- “Give me your huddled masses, so I can torture them to death.”
- Prohibitionist group laments the shutdown of a gang of rapists.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- If the people won’t support your crusade, just overrule them.
- Creepy fascist surveillance of hotel guests is growing worse.
- A glimpse into the violent sociopathy that is prohibitionism.
- The pandemic seems to be killing “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- A retrospective of my blogging from March 2016 and 2017.
- And guess who gets to declare that an “emergency” exists?
- No woman can now be safe from sexually-aggressive cops.
- Prohibitionist whining is becoming increasingly desperate.
- They’re like anti-vaxxers who actively spread contagion.
- The UK’s long-deferred surveillance/censorship scheme.
- The beginning of “sex trafficking” morphing into QAnon.
- Why do men want to put stupid gadgets on their dicks?
- Wow, two politicians with a particle of human decency!
- As always, sex workers demonstrate our adaptability.
- Even rent-a-cops feel entitled to rape sex workers.
- Cops, censorship, Rube Goldberg and much more.
- How you can see The War on Whores for yourself.
- Want more proof that we’re past the watershed?
- Predictable in the current Neo-Victorian climate.
- The Canadian premiere of The War on Whores.
- A fundraiser to promote The War on Whores.
- Imagine this actually going to trial in the US.
- Caty Simon on overlapping prohibitions.
- What “safe harbor” laws actually do.
- But they’re “rescuing sex slaves”!
- On chickens and bookcases.
- This is called “democracy”.
- What a sick, sorry waste.
- Rapist cops of the week.
Le Tabula Rasa
Posted in Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, censorship, comics, imaginative fiction, neofeminism, psychology, rape, tabula rasa on March 15, 2021| 7 Comments »
Last week, a New York Times reporter who apparently believes there is no actual news to cover at present took to Twitter to claim that the Looney Tunes character Pepe Le Pew “contributes to rape culture”, because obviously there was no such thing as rape prior to the appearance of theatrical cartoons in the 1930s. Rather than merely consider this idiocy as one more part of the growing lust for censorship of basically everything and everyone not pre-approved by the Grand High Board of Puritans, let’s consider the particular nastiness of this repellent specimen of malodorous moralism.
First and foremost, this pearl-clutcher proceeds from the typical assumption (beloved of humorless scolds without even the most rudimentary knowledge of the history of the medium) that anything animated is “for children”. The Looney Tunes were comedic theatrical shorts intended mostly for adults, shown before Warner Brothers films in theaters to fill out an evening of viewing. When in the 1950s, the young television industry started mining Hollywood for content to fill its programming schedules, cartoons were naturally part of that, and when television became the default evening entertainment in the 1960s, theatrical cartoons were one of the casualties of Hollywood’s struggle to survive. By the 1970s, Americans had succumbed to the collective delusion that any entertainment involving illustrations must be the sole province of children, despite many of them being old enough to remember a time when even housewives, GIs and businessmen read comic books, and most of them being old enough to remember prime-time animated shows such as The Flintstones. Illustrated entertainment went from being a medium also appreciated by children to one abandoned almost entirely to children, and though that began to change again in the 1980s, authoritarians still cling like embedded ticks to their battle cry “THE CHILDREN™!!!” as an excuse for censorship of any and all illustrated entertainment (including comic books, anime, South Park, and yes, Looney Tunes), because their desire isn’t to “protect children”; it’s to cram all of society into a government-controlled nursery school where No Fun Shall Be Had.
