4/10/2004: Gashcroft

[Undertoad]

Thanks to SteveDallas for passing this along. This week Atty Genl Ashcroft announced new prosecutions of porn, the first such charges to be filed in a decade in the US.

And according to FBI officials, "nothing is off limits... even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in guestrooms of major hotel chains."

And so one proper response to clampdown on speech is more speech, and thus this picture of Ashcroft composed of 1023 little tiny porn pictures. You could see this larger (668kb) version.

We await the Photoshop filter to create such things.

[Nothing But Net]

Or should I say the anti-Bush version? Or is UT's the Bush version? Shit, I'm confused...

<img src="http://www.michaelmoore.com/_media/images/special/war_president_high.jpg">

Michael Moore is an ass, and your pic is sweeeet, UT!

[xoxoxoBruce]

I never thought I'd be saying this, but the closer I look at Ashcroft, the better I like him.

[Beestie]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
I never thought I'd be saying this, but the closer I look at Ashcroft, the better I like him.

Dude, you are fucking hilarious.

[zeet]

Originally posted by Undertoad

We await the Photoshop filter to create such things. [/b]

There is one already. About has a list. I can't remember which I've used from there, but at least one works and is free.

[AstroJetson]

From the article:
Either way, Nguyen, and his co-workers spend their days scouring the Internet for the most obscene material, following leads sent in by citizens and tracking pornographers operating under different names. The job wears on them all, day after day, so much so that the obscenity division has recently set up in-house counseling for them to talk about what they're seeing and how it is affecting them.

Oh I feel your pain! Hours and hours staring at the screen, megabytes of pixels downloaded.

Wonder where I can sign up for that job???

[wolf]

Looking at regular porn has got to have been a better job than looking only at pictures of assholes ...

(good to see you Astro! Missed yah.)

[plthijinx]

[quote]Originally posted by wolf
[b]Looking at regular porn has got to have been a better job than looking only at pictures of assholes ...

ok. who farted?!?!

[richlevy]

Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, which offers "hard-core" porn on the Hot Network channel (at $11.99 per film in Baltimore), was co-chair of Philadelphia 2000, the host committee that brought the Republican National Convention to Philadelphia. In February, the Bush campaign honored Comcast President Stephen Burke with "Ranger" status, for agreeing to raise at least $200,000 for the president's re-election effort. Comcast's executive vice president, David Cohen, has close ties to Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Nothing like going after your friends in an election year. I guess the Bush campaign must have already cashed his check for 2004.

[Undertoad]

I don't understand that comment at all.

[SteveDallas]

Try this one.. dated, but good.

http://lists.essential.org/pipermail...00/000042.html

[richlevy]

Originally posted by Undertoad
I don't understand that comment at all.

What I meant was that I doubt that Bush and Ashcroft would take a "we're coming after you" stance before they hit him up for a donation.

Nice article, Steve, it really brings up the difference between public perception and truth, and the reason for the Fourth Amendment. Public and private behaviors are not the same, and any attempt to make them so by regulation is doomed to failure.

Commercial sex, either prostitution or pornography, has been around for thousands of years. Like tobacco and alcohol, it is a 'sinful' product that can regulated but never sucessfully outlawed. This is because while everyone can agree on regulating public behavior, most of us also agree that an individuals private behavior should be left alone. Most of us agree with this because we know that there will always be some variance with what the majority believes is acceptable behavior. Public behavior, like 2.4 children, is an artificial construct which is intended to adhere to the common beliefs of thousands of different cultural and religious biases and which can only be maintained in public.

Pornography is one form of proscribed behavior that most individuals will not admit to. The definition of what is obscene was sidestepped by the Supreme Court which could not come up with any measureable standards other than 'community standards'. Of course, defining community boundaries is always tricky. If I want to receive Playboy in the mail, do I check with my township, county, or state office to find out if it is permissible?

The Internet and cable TV have bypassed the community and delivered to everyone whatever they want. Other than insuring that the 'actors' are over 18 and that noone is actually injured, the industry can deliver whatever it wants and people now can make their own private decisions about what is acceptable. In other words, a free market.

The White House and Ashcroft are now about to position themselves against this free market, proving once again that they are social conservatives and not 'true conservatives' in the 'less government interference' sense.

I hope their contributors are watching and ask for refunds.

[glatt]

Originally posted by Nothing But Net
Or should I say the anti-Bush version? Or is UT's the Bush version? Shit, I'm confused...

Michael Moore is an ass, and your pic is sweeeet, UT!

Initially, I actually thought the Bush one was pretty good. I think Bush misled the country so he could take us to war in Iraq, and the dead soldiers are his responsibility. So this image sent as strong a message as the Ashcroft one. Actually, I think it's a stronger message.

However, after looking at the Bush one for a while, I noticed that some of the faces were used more than once. So then I counted the "pixels" and saw that there were over a thousand faces. I don't know what the death toll is now, but it's less than the number of "pixel-faces" used to create the image of Bush.

So now I don't like the Bush image anymore. Even though there is some truth to it, it's deceptive. I hate deceptiveness.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by Undertoad
And according to FBI officials, "nothing is off limits... even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in guestrooms of major hotel chains."

This is an outrage. The "Real Sex" show is a great show. It shows real people in real situations regarding sexuality, and shows that nothing is "bad" or "unhealthy" about sex.

"Ashcroft, a religious man who does not drink alcohol or caffeine, smoke, gamble or dance..."

/

Ah ha! He's just mad because he's boring as all hell. :p

""I think a lot of adults would say this is not what they had in mind, spending millions of dollars and the time of the courts and FBI agents and postal inspectors and prosecutors investigating what consenting adults are doing and watching." "

Precisely.

"Obscenity cases came to a standstill under Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton's attorney general, who focused on child pornography, which is considered child abuse and comes under different criminal statutes. The ensuing years saw an explosion of porn, so much so that critics say that Americans' tolerance for sexually explicit material rivals that of Europeans."

Maybe because Europeans have a much better outlook on nudity and sex. They are probably STILL laughing their asses off at the US for the whole Janet boobgate incident...

"In 2001, though, one interesting case emerged from St. Charles County, Mo., the heart of Ashcroft's conservative Missouri base. First Amendment lawyer Cambria defended a video store there against state charges that it was renting two obscene videotapes that depicted group sex, anal sex and sex with objects.

Cambria won, convincing a jury of 12 women, all between the ages of 40 and 60, that the tapes had educational value and helped reduce inhibitions. They reached the verdict in less than three hours."

See? Porn can be eduational.

"Either way, Nguyen, father of a 2-year-old girl, and his co-workers spend their days scouring the Internet for the most obscene material, following leads sent in by citizens and tracking pornographers operating under different names. The job wears on them all, day after day, so much so that the obscenity division has recently set up in-house counseling for them to talk about what they're seeing and how it is affecting them."

Nguyen: "Oh please help me! I saw some pornagraphic material...and I wasn't offended by it! In fact, it made me horny as all hell!!! Oh, what do I do????"

Yeah, I'm sure he and his co-workers are taking notes...

[smalland]

Originally posted by glatt


So now I don't like the Bush image anymore. Even though there is some truth to it, it's deceptive. I hate deceptiveness.

Hmm, yeah, I very much agree -- it kinda blunts the punch the image would otherwise have.

Although, if you look at the Ashcroft image, it also contains duplicates! I can't imagine there's a shortage of porn images... So perhaps it's a feature of the software used?