Gloucestershire spin-bowler Tom Smith signs a one-year T20-only contract extension with the club through the 2025 season.

Women's safety and religious groups speak out against the club, which is popular during race meets.

Counterterrorism police say the officer is suspected of expressing support for the proscribed group online.

The athlete hopes his own fitness journey will inspire pupils.

Cambridge City are set to play in the first round of the Women's FA Cup for only the second time - with over half of their team just 16 years old.

Martin Hibbert successfully sued a man who claimed the 2017 Manchester attack was staged and "a lie".

United Utilities is installing measures to prevent eels from getting caught up in equipment when water is taken from the river.

Reigning champion Luke Humphries is beaten by Austrian Rowby-John Rodriguez on the opening day of the Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton.

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The pilot scheme begins in December to help identify and charge fly-tippers.

World sidecar champion Harry Payne plans to also compete in the British Championship next year to help boost his profile.

Norma received her award for services to the Special Olympics Sandwell.

Five-year-old Saleh Aslam was climbing a radiator which fell on top of him near Watford.

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Former RNC student Chris McCausland has been winning the hearts of the nation in recent weeks.

Worcestershire sign Nottinghamshire spinner Fateh Singh on a three-year deal, following his loan spell at New Road in the 2024 season.

Managers were "disbelieving" of concerns that nurse Lucy Letby could be harming babies, an inquiry hears.

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A couple of weeks ago I received an email from an A&R person at a global dance music label. It was a pretty standard email along the lines of “hey we like your song, would you be interested in licensing it to us?” which I’ve received before and usually they amount to nothing. This often...

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Judy Orme won the 2024 World Triathlon Championships in her 70-74 age group category in Spain.

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A peek behind the famous concrete walls.

Not an artisan sourdough loaf in sight.

It's a well-known rule in journalism that if the headline asks a question, the answer is invariably "no". So to see the question above on this blog will probably not surprise you.

What might surprise you is to learn it was also the headline of a prominently-featured article on the BBC website yesterday. Of course, as is the current fad, when they say "prostitutes" they mean "trafficking", and vice-versa.

It's been long known that there is no connection between major international sporting events such as the Olympics, the World Cup, and sex trafficking. But don't take my word for it. Take the word of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who hosted a meeting on this very topic earlier this year. Take the word of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, who produced a must-read report (pdf) on the actual effects of sports events on human trafficking. Go check out Laura Agustin's excellent summary too.

The facts:

• 2010 World Cup, South Africa: the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development did not find a single case of trafficking over the Olympics time period.

• 2010 Olympics, Canada: no evidence of trafficking and sex workers reported a fall in business.

• 2006 World Cup, Germany: 33 cases were referred to the police for further investigation, out of which 5 cases were confirmed to be trafficking (4 women and 1 man). No other cases were found, despite the fact that the police conducted 71 brothel raids (these raids did not identify the 5 confirmed trafficking cases, but did lead to 10 deportations).

• 2004 Olympics, Greece: When trafficking statistics were compared for all of 2004 with all of 2003, there was an increase of 181 trafficking cases (which is a 90% increase). According to both the police and the International Organization for Migration, none of these cases were linked to the Olympics.

• Super Bowls in the USA in 2008-2011: Although law enforcement increased, they made no additional arrests for sex work-related offences during this time.

You might be wondering, and it is a good question, why there isn't sex trafficking during these events. The answer is simple. Criminals may be criminals, but organised crime does not exist for the purpose of being evil. It exists to make loads of tax-free dosh. Does it make financial sense for sex trafficking to occur at these events? With London rents skyrocketing around the venues, with the Home Office plans to tighten border security, with the police already well misinformed about the magnitude of the trafficking problem, you'd have to be mad to pursue this as a business plan.