As a child, I didn’t find Pepe Le Pew funny at all, because I lacked the necessary frame of reference to see the humor. Like so many Looney Tunes characters, Pepe is a grotesquely over-the-top burlesque of a particular type of person, in this case the clueless man who, despite being repulsive to others, has convinced himself that he is the second coming of Casanova. Pepe isn’t the hero of his cartoons; he is the butt of the joke, a person so clueless he doesn’t even realize that he literally reeks. His creators aren’t celebrating him; they are mocking him, and only women who have endured the attentions of his real-life counterparts can fully appreciate the mockery. Censors, on the other hand, are chronological adults burdened with a child’s view of a universe without free will, where things just happen because of malign forces from outside of themselves; they are therefore not only impervious to the humor, but see it as a source of evil magic that programs passive viewers. Frankly, I’m sick to death of moronic tabula rasa arguments proposed by dimwits whose entire grasp of psychology amounts to thirdhand Skinneresque pseudo-intellectual rot. Garbage people who see humans as machines to be programmed also invariably have cartoonish views about sex work, and usually support policies that allow steroidal thugs to rape women and call it “rescue”. And it takes a truly Loony level of hypocrisy to be more concerned about the “rapey” behavior of cartoon skunks from the last century than about actual rapes of marginalized women by present-day government officials.
In the News (#1060)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged California, censorship, China, comics, cops, disease, fascism, Hollywood, Indiana, internet, Kentucky, Lack of Evidence, Negative Secondary Effects, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, politicians, porn, pragmatism, prisons, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, sex work is work, Stop faking!, surveillance, teachers, The Notorious Badge, The Prudish Giant, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, transgender, video, You Were Warned on August 2, 2020| 2 Comments »
She’s an adult as much as any fictional slime insect bug monster can be. – Slugbox
Once Patreon started following in the footsteps of Facebook, this was inevitable:
Whether by choice or force, Patreon’s NSFW creators are increasingly ditching the site over its 18+ rules. The latest casualties include a gay hypnosis erotica site and an adult anime artist [over whom] Patreon tried to “exercise a scary amount of financial and public control.” On July 15, Gay Spiral Stories owner Martin announced that the site would no longer be available for funding on Patreon…when…Patreon [demanded he]…remove…fictional, fantastical stories around mind control…Patreon was attempting to control what content Gay Spiral Stories could host off-site, regardless of Gay Spiral Stories’ Patreon presence…Patreon is [also] increasingly forcing adult artists to surrender their portfolios to the site’s control. In June, adult anime artist Slugbox…decided to leave Patreon for good…[because] under the site’s contemporary terms of service…“‘Slugbox’ becomes a ‘project’ that belongs to Patreon…[which can] dictate where Slugbox can operate, where Slugbox can make money, and how [Slugbox can] make money, and then hold my success here as a hostage”…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#855) 
Blaming bad behavior on an imaginary “addiction” is the opposite of accepting responsibility:
A former west Kentucky teacher and track coach, Mark Boggess was sentenced to ten years in prison…for setting up a video recording device in the bathroom of the nurse’s station in the high school…[so he c]ould…watch people change in and out of clothes…The defense claimed Boggess has a porn addiction…
A woman is suing San Jose police in federal court…[after] she was targeted, arrested, and jailed because [cops claimed]…transgender [women are all]…sex worker[s]…She is being represented by Bruce Nickerson, a prominent LGBTQ-rights attorney who is pursuing class-action status for the suit…Nickerson successfully sued San Jose police over undercover decoy stings…that…unlawfully targeted gay men…San Jose police declined to comment on the lawsuit…But [claimed stalking and harassing people for supposed bad thoughts was really FOR THE CHILDREN™!!!]…and [that]…street prostitution [magically attracts unspecified but scary]…harmful activity…from…other cities…
Another (very) slight setback for universal facial recognition in the US:
