In their quest for absolute power over the lives of their subjects, politicians can’t let little things like justice, decency or the law stop them. – “Counterfeit Comfort (#16)”
I will never cease to be amazed at the inability of statists to recognize that the expansion of government will never stop until it is somehow forced to. –
“The Auctioneer Effect”
If your wife said, “if you wouldn’t look at food on TV you wouldn’t need to eat,” you’d recognize this as a patent absurdity, yet our culture tries to convince people this is true of sex.
– “The Craving”
There are lots of reasons a person might desire something in the abstract, yet never partake of it in reality. – “In the Abstract“
A Nevada brothel worker and an armored truck employee conspired to take at least $100,000 from the former’s workplace over several months…Shiva Zamiri and Jessie Aulelava were arrested…Zamiri started working as the brothel’s bookkeeper last September, and that money was stolen within weeks of her being on the job. A person close to Zamiri identified the unnamed brothel as Sheri’s Ranch…
A man has admitted to ejaculating into a female colleague’s coffee several times – but says he fancied her and hoped it would make her notice him. Robert John Lind, of Blaine, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to ejaculating into his colleague’s coffee and over her desk on a number of occasions last year. The woman said she had an ongoing issue with her coffee tasting foul before she caught Lind with his hands near his genitals and a “deer in the headlights” expression near her desk. The victim then noticed, “a large amount of clear liquid on…her desk”…
Six men were caught up in a prostitution sting over the weekend by vice and narcotics agents of the Clarksville [Tennessee] Police Department…The ongoing effort is designed not only to reduce this type of activity but also to prevent assaults and robberies against the solicitors. This has become commonplace with online prostitution as the men become easy targets when they are directed to [incalls, a cop mouthpiece lied]…
An hour with London escort Kamillah is $450. But for $100 more, she’ll enter into a nikah mut’ah—a temporary marriage that some Shia say makes sex outside of marriage permissible…Among [her] reviews…[one] satisfied customer concludes: “Allahu Akbar! Had the best mutah experience everr [sic]”…
Four Chicago-area teenagers faces felony child-pornography charges after uploading a video of themselves having sex to Twitter…Both the sex and the posting of the video were consensual—this is not a rape or “revenge porn” scenario. But…minors who post sexually-oriented images of themselves online or even share them privately with one another can be charged as child pornographers…Who benefits from branding these teens sex predators for life because they dared to explore their sexuality?…
Alternative fee arrangements are all the rage. But beware in Indiana, because the courts have drawn the line at seeking “sex or fellatio in exchange for providing legal services,” suspending a lawyer for a year, without automatic reinstatement, for propositioning an arrested prostitute in exchange for representation…Christopher A. Hollander, worked as a public defender and used the access provided by his position to score the phone number of an unnamed sex worker that he’d previously admired in the classified section…he called her up and offered his services…intending to barter. The exchange never happened because when Hollander met with the prostitute, it turned out to be an undercover cop…Hollander got pinched by a bunch of overzealous cops who seemingly substituted “shits and giggles” for “probable cause” or “reasonable suspicion”…[the cops had stolen the woman’s phone and intercepted his texts]…All they know is that a lawyer claimed to have learned of an accused woman’s plight from a friend of hers and offered representation. There’s absolutely nothing shady about this text…With absolutely no reason to suspect anything but the exercise of someone’s constitutional right to counsel, the cops decided to impersonate the alleged prostitute to set up a meeting with the lawyer. You know, because defending accused criminals is suspicious activity…
…police set up [fake]…escort ads…and [entrapped] nearly two dozen men…Providence Police Chief Hugh T. Clements Jr…[bloviated] “Many of these girls are being used, they are being forced into it because of addictions, forced into it by boyfriends and pimps”…Mayor Jorge Elorza…[pretended that] he’s reviewing possible legal action that could be taken against Backpage.com…”It’s dangerous,” Clements said. “We want to send a message to these girls, do not use this page to make money. They could be victims”…
The Georgia House of Representatives just approved a constitutional amendment to make strip clubs pay for the state’s fight against child sex-trafficking…The amendment’s proponents have barely even bothered to justify why strip club owners should be liable for footing this particular bill. Imagine the outrage if lawmakers were trying similar shenanigans on any other category of business—soliciting an annual fee from gas stations to fight rape, say, or forcing podiatrists to subsidize drunk-driving checkpoints…all adult-entertainment businesses would have to pay $5,000 per year or 1 percent of their revenue, whichever is greater, into a state fund…The bill’s text suggests that consuming alcohol and looking at naked women may entice strip club customers to go forth and sexually exploit children and hence the fee is “necessary” and “reasonable.” It also suggests that strip clubs are a popular venue for shopping for child sex slaves.
