Bacon day celebrations typically include social gatherings during which participants create and consume dishes containing bacon, including bacon-themed breakfasts, lunches, dinners, desserts, and drinks.End of discussion.
2 pounds thick cut baconPreparation begins with the ever-popular bacon weave...
2 pounds Italian sausage
1 jar of your favorite BBQ Sauce
1 jar of your favorite BBQ Rub
Rotherham is a working-class town that is remarkable in its ordinariness — a collection of charmless discount stores, betting shops and kebab counters, surrounded by sleepy residential streets lined with brick houses that have seen better days.Ah yes, Political Correctness. I swear that someday it will be the ruin of us all.
But below the drab surface, shock was evident Wednesday as the people of this northern English town learned that for 16 years, girls as young as 11 in their community had been subjected to sexual exploitation on a vast scale.
The number of victims — 1,400 — was terrifying enough for a community of just 250,000. But that wasn’t all: despite repeated warnings over the years, only a handful of men have ever been convicted and an independent report found that local leaders had dismissed reports of child rape, exploitation and violence for years. Part of the reason, they said, was that they feared they would be branded as racist for pursuing the perpetrators — the majority of whom were men of Pakistani origin.
Yet, many say it’s time for police and social workers to come up with a better response than to blame prickly race issues. Muhbeen Hussain, who founded the British Muslim Youth group, said the Pakistani community also needs to step up and face the problem.Yes it is. Those who failed to act because of fears they might be branded as racists are just as guilty, and just as deserving of punishment, as the freaks who committed the acts.
“We need to acknowledge there was a large number of Pakistani men said to be involved. As a Pakistani Muslim I don’t find anything within our religion to condone this,” the 20-year-old said. “We need to reopen every case since the 1990s and investigate them. If it were any other type of crime the police would have acted” (emphasis added).
Hussain argues the reason the problem has gone on for so long isn’t about race, despite the authorities tiptoeing around the issue. What it is about, he argues, is a lack of accountability.
“Saying it’s about race is just an excuse for the failure of the local council. Are they not going to arrest a drug dealer because the Muslims may be upset? It’s ludicrous.”
Move over 6-pack — the much more impressive 99-pack of beer has arrived.
A small Texas craft brewery, Austin Beerworks, has rolled out an 82-pounds, seven-foot-long cardboard case of 99 cans of its “Peacemaker Extra Ale,” now nicknamed “Anytime Ale,” for $99, and it hits shelves this week.
The package, smartly advising buyers to “lift with your buddy, not your back,” requires two to three people to carry it. It’s three rows of 33 beers to share with your closest friends.
A bill authored by a Pasadena lawmaker that encourages schools to teach about the historical significance of Barack Obama becoming the nation’s first African-American president is now California law.If this foolishness was confined to just California then I wouldn't do much more than shake my head in disgust and move on. But unfortunately similar nonsense is being spread throughout our public
... Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1912, whose author, Assemblymember Chris Holden, says will be the first step toward acknowledging President Obama’s legacy for generations to come.
The bill – which passed the Assembly in April a 71-0 vote and no debate or discussion – calls the election a “historic step in the effort towards equality in the United States” and that previous elections in the nation involved intimidation and physical violence that prevented millions of African-Americans from voting, according to the Associated Press.
It also commends Obama for his work as a community organizer who registered voters after he graduated from Harvard Law School.
Recently the College Board, the privately owned company that administers standardized tests to high school students nationwide, released its new framework for the Advanced Placement U.S. History Test.That last paragraph is the key. The progressives have infiltrated the public education system to such an extent that they are now literally re-writing history.
The new framework indoctrinates students with a negative view of American history by focusing on the ugly skeletons of the past while ignoring the leaders, the innovators and the builders of the American Dream. Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have been excluded to create space for the Black Panthers.
According to the new framework, America's Manifest Destiny "was built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority." Instead of respecting America's servicemen, the framework focuses on "the internment of Japanese Americans, challenges to civil liberties, debates over race and segregation, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb raised questions about American values." These new standards are intended to change high school curricula, change how history is taught to our kids, and change our children's values.