Over about eight years, the American drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp quietly added facial recognition systems to 200 stores across the United States…in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods…after Reuters sent…findings [from its investigation] to the retailer, Rite Aid [claimed] it had quit using its facial recognition software….[and] all the cameras had been turned off…Rite Aid [also claimed]…that customers had been apprised of the technology through “signage”…[but] reporters found no notice of the surveillance in more than a third of the stores…with the facial recognition cameras…and [further claimed]…the rollout was…based on stores’ theft histories, local and national crime data and site infrastructure…Among the systems used…was one from DeepCam LLC, which…[is lin]ked with a firm in China whose largest…investor is [the] Chinese government…The Home Depot Inc said it had been testing facial recognition to reduce shoplifting in at least one of its stores but stopped the trial this year…Walmart…has also tried out facial recognition in a handful of stores…
…conditions at the Indiana Women’s Prison are being [recognized as] “inhumane” by some [politicians. Chief screws deny it, but a whistleblower sided with prisoners in telling the truth. Bureaucrats claim that prisoners]…can go to the restroom every 30 minutes and are allowed to leave their cell every two hours to roam the common areas. [But in reality the women are locked in cages and told to “stop faking” if they need to use the toilet]…Before the pandemic, the [screws] would keep the cell doors open so [prisoners] could go into the common areas and the air would easily flow through the facility. However, the[y now use the pandemic as an excuse to keep]…cell doors [locked at all times]…“They are passing out from heat exhaustion as well as experiencing seizures,” said [politician J.D.] Ford…“I have seen vomiting, I have not personally seen seizures, but I frequently see reports of them,” said the…whistleblower…
Notice how often rapist cops’ victims are underage?
A San Diego [cop was finally] arrested…on criminal charges of child molestation, pandering and luring a child into a sex act, among other offenses…Jaylen Devon Fleer…is being held without bail…[after being on paid vacation since] May…[other pigs from the same cop shop who have been] charged with sexual misconduct…in recent years [include molester] Richard Fischer…[molester] Timothy Wilson…[rapist] Juan Andrade…[and sexual harasser] Assistant Sheriff Rich Miller…
If you can stomach it, read down to the part where the reporter tries to build up sympathy for a molester by telling us how good he was at playing kids’ games in high school.
Links #511
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged animals, apes & monkeys, comics, cops, France, imaginative fiction, video on April 19, 2020| 1 Comment »
I think I’ve drawn almost everyone in Hollywood. – Mort Drucker
This 1933 cartoon version of The Wizard of Oz only resembles its source material in that it features a little girl, her dog, a tornado, and an animated scarecrow and tin man. It was provided by Jesse Walker, who also gave us “Heyerdahl”, “Drucker”, and “fireworks”. The other links above the video were provided by Angela Keaton (“puritans”), Clarissa (“Blackman”), Kevin Wilson (“surprises”), and Brooke Magnanti (“Cthulhu”).
- Paging the ghost of Thor Heyerdahl.
- This is going to drive puritans crazy.
- R.I.P. Honor Blackman and Mort Drucker.
- I’m not the only one who hates surprises.
- More fireworks and less bootlicking, please.
- Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
From the Archives
- Since judges are now the handmaidens of prosecutors, this is no surprise.
- CAMTC: pompous, stuffy, bootlicking language in anti-whore propaganda.
- Fetishists claim massage parlors are part a huge international conspiracy.
- Fascism allows for a form of censorship more effective than suppression.
- The more “mommy whores” they see, the more they’ll see it’s mundane.
- Feds use high-stigma accusations to force guilty pleas to lesser charges.
- Another setback in getting rid of these tyrannical, unconstitutional laws.
- It’s not “trafficking” when that would be inconvenient for a government.
- Japanese historian says comfort woman phenomenon was complicated.
- Canadian cops claim sexual harassment of women is to “protect” them.
- Millions can thank Carl Ferrer for selling them out to save his own skin.
- Will gullible reporters ever stop publishing Ashley Madison ads for free?
- This anti-whore brigade couldn’t get politicians to support them, either.
- “Legalization” always has weird laws written by obsessive bureaucrats.
- It’s dangerous to be a woman who knows the secrets of powerful men.
- Because obviously pigs don’t have enough excuses to cage people yet.
- A lot of adult businesses are forced to use dodgy payment processors.