There was perhaps a time, back in the 90s, when sex trafficking in some parts of Eastern Europe might have netted you some cash if you already had the distribution network, but it's not the case now. Add to that a large native population willing and legally able to exchange money for sex and you'd be laughed out of Dragon's Den for even suggesting it as a goer. I've met a lot of dodgy characters in my day - drug dealers and worse besides - and to a person they were not in it to lose money. In many cases the black marketeers I know were actually better businesspeople than anyone in legit trading.

In spite of all this, we are still treated - almost daily now in the run-up to London 2012 - with the same old guff such as stories that sex trafficking 'almost doubled' during the Athens Olympics.

In this particular case, 'almost doubled' means that the number of reported incidents was 181, a 90% increase over the previous year. So yes, they did 'almost double'.

However if you too are underwhelmed by that number, it's with good reason. Applying all the usual disclaimers - any instance of forced sex trafficking is abhorrent and should be prosecuted vigorously, this is an argument about best use of police time, tax money and other resources - what does the reported change from just-shy-of-100 people to 181 actually represent?

Prostitution is legal and regulated in Greece, however, not everyone works legally and not everyone registers, because hello, do you want your name on the Greek government's hooker list? Probably not. Anyway, estimates put the number at about 1,000 legal prostitutes and 20,000 illegal ones. Given that these numbers are the ones put about by the US State Department which does not have a great track record on accuracy, it's a little suspect. But let's say for the sake of saying that represents some kind of starting ballpark figure and probably even an overestimate. The 21,000 total gives us about 1 in every 250 women in Greece working as a prostitute - actually a realistic enough proportion for Europe.

In the year before the Athens Olympics, the reports of sex trafficking at 95 represented 0.45% of all prostitution in Greece. And after the Olympics? 0.86%. Less than 1% of prostitutes in Greece were trafficked both before and after the Olympics.

There is no particular evidence, statistical or otherwise, to suggest that the fluctuation in this rather small number was due to the Olympics per se. In fact it is certainly within the bounds of what we call the 'law of small numbers' which dictates that they can and do fluctuate in a way that represents a high percentage of the values themselves, but given the rarity of the events involved, this is expected and not necessarily significant.

Here's an example. Let's say in the year 2008, there was 1 death in all of Scotland from a vending machine falling on someone. Then let's say a year later, in 2009, there were 2 such deaths. While it would be technically true to say that the number of vending machine accidental deaths 'doubled', is this a fair representation of the data? Is this a significant trend that is likely to continue? (Which would mean that by 2032, there would be 8.38 million such deaths in Scotland, or approximately... er, 150% of the population). No, obviously not. The change from 1 to 2 in a given year seems clearly attributable to chance. You'd be silly to conclude the change from one small number to another "means" very much without a lot of additional evidence.

If you've read my paper on the effects of lap dancing on sexual violence in London, you'll already be aware of how over time these small numbers fluctuate wildly. For context, the UNHCR gives the number of trafficked persons for Greece as 137 in 2005, 83 in 2006, 100 in 2007, 162 in 2008, 125 in 2009, 92 in 2010.

Now if these things had no knock-on effect, and if police resources and tax money were infinite, then sure, why not go after human trafficking even if it's only a very tiny proportion of all sex work in Greece - or in the more immediate case, London? But alas, it is not a matter of infinite police time and tax money. And it is definitely not a matter of no knock-on effects.

According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, "Police crackdowns and brothel closures tend to displace sex workers from flats and saunas to less safe work venues, including the street, and make them wary of all authorities so they are less likely to access services or to report episodes of violence or crime to the police."

Given that the anti-sex lobby are so dead keen to keep claiming that all sex workers are inevitably the victims of violent and sex crimes, that seems like it's going to affect a hell of a lot more than a couple hundred people, no? Why does a small number of people matter to them more than a potentially far larger pool of people? Is it because that's where the grant money and column inches are at?

