Bathhouse 18

While I was away last week, our hired man was busy doing the shingles on the second cottage, with Chekhov assisting; it was rather nice to come home to that being nearly complete because I really had no desire to do that job again.  Not only is it just too damned hot, it also requires positions which, after a few hours, leave me stiff and tense.  But now that’s done, and Chekhov will soon be staining the second cottage (you can see the difference in this picture).  On Wednesday I went to pick up the steel tubing for the roof structure, and Grace has been working on a deal for the purlins and steel roofing panels (which aren’t available wholesale locally); once we’ve got all that we’ll be starting on the main roof, and not a week too soon; the long-range weather reports are starting to show higher chances of rain.  I’m not sure I’ll have anything visual to show you on that next week, but if I don’t I’ll figure something out!

Another Kind of Haggling

Haggling isn’t actually about the relative expense of a sex worker’s price; it’s a means of trying to circumvent her boundaries.  As I explained nine years ago in “Head Games“,

…[most] men who haggle can easily afford the girl’s price, they simply want to get her to back down from it in order to feel as though they’ve won a victory over her…men who have reviewed expensive escorts will still haggle with girls who charge half as much; this demonstrates that it’s not about the money but rather about getting the girl to accept a compromise.  More subtle types will accept an escort’s price, but will try to get her to compromise one of her other rules in some way; for example, if a girl has published hours they’ll try to get an appointment just before or just after those hours, or if she refuses same-day appointments they’ll try to get one.  A girl who only accepts certain forms of communication will be pushed for another form (for example, her personal phone number)…

Since the demise of the quickie ad sites in the last two years, we’ve seen another type of haggler become more common:  the guy who tries to avoid screening.  This kind of sleazebag is hardly new; every sex worker has dealt with men who seem to think their nervousness is more important than her safety.  These self-important schmucks love to pretend that outing clients is a real concern, despite the fact that…

Every whore understands that it’s wrong to out clients; “about 20% of men see sex workers occasionally…yet we don’t see anything like 20% of men exposed as clients.  The fact that ignorant people believe the nonsensical claim that fewer than 15% of men have ever paid for sex tends to point toward the lifetime exposure rate as being even lower than that…”  And it isn’t only a matter of ethics; a whore who got caught outing clients would be destroying her own brand for good, so there are good practical as well as moral reasons for keeping our mouths shut about the famous men who end up between our legs…

Sometimes a request for screening information will provoke a torrent of abuse, clearly demonstrating why being alone with such a man would be a spectacularly bad idea.  But on other occasions, the wannabe client will try to convince the sex worker to eschew screening by insisting he’s a “nice guy”; appealing to her avarice by waving fantasy sums of money and/or promises of an “ongoing relationship” should she relent (a promise worth precisely as much as it cost him to make); or proposing she spend all the prep, travel, and social time to meet him in person to “see if we’re a good fit” (conveniently providing him with social time while demonstrating next to nothing about how he’ll behave in private).  I had one of these clods attempt all three with me in a five-text conversation last week; given that his last text was a flurry of insults, pomposity, and accusations of dishonesty and impersonation (“my guess is you’re…posing as an escort“), he unwittingly demonstrated, as such men generally do, that my decision not to see him was a wise one.

In the News (#1073)

Our job as educators is not to create a surveillance environment that teaches students how to better lie, but to foster critical thinking and civic responsibility.  – Zeynep Tufekci

License to Rape

Police states define the bodies of all citizens as “crime scenes” which can be violated by “authorities” at will:

Christopher McCormack is one of the New York Police Department’s highest-ranking officers…his ascension started three decades earlier…and [all]…along the way, police leaders were privy to an ever-growing list of complaints against McCormack…[most] of [which] were hidden from public view…What stands out…is how often Black and Latino men accused him of [molesting them under he pretext of] invasive, humiliating searches…he pulled down their pants in public, exposing their genitals…[and] used his fingers to [rape] their anal cavities [under the pretext of “searching for drugs”]…McCormack is just one of dozens of high-ranking NYPD officers who have risen [thank to egregious] misconduct in their records.  Eighty-six of the roughly 420 [cops]…who currently hold a rank above captain…have tallied at least one misconduct allegation that was substantiated by the [cops themselves], meaning that [the behavior was too blatant to hide as per standard procedure]…the…substantiated complaints are dwarfed by a far larger list of those that are “unsubstantiated,” meaning [cops were able to pretend they didn’t]…happen…

