Condomed By Law

Criminal Injustice, Europe, Feminism, Justice, Law, Sex

Swedish women are more knavish than their American sisters. And Swedish sexual harassment law is more diabolical than anything American feminist jurist Catharine Mackinnon could dream up in her sweetest dreams—Mackinnon’s baleful influence on American and Canadian jurisprudence cannot be underestimated.

The San Francisco Chronicle:

Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity….
The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for….
The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilen boasting of their respective conquests after the crimes.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of WilÃ’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Neither Wilen’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.

MORE.

UPDATED: Lindt Makes Light Of TSA Looting & Lusting

Business, Homeland Security, Private Property, Regulation, The Zeitgeist

There aren’t many things that can put me off Lindt chocolates, such is their exquisite quality and taste. Except this repulsive ad. I went cold turkey after viewing the lighthearted look Lindt took at two TSA agents looting and lusting with impunity.

UPDATE (Dec. Eighth) : I’m surprised that individuals who’re serious about liberty could find humor, irony, and all shades of nuance in this Lindt ad.

Lindt here is not lampooning the TSA, whose representatives are depicted by pretty, lusty, sensuous, and “assertive” ladies. Just like American men love their women. This is a date. Two lovely women (after all, the TSA is a magnet for such types, isn’t it?), with an appreciation for the finer things in life, alight on a handsome man, who is too well-conditioned to oppose them with more than a meek, “You’re kidding, right?”

How droll!

UPDATE II: News You Missed (Taxpayers Vs. Tax Consumers)

America, China, Debt, Media, Uncategorized

The ostrich press, “Bloomberg, CNN, New York Times or anywhere in the US print or TV media,” did not report it. VDARE did:

“On Thanksgiving eve the English language China Daily and People’s Daily Online reported that Russia and China have concluded an agreement to abandon the use of the US dollar in their bilateral trade and to use their own currencies in its place. The Russians and Chinese said that they had taken this step in order to insulate their economies from the risks that have undermined their confidence in the US dollar as world reserve currency.” …

“The American financial press finds solace in the episodes when sovereign debt scares in the EU send the dollar up against the euro and UK pound. But these currency movements are just measures of financial players shorting troubled EU-denominated debt. They are not a measure of dollar strength.”

MORE.

UPDATE I: The custodians of the Irish state are still better than the filth that gathers to rule us from DC. The American governing class has been unique in working against the economic interests of its countrymen and their country. (Treason?)

News comes that, “Ireland [will] endure the toughest cuts and tax hikes in its history as an unavoidable price for saving the debt-burdened nation from bankruptcy, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told lawmakers as they prepared to vote on a brutal 2011 budget.”

“Lenihan’s plan — the harshest yet of four emergency budgets unveiled since 2008 to combat a runaway deficit — contains euro4.5 billion ($6 billion) in spending cuts and euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in tax rises.”

Lenihan said income taxes would be broadened to bring tens of thousands of low-salaried workers into the tax net for the first time, while welfare payments would be cut across the board. Spending on capital projects — chiefly jobs-intensive building of roads and public transportation networks — would be cut by euro1.8 billion ($2.4 billion).

“Lenihan said Ireland had no choice but to slash spending and raise taxes immediately because the country this year is spending more than euro50 billion on regular government and at least euro45 billion to bail out its banks — yet collecting just euro19 billion this year in taxes. The staggering imbalance means an underlying deficit this year of 11.6 percent that, when bank-bailout costs are included, balloons to a modern European record of 32 percent of GDP.”

[SNIP]

I like the Irish idea of tax hikes on the poor a lot. Really. The cost of the welfare state must be felt by those who demand its spoils. Making the rich bleed for creating wealth will not ween the poor off welfare.

UPDATE II: The state has bifurcated the population into taxpayers and tax consumers. The so-called poor don’t really pay taxes as they receive in the form of assorted transfer payments from the government more than they contribute. They are net tax consumers.

The so-called rich pay all the taxes. Making the poor pay might just turn them against all the stuff they believe they are owed.

UPDATED: "Rational Profiling: Cabbies Do It Too"

Affirmative Action, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Race, Racism

So I wrote in a column so titled on June 2, 2006:

“According to the authors of ‘Streetwise: How Taxi Drivers Establish their Customer’s Trustworthiness’ (TLS, May 12), it transpires that in deciding whether to ‘stop for a fare,’ cabbies give preference to ‘whites’ over ‘blacks.’ But they also select older over younger passengers; women over men; individuals over multiple passengers, wealthier over poorer; callers over hailers; and ‘friendly and calm over aggressive and agitated.’ As it is in the taxi driver’s economic interest to refuse ‘as few fares as possible, they can no more be guilty of racism than they are of reverse sexism or ageism because they prefer older and female passengers,’ say the authors.”

“Since there is no way of knowing whether those passengers the drivers screened out were in fact dangerous, it’s difficult to assess the effectiveness of these strategies. Still, not even the most ardent rights-violator would dare suggest cabdrivers be penalized for their prudence. For one, it could cost the driver his life.”

And it did. “Chilling video released yesterday by police shows a life-and-death struggle between a gunman and livery driver moments before the thug shot the cabby in a botched robbery in Queens.
The dramatic confrontation was caught on a surveillance camera installed in the gold Chevy Impala being driven by Trevor Bell, 53, in South Ozone Park on Saturday night. Bell was critically wounded in the attack. …”

“The head of the New York State Federation of Taxi drivers is encouraging racial profiling,” reports ABC.COM:

“Sometimes it’s good that we are racially profiled, because the honest to God truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics,’ Fernando Mateo said.”

The law, of course, proscribes the life-preserving measures advised by Mr. Mateo. These poor cabbies are expected to throw open the cab door to the Grim Reaper himself.

UPDATE: As you can see, Mateo, the man advocating racial (or rational) profiling, is a member of a minority as well. The victim, I believe, is black