Pornography

I asked not long ago why guys suspected of dowloading child pornography end up in jail yet Joe Francis, who is actually making the porn (allegedly by not knowing some of the girls were 15 years old) or by using it as a marketing metaphor (young nubile girls wild with sex), gets scot free.

Well, he may not have gotten nailed for child pornography and sexual assault but he got nailed by tax evasion --and faces 10 years in prison if found guilty :

The indictment of 34-year-old Joe Francis Wednesday follows his arrest by federal marshals Tuesday on a contempt-of-court citation stemming from a civil case in Florida, where he is being held without bail, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Wednesday's charges alleged that Francis deducted more than $20 million in false business expenses on corporate income tax returns filed in 2002 and 2003 by two of his companies, Mantra Films Inc. of Santa Monica and Sands Media Inc. of Nevada. The charges were revealed in press releases issued by the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service.

According to the L.A. Times, the alleged improper deductions included $3.78 million that was counted as a business cost when it was actually spent to build a residence in Punta Mita, Mexico. In addition, $10.4 million in "false consulting services" was deducted, as was a $500,000 false insurance expense, according to the indictment cited by The Times.

Not only that, Matt Sanchez, who also worked as a male prostitute, claims to be "bad at being gay".

Towelroad has the whole story. And, get this, Pat at Towelrod met him 18 years ago --as a gay man.

Could he have gone to the same rehab center as Ted Haggard?

Anyhow, this is the drivel Michelle Malkin posted about the 'situation':

Last night, hate-filled liberals on MSNBC attemped to smear Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez and conservatives who honored him at CPAC for his support of the military at Columbia University. They gleefully showed photos of Cpl. Sanchez at the event--including ones I took--in mockery after his gay porn past was outed by left-wing blogs. They cackled "Semper Fi."

I said the other day I thought CPAC organizers would be justified in being embarrassed if the rumors about Sanchez's porn star past 15 years ago turned out to be true. Well, the rumors are true. But it is neither CPAC nor Cpl. Sanchez who should feel embarrassed.

Wow! Sister is so compassionate. I had no idea given all the digital ink she wasted in calling Amanda Marcotte a nut during her Christian League vs. Edwards Bloggers debacle.

There are days that I honestly just want to throw in the towel and just say, "The hell with it!"

Barry Deutsch of Alas A Blog did what no business saavy blogpreneur would have done for less than a million dollars : He sold off Amptoons.com to a pornography company that wants to raise the search engine ranking of their sites.

As I wrote in the comments section of I sold Amptoons.com, comments are now open, Barry could have chosen to speak to other blogpreneurs in his search for a better educated decision about this deal. Alas, it didn't happen.

Here's some of the problems I see with this deal:

1. How much is too much or too little for a domain name? Amptoons is the name of his cartooning brand. Did he have anybody evaluate and estimate the worth of Amptoons in the market? Did he actually have someone assess the actual monetary value of his domain name?

2. One of the most serious issues I have with his move is that Barry didn't seem to understand how he could have monetized better his site. If he was eventually selling the site to a link farm, why not just sell a subdomain and still hold ownership of his domain name?
3. Wouldn't this deal constitute a self-inflicted tarnishing of his trademark? And if he has to fight for his cartoons' copyright and trademark eventually, wouldn't this deal prove he has no legal grounds to defend it because he was so eager to sell it off in the first place?

My head has been spinning with tons of questions.

Joe Francis, "child" pornographer From Maker of 'Girls Gone Wild' Runs Afoul of Law on Minors - Los Angeles Times:

Joe Francis and the Santa Monica-based company he built on soft-core "Girls Gone Wild" videos pleaded guilty Tuesday to violating federal laws designed to prevent the sexual exploitation of children and agreed to pay fines totaling $2.1 million.Under the terms of a deal with the Justice Department, Francis agreed to personally pay a $500,000 fine to settle charges in Los Angeles that he failed to keep records of the ages and identities of the women who appeared in his films. As a result, Francis said in a statement, footage of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct appeared in at least two DVDs he released.

Link Do a Google News search on child pornography and you will get thousands of news articles about (mostly) men being thrown in jail for being consumers of "child pornography".

Pussy as in The Pussycat Dolls.

Do y'all remember this bit of madness? Well, this is the first time I agree with those crazy fundamentalist groups.

Girls already have to contend with the incredibly screwed up messages of Barbie and the Bratz dolls. Why would anybody think it's OK to sell dolls of strippers to six year-olds?

[via MTV News - Hasbro Decides Not To Stickwit Pussycat Dolls Toy Line]:

On Wednesday, less than a month after first announcing plans for a line of dolls based on the sexy sirens, Hasbro has announced its decision to shelve the figures indefinitely, declaring them "inappropriate" for young consumers because the act is targeted toward a more mature audience.