Scapegoats (#438)

I reckon someone else noticed Arpaio’s obsession with this topic:

…For $30.99, users of Cameo — an app where singers, actors and other public figures record custom video messages for a fee — can request a personalized clip of [disgraced politician Joe Arpaio] saying whatever they want…Most of Arpaio’s Cameo videos appear to be standard fare, such as birthday greetings, thank-you messages, congratulatory comments.  But one…[last week] raised eyebrows. “Hey, good luck organizing the Arizona Furry convention,” Arpaio begins, though he pronounces it “Fury,” suggesting he’s not totally certain…he’s been asked to talk about…Arizona Fur Con, an annual event [for] members of the furry community…the…person who ordered the video [goes by]…Sir Yiffs A Lot.  “Yiff” refers to furry-related sexual content or activity, which made Arpaio’s sign-off all the more cringeworthy…”I’m kind of partial to dogs,” he says after a pause, as if responding to a question included in the video request. “But I love all animals. Thanks”…

Devil’s Advocate (#944) 

Florida politicians are obsessed with child-shaped toasters:

[A pervert politician from Florida] filed legislation in Congress to ban [small] sex dolls [fashioned to resemble children] nationwide…[per-Vern Buchanan] said he will reintroduce the [moronically-named] CREEPER Act…which died in the Senate [in 2018]…Buchanan said he felt the [urge] to reintroduce the legislation after [some creep had a masturbatory fantasy] that a…sex doll was being sold on the Internet…was [somehow] modeled off of a girl in Miami [even though the same model has been sold for years before the girl reached the size and age depicted by the doll]…Florida passed a similar…ban in 2019…[making it] one of only three states, along with Kentucky and Tennessee that has specifically banned [plastic toys made to resemble children]…

Welcome to the Future (#1010)

What “predictive policing” actually looks like on the ground:

Pasco County [Florida] Sheriff Chris Nocco took office in 2011 with a…plan…to create a…system to continuously monitor and harass…residents…the Sheriff’s Office generates lists of people it c[laims are] likely to break the law, based on arrest histories, un[founded allegations] and arbitrary decisions by [cops]…Then it sends deputies to find and [harass] anyone whose name appears, often without probable cause, a search warrant or evidence of a specific crime.  They swarm homes in the middle of the night, waking families and embarrassing people in front of their neighbors.  They write tickets for missing mailbox numbers and overgrown grass, saddling residents with court dates and fines.  They come again and again, making arrests for any reason they can.  One former deputy described the directive like this: “Make their lives miserable until they move or sue.”  In just five years, Nocco’s signature program has ensnared almost 1,000 people…

I Spy (#1010)

The pandemic has been a very useful excuse for expanding the police state:

…[Using the excuse of] the pandemic, many universities and colleges around the country are forcing students to download location-tracking apps, sometimes as a condition of enrollment…When students enter a classroom, their phone informs a sensor that’s been installed in the room, or the app checks the Wi-Fi networks nearby to determine the phone’s location.  As a university professor, I’ve seen surveillance like this before.  Many of these apps replicate the tracking system sometimes installed on the phones of student athletes, for whom it is often mandatory.  That system tells us a lot about what we can expect with these apps…Knowing that they are being tracked, some students will no doubt let their phone “sleep” peacefully in their bed while they party elsewhere.  If a few get sick, they may hide it, for fear of having their tech trickery found out…Excessive surveillance often backfires in this way…And broad surveillance can engender a chilling effect among the whole populace…

You Were Warned (#1045)

Exactly the same thing the Democrats want, but please tell me more about the “wings”:

A group of…Republican…[politician]s introduced a new bill…aimed at chipping away some of the protections provided to social media companies through Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  The [misnamed] Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act…would strip away the liability protection provided by Section 230 if a platform restricted access to content without providing specific rules that it violated…[after] Trump[‘s]…executive order [doing much the same thing was shown to be impotent, bootlicking politicians] started introducing their own legislation to amend the law…

Finding What Isn’t There (#1070)

This time they didn’t even try to wedge their scam into the “sex trafficking” narrative:

