Not necessarily. The liquid armor in question is a dilatant. It should provide stiffening in any region in which there is a large shear stress (there is definately a large shear component in a "crushing" auto accident.) While I doubt that this technology could protect you from a truck impact, it would likely stiffen the region of impact. This could be a good thing, like if you are being T-boned - the added rigidity increases the amount of impact your vehicle's side could withstand, or it could be a bad thing, reducing the effectiveness of the crumple zones in a head on collision.
In any forum, anywhere, but especially on the internet, if anyone talks about anything a flamewar ensues.
For all the flames, there is however, some healthy exchange of ideas, which I would prefer over the uninformative crap the gets spewed on the nightly news.
I don't think it is impossible for a significant portion of the population to understand tech, I don't think that it is impossible for any one to understand anything. I think you are perpetuating the real problem with the media today - they think everyone is an idiot.
Because the media caters to the lowest common denominator no on really thinks they need to learn anything, because after all, CNN can package stories about net neutrality in 2 minute segments. I personally believe that a lot of the "masses" are more than capable of understanding the issues, we just need someone to raise the bar.
I don't think this is unique to tech either. I think we see the same problem in politics, i.e. wiretaps, and DMCA. Rather than explain the real issues, have two talking heads barking at each other. It just so happens that this gets really ugly when technology and politics merge.
All these failings come down to one thing - money. Let's face it news is big buisness, and journalism has known for a long time that sensationalism sells papers - they, by and large, just haven't managed to preserve the noblility of their profession while selling papers. And as a result we're suffering, and the average American is more poorly informed, they're suffering, and newspaper subscriptions are falling and news segments get squeezed out for human interest, or entertainment news.
But hey, the politicians love it. Instead of debating on the merits of, say NASA funding, they get to preach about flag burning and gay marrige.
completely OT i know Last I heard the highest concentration of consumer warning labels was underneath the hood of your car. I mean I know that there may be subtle ways to hurt yourself screwing around with your engine, but do we really need to be told that battery acid is not a desert topping? (besides ethylene glycol is much more delicious)
I know this has been said before but I think the number of warning labels is an excellent measuring stick for how idiotically litigious we have become.
One more anecdote I bought a ~3' long, 2' wide, 1' deep sotage container the other day and there was a warning label (picture only) that depicted a baby tipping over into the contianer. I can only assume it was some sort of drowning warning, but the only thing I could think of was "Do not store baby in container..."
Ok now I'm off to tie the drawstring of the blinds around my neck (for safety) and see if the nylon screen can stop me from falling out the window at a run.
IMO it isn't about the cost of electricity. I don't think the consumer will ever care how many cents it costs to play WoW for an hour. Honest question, which costs more to run, the video card or the 21'' CRT gamers love so much? My guess is that graphics cards would have to eat loads more power to even come close to the power consumption of the monitor...
If you want the issue to be one of cost, wattage use isn't the problem. Consumers will only care when the up when it becomes too expensive to buy both a video card and a power supply that will run it. Then we will see the trend reverse. However, I don't think it is an issue of the cost of power. I think that we see a reversal in the trend of power hungary graphics cards when cooling becomes unfeasable. If we keep getting better cooling solutions than power consumption will continue to climb until graphics cards start tripping breakers. That I think may be the final limit on power consumption.
Yes, and when transfering heat away from the object we're concerned with we typically call that cooling. Sure the heat goes somewhere but we don't care if it isn't our house.
For instance, if you park your car in a car port (no walls - ambient temperature,) and your neighbor parks his car outside on a cold clear night there is a fair chance that your car won't have ice on the windshield, but his will. Why? because the net radiation your car sees (Tcar^4 - Troof^4) is near zero - no heat transfer, while the net radiation your neighbors car sees (Tcar^4-Tspace^4) is negative. His car is being cooled through radiation. It is more convienient in some cases to think of radient cooling, rather than heating something like space. Technically it is all heat transfer - it makes exactly the same amount of sence to think of radiative heating as is does rediative cooling.
Of course the only products that attract criminals are those that are illegal. What you're saying is that only illegal things are illegal. What "attracts criminals" isn't the legal status of the goods, it is the demand. If you were to illegalize something with precisely zero demand, say pet rocks, there wouldn't be a mafia supplied rock store.
