Category: News

99.99% of the human population is deeply offended by child pornography. But, as the United States Supreme Court ruled in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, child pornography is bad because it exploits children, not because there’s something inherently illegal about being a pedophile. In its judgment, the Court ruled that Congress’ only mandate was to prevent the exploitation of children, and that it could not ban “virtual” kiddie porn, like cartoons, computer-generated pornography, or images where children’s faces have been photoshopped onto otherwise legal adult pornography. In other words, if children aren’t involved, then it’s not child pornography, and therefore it’s not illegal.

Things are quite different in Australia, however… as New South Wales resident Alan John McEwan found out. McEwan was somehow busted for having a collection of images which featured characters from The Simpsons – especially kids Bart and Lisa – engaging in sexual acts. He was taken to Parramatta Local Court and found guilty of possession of child pornography in February of this year. And, this morning, the New South Wales Supreme Court upheld McEwan’s conviction… for child pornography… for having cartoons of Simpsons characters having sex.

Look, I’m not going to defend pedophiles here. I’m as kinky as the next guy, but you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere, and sex with children is absolutely out of bounds. However, simply being a pedophile is not a crime, nor should it be until a pedophile actually acts on it. So this ruling simply baffles me. McEwan had drawings of fictional cartoon characters on his computer.

While I appreciate that the justices were probably trying to “do the right thing”, you should really read their ruling for the tortured logic it contains.

Martha “Sunny” von Bulow, the wealthy American heiress who was the subject of the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune, has died after spending 28 years in a coma. She was 76.

The only daughter of utilities magnate George Crawford, Martha Crawford inherited millions of dollars after her father’s untimely death when she was four. She married His Serene Highness Prince Alfred of Auersperg in 1957. They had two children before divorcing in 1965. A year later, Sunny married Claus von Bulow, then an aide to billionaire oil man J. Paul Getty. The two had a daughter, Cosima Iona von Bülow, who was born in 1967.

By 1980, tensions had begun to mount in Sunny and Claus’ marriage. In April of that year, Sunny slipped into a coma, which was attributed to reactive hypoglycemia. At a Christmas celebration with her family on December 21, 1980, Sunny appeared disoriented and confused. Given her reputation as a heavy drinker and pill popper, her family put her to bed. The next morning, however, it was apparent that she had something far more serious than a hangover. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with brain damage severe enough to leave her in a coma.

Continue reading “R.I.P. Sunny von Bulow”

From Yahoo! News:

LOS ANGELES – Bettie Page, a 1950s pinup known for her raven-haired bangs and saucy come-hither looks, was hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a heart attack, her agent said Friday.

“She’s critically ill,” Mark Roesler of CMG Worldwide told The Associated Press.

He said the 85-year-old had been hospitalized for the last three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released when she had the heart attack Tuesday. Page was transferred to another hospital in Los Angeles and remained in intensive care Friday.

Read the story here.

Actor Paul Benedict, most famous for his role as English neighbor Harry Bentley on The Jeffersons, has passed away at age 70 in Martha’s Vineyard. The cause of death is not yet known.

Benedict was born in Silver City, New Mexico and grew up in Boston. He appeared in several movies, but spent most of his acting career on Broadway, where he also directed several plays.

Obit is here.

 

From CNN:

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) — A Las Vegas judge sentenced fallen gridiron great O.J. Simpson to at least 15 years in prison for leading an armed hotel room confrontation over sports memorabilia in 2007.

Simpson could become eligible for parole in about nine years. Grimacing, his head cast down, Simpson was escorted from the courtroom in shackles.

– Ever feel discombobulated after going through the security checkpoint at the airport? No worries: the good people at the Milwaukee airport have created a “Recombobulation Area”:

– Boy George is probably going to jail.

– Prohibition was repealed 75 years ago today. Happy Repeal Day!

– What if Plaxico Burress had his own comic book?

– Swedish researchers have used CCTV to create a body-swap illusion. Apparently the illusion is so good that people think they’ve actually swapped bodies! Said one of the researchers, “[the] effect is so robust that, while experiencing being in another person’s body, a participant can face his or her biological body and shake hands with it without breaking the illusion.” Cool!