Zimbabwean sex workers…are now embracing mobile payment service…in a bid to safeguard their payments…from…clients [who]… violently demand their money back…The sex workers are also able to send pictures and videos of cases of abuse or violence to rights campaigners using social media and other instant messaging platforms…
The first woman to be sentenced for killing a foetus has been handed a 20-year prison term for feticide and neglect of a dependent, despite claiming she gave birth to a stillborn baby. Purvi Patel was bleeding heavily when she entered a hospital emergency room in Indiana in 2013 after giving birth unexpectedly in her bathroom…The prosecution also claimed that Patel had ordered drugs to induce an abortion on the internet [sic]. However, a toxicology report did not find any evidence of the drugs in her system. Patel is the second woman to be charged with feticide in the US, but the first to receive a prison sentence. She was prosecuted under state laws that are [supposedly] intended at targeting illegal abortion providers and prosecuting crimes against pregnant women…
…Porn is condemned regularly for a rise in labioplasty procedures, a cosmetic surgery that anti-porn activists would have audiences believe is sweeping the globe. The organization Fight the New Drug is entirely devoted “to raising awareness on [porn’s] harmful effects using science, facts, and personal accounts” and almost-charming attempts at youth lingo. They even tell readers that they’re going to “drop some truth bombs” in a listicle called “Ten Porn Stats That Will Blow Your Mind.” Because if there is one thing the young folks can’t get enough of (besides porn) it is a mind-blowing listicle using ancient studies that weren’t peer reviewed. But recent studies looking at porn consumption and depictions of sex in porn actually reveal that it is hardly the life-ruining, woman-hating, healthy-sex-murdering specter we’ve been warned about for so long…
…Oregon entrepreneur Lawrence George Owen…owned one restaurant, eight strip clubs, and two adult-video stores in the Portland area…Owen installed ATM machines…and sometimes, customers used the cash to privately pay some strippers for sex. Now Owen faces federal charges for “conspiring to use interstate commerce” in promotion of prostitution…[as] the result…of a nine year joint-effort by Portland’s vice squad and the FBI…Promoting prostitution is only a federal crime under certain circumstances, such as when the perpetrator transports or coerces an individual across state lines for prostitution purposes. Using mail, telephone calls, or other “facilities of interstate commerce” in service of prostitution will also do the trick. But the FBI has no evidence that Owen enticed or transported strip-club employees from outside Oregon, nor that he used mail or telephone calls to help facilitate their prostitution efforts. When the FBI wants to make a case against someone, however, they’ll find a way. In this case, the FBI decided that ATM machines count as “facilities of interstate commerce”…
Another of the greats has passed on. Though his name is less familiar to the general public than those of many far less talented and far less influential authors, virtually everyone has seen and appreciated screen versions of his work; he wrote almost half of the best Twilight Zone episodes, most of the Vincent Price “Poe” movies of the early ‘60s and many other films you may know (including the thrice-filmed I Am Legend). And since I can’t possibly do his memory justice in this small space, here’s a proper tribute from regular reader Franklin Harris.