David Coleman, the College Board executive behind the new framework, is also known as the architect of the highly controversial Common Core standards...
The classic novel Brave New World describes a future in which people have lost all of their liberty and in which they have become drugged robots obedient to a central authority. It also details how this control was first established. First, the rulers had to erase all history and all the people’s memory of a time before their bondage.Complimenting the Brave New World reference above is this quote from 1984: "He who controls the past, controls the future." The leftists have evidently taken this saying to heart, and are busy re-writing our past to inculcate their vision of America in our children's minds.
Today, the history of George Washington's leadership has been erased in the new Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History test/curriculum, taking effect in the fall of 2014. The College Board, the organization that publishes the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and AP tests, has also decided to completely blot out Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, among others. In this newly revised course, Gen. Washington merits one fleeting mention in one sentence...
This is more than just an academic spat among history teachers. America today is the freest, most prosperous land the world has ever known. Everything everyone has in this country exists because of the original gift of liberty bequeathed to us by Gen. George Washington and our Founding Fathers. Let’s also not forget that hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people around the globe owe their current freedom to the United States of America and, by extension, to our Founding Fathers.
... If your child never learns about Benjamin Franklin’s story or about how the Revolutionary War was won or about the Gettysburg Address or about the D-Day landing at Normandy (all erased in this “brave new history”), then he will never know that it is up to us to keep our Republic.
A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.The federal court ruled that there was no discrimination "because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test." Yet in another case currently pending the federal government is suing the state of Pennsylvania "claiming discrimination against women who want to be (state police) troopers ... (because) ... the physical fitness requirements for cadets at the state police academy are too tough for women" - even though the same standards are being applied to everyone who takes the test.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
The U.S. Department of Justice says graduating classes from the Pennsylvania State Police Academy should have more women and the feds blame physical standards for cadets for keeping more of those women from becoming troopers.First of all, those don't seem like particularly onerous standards. If that high a proportion of people pass it seems like the bar is set on the low side. But that's a minor quibble. The main point is the insistence of the feds on equal outcome, not equal opportunity.
These are the five standards all state police cadets must pass:
- 300-meter run in 77 seconds,
- 13 pushups,
- 14-inch vertical jump,
- 1.5 mile run in 17 minutes 48 seconds,
- agility run in 23.5 seconds
“98 percent of the men who take the test pass the physical readiness test to become a trooper. 72 percent of the women pass the test to become a PA state trooper. Those numbers prove this is not an impossible task. We’re not looking for Olympic athletes,” Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said.
Ships' goods which are lost at sea. Also used figuratively in non-nautical contexts to means odds and ends, bits and pieces.In this case we're going with the non-nautical meaning. I'm not feeling inspired, and I have quite a bit of odds and ends floating around my in-basket, so I'm killing two birds with one stone. Enjoy.
There's a simple mnemonic that helps distinguish flotsam from jetsam. Flotsam (or floatsome) are those items which are floating as a consequence of the action of the sea. Jetsam are those which have been jettisoned by a ship's crew (although that may float too of course).
When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States.It was interesting comparing our daughter's departure with her older brother's. When we moved him in last year we parked, made one trip with his things to his dorm room, dropped them on the floor, and were shooed out shortly thereafter. It was a different story with the girl.
-- Erma Bombeck
Facing criticism for going right from his Foley statement back to his golf game, the White House announced today that what appeared to be a bored manchild taking endless vacations and hanging out with his pals at taxpayer expense was actually part of a cunning scheme to defeat ISIS.It's all part of barry's master plan to keep the media and the public distracted from the rest of his miserable failures until after the 2014 elections...
“Next week, President Obama intends to challenge the Caliph of ISIS to 19 holes at the Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course in Hawaii,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “His entire administration, all his experiences, have been leading up to this point. Every time conservatives ridiculed him, he was actually training for the day when he will personally defeat ISIL. At golf.”
While some pundits have questioned whether the Caliph of the Islamic State would even agree to take part in a golf game and what beating him at golf would accomplish, MSNBC and CNN were quick to tout the advantages.
