just ignore and let this one die

Oops, nearly forgot the ersatz coffee . . .



Pep (waits for a torrent of abuse)

Pep (Sounds like good general advice to me)

So you don't need to read the British papers today . . .

The Daily Mail had a photograph making it appear as if Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was walking out of a branch of sex shop Ann Summers.

The Guardian reported that it was to become the first newspaper in the world to abandon print and be published exclusively on Twitter.

The Daily Express claimed a British inventor had created an invisible car to allow motorists to beat speed cameras.

The Sun joked that England fans would have to stand through the world's longest national anthem - at six and a half minutes - before the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine.

The Times featured a photograph of apparently tartan sheep

The Daily Mirror claimed to have the first ever interview with the Deal or No Deal banker.

And the Daily Telegraph claimed that harnessing the power of fish swimming through a river could hold the key to meeting Britain's future electricity needs.

Pep (I'm ignoring the Hotelicopter, although I am sure that Jerboa is working on something similar)

PS Oh, OK, here it is:

I'll let you decide whether you want to click on a link to a naked (very fit!) man with a large pole running around the streets of Paris . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZqkqJB_Yeo

Pep (You did, didn't you)

Congrats, Tod!



Yes, isn't that crazy? He ought to nationalize the oil companies. That's where the money is.

Testing. Ignore me, as usual. Jackie.

YAY!!

The state of Pennsylvania is raising the tax on cigarettes to $1.09 to fund insurance for low income kids.

They figure it'll make more people stop smoking too.

Uh, anyone see a flaw in this logic?

Yeah...I remember your thread from last year, missy!

*waves to Lula*

Hope you're having a good morning/day/afternoon/evening.

Yummm. That fruit looks delicious. Thanks, Pep.

The kippers...I've never tasted kippers....

Uh oh...fake coffee...better get some real stuff perking:

LOL, I love when newspapers post April Fool's articles!

And that Hotelicopter looks pretty darn cool.

I have not read it- I just walked by and saw it on a shelf- but gee, why stop at nationalizing banks? Who needs free enterprise anyway? Capitalism is evil - see how well the socialist and communist countries around the world are doing...

Hey Hugo Chavez got it up and running -

Morning Threadophiles far and wide

Morning all. Hope everyone's day goes better than mine is looking.

/me waves to Amara and Lil

Lil...sorry your day's starting out so yucky...

Someone in Massachusetts please tell me this is an April Fools joke. Not that I like granny porn, but when does this nanny state crap stop? Will cybergrannies in SL be next?

http://www.volokh.com/posts/1238285248.shtml

Proposed Ban on Making and Distributing Pornography Involving >60-Year-Olds and the Disabled (Including Spouses or Lovers Consensually Photographing Each Other):

Yup, the law (in Massachusetts) would make it a very serious crime — tantamount to child pornography — to make, and distribute "with lascivious intent," "any visual material that contains a representation or reproduction of any posture or exhibition in a state of nudity" involving anyone age 60 or over, or anyone who has "a permanent or long-term physical or mental impairment that prevents or restricts the individual’s ability to provide for his or her own care or protection."

The law is not limited to people who are mentally handicapped and thus unable to consent, or who are photographed against their will by their caretakers (the justification discussed in this story). The operative provisions cover people over 60 and the disabled whether or not they are incompetent. One provision, relating to people's being "deemed incapable of consenting," would cover only "an elder or a person with a disability adjudicated as incompetent by a court of the commonwealth," but I don't see how this would stop liability under the other provisions, since consent is no defense under the other provisions in any event. (Plus if they just wanted to bar exploitation of the incompetent, why not simply say "anyone adjudicated as incompetent by a court of the commonwealth," with no limitation to elders or persons with disabilities?)

Likewise, the law is not limited to hard-core pornography that would constitute unprotected "obscenity." It would apply to any pictures of nudes, so long as the defendant is acting with lascivious intent." Hard to see how this would be constitutional, or why it would make much sense.

The bill text is here; the provisions that would be amended are here and here; and the definitions of "elder" (anyone age 60 or older) and "person with a disability" ("a person with ) are here. If anyone can point me to a version that merges the existing text with the changes, I'd love to link to it.

UPDATE: Note that the law isn't limited to making pornography for commercial purposes (since the child pornography law that it builds on covers noncommercial child pornography, too). That means that if 60-year-old spouses or lovers — or spouses or lovers of someone who is disabled — decide to photograph each other naked with "lascivious intent," they would be committing a crime (inserted text underlined, especially relevant text italicized):

Whoever, either with knowledge that a person is a child under eighteen years of age, an elder or a person with a disability, or while in possession of such facts that he should have reason to know that such person is a child under eighteen years of age, an elder or a person with a disability and with lascivious intent, hires, coerces, solicits or entices, employs, procures, uses, causes, encourages, or knowingly permits such child, elder or person with a disability to pose or be exhibited in a state of nudity, for the purpose of representation or reproduction in any visual material, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of not less than ten nor more than twenty years, or by a fine of not less than ten thousand nor more than fifty thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

(Note: I originally misread this as requiring a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, but a commenter correctly pointed out that a court could in the alternative impose a fine of at least $10,000 — much better than a 10-year sentence, but still entirely improper.)

If I had a kid, which thank god i dont, I'd be scared as hell to even snap a picture of them in the tub like most parents did back then...

let alone a cute barebutt baby pic.
the scandal.


15 years..

byebye

I just keep hoping i can wake up from the nightmare that has infected us..I've heard the pendulum swings both ways- me, I'd like to swing it into a few heads!

Yay!

*I'm back from vaca, a day or so early.

Besides the fact that the money will never get near low income kids?

They said the same thing here about the Lottery.."To benefit schools and institutions..."

Well, most elected officials belong in institutions.

I just don't even know what to say anymore. I sit here, in shock, shaking my head all the time. I used to be really passive with my involvement in politics - give money to groups, sometimes send off a letter to a politician -- but for the first time in my life I have started actually getting involved with groups. What a year it might be.

Ignore this post, and let it die.

(see, we can do this with posts also. hehe)