There will always be a demand for drugs, and there will always be people who abuse them, legal status not withstanding.
I also think it is inaccurate to claim that there weren't drug problems before drug regulation. Morphine addiction was a very real problem especially around the time of the civil war. Alcohol addiction as well has been a recurring historical theme.
The interesting, and open, question to me is how has regulation and prohibition affected the safety and potency of drugs. Commercial marijuana, cocaine, heroine, are all more potent now than they were 30 years ago, likely driven by regulation. On the other hand meth, ecstasy, and crack are likely all more dangerous than previously, which has likely been driven by a combination of the cost and availability of certain processing ingredients (e.g. ephedrine vs. pseudoephephdrine for meth production)
The problem with drugs is, and always has been, their addictive nature. You maintain that we could have productive addicts, I tend to disagree. Sure there might be functional alcoholics, and even coke heads, but I suspect that the majority of these groups are non-productive. Extrapolate to heroine, and I have hard time believing that people would be tying off in the bathroom of their 9-5.
Contrary to the PSA commercials drugs aren't that expensive. You can buy crack for less than a pack of cigarettes, and college students are known to consume large quantities of weed. Yet crackheads are still known to steal to feed their habit. Even if prices of the more expensive drugs (coke, e, etc.) were to fall with legalization it doesn't address the deeper problem that it is hard to hold a job, pay rent, and be a druggie.
I saw a vrey itrensetnig sing the ohetr day, the gsit of it was taht you can udetsdnard msot Enislgh so lnog as the frsit and lsat ltetrs are in the rhgit pacle. Makes me tihnk taht selplnig is a lot lses itonprmat tahn we've been led to bilevee.
Well, yes. But you would attack the market for FAKE porn, and assume that this is the same as the one for REAL porn. Surely there is some overlap, but it's guilt by association. It would be like PETA bombing a shop that sells faux fur. Or like invading random Muslim countries because.... maybe I see a pattern.
It is my opinion (no, I don't have the data, but it seems reasonable) that the only reason someone would look at quasi child porn is that sexualized images of children excite them. I think that those excited by sexualized images of children is the defining characteristic of the child porn market. Therefore, it is my belief that the market for real child porn and quasi child porn is one and the same. Further, it is my opinion that the only reason people look and quasi child porn instead of real child porn is that they believe (falsely) that it is legal and that they won't get into trouble for looking at the quasi porn.
It seems to me (I could be wrong) that a major component of cartoon porn depicts minors. I doubt it is a coincidence that there is less interest in more mature looking (20ish) cartoons. I also think it is unlikely that were child porn more available a major portion of the quasi child porn market would avoid the real stuff at all costs due to qualms about the ability of the models to consent.
Possession of quasi child porn is no more thoughtcrime than possession of homegrown drugs (no one hurt in its manufacture.) I'd rather see someone locked up for child porn thoughtcrime than marijuana thoughtcrime.
I don't think that people should be locked up for possessing verboten information e.g. weapons plans. I might call that thoughtcrime. Quasi child porn is not information - it is obscene material.
Not necessarily relevant, but calling Iraq a Muslim country is much more accurate now than it would have been pre-invasion.
I didn't talk about quasi child porn here because it is several layers away from either Kill Bill or a snuff flick - and you didn't raise the question. That and well it takes longer for me to explain my position on that issue. If your interested in why I think it is right that quasi child porn is illegal see my post here
Laws are passed to ensure a healthy society, laws that prohibit one party from doing something that does not directly cause harm to another. This in itself is a good thing. Some of the laws are good, like obscenity (of which child porn is a subset) and prostitution laws, and some are wrong, like sodomy, and Jim Crow laws. I think it is important that society has the right to set social boundaries - that is the right not to deal with, and punish, certain anti-social behaviors. While prostitution and obscenity doesn't (necessarily) hurt any one individual it does deleterious effect on peace and order with offering no real benefit to society or the person committing the offense (unlike free speech.) Obscenity is not similar to sodomy laws in that it is possible for two consenting adults to "commit" sodomy, whereas it is not possible for a child to consent to be sexualized.