“President Obama is like Batman,” Dr. Marc Lamont Hill told CNN’s Don Lemon. “If Batman fought crime by playing golf. Instead of fighting fire with fire, Barack is going to fight fire with golf.”
However in an exclusive interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Hillary Clinton suggested that challenging the Caliph to a golf game wasn’t much of a strategy.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” the former Secretary of State said. “Maybe challenge him to a game of ping pong in the tradition of the US rapprochement with China. Or to see who can best defend a 12-year-old girl’s rapist by calling her a mentally ill slut. I could do that one again in my sleep.”
Some questions have been raised about whether the Caliph should even be allowed in the United States, but then it was pointed out that these days anyone can cross the southern border.
While the Caliph of the Islamic State did not yet issue a formal response, an ISIS press release warned that “The Lions of Mosul, the Knights of Tikrit and the Warriors of that Pile of Rubble Near Baghdad would play golf with the heads of the Zionist Crusader infidels and their Freemason Monkey-Pig allies.”
A 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck Northern California early on Sunday morning, the strongest quake to hit the Bay Area since the World Series earthquake in 1989.
Social media on Sunday was dominated by on-the-ground reports from shaken Californians and much of that chatter was dedicated to one burning question—what happened to the wine?
You have thrown out the better part of the last several one-gallon jugs of milk, but still can't bring yourself to buy the one-quart cartons.
You called the power company and asked them to check your meter, because the hot-water bill has been way too low.
You still cook enough to have seconds and thirds ... and fourths.
It’s axiomatic that leftist leadership is always in favor of sacrificing for the environment if someone else is doing the sacrificing. This double-standard hypocrisy is nowhere more evident than in California’s water problems.Once again, democrat leadership is all wet...
I’ve written before about how the drought is affecting residents and agriculture; and also how the failure of California Democrats to prepare for drought conditions in a state that has always been semi-arid has resulted in devastating cutbacks to farming and the loss of business and people to other, better managed states like Texas.
The latest statistics put 90 percent of the state in the severe drought category. But that, like many other rules the little people must follow, does not apply to Nancy Pelosi and her constituents in San Francisco.
The Washington Times has discovered that while drought, combined with the Endangered Species Act, “has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities,” San Francisco is exempt from the water rationing imposed elsewhere.
To make matters even worse, water from the Tuolumne River is diverted 167 miles to refresh the residents of Baghdad by the Bay. As the Times points out, “Without that diversion, about 15 percent more water would flow to the Sacramento Delta, which is critical habitat for threatened fish like the delta smelt, the green sturgeon, and several species of salmon.”
As a result of this drought disparity, Craig Manson, head of the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR), has filed a lawsuit “aimed at addressing the double standard that forces farmers to give up water in the name of species conservation — without requiring Bay Area residents to do the same.”
Winning is not going to be easy. Even the environmental community is not falling into line to support the effort because winning would make a powerful enemy in Pelosi. She may not read the bills before one achieves passage, but she has a long memory.
The green lobby is willing to accept a bit of hypocrisy at home in return for her support for the iron fist of “environmental justice” in other sections of the state with less political influence.
Which brings us to the operational definition of shared sacrifice for the affluent environmentalist: we share the sacrifice with you, while we take all the credit for our environmental concern.
California has more than 38 million residents. Despite net losses of millions of residents to other states, California continues to grow through immigration. Latinos now equal the number of non-Hispanic whites in California.Which brings us to the present. California is suffering from a severe water shortage. Some of that is due to a multi-year severe drought. Some is due to crumbling infrastructure. Some is a result of absurd environmental policies.
California ... has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.
...more than 30% of the nation’s welfare recipients are Californians – even though California has just 12% of the nation’s population.
...California is ranked number one in poverty.
The cause for those bad statistics is bad government policy. California is the most regulated, highest-taxed, most in-debt state in America.
Beyond debt, Governor Brown recently signed a huge tax increase featuring a top rate of 13.3%. Overall, California taxes are 42% higher than Texas. California also has the most extreme/job-threatening global warming law in the world, which includes a 15-cent gas tax increase slated to take effect in 2015 – on top of the already record gas prices.
