STUPID, MORALISTIC TEA PARTY REPUBLICANS . . . OH, WAIT: U.K. Censors Online Porn; Spanking, Rough Sex, Other Assorted Kink Banned.

Continuing on its recent censorship-happy path, the U.K. government amended regulations this week to prohibit online porn from depicting a variety of erotic activities. Now-illicit acts range from the very specific (female ejaculation; “spanking, caning, and whipping beyond a gentle level”) to the incredibly broad (“verbal abuse”). But basically, the U.K. has banned BDSM and certain forms of fetish porn—or at least, charging money for that sort of porn. . . .

This comes in the wake of increasing action from the U.K. government (as well elsewhere in the European Union) toward censoring the Internet. The more I read about things like this latest round of U.K. porn censorship or the Europe Union’s new “right to be forgotten”, the more I do stop and appreciate the speech protections we have in the U.S., even if those are ever under-attack from over-zealous politicians and culture warriors.

Indeed. Apparently, though, much of the impetus for this censorship came from feminists.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Jury convicts Grand Rapids tutor of statutory rape of boy. “The teen testified that he was a virgin before his involvement with Simon and she introduced him to a world of rough sex.”

CHANGE: Circumcision Guidelines Target Teenagers. “Doctors should start telling sexually active teenage boys who aren’t circumcised that if they have the surgery, they can reduce their risk of contracting H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections from their female partners, federal health officials propose. Similar counseling is urged for adult heterosexual men who remain uncircumcised and for expectant parents who will be making a decision about newborn circumcision if they have a boy, according to the new recommendations, proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

UNLIKE FERGUSON, THIS ONE SEEMED PRETTY CLEAR-CUT TO ME: No Indictment in Videotaped NYPD Chokehold Death. A few observations:

(1) His initial crime: Selling “looseys” — individual cigarettes — in violation of NYC tax law. When you pass a law, however trivial, you are providing an opportunity for police to use lethal force. That’s why I favor fewer laws, not more.

(2) I saw someone on Twitter saying that if you expect a Staten Island grand jury to indict a cop, then you don’t know Staten Island. That may be the case, but it shouldn’t be. If police can’t be accountable for their use of force, then we shouldn’t have police. Fire ’em all and privatize. We’re not supposed to have titles of nobility in this country.

(3) Listening to NPR on the way back from the UT Studio — I taped a segment on this for The Independents on Fox Business tonight — they kept stressing that it was a WHITE officer who had killed a BLACK MAN. You could pretty much hear the capitals in their voices. They’d never stress race that way in other circumstances. And it’s not clear that excessive force by police is especially a racial problem. In Alabama, we had the shooting of a unarmed white 18-year old by a black cop; in Utah, we had the Dillan Taylor shooting, also unarmed, also not prosecuted. Racializing the issue makes it more divisive and less likely to be addressed.

UPDATE:

Government is simply a word for the things we decide to do together. Like choke men to death over rules governing the sale of cigarettes.

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) December 3, 2014

HOW SOME VIDEO STORES STILL THRIVE IN AN AGE OF NETFLIX.

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PROFILE: Google’s Intelligence Designer: The man behind a startup acquired by Google for $628 million plans to build a revolutionary new artificial intelligence.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is Obamacare Destroying the Democratic Party? “The ability of the Democratic Party to convince middle-class voters that it is on their side is by no means guaranteed.”

PERSONALLY, I HAVE MORE FAITH IN ELON MUSK AT THIS POINT: Everything You Need to Know About NASA’s Orion, the Spacecraft That Could Take Humanity to Mars.

READER BOOK PLUG: Moving On, by Diana Taylor Hart. Technically, I think her husband is the InstaPundit reader, but close enough.

IT HASN’T GONE AWAY, IT’S JUST GONE OUT OF THE NEWS: New Concerns Over Response to Ebola Crisis.

DOING THE JOB AMERICAN JOURNALISTS WON’T DO: Judicial Watch: Documents: Obama Administration Paid Baptist Family Services Over $182 Million to House Illegal Aliens.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Psycho Frames Ex with Fake Racist Facebook Posts. You know, we had a rather brief period in American history were even the faintest suspicion of being a communist could ruin lives and careers. We seem to be having a somewhat longer period in which even the faintest suspicion of being a racist or sexist can do the same.

ASHE SCHOW: If false, Rolling Stone story could set rape victims back decades. Yep. And can I say that a reporter who refers people with questions about a story to the magazine’s PR department doesn’t look like a reporter who’s secure with her reporting?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 573.

WHY NIGERIA MATTERS:

Throughout the Sahel, the semi-desert stretch below the Sahara, various militias and jihadist groups are trading huge amounts of weapons and supplies to each other. This booming terrorist corridor is shaking the foundation of the all too unsteady nations in the region. France is once again fighting Islamists in Mali, while also lending support to a number of its other former colonies in the region. The ruins of the Libyan state have become a convenient arms depot and shelter for militants from many countries; since a re-stabilization of the country looks at best unlikely, it will be so for quite some time.

