Taking 'bansturbation' to its logical conclusion.

From The Daily Mail:

PORN SHOULD BE TREATED LIKE DRINK DRIVING, EXPERTS ARGUE

America is in the grip of a pornography pandemic that has become so serious it should be treated the same way as teenage smoking or drink driving, activists have warned.

Dawn Hawkins, executive director of Morality in Media said porn must be tackled no differently than any major public health crisis. Speaking ahead of a two-day conference on sexual exploitation earlier this month, she said, if left untreated, addiction to pornography can leave users with psychological damage.

"There's a lot of science now proving that pornography is harmful," Hawkins said at the National Press Club in Washington. Porn sites get more visitors per month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, a third of all downloads contain porn and the Internet now hosts 4.2 million porn websites.

I love the way that religious fundamentalists are basing their claims on 'science'.

Tied up in Red Tape

From the Telegraph

British pornography will be censored by new rules which ban video-on demand films from showing acts like spanking and caning.

New rules mean that paid-for porn watched online will have to comply with the current British Board of Film Censors guidelines, which cover DVDs bought in sex shops.

In the internet era, about as much use as adding some more obstacles to the Maginot Line. Anyone who wants to watch a bit of spanking can just go to a website abroad.

"Phone-hacking defendant: 'It was a terrible misunderstanding on my part'"

From the BBC:

News International's head of security has told the phone-hacking trial that items he removed for safekeeping contained pornography belonging to another defendant, Charlie Brooks.

Mark Hanna told the jury at the Old Bailey in London that it seemed "obvious" to him that Mr Brooks did not mind if the police or his wife found out about it, and he even assumed that his wife, Rebekah, shared her husband's interest in the material.

Giving evidence for a second day, Mr Hanna said Mr Brooks had asked him to look after a brown leather bag left in his car and later handed him a padded bag and a laptop for safekeeping too.

"He explained it was his own personal property and that it was pornography," said Mr Hanna.

"I was under the mistaken impression that like most married blokes, he would have introduced his wife to porn at the very start of their marriage and that like most married women she'd also enjoy having a quick flick through when he was out of the house.

"Like most men in a relationship, he had never deleted his browser history or anything. It was a great surprise when he later told me that he had never informed his wife and did not want it to get into the hands of the police."

Nuts Magazine

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Josh at the G goes all Finbarr Saunders

Nuts feels the pinch as lads' mags face sales drop and opens with "Sales of Nuts magazine were squeezed..."

"fnarr, fnarr"

Thank G-d for The Daily Mail, protecting us from this sort of filth

Hopefully the new anti-porn filter which the UK is going to introduce at their behest will shut down sites that make it oh-so-easy to access indecent material like this:

"Porn block on EVERY home: Victory for the Mail as PM pledges 'opt in' rule for all viewers"

From The Daily Mail:

Every householder with a Freeview or satellite box will have their access to property porn blocked unless they ask to receive it.

On a victory for the Daily Mail, David Cameron will announce the move today among a series of measures cracking down on against the tide of land speculation sleaze. The Prime Minister will warn that property porn – much of it easily accessible to young couples and the unemployed – is 'corroding capitalism".

By the end of next year, all 19 million UK homes with digital, satellite or cable television will be contacted by the Independent Television Commission and told they must say whether family-friendly filters that block programmes such as "Homes Under The Hammer" or "Locational, Location, Location" should be switched on or off.

From the end of this year, all new customers setting up a satellite television contract or switching provider will have the filters automatically switched on unless they opt to disable them to allow programmes with 'rent-seeking content'.

"The Daily Mail has campaigned hard to make Freeview box filters "default on". Today they can declare that campaign a success," Mr Cameron said. "We are taking action to help clean up our housing market and protect a generation of children from a lifetime of renting."

H/t DBC Reed

Victory for the Mail! "One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe".

Internet porn block on EVERY home: Victory for the Mail as Cameron pledges 'opt in' rule for all web users

‘The Daily Mail has campaigned hard to make internet search engine filters “default on”. Today they can declare that campaign a success,’ Mr Cameron said.

And according to the G : David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

"The Daily Mail, which has been running a campaign to crack down on child pornography, reported that the prime minister will say: 'By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family-friendly filters will be automatically selected. If you just click 'next' or 'enter', then the filters are automatically on.  And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe'.