Think about it. There are nearly 3 million illegal aliens living in California, and that doesn’t include the millions of “anchor babies” that also reside here. The number of anchor babies is hard to calculate, but the kindest of estimates puts one anchor baby per illegal immigrant, so let’s set the number at 3 million. That makes 6 million people, who shouldn’t even be in this country, living in California and using up our resources.Speaking of Governor Moonbeam, he's part of the problem as well.
If the government would enforce the law, the water drought wouldn’t even be an issue. There would be plenty to go around. Instead, we have a massive group of illegal people literally draining our water reserves. Gov. Brown wants Californians to use 20% less water, which is approximately the percentage of the population that is illegal. Get rid of the undocumented and the problem is solved.
California, especially the Southern portion of the state, is not a place that is naturally equipped to support a population of 38 million. Southern California is a desert and relies too much on Mother Nature and an antiquated aqueduct system to deliver water to its people. When the rain stops falling and the population grows, the drought problem gets worse.
Brown recently killed a proposed water bond of $11.4 billion because he said it would “break the bank.” Apparently $68 billion (for a controversial high-speed rail project "for which there is no significant consumer demand and, like most every rail system, will likely require endless public subsidies and therefore add to the debt crisis") won’t break the bank, but $11.4 billion would.If you're like me, you really don't care too much about what happens in California. After all, they made their own bed, so let them sleep in it, right?
... without a far-reaching effort such as building 60 desalination plants at the same cost as the high-speed rail project – plants that won’t need future subsidies - the California economy is on an economic collision course with immigration.
That future could very well mean fewer people in the dry West and coastal areas of the East and South, and more people in the comparatively water-rich Midwest. And if you're looking for a historical analogy that could illustrate the change, look no further than the 1930s-era Dust Bowl.
California was perhaps the chief beneficiary of the migration generated by the Dust Bowl, as residents of the Great Plains saw their livelihoods disappear in the drought conditions. From PBS' The American Experience show on the Dust Bowl:
When the drought and dust storms showed no signs of letting up, many people abandoned their land. Others would have stayed but were forced out when they lost their land in bank foreclosures. In all, one-quarter of the population left, packing everything they owned into their cars and trucks, and headed west toward California...
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history...
So what does this mean for today's drought-stricken areas?Wouldn't that be ironic? Refugees abandoning one failed democrat stronghold and fleeing to others.
It could mean that agriculture in the West begins to shrink, and workers become displaced.
It could mean that other businesses that are dependent on a consistent and secure source of water for production may start to look for other locations.
It could mean that stringent water conservation and water management practices may cause changes in water pricing, and higher prices, combined with greater scarcity, may cause people to look elsewhere.
It could mean that the cities of the Rust Belt may become a viable relocation option with its abundant water resources.
As California suffers from its worst drought in a century, local grape farmers are warning wine could be the next big casualty.That means the price of my favorite box of wine could skyrocket, while the quality declines.
The state is suffering from its third consecutive dry year and water levels are running critically low.
The problem is a big deal for vineyard owners now, and will soon be one for wine drinkers too with California the largest wine market in the world. It supplies 90 percent of all US wine and is the world’s fourth-leading wine producer, after France, Italy and Spain.
Dry conditions are likely to reduce grape production at many vineyards by as much as 25 percent in the coming years.
The stress of a drought can also affect the quality of the fruit that is managing to grow, so consumers could soon start tasting the difference.
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President Barack Obama teed off again on Thursday, just 24 hours after pictures of his wide grin on the golf course drew condemnation in the wake of the beheading of American photojournalist James Foley.Speaking of Ralph Peters, he had this further comment on the subject.
The president drew fire Wednesday after reacting to Foley's on-camera slaying for just five minutes, and then gripping his driver.
He had told a global audience minutes earlier that 'when people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.'
Then he was seen laughing with friends and fist-bumping them during a five-hour round at Farm Neck on Martha's Vineyard.
