Slashdot Mirror
Website Sells Pubic Lice
A British website called crabrevenge.com will help you prove that there is literally nothing you can't find online by selling you pubic lice. A disclaimer on the site says the creators "do not endorse giving people lice," and the lice are for "novelty purposes only." The company also boasts about a facility "where we do all of our parasite husbandry and carefully considered selective breeding." Three different packages are available: "Green package - One colony that can lay as many as 30 eggs for about $20. Blue package - Three colonies to share with your friends or freeze a batch or two for about $35. Red package - A vial of 'shampoo-resistant F-strain crabs' which can take up to two weeks to kill for about $52."
Everyone i know shaves so I don't see how effective this would be.
They are breeding resistant strains of lice. Does this count as parasite warfare?
I'm not the pope, but I'm going to have to put "intentionally giving people crabs" in the unethical column.
But fun and rewarding? Totally different column.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
That's just wrong on so many levels. I can see kids buying these and then using them to pick on other school kids they don't like. Such as putting them in some kid's underwear when he/she is showering after the gym class.
This type of item used as a gag gift could have serious consequences for the recipient. If it's a student who is the recipient, then schools kick them out until they're free and clear. Parents may miss work to be home with student. Lice spread easily.
There is absolutely nothing good from this. /facepalm
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
You too can have your own strain of the HIV virus! Play jokes on your friends!
Uhoh, whoes got AIDS today? Everyone!
A lifetime of hilarity!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
I'll stick to the old way of getting crabs.
Hookers.
Would giving people lice like this perhaps fall under the "bioterrorism" category? Just a thought...
in Soviet Russia, do pubic lice sell websites?
They tried that, but found that the market just wasn't very profitable. Then they moved on to selling bulk emailing services, and found that it made a lot more money.
It's not like there aren't much bigger and popular Web sites peddling much more harmful and destructive products.
Nonaggression works!
Agreed: It's a lousy story.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
damn parasites!
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
SOLD - in Europe only Danish teenagers shave!
"Thank you SO much you saved my marridge! My wife broke it off with her new lover because she thought he gave her crabs, wish I had found this site sooner!"
Ryan - Hamilton
Wow...just.... wow..
Willfully spreading a contagious illness (which this qualifies as) should be illegal.
I would say that creating ANY resistant, contagious disease should be considered a crime against humanity in general and should be rewarded with a swift death.
Contagious disease is a GREAT way to inflict misery on a lot of unintended and innocent victims.
Honestly, I can think of no worse or more dangerous crime.
--PM
Regulations. Laws. Common sense. Morality. A clue. The ability to live with being a hypocrite.
All of the things that "laissez-faire" economics usually figures the market will resolve for itself, and yet is completely incapable of fixing -- because it assumes benign, rational humans who make good choices, and an underlying mechanism where things like murder for hire, arms dealers, bioterrorists, and asshats can't happen. It totally ignores human nature, and the fact that people aren't always nice, and don't always give a shit about the welfare of others.
This is the logical result of laissez-faire capitalism -- basically, anarchy. Only in anarchy, someone's ability to hunt you down and kill you regulates the system. As soon as you have any concept of law, to not think you need to apply that to your economic system is just plain stupid. Because someone is going to try to fuck someone else over.
You simply can't be a strict laisez-faire guy and believe that you have any right to shut this kind of thing down -- well, I guess you could hire someone to kill them, but that might be a little extreme.
Everyone likes to think this so called "free market" is inherently moral and will arrive at "good" and "just" decisions, when in fact, it's inherently amoral. It doesn't give a shit -- if people are willing to pay for it, it must be inherently good.
Shave on one side. Douse the other side with lighter fluid. Light the fluid and stab the crabs with a tooth pick when they run to the other side.
Selling lice = boring. Selling line ONLINE = new high tech invention! Works for patents, so it should work for Slashdot stories, too.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
I'm not the pope, but I'm going to have to put "intentionally giving people crabs" in the unethical column.
Since when is the Pope an authority on ethics?
I'm tellin' ya, this country it going to hell in a handbasket. Buying crabs? Sheesh. In my day we got our crabs for free at a Grateful Dead show.
Now, get off my lawn.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Lice are not very good at surviving without food (= blood). Half of them have died within 24 hours. A bedbug would be much better, because they can go for months without food and they are very difficult to get rid off, once you get them in your house.
To be clear, I'm not a criminal lawyer. Crime is far, far away from my specialism. I am also not your lawyer. This is not a researched opinion. Cheers.
This would absolutely (in my opinion) be a criminal offence in the jurisdiction.
Common assault - includes any non-consensual contact or the causing of non-consensual contact through another object. This could easily be analogised to the cases involving leaving a trap or poking with a stick.
Much more serious:
Sexual assault - SOA 2003 s(3) - AFAIK this includes touching through another object, so the offense would be available
Infliction of GBH with intent - GBH requires common assault (see above) and the rupturing of membranes, which lice do when they suck blood (this potentially hold a sentence of lifetime imprisonment, and is an extraordinarily serious offence in the UK)
The Crown Prosecution Service generally charges less than the most serious crime chargeable, but it is quite feasible to imagine an assault or sexual assault charge being made if this were used. Also, the site owners are doubtless on the hook for all sorts of conspiracy and assistance offences, but I know little to nothing about them. Also, this may well come under the remit of Operation Sapphire (the London police operation on rape and sexual offences. I know some of the outstanding officers involved, they're like dogs with a bone once they get a suspect in their sights.) or could be viewed as domestic violence, which elevates sentencing in the courts (and opens up the possibility of elevation to Crown Court sentencing).
All sorts of wonderful civil options even if the CPS didn't prosecute, with trespass against the person and negligence high on the list.
Holy shit! You mean, that wasn't a "to do" list?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
So is the prohibition on divorce, pre-martial sex and birth control...
Well, that sure explains why the Crusades were all the rage back when Popes ruled the world...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Not that I'm aware of, but you can buy hookworm to treat your asthma or other autoimmune disorders. Costs a few grand, or you can always get it from the source.
. . . as a pubic service?
(I needed to burn off some karma.)
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
He was itching to say it.
"Honestly, I can think of no worse or more dangerous crime."
A police officer manipulating evidence for pecuniary gain while his target spends years in jail, his finances, family, and anus in tatters?
No.30 on your list?
The Texas judge who sent hundreds of youth to a private jail, of which he had financial interest in. Those convictions being over turned long after his ruse was tumbled? No.99? Perhaps not even in your top 100?
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
But it's poorly thought out and misses the main issue, despite using a lot of buzzwords. Its answer is basically that since buying lice only results in harm when they are used against someone, it should be okay to sell the lice and that nobody should be stopped unless they try to use them on another person.
That's sounds okay as a theory, but the fact is that pretty much the only use of buying lice is to hurt someone. Yeah, there may be one or two people who have some non-injurious purpose for buying lice, but that's a vanishingly small proportion of all the purchases (and doubly so when the site itself claims the lice are for revenge). Yet the free market solution is to just ignore that and allow that vanishingly small percentage to justify letting it be legal to sell lice.
If your free market theory can't handle the concept of "this product is almost always used to violate someone's rights, so we should crack down on it if we can, even though the person selling the product is not himself the one violating the rights", then the free market sucks and we need something else. And it doesn't apply to just selling lice, but to selling plague bacteria and lots of other things.