"World's oldest pornographic 'magazine' discovered in Scottish field"

From the BBC:

Arseologists believe they have discovered the world's oldest porn "magazine" under an Aberdeenshire hedge.

Excavations of a field at Crathes Castle found a series of low walls which appear to represent a large pair of breasts and a nice pair of legs when viewed from above. A team led by the University of Birmingham suggests the ancient monument was created by hunter-gatherers about 10,000 years ago. The stone outlines, at Warren Field, were first excavated in 2004.

The experts who analysed the image said they may have contained wooden posts as a crude indication of pubic hair. The Mesolithic "Page 3 Girl" is thousands of years older than previous known gratuitous objectification of women created in Mesopotamia.

The analysis has been published in the journal, Internet Arseology. The shadows cast by the stones align on the Midwinter sunrise, probably to remind married hunter-gatherers to get Her Indoors Inthecave something nice for the festive season, and provided single hunter-gatherers with an "anatomic reminder" of what to look for when out clubbing.

This is what you could have eaten, had you been a lucky Guardian food critic* or even just a well heeled customer

But please don't try eating it, as it is all made of plasticine, however, if this visit has made you slightly peckish, well there are all sorts of opportunities locally where you can satisfy that craving.

I am struggling with "a spring fashioned from what appears to be a tight coil of wire, but which has been manufactured, surprisingly, from virgin olive oil. The waiter had been quite clear: stick your finger in the ring, then put it in your mouth. I did as I was told but instead of sliding on to my tongue the ring has congealed about my knuckle. This is the only thing I've ever eaten that involves sticking a finger down my throat.

Genius plan to rejuvenate the High Street!

Graeme linked to this in The Telegraph:

The Prime Minister is to announce a Government-backed code of conduct which will mean that pornography is blocked in public spaces such as cafes and railway stations where children are likely to be present.

Mr Cameron said that he wanted “good, clean WiFi” in public spaces which would give parents confidence that their children cannot access illicit websites on smart phones or mobile computers.

The Prime Minister said: “We are promoting good, clean, WiFi in local cafes and elsewhere to make sure that people have confidence in public WiFi systems so that they are not going to see things they shouldn’t.

Does he not get embarrassed saying stuff like this? Does he not realise that he's making a complete idiot of himself?

The coalition of charities, which includes the NSPCC and The Children’s Society, last night welcomed Mr Cameron’s intervention...

Just for old times' sake...

The NSPCC's 2012 accounts have a nice long list of donors at the back, which includes Comic Relief, The Department of Education, Welsh Government, Army Central Fund, Department of Health 3rd Sector Investment Program (Dart), Department of Health, Social Services & Public Safety, Newcastle International Airport,BBC Children In Need Appeal and Glasgow City Council. They received over £9 million in "statutory funding", see note 3, page 31.

The Children's Society 2012 accounts note 7 on "Incoming resources from charitable activities" says they received £13 million from central and local government for doing what it is they pretend to do.

"Red-faced Angela Merkel discovers Herman Goering's pornography stash in her office"

From The Daily Mail:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is this week faced with the tricky question of what to do with a large number of explicit black and white photographs discovered to be part of a collection of pornography amassed by Hitler's deputy Hermann Goering.

The existence of the stash was uncovered by journalists writing for news magazine Der Spiegel about Nazi items that should have been returned to their owners but are still scattered about government guest houses, offices and museums.

Mrs Merkel is said to be furious with her aides at the embarrassing revelation, coming as it does months before her third bid for power in the general election and with the opposition snapping at her heels.

It is understood the photographs will be removed from her top right hand desk drawer by the end of the week. Over a thousand claims for return of the collection have been received by Merkel's office, none of which has been yet authenticated.

"1,000 office workers caught looking at stories about civil servants being sacked for looking at pornography while at work"

From The Daily Mail:

Hundreds of office workers have found themselves in deep trouble after surfing the internet for articles about the dozens of civil servants who have found themselves in deep trouble after surfing the internet for porn while they were meant to be working.

A total of 1,000 office workers in Wales read news items about a total of 55 workers at the Welsh Government's offices who were looking at explicit photographs and videos at their desks.

Disciplinary action was taken against the office workers after links to reports about discplinary action being taken against public officials showed up in their browser histories.

One senior manager was forced to resign after it was revealed in 2008 that he had read a story about a senior public sector manager who was forced to resign after it was revealed in 2008 that he had been looking at child pornography.