His high-fiving on Wednesday has brought a chorus of condemnation from TV commentators, journalists, conservative partisans and Twitter users.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters could hardly contain his anger Wednesday night on the Fox News Channel as he discussed Obama's reactions to the ISIS terror network's beheading of Foley, an American who had been missing since 2012.
'There is no way the president should be stupid enough to go play golf' after such a somber speech, Peters said.
'Not only did he insult the Foley family; he sent a message to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the leader of ISIS) and all of the other jihadi terrorist militants – now soldiers of a jihadi army – that he doesn't take it all seriously.'
“The only way you deal with Islamic State — these bloodthirsty, blood-drunken terrorists — is to kill them, keep on killing them, until you kill the last one, then you kill his pet goat.”It speaks volumes about what this country has become that obama sits in the Oval Office, and Ralph Peters is retired.
(H/T Moonbattery)
Why is the world silent while Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa? ... The Middle East and parts of central Africa are losing entire Christian communities that have lived in peace for centuries. The terrorist group Boko Haram has kidnapped and killed hundreds of Christians this year — ravaging the predominantly Christian town of Gwoza, in Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, two weeks ago. Half a million Christian Arabs have been driven out of Syria during the three-plus years of civil war there. Christians have been persecuted and killed in countries from Lebanon to Sudan.Maybe the media's indifference to the mass execution of Christians is due to its obsession with one-sided speculation over what happened in Ferguson...
Historians may look back at this period and wonder if people had lost their bearings. Few reporters have traveled to Iraq to bear witness to the Nazi-like wave of terror that is rolling across that country. The United Nations has been mostly mum. World leaders seem to be consumed with other matters in this strange summer of 2014. There are no flotillas traveling to Syria or Iraq. And the beautiful celebrities and aging rock stars — why doesn’t the slaughter of Christians seem to activate their social antennas?
The general indifference to ISIS, with its mass executions of Christians and its deadly preoccupation with Israel, isn’t just wrong; it’s obscene.
Over there:
“U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his summer vacation to return to London and chair urgent meetings on the threat posed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, calling the video ‘shocking and depraved.’”
Over here:
President Obama went back to his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard Tuesday evening following less than 48 hours in Washington, leaving people puzzled over why he came back in the first place.
The Pentagon has had to temporarily ground F-35s no fewer than 13 times since 2007, mostly due to problems with the plane’s Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engine, in particular, with the engines’ turbine blades. The stand-downs lasted at most a few weeks.Then there's the F-35 program itself. It is over budget and behind schedule. That by itself doesn't mean much in the world of defense contracting. But the overruns and delays are staggering.
“The repeated problems with the same part of the engine may be indications of a serious design and structural problem with the F135 engine,” said Johan Boeder, a Dutch aerospace expert and editor of the online publication JSF News.
Pratt & Whitney has already totally redesigned the F135 in an attempt to end its history of frequent failures. But there’s only so much engineers can do. In a controversial move during the early stages of the F-35′s development, the Pentagon decided to fit the plane with one engine instead of two. Sticking with one motor can help keep down the price of a new plane. But in the F-35′s case, the decision proved self-defeating.
That’s because the F-35 is complex — the result of the Air Force, Marines and Navy all adding features to the basic design. In airplane design, such complexity equals weight. The F-35 is extraordinarily heavy for a single-engine plane, weighing as much as 35 tons with a full load of fuel.
By comparison, the older F-15 fighter weighs 40 tons. But it has two engines. To remain reasonably fast and maneuverable, the F-35′s sole F135 engine must generate no less than 20 tons of thrust — making it history’s most powerful fighter motor.
All that thrust results in extreme levels of stress on engine components. It’s no surprise, then, that the F-35 frequently suffers engine malfunctions. Even with that 20 tons of thrust, the new radar-dodging plane is still sluggish. The F-35 “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington.
In 2008, two analysts at the RAND Corporation, a California think-tank that works closely with the military, programmed a computer simulation to test out the F-35′s fighting ability in a hypothetical air war with China. The results were startling.
“The F-35 is double-inferior,” John Stillion and Harold Scott Perdue concluded in their written summary of the war game, later leaked to the press. The new plane “can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run,” they warned.