- Nobody wants to admit that forced celibacy exacerbates these issues.
- The idiocy of tribalism has increased with the waxing of this century.
- Dutch sex workers are being threatened by Swedish plague carriers.
- Too pathetic to make it as a sex worker; he should’ve stayed a cop.
- FOSTA may have been a serious miscalculation by the government.
- Asian sex workers are fighting the racist “sex trafficking” narrative.
- I’m afraid it’s far too late to put this evil djinni back into its bottle.
- Age of consent laws were always intended to criminalize teen sex.
- Now we know why they wouldn’t say what kind of animal before.
- She was “found dead” after a cop stalked her. Just a koinkydink.
- It’s the same everywhere our work is even partially criminalized.
- Governments are reining in these depredations much too slowly.
- Grosso has consistently pursued this course for four years now.
- The US wars on all sex workers, even those in other countries.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- Another state requires anti-whore indoctrination for licensing.
- In which I help a reader shed his guilt about paying for sex.
- A “school” where scores of boys were “reformed” to death.
- Cops, justice, bagpipes, geological time and much more.
- Farley’s evil bigotry is finally coming back to bite her.
- Cops, vandals, puritans, Ohio, spies and much more.
- Liz Hilton of Empower on “rescue raids” in Thailand.
- All things must pass, including beautiful buildings.
- On the arrests of Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin.
- How can I deal with work-related anxiety?
- Rapist cops of the week, 2018 and 2019.
- A rare victory for sex workers over pigs.
- My itinerary for the spring of 2019.
- Yet another sociopath with a title.
- My two previous posts for Easter.
- Prohibitionists call this “rescue”.
- A difficult trip to the Bay Area.
- A cartoon version of myself.
- Oh, what a surprise.
Links #492
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged Alabama, animals, comics, cops, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Never Call the Cops, New York, video, weaponry on December 8, 2019| 2 Comments »
He picked the wrong house to break into. – Willie Murphy
Most “Southern” humor isn’t that funny, but I’ve found “It’s a Southern Thing” often has amusing videos, and I especially liked this one. The links above it were provided by Scott Greenfield, Cop Crisis, Brooke Magnanti, Mama Tush, Mark Kowal, Franklin Harris, and Grace, in that order; “Florida man” was also provided by Scott.
- R.I.P. Gahan Wilson.
- Just protecting and serving.
- Florida man and Florida dog.
- I love everything about this story.
- Only cops can be trusted with guns.
- It’s good to see them feed on one another.
- Holy shit, STOP CALLING THE FUCKING COPS!
From the Archives
- Cops raping whores is so ubiquitous, others pose as cops to facilitate rape.
- Why do medical professionals throw their careers away on this stupid shit?
- Does any sane person still believe this is about anything other than profit?
- The real purpose of this scheme is to cut sex workers off from healthcare.
- Remember how folks used to believe Google’s “Don’t be evil” was sincere?
- In normal adult language, she owned four very ordinary massage parlors.
- Even Rolling Stone recognizes FOSTA has galvanized sexworker activism.
- The government’s war on free speech, with Backpage as the bogeyman.
- Cops will never stop doing this as long as the state gives them pretexts.
- Will “resistance” types start listening to the truth, if only to spite Trump?
- I’ve been saying I distrusted Avenatti since almost the beginning of this.
- Prohibitionists try to trick people into thinking Swedish model is decrim.
- Sometimes the bullshit is too much for politicians to pretend to believe.
- Hollywood believes all whores magically lost our agency in World War I.
- I’m honestly amazed the dumb “rape is asexual” dogma is still popular.
- It didn’t take “thot audit” long to go from foolish game to actual threat.
- Government boasted it had censored 90% of sex work ads on the web.
- UK politicians forced to delay their ridiculous censorship scheme again.
- Please, tell me again about how the political teams are really opposed.
- Prohibitionists want unproven misdemeanor charges to destroy lives.