Two years later police were also called in when another worker, who was sacked, read an article about a bureaucrat, who was sacked, looked at illegal extreme porn.

Top employment lawyers are recommending offices ban articles about penpushers being sacked for surfing for porn because it's distracting office workers from their work.

"Porn star turned biology teacher fired after directors downloaded her homework"

From The Daily Mail:

A porn star who was fired after directors discovered she had taught biology at a middle school has lost her appeal to return to the film studio.

Tiffany Six, 32, was sacked by Haydock Adult Entertainment Inc in Oxnard, California, after jealous fellow actors downloaded clips onto their smartphones of her giving five-minute tutorials on subjects such as 'The life cycle of plants' and presented them to studio bosses.

Tiffany, who taught at school under the name Stacie Halas, was fired from her job as a porn actress after the video surfaced in March but had hoped to make a return to the double bed.

She claimed she had only worked at the school during an eight-month period from 2005 to 2006 because of financial problems after her boyfriend abandoned her and never when she was starring in films such as 'Big Sausage Pizza'.

"Don't call my books mummy porn"

From The Evening Standard:

Mummy porn author EL James has told fans how she hates hearing her work described as "mummy porn". Meeting her British readers for the first time in central London yesterday, the overnight literary sensation said she thought the label "overnight literary sensation" was "lazy". 

James, who has sold almost a million paperback copies of her erotic trilogy in just a week, also revealed she has a "favourite toy" - but caused confusion by refusing to divulge whether she was using the word "favourite toy" as a euphemism for "vibrator". Hundreds of voyeurs paid £20 for the chance to question her at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in Savoy Place. They were also able to meet her afterwards and get copies of the e-book signed.

"You silly prick! Porn star ridiculed as her Olympic torch costume is mistaken for something quite different..."

From The Daily Mail:

A porn star who dressed up as a giant penis to welcome the Olympic torch into Soho has been mocked by her colleagues for her 8ft costume which resembled "something savoury".

Aspiring actress and table dancer Kitty Cummings donned the giant pink novelty outfit in an effort to promote Soho's famous strip clubs, but ended up being ridiculed for its distinctly unsuggestive appearance. Sex-workers in the seedy central London area branded the costume 'laughable' after the 8ft pink outfit was mistaken for an undercooked sausage as she bobbed along Great Windmill Street to greet the torch.

Ms Cummings chose the unique phallic design to promote Soho's finest and most popular venues. The area and its residents are proud of the services they offer, with The Windmill often winning national awards.

Headline Of The Day

Canadian porn star cannibal's transsexual ex-lover reveals she could have been psycho killer's victim

Ideas for blog posts

Here are a few things which I've scribbled down on bits of paper over the past few days which I vaguely intended to 'blog about at the time but never really got round to it. So as an aide memoire for the future:

1. The normally prudish Sun newspaper showed a Page Three girl who was wearing invisible underwear as advertised by Bar Refaeli.

2. Porn shops in Westminster won a refund/reduction of hefty licensing fees from the council, because they contravened EU Directive 2006/123/EC, which seems like quite a sensible directive on the face of it. All of this raises a lot of interesting questions (economic, legal, sovereignty etc). How do we square Article 12 with licensing of taxi drivers, for example?

3. Supposed right-wing Tory John Redwood musing about how nice it would be if we could go back to the lower tax rates we had when the Chancellor was... Gordon Brown (top rate income tax 10% lower, National Insurance 2% lower, VAT was 2.5% lower etc).

4. The UK is not absolutely useless at everything: shock Britain exports more vehicles than it imports for first time since 1976

5. It appears that they are going to make people criminally liable for death and injuries caused by their dogs, something which I have long advocated.

6. Tory government is close to achieving its pre-election pledge of getting construction of new housing in England down to less than 100,000 a year for the second year running. With the rain stopping play during April and all the Olympic and Jubilee ructions, I'm sure they'll get it down to five figures for the next year. Hoorah! The Hallowed Green Belt is Preserved For Future Generations! But not to build homes on, obviously - just think, instead of having a house with a rental value of £10,000 a year, we could be growing £100's worth of potatoes or something.