Eight [legal minors] were [taken into custody] in a five-day r[aid series] in the Indianapolis area and one person was arrested on charges including parental kidnapping…The U.S. Marshals [are] now [calling all of the apprehensions in three states “]rescue[” even though few if any of the subjects were in any danger; they are also calling all of the 72 subjects “]missing children[” even though most were not actually children and few were actually “missing” in the usual sense of the term]…The [subjects] are between 6 to 17 years old…and [some may have been arrested by the cops under guise of “rescue”, since the pigrelease claims they were all]…turned over to the Indiana Department of Child Services…and…no further details about the [subjects] or the circumstances were released…the U.S. Marshals Service [also pretended] it found 39 missing children in Georgia…[and] 25…in Ohio…[though no factual details were available in that case, either]…

Diary #533

Time spent with Dr. Quest is always lovely, but unfortunately time spent on airplanes is not.  So after a wonderful weekend I had to get up at 5 AM Sunday to leave for the airport at 6, then make a connecting flight via Philadelphia for a long flight back to Seattle.  However, I was on the ground in Seattle by 1:30 PM, came home to eat a late breakfast, and did little other than write this column and do a little bookkeeping before getting blotto on a THC drink.  Then yesterday I returned to Sunset with the money for the steel for the roof structure of my bathhouse, courtesy of the good Doctor!  He was very pleased to know that every time Iook up in that room, I will think of him.  As regular readers know, under my adamantine exterior I’m actually extremely sentimental, so there’s something  very beautiful to me about being able to look at a specific gift, whether a picture or a sculpture or a tool or a piece of furniture or an actual structure in my home, and smile fondly at the reminder of the generous person who gave it to me.

Tissue of Lies

I’m always happy when journalists investigate the wild fantasies promoted by politicians, cops, and “rescue” profiteers via the mainstream media.  First of all, they have much better investigational tools and resources than I do, plus paid time to do the job; second, they have a far larger platform, and can thus inform many more people of the truth even if their coverage of the topic trails mine by years; and third, given the central role played by the news media in disseminating the lies and propagating the hysteria, it is the moral responsibility of ethical journalists to at least attempt to counteract the massive damage done by their unethical, incompetent and lazy brethren.  So I was very pleased indeed to see Michael Hobbes (whom I’ve corresponded with before) publish in Huffington Post (which for a while was as happy as any other site to spread anti-sex tall tales) a thorough debunking of that “brave hero cops rescue dozens of ‘sex trafficked children’ in Georgia” masturbatory fantasy from a couple of weeks ago.  So much information is intentionally omitted from the “official” press releases in such stories that I’m often forced to surmise the real meaning of semantically-opaque terms like “rescued”; I’m gratified to see that the details Hobbes uncovered are close to my educated guesses:

…“U.S. Marshals Find 39 Missing Children in Georgia”…proclaimed the government’s official press release.  Federal agents and local law enforcement, it said, had rescued 26 children, “safely located” 13 more and arrested nine perpetrators, some of whom were charged with sex trafficking.  The facts of the operation weren’t clear (what does “safely located” mean, exactly?), but it didn’t stop media outlets from taking up the story…the vast majority…were little more than rewritten versions of the U.S. Marshals Service’s press release.  Within hours, social media users continued the game of telephone. “39 kids were just recovered from traffickers in Georgia,” Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point USA, wrote in a tweet…More than 150,000 people shared a single-sentence tweet from someone named King Randall, I: “How is finding 39 missing children in a double wide trailer here in Georgia NOT the biggest news story in America?”  Well, to answer a one-sentence question with a one-sentence answer, 39 kids being rescued from a trailer in Georgia is not the biggest news story in America because 39 kids were not rescued from a trailer in Georgia… 