Obscenity is different from violent or otherwise distasteful displays (Nazi demonstrations for example) because of the sexual element. It is a fact of human existence that sex complicates things; sex can be either good (as in a healthy expression of love) or bad (as in objectification, degradation, and rape) and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference (as in a couple acting out a rape fantasy, or S&M, or swinging, or voyeurism etc.) That is why sex has earned itself its own niche in the free speech issue. While a loving couple may know that it is a rape fantasy, it might appeal to an entirely different and prurient interest to someone else who gets his hands on, copies and distributes the video tape. In addition to this, the creation of obscene material is market driven, that is to say that it is made because there is a demand. This is where hate material is different. A video of a lynching may be equally or more distasteful, but the video is legal because it was produced not because someone wanted to watch it but because someone wanted to create it (same story with beheadings etc.) If no one wanted to watch - and pay for - child porn for whatever reason production would plummet. That is what obscenity laws try to do.
Now, as for quasi child porn... Since pornography production in general is market driven it makes sense to attack the market that is essentially paying to watch children be abused. This market's borders are not limited to actual cases of abuse, but sprawls to slightly less evil, but still wholly unacceptable portrayals of child abuse that do not involve an actual child. Going after someone who possess quasi child porn is attacking the root of the child porn problem because in the final product (not in the manufacture) there is no substantial difference between a photo, a photo realistic artists rendering with a model, a photo realistic artist rendering without a model, a CGI rendering, and a stylized artist rendering. Again this is the crux of my point - the market is the problem, possession of the material is the crime, quasi child porn and real child porn are indistinguishable if you don't consider the manufacture.
The problem that an accusation = evidence is a problem is not unique to this niche. We are not enforcing thought crime because the accused must actually posses something illegal - that he didn't think it was illegal is no more a defense here than it is in drug paraphernalia cases.
Miller v. California is erring on the side of caution to the extreme. I also think this is a good thing, it is better to let somewhat distasteful material through than to risk banning something meaningful. Also note that all these laws incorporate the SLAPS caveat - material with significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific value is not illegal. American Psycho etc. pass this test (note: this is a question for the jury.)
First of all I'm assuming that by snuff flick you mean a film that captures someone's actual murder.
I think and again IANAL, that a non-sexual snuff flick is not illegal. If it were illegal the nightly news would frequently run into trouble.
Kill Bill is and should be legal because no one was (intentionally) harmed by its making, and because it does not purport depict actual violence.
It becomes sticky if it is a sexual snuff flick, i.e. depicting or appearing to depict a rape/murder in a sexually explicit manner. It is my opinion that the Miller Test is a good way to draw the line. It draws on an average person applying community standards. It IS NOT a line in the sand, and IMO that is a good thing.
(a) In General.-- Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that-- (1) (A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) is obscene; or (2) (A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and (B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value; or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A (b)(1), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.
...
(c) Nonrequired Element of Offense.-- It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.
I'm all for free speech, but it IS NOT an absolute freedom. IMO this is not a slippery slope, your to speak on any other subject is not infringed by societies right not to have to deal with child pornographers.
There is no way by looking at the product to determine if the manufacture involved abuse. Again the abuse isn't the crime, possession of the product is. Since there is no way to tell whether or not the manufacture was criminal, anything that is designed to look like it required abuse to make is illegal. That doesn't mean that porn is illegal by default unless verified to be kosher, it does mean that if a reasonable person would consider the subject depicted to be a person under 18 it is the same as if the person is under 18.
It matters not at all that the manufacture was completely legal if the consumer believes, or should believe that the manufacture consisted of abuse of a child. This is why the photo-realistic artist rendering of an underage model is illegal, or a lifelike computer model is (and should be) illegal if a reasonable person should believe that the creation endangered a child.
methadone is not to quasi child porn as heroine is to child porn
Heroine use creates a high/withdrawal that is anti-social and in many cases causes the user to hurt himself and/or other people. For that reason it is illegal and users are prosecuted.
Use of methadone without a prescription is illegal and prosecuted. Methadone does not cause the user to hurt people, provided a steady supply is available. The steady supply portion ought to be guaranteed or the user will not use methadone, as it doe not produce the high. Use of methadone is government sponsored to assure quality, quantity, and compliance. Your argument still wouldn't be cogent if there was a quasi child porn prescribing agent because the physical addiction associated with heroine is in no way similar to the mental addiction associated with porn.
