Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five Web sites that carry such ads in the United States, earning more than $22 million annually from prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a media research and consulting company. It is now the premier Web site for human trafficking in the United States, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. And it’s not a fly-by-night operation. Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media, which also owns the estimable Village Voice newspaper.
Attorneys general from 48 states have written a joint letter to Village Voice Media, pleading with it to get out of the flesh trade. An online petition at Change.org has gathered 94,000 signatures asking Village Voice Media to stop taking prostitution advertising. Instead, the company has used The Village Voice to mock its critics. Alissa thought about using her real name for this article but decided not to for fear that Village Voice would retaliate.
How could she think such a thing of those beneficent, woman-loving leftists?
What if they aren’t really “fossil” fuels? I’m skeptical on this, but maintain an open mind. If Gold is right, it’s a huge game changer, not just technologically, but politically. Of course, it will just send the carbon loons further around the bend.
So, apparently, I’m not skeptical about the need to wreck our economy to save the planet because many of the scientists promoting it have been shown to be frauds and hacks. No, it’s because I’m a threatened, “conservative white male.”
What would I do without professors of sociology to explain such things to me? I particularly love the “98% of scientists” line. Because, you know, science is all about majority opinion (and no, even if it was, I don’t buy the number).
This is probably inevitable. If it doesn’t happen by then, or sooner, it will be due to regulatory inertia at the FAA. It will probably take longer for pilotless passenger flights. Regardless of the actual safety level, I think that a lot of people are going to still feel more comfortable if there’s someone in the cockpit whose ass is on the line along with theirs.
Of course, we’ll be doing some market experiments in suborbital in the next few years. Virgin Galactic has redundant pilots, XCOR has a single-string one, and Armadillo is automated.
There seems like a big market opportunity here. Put people to work by fishing, and sell the proceeds to China. You could do it canned, frozen and fresh. I know that when I was a kid growing up in Michigan we’d never eat carp, and considered them junk fish, though the blacks would eat them (and dogfish, too — I remember dogfish runs by the dam near our cottage on the Muskegon River, where people would just pull them out with nets and cover the banks with them). Not sure what the difference is between Asian carp and the native variety, or if it’s tastier. But the Asians definitely do know their carp (which is what koi and goldfish are).
It goes all the way back to the Russian revolution, when they called themselves “Bolsheviks,” when they weren’t a majority at all. Nor are they “liberal,” or “progressive.”