Not only is this increased danger the outcome in previous incidents of trafficking panic, it's happening right now in London. The Moratorium 2012 campaign, organised by x:talk, confirms:

Stop the Arrests Campaign is aware of ‘clean up efforts’ already underway in London, particularly east London, in the run-up to the Olympics ... Last December in Barking and Dagenham a violent gang carried out a series of robberies on brothels at knife point. Sex workers were deterred from pursuing the attacks after police threatened them with prosecution. Thus many more were attacked and one woman was raped.

Got that? Send the police after non-existent sex trafficking, and they end up cracking down on non-trafficked sex workers. When that happens, people in sex work are put in more danger. No one is made safer by doing this. No one is saved. Moratorium 2012 is calling on an end to the pointless and dangerous harassment. Please, sign the petition.

I was re-reading Iceberg Slim recently (as you do), and wondering what exactly it is the anti-sex brigade mean when they go around calling people "pimps".

I've been called a pimp before. By Julie Bindel, to my face, and I laughed because it is so ridiculous: I have never profited off of anyone's erotic capital but my own… and arguably Billie Piper's, though that makes me no more and perhaps significantly less pimp-like than (say) her agent and the show's producers.

I don't get particularly offended by such obviously over the top labels. But the word itself has started to crop up more and more in the arguments surrounding sex work and the proposed laws regarding prostitution. Take for example in Ireland, where the widespread assumption is that all sex workers are a) women and b) "pimped". Both of these are demonstrably and flagrantly not true, and yet are found in virtually any media coverage of the topic which is heavily influenced by an unholy coalition of extreme religious groups and extreme radfem ideologues.

The side issue dogging the proposed changes, that is, the discourse about what exactly constitutes trafficking and who exactly is trafficked, is of course pretty openly racist - both the words and the imagery. This has been covered in some detail and extremely well by eg. Laura Agustin, whose work on the topic I highly recommend.
 

Typical "trafficking" propaganda: shades of White Slavery all over the place.
 
Anyway, back to the concept of "pimp". Now we all know, or think we know, what a pimp is, and much of this archetype comes from highly fictionalised misrepresentations of Mr Slim's own work.
Go on, you know exactly what people mean by the word. What "pimp" implies. A man who runs women, lures them with money and romance, then turns them out to whoring, often beaten, always drug-addicted.

And he is black.

Starting to sound like casual use of "pimp" is dog-whistle racism, isn't it?

For the life of me I have never met a person even remotely like the stereotypical pimp, and yet I "know" they exist, largely because I have been told so over and over again. I've met streetwalkers, both drug-addicted and not; escorts and call girls, same; not one ever had what popular imagination would classify as a "pimp," but then I keep getting told I'm not representative, so maybe the literally hundreds of men and women, cis and trans sex workers I've met are just "not representative" too?

Occasionally you also hear talk of the "Eastern European gangmaster", but for some reason the class- and racially-evocative term "pimp" comes up far, far more often. Could that be because plain xenophobia just doesn't inspire the troops in quite the same way bald racism does?

Independent sex workers who organise their own affairs and work solo. Roommates who share a flat and both happen to sell sex. Managers running escorts agencies with a dozen or so girls they mostly interact with by text. Massage parlour owners. Women whose house is used by other sex workers, so technically I guess are madams. People who set up message boards and internet forums where clients and sex workers talk among themselves and with each other. All of these are people who get called "pimps" by the anti-sex lobby.

A guy in a crushed velvet suit on a street corner, keeping his girls high and working the neighbourhood? Not so many of those to the pound.

But, let's say he really is out there, because we all keep getting told he is. This working-class black man in the loud clothes who is sexually and physically aggressive and probably has a criminal record. This "pimp".

Do you think his choice of work isn't somehow constrained by society too? That he wouldn't rather be earning money some other way? Because anyone with any sense can surely suss out that a lot of activities, both legal and illegal, would be far more profit and far less hassle than running girls.


Iceberg Slim: hustling because it's not as if you were going to save him and his mother from poverty, were you?
 