…“This was not a designated anti-trafficking operation,” [said] Darby Kirby, a U.S. Marshals Service inspector…the…effort…was a collaboration between state and federal authorities to locate 78 “critically missing” children…they…found all but 13…39 were “recovered,” meaning they were removed from whatever situation they were in — which could be anything from living on the streets to crashing on a friend’s couch to staying with a parent who didn’t have custody rights.  The other 26 cases were closed without the child being “recovered”…[which] could [either] mean that another agency…found them — or that they had been home all along…authorities said they suspected [emphasis Maggie’s] that 15…were [so-called] victims of trafficking (meaning [only that] they were engaging in commercial sex) but confirmed only six cases…The operation netted only one new charge of sex trafficking…Of the seven men and two women arrested, three were charged with probation violations, one was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and two were accused of violating custody arrangements.  One…was arrested on a warrant for a previous sex trafficking charge, and two more were arrested on warrants for sex crimes in other states…agents did not rescue a large number of children from a single location — or even a single jurisdiction…only two…were recovered together.  The other kids were found individually across 15 Georgia counties and six other states:  South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, Kentucky and Michigan.  The operation took place over two weeks, not one night…the agency did not conduct any raids…

…It’s also worth noting that the operation was also set up to arrest [legal minors], not just rescue [children]…two…were [arested as] suspects in homicide cases, and one was a person of interest in another…11…had…“some kind of gang affiliation”…seven warrants [in all] were issued for underage offenders…54 of the 78…had been in foster care before they went missing…most…were…runaways…

There’s a lot more, but I think you get the picture.  Between some reporters waking up, some outlets at last letting skeptical journalists publish stories like this, and some (like the New York Times) being forced to recant their own propaganda for fear of being associated with QAnon, I think it’s safe to say we’ve at last entered the period of skeptical journalism that always precedes the collapse of a moral panic.

Links #532

I can’t breathe.  –  Daniel Prude

It’s hard to believe that today is already the 21^st anniversary of the greatest disaster in human history, when we lost the Moon to a bizarre nuclear accident.  What, you don’t remember that?  The video below may help.  The links above it were provided by Mistress Matisse, Cop Crisis, Popehat, Billy Binion, Amy Alkon, and Popehat again, in that order.

• Be this goat.
• Playing tag while black.
• No, your reason is not a fucking exception.
• Not because somebody stuck his tongue out, either.
• Oh look, it’s what I’ve said for the last four decades.
• Crime: teenage fighting. Penalty: infliction of 2nd degree burns.

From the Archives

• “Dangerous teen fad” hysteria’s funnier when cops are its primary vectors.
• The US increases interference into private lives; India goes the other way.
• Will porn companies be next to face the music for exploiting sex workers?
• She’s on the wrong side of an imaginary line; we have to destroy her life!
• Canadians join Americans in filling kids’ heads with anti-sex propaganda.
• The problem is that facial recognition won’t stay inaccurate much longer.
• A new challenge is needed because Liberals lied about repealing the law.
• They’re “certified” in making up absurd stories & spreading moral panic.
• Pimps are uncommon, but a disproportionate number of them are cops.
• Why don’t decrim supporters work with those who support legalization?
• Fascists think nobody should have privacy, even in their own thoughts.
• Racist airline employee fantasizes an international criminal conspiracy.
• Trying to manufacture data to “prove” a problem exists is not science.
• How government circumvents the push to reduce prison populations.
• Cops, protests, snakes, black humor, Burt Reynolds and much more.
• I think we have enough evidence to start calling this “McNeill’s Law”.
• I really like sharing my nice things with those who appreciate them.
• Another attempt to harass Asian massage parlors out of business.
• Instead of hunting sex workers, Argentina negotiated with them.
• Moral panics make it so easy for pathetic twits to feel important.
• Cops, whales, words, waffles, Terrance Dicks, and much more.
• The government still won’t admit that TSA attracts pedophiles.
• Facebook doesn’t try to stop cops from making fake accounts.
• Winnowing out the time-wasters, clowns, and cheapskates.
• Cops are trying to regain control of a runaway moral panic.
• On the prohibitionist fantasy of a sex worker caste system.
• Rapists and murders say they want to “regain public trust”.
• You didn’t really think these would stay separate, did you?
• It’s good to see that the media is beginning to grasp this.
• Anything that helps demystify sex work is a good thing.
• Strip club raids exist only for pigs to get their jollies.
• Florida “officials” must enjoy getting sued over this.
• Possibly the silliest “King of the Hill” claimant ever.
• Weird prohibitionist sex fantasies about bouncers.
• In which I inspire a border patrol agent to resign.
• The 17th murder of a trans person in 2019.
• The last special edition Ladies of the Night.
• This brings the toll to 19 so far this year.
• Your government calls this “correction”.
• Amber DiPietra on the DASANetwork.
• I applaud any client who comes out.
• Crypto-moralism in the news again.
• Why is “attractive” in scare quotes?
• Sex workers need your help.
• I guess it runs in the family.
• I’m sure you feel safer now.
• A week full of parties.

