The Null Device

2001/2/4

Bizarre: A 12-year-old girl in Canada has been arrested and placed in secure custody for allegedly indulging in sexual experimentation with two 11-year-old friends, shortly after she turned 12. Because of laws concering age limits of consent and responsibility, a consent defense is unavailable, and if the court decides that any sexual activity took place, she will be automatically convicted as a sex offender. Had she not turned 12 before the alleged incident took place, there would have been no case. Still, she should count herself lucky that she isn't living 40 years ago; back then she could have been diagnosed with "excessive sexual urges" and treated with a frontal lobotomy or electroshock therapy or something similar.

0

Seen on Plastic: Are America's lunatic-fringe capital-N Nazi groups trying to make themselves more relevant by rebranding themselves as the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party, or is this a hoax of some sort?

branding irony libertarianism neo-nazis 0

Python on DVD. Not the language, but the complete TV series. Problem is (other than it being a bit dear), it is only Region 1. Which is no problem for deep-pocketed scofflaws with modified players, but still; one should not have to break the law to watch a TV series. (You'd think they'd have at least made it Region 2 for the Poms.)

monty python 0

The fine art of subtlety, Hollywood style: Hollywood is making a film about a Soviet submarine disaster; no, not the Kursk, one in 1961. Russians, including the survivors of the ill-fated mission, were initially enthusiastic, but this soured when they read the script and realised that the crew was to be portrayed as a bunch of vodka-sculling stooges.

"Even the untranslated copy provoked unpleasant feelings among the survivors: in the script one comes across the words 'vodka' and 'drink' almost more often than the words 'sea' or 'submarine'.

0