This is the reality of waged work, all waged work, whether sex is involved or not. No one, but no one, has "free choice". If you think otherwise, remind yourself what you wanted to be when you grew up, and reflect on how exactly you ended up where you are now. Did you freely select from all career choices in the world, ever? Or did you choose as best you could from the options offered by your abilities and (more crucially) your circumstances? You know, like Iceberg Slim did?

Some folks seem especially resistant to acknowledging the truth about work, so I'll underline it some more. Entire towns in the North weren't full of miners because everyone there just happened to have the aptitude and preference for that sole job, but because it was the only job going. NE Scotland isn't full of fishermen because they have a particular concentration of people whose life's dream was to catch fish, but because that's what the job market offers. Everyone's outcome is the product of limited choices, from streetwalkers to the Queen. And no one's suggesting she needs to be "rescued" from her lack of career options.

If you want to improve someone's options, you address the things that constrain their choices in the first place. Poverty, addiction, education, to name a few. Not take away the only choices they have.

The pimp as we perceive him is a low-end tough. He's not exactly a criminal mastermind. And unlike a lot of the people who talk about "pimps" and whatnot, I know criminals. I have seen that life up close and fucking personal. I have lived in their neighbourhoods and their houses, and even in their families. I know that anyone who runs a business in the way the supposed pimp supposedly does is making little money, if any. What's 50% of that £10 anal bareback the anti-sex lobby claim is available in red lights everywhere? A fiver? Yeah, that sounds logical. Now pull the other one.

I know that his power - again, if he exists, because even when I was living in Cracktown, Pinellas County I saw shit that would stop your heart but I never once saw a "pimp" - is a power of an extremely limited kind. The power of someone with few and possibly no other options.

The anti-sex lobby's fantasy use of the term "pimp" is bogus and it is racist. Anyone who claims otherwise is being purposely disingenuous for the sake of striking fear into white, English-speaking, middle-class people.

Listen to this week's podcast (September 9, 2011) Patterns For Large-Scale JavaScript Application Architecture Patterns For Large-Scale JavaScript Application Architecture is a lengthy article by Addy Osmani detailing some basic principles of writing a large-scale JavaScript application. It's inspired by a classic Nicholas Zakas talk outlining some of the same principles ...

In the round-up: F1 hopes for South Americans "getting better" • Verschoor back to MP for fifth F2 season • Verstappen races in charity event

Max Verstappen is poised to clinch the 2024 drivers' championship if he finishes ahead of Lando Norris one more time. Here's how he can seal a fourth title at the next race.

Alpine have officially announced they will use Mercedes power units when Formula 1 introduces its new engine regulations in 2026.

In the round-up: Alpine must make up for 0.3-second deficit with 2025 chassis - Briatore • Stolen Lauda helmet goes on display • Wittich 'has not resigned'

This post discusses a new and easier way to add shipping or return information directly in Search Console.

Nearly 2 years ago I tweeted:



Well, unfortunately, I had it a bit wrong.

APIs and service do have a very direct and 1-1 relationship: an API is the interface of a service. However, what is different is that one's about the implementation and is focused on the provider, and the other is about using the functionality and is focused on the consumer. The service of course is what matters to the provider and API is what matters to the consumer.

So its clearly more than just a new name.

Services: If you build it will they come?

API Management

API Management & SOA are married at the hip

WSO2 API Manager

We recently introduced an API Management product: WSO2 API Manager. This product comes with an application for API Providers to create and manage APIs, a store application for API Developers to discover and consume APIs and a gateway to route API traffic through. Of course all parts of the product can be scaled horizontally to deal with massive loads. The WSO2 API Manager can be deployed either for internal consumption, external consumption or both. As with any other WSO2 product, this too is 100% open source. After you read Chris' whitepaper download this product and sit it next to your SOA infrastructure (whether its from us or not) and see what happens!

Selon l'economiste Bertrand Martinot, il faut introduire une dose de capitalisation pour des raisons d'equite entre generations et d'efficience economique.