Archaeologists recently uncovered an ancient brothel attached to a gymnasium and restaurant in northern Greece…It was likely built in the second century BCE, which means it had been a going concern for about 250 years when an earthquake…shut [it] down forever. Put another way, this brothel operated longer than the United States has so far…
N.B.: I used this title because Greece was under Roman rule at that time.
“Nordic Choice Hotels…has announced the removal of pornography from its television channels. ‘We believe it is a natural part of our social responsibility to not support an industry that contributes to…trafficking,’ said [CEO] Torgeir Silseth…” There was no statement from Nordic Choice about shutting down their whole chain because many so-called “trafficking” victims work in hotels, but I guess one has to have priorities.
“Silvio Berlusconi was given a seven-year prison sentence and banned from holding public office for life…after an Italian court found him guilty of abuse of office and paying for sex with…underage prostitute…Karima El Mahroug…” Berlusconi and the girl both deny having had sex, and even if they had it would’ve been completely legal had no money changed hands because she was 17 at the time.
…What really sucks about sugar baby relationships is that most of the arrangements don’t seem like they’re entered into freely; they’re a desperate response to a shitty set of circumstances — a lack of job opportunities, lack of job abilities, and last, but not least, the insanely high cost of college education…the site even targets advertising to women who search “help with college tuition”…
The Author Formerly Known as Morning Gloria has a history of this sort of neofeminist prohibitionism disguised under a thin veneer of sex-positive platitudes, and that’s not even counting her apparent belief that the law of conservation of energy somehow proves that “America is…fucked up.”
A bikini-barista stand owner who twice before has been accused of lewd conduct recently managed to get a…[cop] to warn her of any undercover surveillance…Carmela A. Panico, and Sgt. Darrell L. O’Neill…were charged with conspiracy to promote prostitution…at seven Java Juggs and Twin Peaks espresso stands…The FBI assisted with the investigation…
Yes, the FBI actually helped bluenoses harass coffee shops because the waitresses wear bikinis.
…In…[the] Globe & Mail, paid typist and self-confessed plagiarist Margaret Wente [published]…”Legal Prostitution? Are We Nuts?”, [in which she] brings her swollen puritanism to bear on the current Supreme Court case…Calling prostitution, “the most exploitative, degrading work on Earth” Wente opposes the “feminists and other progressive types”…who are endeavoring to make it less exploitative and degrading…What she doesn’t acknowledge…is that prostitution is already legal in Canada…
New Jersey law enforcement officials expecting a rise in forced prostitution leading up to the 2014 Super Bowl said…efforts to crack down on criminals and help victims will span the entire state…New Jersey is believed to be a major entry point for human trafficking due to its dense and diverse population and convenient access from New York to Philadelphia…
…I can go out…get hopelessly drunk and jump into bed with Mr. A. Random…the chances are any form of protection will go out the window, as will any form of valid consent. As a society, we deem that okay, because everyone does it, right? If I go to a hotel, meet Mr. A. Random in the middle of an afternoon, spend a couple of pleasant protected hours and get paid for it – pearls everywhere are clutched and horror levels soar. But in my second example, I’m safer. I know his name, his phone number, where he is staying and I am…surrounded by people…
“The Prague Assembly has approved a bill to regulate prostitution…[both brothels and individual] prostitutes would have to apply for a licence…prostitutes would have to be over 18, without criminal record and…would have to undergo regular medical check-ups…” The bill’s author claims its intent is “to divide legal prostitution from the illegal.” It’ll do that, all right, but not in the way he seems to think.