On an interesting, but not relevant note heroine received its name because it was supposed to save people from dangerous and anti-social morphine addictions.
I believe the standard test is to ask the jury if the subject of the photo, or drawing appears to be under 18. The prosecution can put up photos of very mature looking 18yr olds, and the defense can put up photos of very immature looking 18yr olds.
It is possible to have child porn without a child - look at thought exercise I posed again, and tell me where the line is.
My interpretation (again IANAL) of Miller v. California and the state laws where I live is that you would not be guilty of child porn laws for taking pictures of your own wife even if she is under 18 since it is not contrary to sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law. (You might get in trouble if your wife were 18+, looked under 18, and you distributed the photos however.) The standard with porn is the appearance, the standard with sex is the actual age. The reason should be obvious. First you have to draw the line somewhere. Second if you are actually having the sex you are in control of the situation, if you are merely looking at the sex you can't be expected to know the age of the parties involved - if they look under 18 they essentially are under 18.
It is socially less acceptable to fantasize about child molestation than murder. To tell you the truth I don't really have a problem with that.
The difference between watching Kill Bill, or playing GTA and child porn is that child porn creates a real threat to someone. What I was saying isn't that child porn causes someone to molest children, but rather that quasi-child porn breaches the barrier to real child porn. I won't argue that someone who looks at kiddie porn is a molester (although if I had kids I wouldn't want them around) but I will argue that quasi child porn is similar enough to real child porn that there is no substantial difference between a child porn consumer and a quasi child porn consumer.
The offence that kiddie porn consumers commits isn't the molestation itself it is the creation of a market that hinges on abused children. If you get your rocks off looking at quasi porn you are creating the exact same market as if you were looking at real porn.
I'll again pose the challenge, what is the difference between real child porn, photo-realistic child porn with a model, and photo realistic child porn without a model? Now what is the difference between photo-realistic porn and more stylized child porn?
people who might be helping themselves with this fake child porn, who would otherwise turn to real child porn?
If you believe this I'm frightened. People who look at child porn, or quasi child porn aren't helping themselves or anyone else, and should be arrested and severely punished.
Child porn laws aren't just there to protect the children who are being abused, but also to set clear boundaries as to what is not acceptable. If quasi-child porn were legal it sends the message that there is nothing wrong with fantasizing about children. This isn't calling the thought police - looking at quasi-child porn is a real offence and puts real children in danger. It whets the appetite of the perv.
Consider this thought exercise: Clearly photographs of actual children being abused is illegal. What about a photo-realistic painting that used actual models (for lack of a better term.) How is a photo-realistic painting different from a photograph? Now what if there isn't a real life model? Now what if it isn't photo-realistic? Is realism going to be the litmus test? I say no otherwise you will have child pornographers simply adding effects to their pictures - it isn't "realistic" so it isn't illegal.
I think you must call anything that depicts children in a sexually explicit manner as child porn. This means that photos, paintings, cartoons, and drawings clearly portraying child abuse are illegal. Photographs of actual girls who are 18+ designed to look like children are also illegal. This all is to send the clear message that if you sexualize children you will be punished. Add the boilerplate, the work does not contain significant scientific, literary, or artistic redeeming value caveat, and I am very comfortable in saying that those in possession of such an image have committed an actual crime. (IANAL - but I believe that this is the way the law is written in the US)
This isn't a think of the children argument, nor is it trading liberty for security, or any such nonsense. It is protecting real people from real predators as well as society defining its bounds of acceptability.
On a completely unrelated note apperently Florida has established its own currency, FTFA (Northwest Florida Daily News)
The FutureTruck competition challenged teams of students from 15 top North American universities to continue reengineering a conventional production vehicle into a lower-emissions vehicle with at least 25% higher fuel economy, without sacrificing the performance, utility, safety, and affordability consumers want.
