Daily Blend: Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Pictured: Honesty

Only two days left for the Preliator Survey 2011! If you haven’t taken it yet – yes, you – please help us get to a mighty ten responses!

• This is sick: Animal rights terrorists bored with professors, now plan to start threatening and harming lab students. Orac has more details.

• Surprise! Prominent study showing how online prostitution leads to exponential rises in underaged sex trafficking is complete made-up garbage.

• Remember that Arizonan anti-abortion bill to ban supposed “race-based” abortions? Gov. Brewer just signed it into law.

• Conservatives seem to be genetically programmed to love dishonesty – and suck at it.

• At least they correct themselves.
  (via The Agitator)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, March 28, 2011

David and Charles Koch

• Glenn Greenwald on the Koch brothers’ ridiculous persecution complex.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Colorado Senate takes a new, particularly sleazy approach for cracking down on prostitution.
  (via The Agitator)

• This dishonest segment from Fox News’s John Stossel proves nothing more than how Americans can be charitable.

• Proof that excessive nationalism shrinks manhood(s)?

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Canadian court strikes down anti-prostitution laws

I spend so much time keeping up with and writing about politics in the US (and occasionally elsewhere) that I often lose track of what’s going on in my own backyard. And once again, the Canadian courts have done the right thing and ruled that, to riff on George Carlin’s famous quote^[1], selling fucking should be legal for the sake of sex workers’ safety:

An Ontario court has thrown out key provisions of Canada's anti-prostitution laws in response to a constitutional challenge by a Toronto dominatrix and two prostitutes in 2009.

Ontario's Superior Court of Justice ruled Tuesday the Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution contribute to the danger faced by sex-trade workers.

In her ruling, Justice Susan Himel said it now falls to Parliament to "fashion corrective action."

"It is my view that in the meantime these unconstitutional provisions should be of no force and effect, particularly given the seriousness of the charter violations," Himel wrote.

"However, I also recognize that a consequence of this decision may be that unlicensed brothels may be operated, and in a way that may not be in the public interest."

The judge suspended the effect of the decision for 30 days. It does not affect provisions dealing with people under 18.

A judicial ruling about sex founded in common sense – not something I reckon we’re about to see happen in the US anytime soon, I’m afraid. Prostitution, along with other subsets of the sex industry, drugs, and anything else that consenting adults engage in on their own time and their own dime, should absolutely be legal and carefully regulated by the government to protect the providers and punish abusers. As it is, a prostitute who encounters a violent client has virtually no resources at all, as his/her options are essentially limited to jail time or simply shutting up and coping. And that should never be anyone’s reality.