- Nobody uses the word “empowered” when talking about men’s jobs.
- “We don’t keep secrets in our family” can do more harm than good.
- Cops, karma, marketing, lesser-known composers and much more.
- Three years ago this was safer than consensual sex with a human.
- Kate Lister of “Whores of Yore” interviews street workers in Leeds.
- I’m always glad to see this wannabe savior get egg on her face.
- My guess? Basically true but embellished to increase luridness.
- “Sex trafficking” means whatever “authorities” want it to mean.
- Because we couldn’t just make sex work not a crime, no sirree.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- In honor of St. Nicholas, who has a soft spot for sex workers.
- One-person boycotts don’t really accomplish anything useful.
- How can I get women I don’t know to give me free cybersex?
- I suspect this prisoner was tortured to death for being trans.
- “Sex trafficking” fetishists keep recycling their stupid stunts.
- My “Toys for Tots” special started with a bang last year.
- A strip club defeats part of a stupid “sin density” law.
- At least one journalist at the Graun appears to get it.
- More on Amazon’s campaign to end privacy forever.
- Cops, love, Florida, robots, pain and much more.
- Most rapes by clergymen are much more subtle.
- Finishing up my annual Toys for Tots drive.
- So many dysphemisms, so much bullshit.
- An interview with a pregnant sex worker.
- Rapist cops of a week in 2014.
- Rapist cops every five days.
- Remember the “thot audit”?
Tricking and Treating
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, tagged Alabama, animals, Antarctica, Bulgaria, California, comics, holidays, imaginative fiction, Iowa, North Carolina, recipes, sex toys, Spain, Taiwan, Washington (state), weaponry on October 21, 2019| 1 Comment »
I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun. So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary links and other content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween. If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, and “A Trickle of Treats” (because I also love wordplay). Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year include “Eros and Thanatos“, “Not Your Costume?“, “Its Own Reward“, “Frozen Smoke“, “The Science of Sin“, and the short story “Wheels“; there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #433, #435, #445, and #447; and here’s a collection of spooky or Halloweeny links:
- What, again?
- Garfield horror.
- H.P. Loveshack.
- Dracula’s cannonballs!
- Paging Doctor Hellstrom.
- I hate it when this happens.
- The United States of Horror.
- H.P. Lovecraft’s recipe for turkey
- Beware of the shoggoths. Seriously.
- Disembodied feet of the Pacific Northwest.
- Surprising nobody who has ever played D&D.
- Nightmare of the week. And another. And another.
- I’ve seen some creepy sex toys, but this is ridiculous.
Collective Consent
Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, comics, cops, ethics, If Men Were Angels, License To Rape, politicians, rape, teachers, To Molest and Rape on October 7, 2019| 6 Comments »
One of the bizarre contradictions of modern American society is that at a time when consent has been raised practically to the level of a fetish, complete with various sects of authoritarians declaring themselves the absolute arbiters on what constitutes “true” consent and what doesn’t, many of the same people who would absolutely have a cow if some private citizen slightly smudged a consent-line in some minor fashion have absolutely no issue with government operatives trampling all over consent in the most horrifying ways imaginable. The same politicians (and their lackeys and followers) who bloviate about “revenge porn“, align themselves with “Me Too” and posture performatively every time a non-cop accused of rape is found not guilty after a trial, suddenly lose their concern for individual consent when it’s government operatives violating it via spying, groping, assault, robbery, rape, abduction or even murder; when confronted with this contradiction they’ll nearly always vomit out nonsense about a “social contract”, as though consent were something which could be granted for individuals by some collective, possibly even a collective with no living members.