Looks like the project ended in 2004, and there are no 1000+ mpg vehicles - but Wisconsin increased the fuel efficiency of an Explorer by 33% (to 25mpg)
Well you have to draw the line somewhere, and IANAL but in the state of Delaware the law reads:
a) A person is guilty of rape in the fourth degree when the person:
(1) Intentionally engages in sexual intercourse with another person, and the victim has not yet reached his or her sixteenth birthday; or
(2) Intentionally engages in sexual intercourse with another person, and the victim has not yet reached his or her eighteenth birthday, and the person is 30 years of age or older, except that such intercourse shall not be unlawful if the victim and person are married at the time of such intercourse
...
(a) A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when the person:
(1) Intentionally engages in sexual intercourse with another person, and the victim has not reached his or her sixteenth birthday and the person is at least 10 years older than the victim, or the victim has not yet reached his or her fourteenth birthday and the person has reached his or her nineteenth birthday and is not otherwise subject to prosecution pursuant to 772 or 773 of this title; or
So it looks like your cousin isn't doing anything illegal now if the law in your state is similar, but would have been in trouble a year ago.
The whole point is that of course consent matters, but in most cases a 15yr olds ability to give consent is mitigated by her age and especially by the age of her (or his) would-be adult partner.
Slashdot Mirror
Not necessarily. The liquid armor in question is a dilatant. It should provide stiffening in any region in which there is a large shear stress (there is definately a large shear component in a "crushing" auto accident.) While I doubt that this technology could protect you from a truck impact, it would likely stiffen the region of impact. This could be a good thing, like if you are being T-boned - the added rigidity increases the amount of impact your vehicle's side could withstand, or it could be a bad thing, reducing the effectiveness of the crumple zones in a head on collision.
In any forum, anywhere, but especially on the internet, if anyone talks about anything a flamewar ensues.
For all the flames, there is however, some healthy exchange of ideas, which I would prefer over the uninformative crap the gets spewed on the nightly news.
I don't think it is impossible for a significant portion of the population to understand tech, I don't think that it is impossible for any one to understand anything. I think you are perpetuating the real problem with the media today - they think everyone is an idiot.
Because the media caters to the lowest common denominator no on really thinks they need to learn anything, because after all, CNN can package stories about net neutrality in 2 minute segments. I personally believe that a lot of the "masses" are more than capable of understanding the issues, we just need someone to raise the bar.
I don't think this is unique to tech either. I think we see the same problem in politics, i.e. wiretaps, and DMCA. Rather than explain the real issues, have two talking heads barking at each other. It just so happens that this gets really ugly when technology and politics merge.
All these failings come down to one thing - money. Let's face it news is big buisness, and journalism has known for a long time that sensationalism sells papers - they, by and large, just haven't managed to preserve the noblility of their profession while selling papers. And as a result we're suffering, and the average American is more poorly informed, they're suffering, and newspaper subscriptions are falling and news segments get squeezed out for human interest, or entertainment news.
But hey, the politicians love it. Instead of debating on the merits of, say NASA funding, they get to preach about flag burning and gay marrige.
completely OT i know
Last I heard the highest concentration of consumer warning labels was underneath the hood of your car. I mean I know that there may be subtle ways to hurt yourself screwing around with your engine, but do we really need to be told that battery acid is not a desert topping? (besides ethylene glycol is much more delicious)
I know this has been said before but I think the number of warning labels is an excellent measuring stick for how idiotically litigious we have become.
One more anecdote I bought a ~3' long, 2' wide, 1' deep sotage container the other day and there was a warning label (picture only) that depicted a baby tipping over into the contianer. I can only assume it was some sort of drowning warning, but the only thing I could think of was "Do not store baby in container..."
Ok now I'm off to tie the drawstring of the blinds around my neck (for safety) and see if the nylon screen can stop me from falling out the window at a run.
IMO it isn't about the cost of electricity. I don't think the consumer will ever care how many cents it costs to play WoW for an hour. Honest question, which costs more to run, the video card or the 21'' CRT gamers love so much? My guess is that graphics cards would have to eat loads more power to even come close to the power consumption of the monitor...
If you want the issue to be one of cost, wattage use isn't the problem. Consumers will only care when the up when it becomes too expensive to buy both a video card and a power supply that will run it. Then we will see the trend reverse. However, I don't think it is an issue of the cost of power. I think that we see a reversal in the trend of power hungary graphics cards when cooling becomes unfeasable. If we keep getting better cooling solutions than power consumption will continue to climb until graphics cards start tripping breakers. That I think may be the final limit on power consumption.