The Joint Strike Fighter has been touted as a technological wonder that will dominate the skies but it has suffered one setback after another, putting the project seven years behind schedule and $167 billion over budget.So if it isn't airworthy, and if it costs an arm and a leg, why on God's Green Earth are we pushing forward with this boondoggle? Cost savings is the explanation trotted out by the politicians and God-level military brass. But, like so many other things today, the F-35 program is a form of corporate welfare and political kickbacks.
As a one-size-fits-all plane, and with US allies invited to take part, the program originally was touted as a money-saving idea.
But the program's costs have snowballed, for an estimated 68 percent increase over its initial price tag. The Pentagon now plans to spend $391.2 billion on 2,443 aircraft, with each plane costing a staggering $160 million.
When taking into account the cost of flying and maintaining the F-35 over the course of its life, the program could surpass a trillion dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The Pentagon has stuck with the F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter program despite dozens of technical problems and delays, strategic concerns, and massive cost overruns that have nearly doubled the initial cost estimate, raising the cost of building the planes to around $400 billion with a lifetime cost of up to $1.5 trillion.
One reason why the project has become such a boondoggle is that many states and countries are significantly invested in the plane, relying on its production for income and jobs.
Every U.S. state but Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Wyoming has economic ties to the F-35 ... Globally, another nine countries have major ties to the F-35.
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For those seeking commercial sex in Berlin, Peppr, a new app, makes life easy. Type in a location and up pops a list of the nearest prostitutes, along with pictures, prices and physical particulars. Results can be filtered, and users can arrange a session for a €5-10 ($6.50-13) booking fee.Other apps allow prostitutes to create online profiles so customers can browse the listings, or post reviews of their experiences. Just like other sites that provide information on more traditional services (e.g., TripAdvsior), these sites collect and aggregate data for further analysis.
The wealth of data available online means it is now possible to analyse this larger and less examined part of the commercial-sex market: prostitution that happens indoors. It turns out to be surprisingly similar to other service industries. Prostitutes’ personal characteristics and the services they offer influence the prices they charge; niche services attract a premium; and the internet is making it easier to work flexible hours and to forgo a middleman.The Economist has analyzed 190,000 online reviews of sex workers. The article goes into great detail regarding the data and its implications. If the subject matter doesn't offend you it's quite interesting. For example, prices have dropped since 2006. Some of that is attributed to the 2007-2008 economic downturn, but other factors that I never would have thought of affect prices. For example, population migration, especially in the EU (the movement of immigrants from poorer Eastern European countries to more prosperous nations such as England and Germany) has a downward influence. Not only are the immigrants generally willing to work for less (this is true in many industries, not just prostitution) but the newcomers are often inexperienced and tend to underprice themselves.
The shift online has probably boosted supply by drawing more locals into the sex trade, too. More attractive and better-educated women, whose marital and job prospects are therefore better, are more likely to consider sex work if it is arranged online. Indoor sex work is safer than streetwalking, and the risk of arrest is lower. Rented flats or hotel rooms are more discreet than brothels, so family and friends are less likely to identify the new source of income. Anonymity becomes a possibility, which lessens the fear of stigma ... Free, no-strings-attached sex is far easier to find than in the past. Apps such as Tinder facilitate speedy hookups; websites such as Ashley Madison and Illicit Encounters, adulterous ones.
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A degree appears to raise earnings in the sex industry just as it does in the wider labour market. A study by Scott Cunningham of Baylor University and Todd Kendall of Compass Lexecon, a consultancy, shows that among prostitutes who worked during a given week, graduates earned on average 31% more than non-graduates.Drilling down deeper into the data, we find that gentlemen really do prefer blondes - particularly well-endowed ones with long hair.
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Sex work exposes those who do it to serious risks: of rape and other violence, and of sexually transmitted infections. But in this industry, like many others, the internet is making life easier.The article is lengthy, but intriguing. It offers an insightful examination into the ripple effect of innovation, and the interplay between economics and technology. Set aside a few minutes and give it a read. I think you'll find in interesting.