A large part of the problem is that while we see lots of explanations of consent like the one above, nobody dares to explain to kids that just because an adult has a costume on or is called an “authority” doesn’t give them the right to ignore your consent. Not even if they call it “punishment” or a “search”, or say you need it to get on an airplane or enter a building. People are always wringing their hands about how many cops, teachers, clergy, etc molest or even rape kids & teenagers, yet they never consider that the root cause of these violations is that they’ve drummed it into those kids’ heads that “authorities” must be obeyed and have various excuses to touch or hurt those kids without their consent, simply by giving the abuse some fancy name like “discipline”, “arrest” or, worst of all, the innocuous-sounding “search”. Nobody has the right to violate their consent, and they owe nobody unquestioned obedience. And until we start teaching that, we’re never going to see an end to the nauseating parade of “authorities” groping, molesting and raping society’s most vulnerable members while the adults who should be protecting them utter pious platitudes about “security”, “obedience”, and “law”.
Links #471
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged Arizona, comics, cops, Florida, language, Michigan, Never Call the Cops, restaurants, Things We Choose To Do Together, video on July 14, 2019| 5 Comments »
I wandered lonely as a clod,
Just picking up old rags and bottles,
When onward on my way I plod,
I saw a host of axolotls;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man’s blood freeze. – Mad #43
Given the sad news about Mad, it seemed appropriate to feature one of the songs from one of its albums (some of which were actually included in “specials”; if you’re old enough to remember those, you should remember “sound sheets“). The links above the video were provided by Radley Balko, Nun Ya, Emma Evans, Mike Siegel, Ivan Dragomiloff, and Radley Balko again, in that order.
- But for video.
- R.I.P. Mad Magazine.
- Much more of this, please.
- What would it look like had it “gone right”?
- It’s like RAY-AY-AIIIIIIIN on your wedding day…
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- Despite this fantasy’s popularity with UK cops, none has ever been found.
- Adult man wearing a costume mansplains professionals’ own job to them.
- Politicians can’t grasp that whores might be neither criminals nor victims.
- More European government humanitarianism to “fight human trafficking”.
- Evil douchebags trying to criminalize Nevada brothels fall on their faces.
- Massage parlor licensing is widely touted as a way to “fight prostitution”.
- In my “ideal world”, hypocritical apologists for feminism wouldn’t exist.
- Clearly, critical thinking skills are not a prerequisite for nursing school.
- Another chapter in this grotesque campaign to intimidate sex workers.
- Small cities’ ludicrous concepts for supposed “gypsy whore” magnets.
- Useful idiots are surprised, though this was as predictable as sunrise.
- Scheme to cut sex workers off from the healthcare system continues.
- Watching “sex trafficking” hysteria spin out of control of “authorities”.
- Some cops just can’t stick with the “all whores are victims” program.
- Prosecutors’ magic Shazam power can turn “children” into “adults”.
- Fetishists expend so much energy on something that doesn’t exist.
- Scumbags don’t get caging humans induces pathological behavior.
- Adult woman turns into “child” via the power of a magical camera.
- Your regular reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster.
- An attempt to slander the good work done by SWOP Behind Bars.
- Is it “sexist” for a sex worker’s client to request a custom service?
- “Sex trafficking” hysteria spins out of control of the “authorities”.
- It’s not often a judge rules against cops in favor of a sex worker.
- A pet judge isn’t going to be able to make this scandal go away.
- A politician describes my flexible, lucrative job as “undesirable”.
- What happens when you refuse to tailor your pet law narrowly.
- Where “cutting-edge” is used to mean “hopelessly inaccurate”.
- Total number of frogs in Lisa Lewis’ self-destructive chorus: 3.
- Cops, sharks, spiders, Idi Amin, and other dangerous animals.
- Once Patreon started caving in to PayPal, this was inevitable.
- Fanatics are recycling old “sex trafficking awareness” stunts.
- Rapist cop escapes consequences of his actions by croaking.
- I’ve been a harsh critic of these do-nothing law for 7 years.
- More inevitable “monkey see, monkey do” from the UK.
- Seven years in a cage for drawing a fictional character.
- Mike Siegel on the “harm enhancement” of prohibition.
