Making money is not an excuse to separate families. – Maggie McDonald
Pyrrhic Victory (#985) 
Promoters of dystopia love to vomit words like “security” and “accountability” into the faces of useful idiots:
All 32 NFL stadiums will start using [facial recognition] technology this season, after the league signed a contract with a company that uses facial scans to verify the identity of people entering event venues and other secure spaces. The [surveillance company called Wicket], which counts the Cleveland Browns’ owners as investors, will be used to “streamline and secure” entry for thousands of credentialed media, officials, staff and guests so they can easily access restricted areas such as press boxes and locker rooms…Some teams also have extended their use of the technology to scan the faces of ticket holders. The Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons and New York Mets all have used the company’s…software to authenticate fans with tickets…The Browns also use Wicket to verify the ages of fans purchasing alcohol at concession stands…Soccer stadiums worldwide are…[also us]ing facial recognition technology to surveil fans…
Thought Control (#1345)
Book banning is never, ever well-regarded in retrospect, but they keep doing it:
The Utah state school board [has] ordered the removal of 13 book titles from every public school in the state, in accordance with a new [mob-rule censorship] law passed earlier this year…schools must now dispose of the following titles[: Blankets by Craig Thompson; A Court of Frost and Starlight, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Silver Flames, A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Wings and Ruin, and Empire of Storms, all by Sarah J. Maas; Fallout and Tilt by Ellen Hopkins; Forever by Judy Blume; Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur; Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood; and What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold]…The books on this list had already been banned by [three] school districts [each], but because of the new law…they will now be banned statewide [by mob rule, even in school districts where officials have more sense and better moral grounding]…
The Last Shall Be First (#1361)
This kind of behavior from a public employee should be grounds for impeachment:
A transgender woman’s use of the women’s locker room at a…[Missouri] fitness center has [been used by a politician to drum up] an outcry [among his supporters]…Eris Montano…has [not] violated any laws or the polices of Life Time fitness center. But [politician] Justin Sparks…[sees an opportunity to stir up shit by demanding “]investigations[” into people he dislikes having civil rights]…Montano has…[followed] the center’s policies regarding transgender members…and has…largely had positive interactions with other gym members…Many people have gone out of their way to make her feel welcome, she said…[with] the lone exception…[of] a woman in the center’s sauna [who]…“kept telling me that I was a man, that I didn’t belong there,” Montano recalled…Life Time’s members are assigned to locker rooms based on the gender listed on their state-issued photo ID…[on which] she…is now listed as female…[but] Sparks [apparently] wants the Missouri…[policy on] driver’s license [gender to be] changed…
Broken Record (#1371) 
Most major cities have quietly backed away from “sex trafficking” hysteria, but not San Diego, long a hotbed of this ugly, misogynistic wanking fantasy. So it’s not especially surprising to see these sociopathic clowns using Comic-Con as an excuse to ruin people’s lives while publicly sharing their fantasies and making furtive movements in their pants. But what is pleasantly surprising was to see the public response to this tired copaganda; I guess we weren’t just shouting into the void for all those years, after all.
The Punitive Mindset (#1426)
It’s good to see activists using Americans’ fixation on children to promote justice instead of tyranny for a change:
My dad has been in the St. Clair County Jail in Port Huron, Michigan, since October, and I’m not allowed to see him. So, other kids and I sued the county and others for the right to hug our parents, as part of a larger Right 2 Hug project that aims to restore family visits and stop companies from making money off family separation…In America, around 5 million children like me have experienced a parent being incarcerated at some point in their life…The jail my dad is in got rid of in-person visits in 2018 and replaced them with phone and video calls only…This is happening all over the country, meaning lots of kids like me can’t spend any time together with their parents…Now I just message my dad on the app that the jail uses, but it’s not at all like actually talking to him. It’s not like DMs or texting; it’s more like email, and it’s really clunky to use…Plus, I think it’s really creepy that someone can read all the messages between me and my dad. All communication between us is recorded — the video calls, phone calls, messages. Talk about a major invasion of privacy…in response to a similar lawsuit from the Right 2 Hug campaign in Genesee County, Michigan…the sheriff admitted in an interview with NBC that they had eliminated in-person visitation to make more money…My dad’s release date is soon, and I’m excited to see him again. But I won’t stop fighting in this lawsuit, because I’m also fighting for all the other families who can’t visit their loved ones…
Vulture Watching (#1451)
Forced-birth politicians want to encourage lawsuits, but not this kind:
[After] Mylissa Farmer was denied an emergency abortion…while experiencing a miscarriage…she filed a lawsuit against…The University of Kansas Health System…[because] it violated a federal law [named EMTALA which requires] doctors [to] treat patients who come into the emergency room…doctors told Farmer that she was at risk of infection, severe blood loss, the loss of her uterus and death. But they…refused to perform an abortion…because it would be too “risky” in Kansas’ “heated” political environment to do so…the hospital refused to even perform routine checks such as taking her temperature and assessing her pain. She was turned away without so much as Tylenol or antibiotics to ward off potential infection despite…being at high risk for infection and experiencing heavy bleeding, mental fog and acute pain…Farmer eventually traveled several hours to Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois, for an abortion…The damage to Farmer’s health and wellbeing was long-term…she was hospitalized several times after the miscarriage…was unable to work for months…[and] eventually lost her home…The federal lawsuit comes in the wake of an Idaho EMTALA case recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court…Unlike the Idaho case, which was brought by the government, Farmer’s is the first high profile EMTALA lawsuit brought by an individual denied their federal rights while pregnant…
Torture Chamber (#1457)
Your “leaders” call this “correction”:
Forty-three people are known to have died in the Maricopa County jail system [in 2022]. More than one-quarter of those deaths were suicides. Forty-three more people died in the jails in 2023…the death rate was among the highest of major jail systems in the country. Scholars who study in-c[age] deaths in U.S. jails and prisons said those numbers are incredibly high when compared with similarly sized jail systems and even jails with much larger populations…Drug overdoses, drug withdrawals and suicides were among the leading causes of death…[but] one-third of the deaths…are [the] natural [result of keeping]…old…and sick…[people locked in cages as though they posed a danger to anyone]…the current and former Sheriff’s Office administrations…hindered operations and challenged efforts to maintain safe conditions…
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I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun. So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween. If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, “Tricks for the Treat“, “Tricked Out Treats“, “Tricks and Treats and Such Small Deer“, and “Trick Treatment“. Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year included Day of the Dead 2023, Diary #697, and “Why Zombies?” There are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #695, #698, #721, #722, #739, #745, and #746, and a collection of seasonal links appears below.