Online forums allow prostitutes to share tips about how to stay safe and avoid tangling with the law. Some sites let them vouch for clients they have seen, improving other women’s risk assessments. Others use services such as Roomservice 2000, another American site, where customers can pay for a background check to present to sex workers.
In Britain, Ugly Mugs runs an online database that prostitutes can use to check punters’ names and telephone numbers. In America the National Blacklist, a “deadbeat registry”, allows them to report men who are abusive or fail to pay. Other women can check potential clients by names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and online aliases. Though not specifically aimed at sex workers, apps such as Healthvana make it easy for buyer and seller to share verified results in sexual-health tests.
Everything that Barack Obama touches seems to turn to dross. Think of it for a minute. He inherited a quiet Iraq (no American combat deaths at all in December 2009) ... But by pulling out all U.S. peacekeepers — mostly for a 2012 reelection talking point — Obama ensured an ISIS wasteland...(Emphasis added, because IMO this is the most worrisome aspect of the obama legacy.)
Remember those threats to Syria? After the U.S. threatened and backed off, the violence only escalated and spilled into Iraq.
Libya was no paradise under Gadhafi, but it is now Mogadishu on the Mediterranean. Not even the president’s supporters believe that he told the truth about Benghazi. Reset with Russia green-lighted Putin, as he sized up Barack Obama as a lamb waiting to be eaten. The Bowe Bergdahl-for-five-terrorists swap (likely illegal) is not headline news only because dozens of scandals since have eclipsed it, and the likely deserter is apparently still kept incommunicado, lest he speak in the fashion of his father at the earlier White House press conference. I don’t think Bergdahl is a model for future negotiations with the Taliban.
Israel? We never have been more estranged from the Jewish state. Open mic outbursts against Netanyahu define our true policies. The terrorist state run by Hamas is now a partner for peace – tunnels, missiles, syringes, handcuffs and all. Did outreach to Hamas lessen or spike violence?
The war on terror? Obama has derided most anti-terrorism protocols, even as he kept some Bush-Cheney policies — to the incoherent point that no one has any idea what the U.S. is doing. Jihad a personal odyssey? Muslim Brotherhood largely secular? Major Hasan’s murdering mere workplace violence? Outreach to Islam NASA’s primary mission? Remember overseas contingency operations and man-caused disasters? In the Obama war on terror, waterboarding three architects of 9/11 is our “folks” torturing their “folks”; but judge/jury/executioner drone strikes that blow up 2,000-plus suspected (not confessed) terrorists — and anyone in the general vicinity when the missile hits — are far more moral. Out of sight, out of mind.
Past cabinet heads? No one knows exactly the circumstances under which Lisa Jackson, Hilda Solis — and even David Petraeus — left their offices.
Iran and the bomb? Look to red lines in Syria for an example of how our Iranian threats will work out. One cannot distinguish parody from Obama’s Iranian policy. We worried more about sanctions hurting Iranians than forcing them to comply with non-proliferation promises.
The world sort of likes the new reduced profile of the U.S. This is especially true of Russia, China, and Iran, as they fill the regional voids. The weaker we become, the more likely Obama is popular overseas, and the more likely the Left applauds his new global likability.
At home? Obama has wrecked our healthcare system. Every promise about the Affordable Care Act proved an outright lie. No one can define Obamacare or explain how it is supposed to work. In fact, no one really even tries any more.Sigh ... Much as I love Texas, I'm thinking of moving to the Wyoming mountains permanently - and getting rid of my smart phone, satellite TV, and Internet connection.
The budget? Obama’s legacy is $8 trillion more in debt, chronic 6% to 7%-plus unemployment as the new norm, and the idea that trillion is the new billion, as a $600 billion annual deficit is proof of fiscal responsibility and sermons on “growing inequality” reflect Obama’s record of creating record inequality. Zero percent interest rates ensure Wall Street zillionaires, the impoverishment of the once thrifty middle class — and the idea that saving money is stupid, owing it and not paying it back smart.
Students and college? One trillion dollars in collective debt buys a politicized college education to put twenty-somethings in a job market where 60% of newly minted BAs find jobs. Student debt is the new housing bubble, but at least a roof is more valuable for a time than a sociology degree.