– Wanna know how much the 2008 government bailout actually costs? Adjusted for inflation, the bailout costs as much as the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Race to the Moon, the 1980s S&L Crisis, the Korean War, The New Deal, the initial invasion of Iraq, the Vietnam War, and the entire lifetime of NASA… combined:

– I don’t know how reliable the Malaysian Insider is, but they have this chilling report (reprinted from the Times of India) about the Mumbai attackers. Read the whole thing… it’ll make your skin crawl!

Back in the 50s and 60s, California had the reputation of being the “wild and crazy state”. People that found the east coast too “uptight” moved to California by the millions. And it was one big party for the next 20 years. But then, sometime in the late 80s (after all the coke wore off), California changed. No longer “wild and crazy”, California instead became “the nanny state”. Smoking was banned, as were trans fats and fast food restaurants.

You can now add stationary exercise to that list of banned items, at least in Santa Monica. It is now illegal to perform any “stationary exercise” (such as sit-ups or jumping jacks) in the city of Santa Monica. Heathen lawbreakers will be fined up to $158 and can spend up to 36 months in the stocks (OK, I made up that last part).

The ban isn’t as ludicrous as it might initially sound. Apparently Santa Monica has many grassy medians in the city streets, and people were gathering there to do pilates and other exercises. They were apparently loud, they tore up the grass, and often left litter behind. The Fourth Street median in particular had essentially turned into an overcrowded, ’round the clock free gym. This didn’t sit well with people that lived there, so they complained. The police then instructed park rangers to start enforcing an existing ban on such activities.

Amusingly, there is no ban against “non-stationary” exercise like jogging or walking.

Read all about it here.

Earlier this year, Dr Pepper promised a free Dr Pepper to “everyone in America” if Guns N’ Roses released their album Chinese Democracy any time during the calendar year 2008. At the time, it must have seemed like a good bet to the folks at Dr Pepper: the album’s been in production for almost 15 years (at a cost of $13 million!) and has been “close to release” for at least 5 years now.

Well now it’s November, and sure enough Chinese Democracy will be released this Sunday at Best Buy stores here in the US. Dr Pepper has not forgotten its promise, and on November 23 you can go to their site (drpepper.com) and enter your name and address and they’ll send you a coupon for a free Dr Pepper!

Read more about it here!

Oh, and by the way… Just to put this whole thing in perspective: the last time Guns N’ Roses released an album, Miley Cyrus hadn’t been born, Beyoncé was only 10 and Britney, Christina and Justin weren’t even members of the New Mickey Mouse Club yet! I’m not a GNR fan, but that album had better be good!

The missus was on vacation last week, so I spent a lot of time with her and thus didn’t have time for this blog. So stuff has been piling up on my “virtual desk”. Here are two random stories I found on the BBC’s site that might be of interest to some people:

When you think of sharks, you probably think of lots of teeth, then dying in the worst way possible. After that, however, you probably think of documentaries. After all, “Shark Week” is one of the most popular weeks in the Discovery Channel’s programming schedule. But believe it or not, even with hours upon hours of shark footage in the can, no one had ever filmed a whale shark pooing… until now. Apparently whale shark poo is “as thick as your arm, gungy and smells disgusting”. No surprises there, I suppose. Scientists apparently collected the poo, so as to learn more about the diet of said sharks.

Ever heard of the Cavern Club? It’s a nightclub in Liverpool made famous by the fact that the Beatles played there. It’s still open after all these years – partly as a functioning club, and partly as a tourist attraction. The club apparently has bunch of bricks in the wall with the names of artists that played there over the years chiseled in. Only now, there’s one less brick, as the club has removed the brick bearing Gary Glitter’s name. Glitter, who initially gained infamy for taking a computer containing thousands of images of child pornography to a British computer repair shop, spent three years in a Vietnamese prison for sex crimes against young girls. The club’s owner, Bill Heckle, is a former history teacher, and although he does not condone what Glitter has done, he nevertheless felt so bad about taking the brick down that he put up a plaque describing what happened (record producer Jonathan King, who was also convicted of sex crimes, had his brick removed as well).