7. Queues at Heathrow. FFS. When you think how much human effort and ingenuity it takes to run global air travel: the aeroplanes, the technology, the staffing rotas, coping with the weather, air traffic control, difficult passengers, getting people's luggage on the right aeroplane, killing as few passengers as possible, guarding against terrorist attacks etc, it is amazing how well it works, really. And the UK government can't even organise a few dozen people to sit in booths, open passports, check the face, hold it face down on a scanner and mutter "Enjoy your stay" while chewing gum.

8. I explained recently why the building society funding model, where a company's assets are matched £ for £ with customer/owner deposits instead of shares is a vastly superior way of running a business than having share capital. So instead of a shareholder being paid dividends at the whim of directors; investing in a company by buying shares from an existing shareholder and realising his investment by selling his shares to a third party; a depositor invests directly in the business and withdraws money from the business.

It occurred to me today that this model is also used by Unit Trusts: a UT's net assets are always funded £ for £ by unit holders' funds: you invest in a UT by paying in money, which is invested on your behalf (in shares in other companies, but that is not important), all the income and gains of the UT are credited pro rata to unit holders as they go along, and if you want your money back, you withdraw it from the UT itself, and to the extent that withdrawals are not matched with new subscriptions, the UT just sells some of the underlying assets. So the model does work in real life, it's nothing new or unusual.

9. While looking for something else, I stumbled across a couple of instances of Austin Mitchell MP saying sensible things about Council Tax, e.g. here and here. And about London.

10. UK banks not completely dishonourable: shock RBS repays £163bn emergency loans

11. BobE emailed me this fine piece of Home-Owner-Ist drivel from guess which paper:

Regardless of where you are on the income scale, nobody could ever call your decision to buy a house irresponsible – whatever happens, you need somewhere to live, and swingeing rents usually represent far worse value. For low-earning households to have avoided mortgage debts, they would have had to actively decide to stick with renting; that is, to pay the same, for a worse property that they'd never have any equity in, just on the off-chance that, as a result of a possible downturn, they might be dragged down by the debt. What a bizarre thing to expect of people, when you're preaching a can-do, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, aspirational Tory attitude.

12. Jorge emailed to ask whether I thought Iceland should adopt the Candian dollar, I can't say I have a view on that one way or another.

13. Finally, is it just me or do Natalia Vodianova's legs look completely out of scale (in a bad way) in this photo from today's Evening Standard?

'Tis the Devil's work

From the Daily Mail:

As any responsible parent knows, the Royal Mail has introduced a vile new hazard into the upbringing of teenagers. It is inordinately difficult to keep an eye on just what they are receiving in harmless looking envelopes.

And lurking but a thin layer of envelope or brown paper away are vivid images - some captured on light sensitive material - of men and women in various stages of undress engaging in carnal acts. In a cross-party report published last week, MPs warned that a whole generation of teenagers was growing up with their minds affected, their vision blurred and their palms growing hairy - all caused of the images of depravity from which most adults would avert their gaze.

We’re not talking here about mere smut, but the most degraded and perverted sexual acts that warped minds can devise. The number of children freely accessing this material is horrifying. No fewer than four out of five 16-year-olds regularly see pornography in the playground or at friend's homes, while one in three ten-year-olds has similarly viewed images of this nature.

What a wholesale corruption of childhood has suddenly overtaken us — and with what untold consequences. Yet the response of the Royal Mail making this filth available online has been astonishingly irresponsible and even contemptuous. The postal service will this year give parents the chance to open all envelopes addressed to their children and to examine their contents. Big deal!

In any civilised society, freedom comes with responsibility. By refusing properly to police provision of this vile material, the Royal Mail is in effect making themselves complicit in child sexual abuse.

"Porn star suspended after colleagues find footage of her moonlighting as a teacher"

From The Daily Mail:

A porn actress has been suspended from her job after she was allegedly discovered starring in a 'maths tutorial' video by her regular fans. She is under contract to Richard B Haydock Adult Entertainment in Oxnard, California, but has been put on paid administrative leave while film producers decide her fate.

Jeff Chancer, head of casting, said that a fellow porn actress believes the star is the one seen in the video. "We're trying to determine if there's a nexus on what she does on her own time and what she does in the studio."

Regular readers of the company's magazines are believed to have found the ten-minute YouTube video on calculus on Friday. When challenged, the studio initially denied the claims that one of their actors had a teaching diploma after they said they could not find the completely innocent video on the internet.