The Border Patrol? It no longer exists. No one believes crossing illegally into the U.S. is a crime, and so there is no need for a law enforcement agency. Everyone is a DREAM-er; doubt that and you are a racist. To the extent the Border Patrol is not a parody of itself, it is a social services agency designed to facilitate illegal entry into the U.S. La Raza and the Chamber of Commerce, not Congress, set immigration policies.
The IRS? It too is ruined. It has become a Third-World extension of a partisan regime that hounds out political enemies. Ditto EPA, which mostly finds ways to circumvent Congress to punish successful companies and to pursue green statutes that Congress has no desire to pass.
NASA? We beg our enemy Putin to ferry us into space, as the director brags that the chief mission of the agency is now Muslim “feel good” outreach. Eric Holder has so politicized the Justice Department that we nonchalantly assume that racial matters determine to what extent Holder decides to enforce or ignore a law. Holder’s legacy is that John Mitchell now looks moral in comparison.
And the law? In some sense, we are in French revolutionary times. The ACA, immigration statutes, environmental laws — they all simply no longer exist. The law is what the president deems the public wants or what he believes is socially useful.
Race? We have become so inured to Trayvon Martin as Obama’s might-have been son, the stereotyping police, the “typical white person,” “my people,” “a nation of cowards,” “punish our enemies,” etc., that such polarization from on high is normal. Divide and conquer is the new old politics. After Obama won a decisive victory in 2008 that transcended race, we were suddenly told the world of the old white guy was over — ad nauseam — and race became essential, not incidental, to those who had proclaimed a need to go beyond race. In truth, the race fixation was not about justice, but raw power, the pathway to obtaining it and the mechanism for keeping it.
The presidential style? We assume that every Obama speech is an exercise in the use of the first-person pronoun. Every tired emphatic (“let me be perfectly clear,” “make no mistake about it,” “in point of fact,” “I’m not kidding”…) is proof of just the opposite. Equivocation, not clarity, is the goal of an Obama speech. In lieu of candor, there is always a macho brag that proves empty; always a straw-man, Emmanuel Goldstein-style enemy whom we are supposed to hate collectively; always some clueless clinger, devious capitalist, old Tea Party guy, or carbon polluter who is the source of all our problems. We assume that when the president gets off the teleprompter his speech will be incoherent and laced with “uh uh uh” — as the press gushes that it is Lincolnesque.
The press? But there is no press. Long ago it became a ministry of information and decided that Obama was the rare gift to enact a so-called progressive agenda. If or when there is a non-liberal president, we will be told golf is aristocratic time-wasting, that mention of race is hatred, that tampering with the IRS, NSA, or any other agency is an impeachable offense, that ignoring enforcement of the law is treasonous, that $300 billion deficits are ruinous, that junketing to resorts is frivolous, that bombing without the approval of Congress is amoral, and that the teleprompter is proof of vapidity.
Our culture? Cool is all that matters. Outsource, offshore, speculate, crony capitalism — just do it with Birkenstocks and shades. If you are hip, rules melt. Nerds like Al Gore are cool and so seek to dodge new capital gains taxes, profit from oil-rich dictatorships, and offer snake-oil nostrums to the crises they hype as they lecture us about our selfish carbon-spewing sins. The key to understanding a John Kerry, Al Gore, Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates is that they are cool, and thus seek to avoid the property, capital gains, or inheritance taxes that they urge be hiked on everyone else. The Obama cultural legacy is that it does not matter what you do, only how coolly you do or describe it. Appear hip, and greed is forgiven. Buy a ticket to a $35,000 Obama fundraiser, wear something hip, and sound cool, and you are a progressive egalitarian. Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street learned that con long ago.
The president enjoys a 40% popularity rate and thus has institutionalized a new facet of American political life: redistributionist policies such as Obama’s guarantee that 4 out of 10 Americans will always stay supportive and that abroad most will like what the U.S. is becoming. That is the real Obama legacy: there are no politics any more, just an endless class war between patriotic progressives and counter-revolutionary clingers.