"Hasbro will not move forward with the line of dolls based on the Pussycat Dolls," a statement from the toy manufacturer reads. "[PCD's label] Interscope's current creative direction and images for the group are focused on a much older target than we had anticipated at the time of our original discussions, thereby making a doll line inappropriate for Hasbro."

A spokesperson for Hasbro declined further comment.

My co-worker suggest's I re-name this one "Great Job, Doily."

Here's the latest from my Target the Corrupt Republican blog:

The so-called "moral" Republican party has been beset by so many corruption charges that it is hard to take their claims of morality seriously anymore. With Jack Abramoff and Randy Cunningham in jail and with Tom DeLay facing impending corruption charges, the Republicans are looking might immoral these days. But there is another aspect to the "Immoral Republican Party"--sex.

Now I have nothing against sex. Unlike so many Republicans, I believe what people do on their own time in their own house is none of my business as long as all participants are consenting. Consenting adults are free to play scrabble, engage in homosexual sex or even watch Fox News and it is none of my business. Republicans feel that they have the right to dictate to you and me what we are allowed to do in private. But they are often so hypocritical about this that once again one wonders how anyone believes the myth of Republican morality.

Awhile back I covered the story of the extreme right wing, anti-gay Republican mayor of Spokane, WA who was caught soliciting homosexual sex over the internet in exchange for city jobs. The fact that he was publicly anti-gay but privately a practicing homosexual is merely hypocritical. We are used to Republican hypocrisy. Doing it over the internet when he had something to hide was outright stupid. Well, with Bush as our "president" we are used to Republicans being stupid. But to offer city jobs in exchange for homosexual sex is criminal. So, the Republican mayor of Spokane displayed extreme stupidity, criminality and hypocrisy all at once. To their credit, the voters of Spokane ousted him from office.

You know, I’d sat on the phone in voicemail jail hell today and it occurred to me that, in spite of claims that all sex positive feminism is is flaunting your casabas and having sex twice a day, every single day and three times on Sundays, that the people who are really obsessed with sex are the people who think that is what sex positive feminism is about.

Which is to say: there are gradations along a continuum to the point that, when they are most hostile to sex positive feminism (rather than just ignorant of it — not dumb, just not knowledgeable about a specific topic), they are utterly obsessed with discussions of it.

That was an assertion. I’m sorely tempted to stroke it. Get out the old Boy Butter and Go. To. Town. With Boots On!

But wouldn’t that be unfair? Am I not supposed to be firmly planted in the reality-based community? And what does that mean? That you actually back up your assertions with some kind of argument. This Bitch likes to try to do that and, if I don’t, I like to be up front and say: “I’m just rantin’ here so send me a klew by four if I’m out of line.

I so need to get this off my chest.

Have you seen the new face of female empowerment? Please welcome the newest pop music sensation, The Pussycat Dolls :

[via CNN.com - Getting to know the Pussycat Dolls - Dec 6, 2005]:

"It's a fun, affirmative, female-empowerment tour-de-force of musical styles that embraces pop music and urban music," says A&M Records President Ron Fair, who helped produce the album.

[...]

"We like to say that there's a Pussycat Doll inside every girl," says group member Ashley Roberts. "I think we're just out there inspiring all these young girls, older girls, grandmas, to find that confidence and that Pussycat Doll within them."

And their message? "Just to live life to the fullest," she says.

As for the Dolls themselves, they seem to have stepped out of an adolescent boy's fantasy. They are a collection of women leaving nothing to chance looks-wise -- virtually every race and hair color is represented.

There's sultry Scherzinger, who is of Hawaiian-Russian-Filipino descent; Roberts, a blonde who has appeared in commercials and a Counting Crows video; and Wyatt, a tomboy trained by the Joffrey Ballet.

There's also Carmit Bachar, a redhead who placed fifth in the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics trials in 1992; Melody Thornton, a former backup singer who is of Mexican and African-American descent; and Jessica Sutta, a brunette who was once a Miami Heat dancer.

"We all fit like pieces of a puzzle," says Thornton. "Everybody's input and their journeys and where they've been help put that puzzle together."

As many of you already know, girl likes the gossip blogs ... a lot. There is nothing like reading The Corsair, Go Fug Yourself or Perez Hilton to keep up with the compost of American culture. With these "Pussycat Dolls" though, the words just fail me.

So let's take them for a spin, shall we?

Pussycat : By itself it becomes almost an infringement on copyright and trademark laws. I honestly thought this was the 'live' version of Josie and The Pussycats; but no, PCD (as their marketers like to label them --which, btw, sounds like some illegal drug) is a stripper show burlesque show gone pop.

Riiiiight.

But, if you separate the word into it's components, the images they conjure are less "pop cultish" :

Pussy : Need I say more?
Cat : The "adult" version of the previous diminutive adds to the "ooh-so-taboo" virgin-whore complex.

And then we have the word, Dolls.

Oh Dear.

Have you ever heard of the Real Dolls company? They are more than a seriously fringe use of engineering and design. They've become an cultural phenomenon all to themselves.

Say hi to Britney.