…at…fourteen, Diana [O’Hara] entered the gates of the Good Shepherd Laundry in Buffalo, New York with the label of “incorrigible”…talking was allowed only when the nuns clapped their hands…[a misbehaving girl would be]…locked inside [a] closet…[or] an old [rat-infested] shower room with stone benches [sometimes for days]…followed [by] a severe beating…to “make her strong”…
Hugo Schwyzer is still pretending that men’s preference for young women is “socially constructed”; Christopher Ryan corrects him:
In a recent column at The Atlantic…Hugo Schwyzer asks us to consider, “What would happen if men stopped chasing much younger women?”…he’s not talking about pedophiles…[but rather] men like Johnny Depp, who is apparently dating a woman in her late 20s, while he’s just hit the big 5-0…Schwyzer argues…that this isn’t…happening in response to…innate biological desire…despite the overwhelming…evidence…Schwyzer cites [only] a 2007 study done in Sweden…[which] actually says the opposite of what he thinks it does…Schwyzer somehow knows Depp’s…attracted to his 27 year-old girlfriend because…she’s powerless and he’s intimidated by less “malleable” women of his own age….[this] attempt to shame consenting adults out of what he considers to be inappropriate relationships strikes me as quite the opposite of an informed feminist perspective…
…a last-minute amendment to Ohio’s budget…requires an ultrasound and 24-hour wait before birth control… “Pregnancy” in the context of the informed-consent requirements now means “any fertilized egg”…so…“the disruption of implantation of a fertilized egg” now counts as an abortion. Prescribing birth control is, in Ohio, a ticking time-abortion…
At least 200 Nigerian girls are trafficked every month to Russia…the crime…declined in Western Europe following strict laws on illegal migration…to curb the menace…[so] attention…shifted to Eastern Europe…you will be shocked at the extent of resistance [to being “rescued”] from the girls. We tell them Russia is not a destination for prostitutes yet they still come…the parents of those trafficked encourage…their children…
Parents’ outrage at an advertisement for a swingers party at a [Victoria] children’s play centre has forced the local council to close the business…the centre’s owners [had] said they would repeat the event every month at Casey Kids Playhouse once they found six other couples…a local mother…[who] had booked her son’s fourth birthday party there…[said] ”I am disgusted…This is so morally wrong, not to mention unhygienic”…
I just can’t stop laughing at the word “unhygienic” in that context.
Jesse Friedman…was properly convicted and should not have his status as a sexual predator overturned…[claims] Nassau County district attorney…Kathleen M. Rice…Mr. Friedman’s lawyer, Ron Kuby, and…Andrew Jarecki, [director of Capturing the Friedmans]…[said] the report was a biased whitewash by the office that originally botched the case…“Rice has made a craven, but not surprising, political decision in failing to admit to the wrongdoing of the…D.A.’s office and former sex crimes chief Fran Galasso, in the face of overwhelming evidence of Jesse’s innocence,” Mr. Jarecki said. Mr. Kuby said that the district attorney’s office had fought Mr. Friedman’s efforts at every turn and that this was just more of the same…“Fortunately, the conclusion of this bogus reinvestigation clears the way for the Friedman team to return to court”…
This is how service disputes are handled when the profession is legal: “Sunset Thomas…the…onetime cast member of…Cathouse…and [retired] porn star…[who works] at the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump [Nevada, is being sued by regular client Robert Proffitt for]…$2,200 for services he alleges were not rendered…”
Jack Vettriano paintings worth £500,000 were seized from a former brothel boss in a police crackdown on vice…detectives…smashed into the home of Ian Haig, 70, whose brother Charles, 73, runs a…sauna in Edinburgh. Vettriano…regularly visited Scorpio sauna…in the 1990s and painted…girls working there. He gave paintings to Ian Haig as a thank-you before he became one of Britain’s most successful artists…Police [claim the paintings are]…potential evidence…
The presence of thousands of brothels and hundreds of thousands of prostitutes has heightened competition and pushed prices down steeply in the German sex trade…Prostitution became legal in Germany in 2002, and the open sex trade has taken off in the years since…It’s been estimated that more than 1 million men pay for sex in Germany every day. One of the classic arguments for legalizing prostitution is that recognizing and regulating the world’s oldest profession would improve the conditions of sex workers. Instead, recent reports paint legalized prostitution in Germany largely as a failure…Despite the critics’ claims of atrocious conditions brought on by legalized prostitution in Germany, there are many who don’t want to go back to the days when the trade was cordoned off in the black market…
This is a prime example of American criminal ignorance about sex work; consult the title link for a thorough debunking.
