O sweet and noble lad, be not aggrieved!
Pray, lift thyself from off the cursed ground!
Thy travels long have left thee most deceived;
there is a sanctuary to be found. – Pop Sonnets, “YMCA”
Police militarization has finally entered the sleepy consciousness of mainstream America due to the Ferguson, Missouri protests, but of course libertarians have been talking about it for decades; nobody has talked about it more, nor more eloquently, than Radley Balko. Today’s first video is from a tiny town in Georgia and was, until Radley called attention to it, posted on the front page of the official police website; it’s a short, disturbing look at the modern police mindset and the image they want to project to the public. Radley also provided the links above it. The second video is a satire of out-of-control “sex offender” laws contributed by Robert King, and the links between the videos are from Scott Greenfield (“enough”), Michael Whiteacre (“RIP” and “hobby”), Rick Horowitz (“koinkydink”), Mark Draughn (“perspective”), Saladin Ahmed (“sonnets”), Clarkhat (“Vikings”), Lenore Skenazy (“farmers”), Popehat (“never call”), and Cop Block (“seriously”).
- Take time in your busy day to do the little things that make life worthwhile, like smelling roses or murdering dogs.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
- Teen arrested for pretending he killed neighbor’s pet dinosaur.
- Had enough yet?
- R.I.P. Don Pardo.
- What a koinkydink!
- A bit of perspective.
- It’s good to have a hobby.
- Pop songs rewritten as Shakespearean sonnets.
- Viking ship discovered on the Mississippi River near Memphis.
- Welcome to our world, farmers and residents of Ferguson, Missouri.
- Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever. Seriously, not any reason.
From the Archives
- Fascism, patient abuse, six words, an unintended metaphor, spell ban, cops, guilt without fault and the Cult of Personality.
- Cops arrest strippers under vague “sex trafficking” pretenses, and random people on spurious prostitution charges.
- The police state, Hamill vs. Hamill, bad librarian, witchcraft, cops, bike lanes and the Pope.
- Apparently, some British juries recognize that a prostitute can be raped.
- Under criminalization, is reporting a ripoff hooker to cops really worth it?
- The disturbing trend of cops arresting retired madams on drug charges.
- Dr. Brooke Magnanti on thinking good sex can be defined by statistics.
- Both 2012 presidential candidates were descended from polygamists.
- What’s most “unclear” to me is how this is even physically possible.
- The role of Manichean thinking in creating “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- The problems Asian sex workers face in Victoria’s legalized system.
- Volunteering at a shelter confers “trafficking” expertise in months.
- Filipino “trafficking” hotline is confused about number of “victims”.
- Deals with devils always have more conditions than anticipated.
- Dr. Robert King on porn, with a nice endorsement of yours truly.
- It’s so nice when people who have never done sex work get it.
- A proposal for the decriminalization of sex work in South Africa.
- A once-important festival now consigned to the attic of history.
- Indian sex workers rescue a little girl from her abusive mother.
- Barcelona’s campaign to drive vulnerable women into poverty.
- The Polaris Project pimps historical American black slavery.
- Scientific illiterates attack a politician’s scientific illiteracy.
- The Indian Supreme Court waffles on decriminalization.
- Arizona wants to look even stupider than New Jersey.
- How can anyone not know how advice columns work?
- Two essays on the problem with the word “privilege”.
- The government’s latest effort to destroy Bitcoin.
- A short overview of the work of Elizabeth Loftus.
- Northern Ireland contracts the Swedish disease.
- How to obscure reality by manipulating words.
- A whore’s best friend is her artificial life form.
- Prostitution Law and the Death of Whores.
- Queensland considers legalizing outcalls.
- How cops enrich themselves via robbery.
- Narcissists causing problems for whores.
- Miranda Kane at the Edinburgh Festival.
- Swedish priest convicted of buying sex.
- $2 billion in preventable medical costs.
- A brothel cooperative in Utrecht.
- A look at sex work in Yemen.
- Sex workers vs. criminals.
- Rapist cops of the week.
- The Free Speech Mafia.