- Another victory for feminism against jobs for women.
- On the humorous, adventurous rapists of Disneyland.
- Yet another perfect example of the McNeill Rule.
- I suspect this sort of story isn’t all that unusual.
- A promising start for decrim in South Australia.
- My seventh and eighth anniversary columns.
- Another chance for you to help sex workers.
- Lorelei and I prepare to depart for Ireland.
- How Taiwanese police harass sex workers.
- A functioning police state needs no police.
- “Crime”: stillbirth. Penalty: life in a cage.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2017 and 2018.
- Welcome to our world, infertile women.
- Welcome to our world, cannabusiness.
- Some good stuff is better than none.
- Not a good move on Deen’s part.
- Cops, Vangelis and much more.
Copywrong
Posted in Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged comics, ethics, fascism, imaginative fiction, politicians on July 5, 2019| 9 Comments »
The single biggest fallacy in Randianism is the notion that the great industrialists of the past succeeded by their own genius. They didn’t; every single one got wealthy due to crony deals with politicians, “officially”-granted monopolies, protectionist laws, subsidies, etc; in other words fascism, not the free market. I’m an agorist; I believe all human interactions should be voluntary exchanges, and that nobody has a right to insert themselves into others’ voluntary arrangements. But crony capitalism warps markets with collectivist violence, making them evil. Let’s take one modern example, far more subtle than bailouts, subsidies or “regulations” so complex it takes a full-time legal department (such as big companies have and small ones don’t): the copyright scam. Basic copyright is a good concept; it allows creative people to make a living from their creations. Without it, nobody could afford to be a full-time creator because the unscrupulous would constantly be stealing their work. But look at how collusion between government and giant media corporations (especially Disney) have warped this good concept into a sick means of fascist corporations making billions from the intellectual creations of people who have been dead for decades. Mickey Mouse and many other characters should have entered the public domain years ago, but the collectives which “own” them paid off enough Congresscritters to ensure that won’t happen, and the process will continue indefinitely until something is done about it. But what could be done? Well, If I were dictatrix, I’d set copyright at life plus 21 years, so any minor children of a creator who died young could enjoy those rights until majority. But anything longer stifles future generations from doing new things with those creations (as Disney himself did with public-domain characters created by others). I’d also bar corporations from owning copyright; only human creators (including teams of specifically-named individuals) could have that. Of course, the creator could license his creation to a company, as Charles Moulton licensed Wonder Woman to DC. But 21 years after the creator croaks? It’s all over, including the licenses. Under my system, everything John Lennon did solo (post-Beatles) would’ve come out of copyright a couple of weeks after George Harrison died in ’01, and Harrison’s work would now have only three years left. But the collective Beatles creations would still be protected until 21 years after the last Beatle shuffles off this mortal coil. Superman would’ve entered the public domain two and a half years ago, 21 years after Jerry Siegel’s death (his co-creator, Joe Shuster, died in 1992); imagine what stories new creators could soon write about him or about Batman (out of copyright this coming November in my system).
The “creative team” structure leaves a loophole, but I think it’s a sensible one that could allow a creator to care for loved ones after his death. All a creator would need to do is give equal creative credit (at the time of publication; retroactive attribution would not be allowed) to the person he wanted to protect. So if Lennon had given Yoko Ono official equal credit on all or some of his post-Beatles work, the music so credited would still be under copyright until 21 years after she croaks. A clever creator could even give equal credit to their kids on individual works (one book or album per kid, that sort of thing). And it would last until 21 years after that “co-creator” died, but there would be no such thing as collectives of investors who never even met Walt Disney profiting from his genius 52 years after his death. This wouldn’t kill companies; for example, Disney would still hold rights to all from their ’90s revival, probably for decades to come, and they’ve got plenty of money to keep licensing new characters ad infinitum. But no more resting on laurels, and no more using the power of government to stop other people from doing exactly what 19th and 20th-century creators did.
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