In the News (#1072)

[Kamala] Harris is basically a QAnon cheerleader for people who fancy themselves too sophisticated for that crap.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

A Moral Cancer (#790)

Crypto-moralists always pretend their lust to ban things is about “health” or “safety”:

Critics are lining up to blast a report, issued by [the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory] Committee earlier this summer, that urges the government to make steep cuts to the definition of moderate alcohol consumption…DGAC…policies include everything from recommending how many servings of vegetables people should consume in a day to determining what foods to serve to troops, schoolchildren, and prisoners…The report seeks to halve the DGAC’s longstanding definition of moderate drinking for men—no more than two drinks per day—to no more than one drink per day.  (The recommendation for women, set for years at no more than one drink per day, remains unchanged)…five Harvard Medical School faculty doctors—including three who served on one or more prior iterations of the DGAC…argue the…slash…is a “limited, arbitrary, and unsystematic treatment of alcohol consumption” that is based on “limited, arbitrary, and unsystematic evidence”…the DGAC appears to have “ignored” three decades of research…in…[order] to support claims made by members of the DGAC prior to appointment…In other words…anti-alcohol DGAC members focused only on research that supports arguments those members wanted to make all along…

Comfort Zone (#839)

Sometimes the attempt to hide migration control behind the “trafficking” narrative is especially apparent:

A spike in migrants moving north through Panama has [cops fantsizing] the country will become an international center for human trafficking.  Last year, nearly 22,000 migrants from Haiti, Cuba and a number of African and Asian countries were [arrested] after crossing the perilous Darién jungle along the Panama-Colombia border…The journey of a migrant…isn’t cheap or easy.  Migrants usually learn of the method from friends or family members who made the trip before them, or find instructions posted online…Often, migrants pay for smuggling through what analysts call “sponsors,” usually family members or friends already in the United States…

Down Under (#890)

Swedish model regimes would’ve instead targeted the victim for surveillance:

Michael Donald Grout attempted to blackmail…a…sex [worker], then followed through on his threat and [out]ed her [to her parents]…he…was sentenced in…Palmerston North [New Zealand]…to four months’ home detention…The victim was 18 at the time, more than 40 years Grout’s junior…Grout [claimed in court that he] became fearful for his own health after reading…an…advertisement that said the woman provided unprotected sex.  This was confirmed through an interaction with another of her clients…[but rather than distancing himself from her to protect his supposedly-compromised immune system] he obtained nude photographs of the woman and…[demanded she submit to rape or] he would send the photos to her parents…she…then…blocked the [anonymous] account [from which he was sending the threats, and he retaliated by sending]…a courier package [which] arrived at the home of [her] parents [on December 19]…her mother opened it and found several naked photos of her daughter.  Attached was a note wishing the couple a Merry Christmas and happy New Year.  “You must be proud of her,” Grout wrote…

Disaster (#1009)

The FOSTA challenge is proceeding again:

The Woodhull Freedom Foundation is suing (again) to get FOSTA ruled unconstitutional…[on the grounds that it] violates the First and Fifth Amendments…Woodhull’s motion for summary judgment…also takes aim at the law’s retroactive scope—FOSTA says you can be punished for violating it even before the law went into effect [even though such laws are prohibited in Article I of the Constitution]…

The Course of a Disease (#1020)

Maltese prohibitionists are strikingly loony, even for prohibitionists:

Malta’s Prostitution Reform Technical Committee excludes [prohibitionists] who [persecute and infantilize] sex workers, [prohibitionists] w[hi]ned….“Nordic model” [fanatics are upset that]…the state [is instead considering]…decriminalisation…[the prohibitionists vomited idiocy about “]sex hub tourism[” (whatever that is supposed to mean)] and “European Thailand”…[and also] called for [persecution of] strip clubs,  a…police [rape gang, and forcible “conversion therapy”]…for…victims of [the police]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1040)

I only hope this turns out to be true:

Ongoing tests of facial recognition technology continue to show that the technology is baffled when people wear masks of the sort that have become widespread (and even mandatory) in some places during the current pandemic. Forty-one newly tested algorithms—some of which were designed to compensate for face coverings—show the same dramatically elevated error rates as those examined earlier.  The tests have important implications for privacy at a time…of political instability and growing concern over law enforcement excesses, when people may have a strong interest in making identification of opponents and protesters difficult for the powers-that-be…

A Broker in Pillage (#1068)

A good argument for refusing to roll over and let yourself be robbed:

What happens when innocent people stand up to government bullies who use civil forfeiture laws to steal their property?  In many cases, the bullies, unaccustomed to such resistance, fold like a cheap suit…the government returned Kevin McBride’s Jeep, which…the Pima County Attorney’s Office was demanding a $1,900 ransom for the safe return of…But the day after the Goldwater Institute threatened to sue on McBride’s behalf…prosecutors changed their tune…

Bathhouse 16

I returned to Sunset on Wednesday of last week, and until Monday did a host of small jobs on the project which were yet unfinished.  I spent most of the day Saturday skirting around the cottages; since the ground falls away toward the east fairly quickly, I had to allow for that while simultaneously using something strong enough to keep Orville and the other animals out.   Fortunately, Jae remembered that alongside the shop were the panels of a huge garage door which was apparently once installed on the barn (the previous owners came of age in the Great Depression and never threw away anything as far as we could tell); they were strong, light, weatherproof, pig-proof, and (best of all) free.  So I used them as the base layer all around, and topped them with leftover floor and roof boards from the cottage kits.  When Chekhov stains the cottage, he’ll also spray the boards; later, Jae will paint the white panels to match the trim.  We had meant to have our workmen come back to shingle the roof last week, but that got pushed to this week; on Sunday (with Chekhov’s help) I finished the remaining roof boards which are still missing in this picture, then did the roof underlayment so the shingles could be installed.  Grace also showed me her sketches for the main roof design, and we priced the steel for the supporting structure; we should be able to start on that early next week.  And if things keep going as they should, we’ll have a roof up before the rainy season starts again in about four weeks!

Taking Shape

As regular readers know, I’m planning to semi-retire at the end of this year; I stopped creating traditional ads over a year ago, and as of January 1^st I will no longer take new clients unless they come recommended by someone I know personally.  The pandemic and civil unrest of this year have given me a glimpse of what that’s going to look like:  for the past six months I’ve been living at Sunset, returning to Seattle a couple of times a month for a few days at a time.  For example, I just came back to Seattle on Tuesday for an appointment, then tonight I’ll be flying out to see one of my favorite clients for a weekend; on Monday I’ll be heading back to Sunset for a couple of weeks.  And though this year I’ve been incredibly busy with the remodel, the big things should mostly be done about the same time I semi-retire, and the details by next summer.  And then I’ll just be able to settle into a comfortable routine of writing, publishing books, going back to town or traveling elsewhere to work or make public appearances, cooking, relaxing, puttering around the farm, visiting with friends, and maybe even getting a long-delayed D&D game running.  After half a century of sturm und drang, I have finally (mostly) learned to relax, and even my inner nun is beginning to grudgingly admit that I’ve earned it.

In the News (#1071)

Exodus Cry[‘s]…history of hateful rhetoric toward women and…those who don’t abide by their vision of purity…is extremely disturbing.  –  Pornhub

Follow Your Bliss

A typical and representative “law enforcement hero”:

Christopher Bryant…of Ruidoso, New Mexico [was arrested]…on charges of transportation of child pornography…[because] he…[searched for] child pornography on the internet and took screenshots of three [porn] images of children…[then] sent the images to himself by email.  Bryant was recognized in 2019 as a “Law Enforcement Hero of Child Protection” by a state agency…

Cops and Robbers (#910) 

The rescue industry provides many opportunities for wealthy white folks to play cowboy:

Over the past few years, Marisol Nichols has been juggling the demands of being an [television] act[ress]…with a side gig as a…[scam artist making money from hysteria over] sex trafficking.  The latter is now being turned into a television series after Sony Pictures Television optioned rights to her story…She has been [lying to people targeted by] the FBI, [sociopathic fascists] Operation Underground Railroad and [common pigs] to serve as the “bait” for sting operations domestically and internationally…Nichols…has participated in numerous [examples of cop glorification propaganda]…such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law & Order: SVU, more than once playing a cop…she began to work in the [rescue industry] after her career slowed down around 2012…

She’s not really a pig, but she played one on TV.  And in life-destroying scams.