In and below this region lies Nigeria, now the largest economy in Africa, a longtime friend and even proxy of the United States on the continent, and a country beset by its own Islamic Caliph-aspirants: Boko Haram. It is worth considering what America can do to make sure this useful and often promising country doesn’t fall into chaos. . . .

Nigeria’s problems aren’t easily solved, and it is still possible that Boko Haram will get its religious kingdom in the North. But a stable Nigeria is important to Africa, and it is important to us—not only for our interests on the continent but for the longterm global war on terror. The weak states of Africa could be incubators of “boondock jihadists”, as we’ve called them, for decades. While these militants, like Boko Haram, may be far more inclined to terrorize and subjugate locals than attack the West, they can still provide materiel, training, and moral support to jihadists in Syria, Iraq, and perhaps Europe. The prospects for containing this threat, and likely for saving thousands of lives in Africa, will be much dimmer if the Nigerian state falters, let alone fails.

The Emir of Kano seems to have been good about resisting Boko Haram. We should help him out. Frankly, the traditional rulers like him may have more skills than the Nigerian federal government.

LIFE IN EUROPE: Paris Jewish Community in Shock Over Rape, Home Invasion ‘Because You Are Jews.’ Buy a gun, or get out. Nothing good is going to come of this.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Mining Engineers Led by Communications Studies Majors. “Falling oil prices will temporarily weaken the Russian and Iranian positions vis a vis the forces supported by the Gulf Emirates. It will also diminish logistical support for Assad in Syria. The administration finds itself in an accidental position of strength. US domestic oil production which it has tried so hard to discourage, has inadvertently given it a trump card. But does it know what to do with it?” No. Next question?

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MY TWITTER SUMMARY OF THE STATE OF DEBATE:

So as I understand it, Atticus Finch is now the bad guy in "To Kill A Mockingbird," because he doubted a story about rape.

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) December 2, 2014

GOOD: Baghdad and Kurds reach ‘win-win’ accord over Iraq’s oil revenue.

You know, I still think that if we’d gone ahead with the Oil Trust idea back in 2003, Iraqis would have had a much better reason to hang together. But despite backing not only from me, but from Hillary Clinton, Milton Friedman, and Michael Barone, it never happened. Too bad.

#WARONBOYS: Pedophile Panic at the Salvation Army: No Teen Boys Allowed, Too Dangerous.

When it comes to helping families in need, the Salvation Army turns a cold shoulder to one class of people: Teenage boys. A family in Johnson City, TN, found this out recently when, on a freezing cold night, they asked the organization for shelter. But because their family of five contained a 15-year-old boy, they were turned down.

As the dad, Tim Lejeune, explained to WMC Action News 5:

“They said he’s too old to stay on the women’s side, because of the women running around in their pajamas and they said he’s too young to stay on the men’s side in case some pervert wants to do whatever,” Lejeune said.

Lejeune says his wife, their 15 year-old son, 16 year-old daughter and five year-old son, all down on their luck, have been living in their car for the last several weeks.

So instead the family headed to their car. The temperature: 18 degrees.

Somehow, local police officers came upon them and brought them to the Johnson Inn. The officers then pooled their money to pay for a room. When the night clerk figured out what was going on, he comped the room, so the officers’ money went to groceries for the family.

Meantime, 911 dispatchers who had been in on the action pooled their money to provide the Lejeunes some more food.

And after that, the Salvation Army did take the family in—minus the teen boy. He’s not sleeping on the streets. He’s now in a mental health facility. He had a breakdown, his dad says, because he thought it was his fault the family was turned away from shelter.

I blame a society so obsessed with sex crimes and predators that it has lost its mind. It cannot imagine a 15-year-old male, chilled to the bone, simply and gratefully sleeping through the night. In our worst-first fantasies, which we give the weight of fact, all young men are either innocent victims about to be violated by predators, or predators eager to prey upon innocent victims.

Yes, there’s a lot of stereotyping in these post-free-to-be-you-and-me days.

UPDATE: A number of commenters are pointing out the above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty behavior by the police officers here. Excellent point, and note that this sort of thing undoubtedly happens more often, and to less press, than things like the Ferguson shooting.

COLLECTIVE GUILT: The NCAA’s Big Bluff. “Internal N.C.A.A. emails that were recently made public show that the staff knew it had no jurisdiction, and that it was ‘bluffing’ in trying to get Penn State to accept its penalties.” Also, blaming “football culture” sounds rather SJW-ish. But I suppose it would be no surprise if the NCAA, besides being corrupt and ineffectual, was also taken over by people who don’t particularly like football. That’s how these things tend to go.

JONAH GOLDBERG ON Empty Integrity. “Once you become aware of the movement to define integrity as a commitment to self-made principles (no matter how evil), you see it everywhere you look in popular culture.”