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. – Barry Goldwater
I will never cease to be amazed at the inability of statists to recognize that the expansion of government will never stop until it is somehow forced to. Every year the American governmental machine adds new employees, new “mandates”, hundreds of new laws and thousands of new regulations (all with the force of law and most with criminal penalties). Government now consumes approximately 40% of the gross domestic product, and given that any decreases have been both minor and short-lived there is little reason to believe it will not exceed half within the lifetimes of most of y’all reading this. Meanwhile, the scope of government reach has also increased, though at a much higher rate; modern governments interfere in their citizens’ lives to a vastly greater extent than at any time in history, and in some countries (the US especially) this is more or less a one-way ratchet because only a miniscule fraction of laws enacted, no matter how odious or tyrannical, are ever repealed. Once a legal precedent is established it provides a base for still more laws, and so the mound continues to grow year after year, getting taller and wider until some irresistible force levels it or (more likely) it collapses of its own weight. Early last month, an article by A. Barton Hinkle described it this way:
…Call it the auctioneer effect. Having approved a new law or program to address a circumstance in one year, politicians confront a dilemma in subsequent years…the problem does not disappear. It wouldn’t do to conclude that, since previous laws and programs have failed, perhaps the problem lies beyond government’s ability to solve. Answer: Write more laws and fund more programs! As in a genuine auction, the winner is the pol who can propose the most. You can see the auctioneer effect all over the place. You can see it in public education, where ever-increasing expenditures produce flat test scores, which are then met with calls for even more spending. You can see it in the war on poverty, which now boasts 126 separate means-tested programs at the federal level alone. You can see it in gun control, where “high-capacity” once referred to 20- or 30-round magazines but now applies…to those holding as few as eight. And you can really see it in the war on crime, in which politicians seek to out-Roy Bean one another by perpetually ratcheting down thresholds for offenses – and perpetually ratcheting up penalties for same…
Of course, those who believe in the magical power of government to perform virtually any task with meat cleavers, sledgehammers, steamrollers and guns don’t see this as a problem, but they forget that once a tool or weapon is added to the governmental arsenal there is absolutely nothing to stop others from using it for their own purposes:
…Because they cannot ban abortion outright, conservative politicians have tried to discourage it in heavy-handed and sometimes humiliating ways. Thirty-four states impose regulations specific to abortion providers; 35 require counseling, and 26 impose waiting periods. Eight…now require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound. Last year [Virginia] lawmakers…drew national scorn by proposing…an invasive transvaginal ultrasound…then [last month]…the Indiana Senate approved a bill to require…transvaginal ultrasound…[and demand] that establishments dispensing pills such as RU-486 meet the same construction standards as those performing surgical abortions…
Texas saw that and raised the standards to those for an ambulatory surgical center, a move that will close 38 of the 44 clinics in the state. Then at the end of March, North Dakota raised that still further by requiring an abortionist to be a doctor with hospital admitting privileges; another measure passed at the same time banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (possibly as early as six weeks, when many women are just beginning to realize that they’re pregnant). Of course, this is old hat for sex workers; countries where sex work is legal often try to pass so many ridiculous restrictions that it’s very difficult to actually work within the law, and the newest “sex trafficking” laws define “prostitution” and “coercion” so broadly, at least a third of the population could be charged with “trafficking” and threatened with decades in prison and lifelong “sex offender” registration. This isn’t a joke, y’all; it’s not a “fallacy”, or “alarmism”, or “anti-government propaganda”. This is real, and happening in every area of government. When you arm “your” politicians to give you the goodies you want and to oppress your enemies, you inevitably arm “their” politicians to give them the goodies they want and to oppress their enemies…and the only ones who win are the politicians.
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In their quest for absolute power over the lives of their subjects, politicians can’t let little things like justice, decency or the law stop them. – “Counterfeit Comfort (#16)”