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#972)

Unsurprising for entities in the disinformation business:

Fentanyl…has taken on mythical properties [among cops.  Many]…have claimed to have nearly died from accidental exposure, based on the scientifically inaccurate idea that a deadly amount of fentanyl can pass through human skin or even poison the air around it.  That myth has spread through…fusion centers…[which] have circulated fentanyl myths, causing [cops] to panic [like little girls]…Out of 121 fentanyl-related bulletins in the BlueLeaks trove reviewed by Reason, at least 36 claimed that fentanyl could be absorbed through the skin and at least 41 discussed the alleged danger of airborne fentanyl…

It’s nice to see them harming each others’ mental health for a change.

You Were Warned (#976)

So far, the vultures are being shot down, but they’ll continue to harass businesses until FOSTA is overturned:

[An ambulance-chaser] sued [the messaging app] Kik [in hopes of getting a lot of loot courtesy of]…FOSTA…[which] Congress enacted…to [encourage exactly this kind of nuisance] lawsuit…against Internet services.  The question is exactly what FOSTA did–a difficult question to answer because of FOSTA’s terrible drafting.  Court opinions trying to navigate the FOSTA/Section 230 interplay are extremely complex and technical in nature, and thus hard to understand…The plaintiff trie[d] to show that Kik violated [the law by]…“participat[ing] in a venture” with [imaginary] sex traffickers…The court grant[ed] Kik’s motion to dismiss…[because] the facts don’t seem to indicate any actual or attempted sex trafficking…Perhaps the court might have approached the opinion differently if the[re had actually been any behavior remotely resembling] sex trafficking…

Panopticon (#993)

Is it just me, or does this sound like an attempt at reverse psychology?

[FBI] documents warned that owners of Amazon’s Ring and similar video doorbells can use the systems…to watch police..leak[ed documents]…describe…numerous ways police and the FBI could use Ring surveillance footage, but it also cites “new challenges” involving sensor- and camera-equipped smart home devices….[which] can offer an early warning when [pigs] are approaching a house to [root around, destroy it, or brutalize and murder]…the owner…[In actuality,] this isn’t [an]y more information than a security camera would capture…and…Ring…[collaborates] with hundreds of [cop shops]…to hand over footage [without the owners’ permission]…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#1023) 

Anti-sex profiteers never tell their marks that the 1^st amendment isn’t subject to veto by busybodies clicking on an internet petition:

Laila Mickelwait’s…”TraffickingHub” campaign to [censor] Pornhub…has nearly two million signatures…There are many legitimate reasons for revenge porn victims and adult content owners to be critical of Pornhub…But what people who sign the TraffickingHub petition might not understand is that the campaign…comes from the world of anti sex [work] activism—and specifically, from a large Christian organization, Exodus Cry, which…[promotes police violence against] sex work[ers] and wants to abolish porn altogether…it…[also] has a history of homophobia and bigotry, and…peddl[es] a victim narrative to “save” sex workers while harming them with pushes for [pro-rape] legislation…

Losing Their Shit

The reek from the dying rescue industry is now wafting over from Europe:

…the European Freedom Network (EFN) [is a conspiracy between] 250 [evangelical] groups that [harass and persecute sex workers]…Leanne Rhodes…who lives in Portugal, is the Executive Director of the EFN…[and provides exampls of how “sex trafficking” propaganda] has changed substantially after the Covid-19 crisis…“organisations could no longer [harass sex workers in person, so] they lost [track of easy targets]…a lot of our partners have [invented new masturbbatory fantasies about]pimps…dump[ing “victims”]…mafias have moved from street prostitution to online prostitution. There is a massive increase in video sex, chat rooms…pornography and so on, all over the place and very early on as lockdowns started…you can sell people over the internet over and over…

Except for the new “pimps dumping slaves” trope, this is the same filth they’ve been peddling for over a decade.  Did they think nobody would notice?