Yes, and when transfering heat away from the object we're concerned with we typically call that cooling. Sure the heat goes somewhere but we don't care if it isn't our house.
For instance, if you park your car in a car port (no walls - ambient temperature,) and your neighbor parks his car outside on a cold clear night there is a fair chance that your car won't have ice on the windshield, but his will. Why? because the net radiation your car sees (Tcar^4 - Troof^4) is near zero - no heat transfer, while the net radiation your neighbors car sees (Tcar^4-Tspace^4) is negative. His car is being cooled through radiation. It is more convienient in some cases to think of radient cooling, rather than heating something like space. Technically it is all heat transfer - it makes exactly the same amount of sence to think of radiative heating as is does rediative cooling.
I'm pretty sure you knew this, but seing in three dimensions means having stereoscopic vision, and the benifits of much improved depth perception.
FTFA,
predatory birds evolved much later than snakes, after primates developed steroscopic vision.
The event in SE asia was 800,000 years ago, presumably the even in Egypt was more recent.
As you implied, before civilization doesn't necessarily mean that an apocolyptic event would not be repeated and mythologized for centuries.
Of course the only products that attract criminals are those that are illegal. What you're saying is that only illegal things are illegal. What "attracts criminals" isn't the legal status of the goods, it is the demand. If you were to illegalize something with precisely zero demand, say pet rocks, there wouldn't be a mafia supplied rock store.
There will always be a demand for drugs, and there will always be people who abuse them, legal status not withstanding.
I also think it is inaccurate to claim that there weren't drug problems before drug regulation. Morphine addiction was a very real problem especially around the time of the civil war. Alcohol addiction as well has been a recurring historical theme.
The interesting, and open, question to me is how has regulation and prohibition affected the safety and potency of drugs. Commercial marijuana, cocaine, heroine, are all more potent now than they were 30 years ago, likely driven by regulation. On the other hand meth, ecstasy, and crack are likely all more dangerous than previously, which has likely been driven by a combination of the cost and availability of certain processing ingredients (e.g. ephedrine vs. pseudoephephdrine for meth production)
The problem with drugs is, and always has been, their addictive nature. You maintain that we could have productive addicts, I tend to disagree. Sure there might be functional alcoholics, and even coke heads, but I suspect that the majority of these groups are non-productive. Extrapolate to heroine, and I have hard time believing that people would be tying off in the bathroom of their 9-5.
Contrary to the PSA commercials drugs aren't that expensive. You can buy crack for less than a pack of cigarettes, and college students are known to consume large quantities of weed. Yet crackheads are still known to steal to feed their habit. Even if prices of the more expensive drugs (coke, e, etc.) were to fall with legalization it doesn't address the deeper problem that it is hard to hold a job, pay rent, and be a druggie.
I saw a vrey itrensetnig sing the ohetr day, the gsit of it was taht you can udetsdnard msot Enislgh so lnog as the frsit and lsat ltetrs are in the rhgit pacle. Makes me tihnk taht selplnig is a lot lses itonprmat tahn we've been led to bilevee.
It is my opinion (no, I don't have the data, but it seems reasonable) that the only reason someone would look at quasi child porn is that sexualized images of children excite them. I think that those excited by sexualized images of children is the defining characteristic of the child porn market. Therefore, it is my belief that the market for real child porn and quasi child porn is one and the same. Further, it is my opinion that the only reason people look and quasi child porn instead of real child porn is that they believe (falsely) that it is legal and that they won't get into trouble for looking at the quasi porn.
It seems to me (I could be wrong) that a major component of cartoon porn depicts minors. I doubt it is a coincidence that there is less interest in more mature looking (20ish) cartoons. I also think it is unlikely that were child porn more available a major portion of the quasi child porn market would avoid the real stuff at all costs due to qualms about the ability of the models to consent.
Possession of quasi child porn is no more thoughtcrime than possession of homegrown drugs (no one hurt in its manufacture.) I'd rather see someone locked up for child porn thoughtcrime than marijuana thoughtcrime.
I don't think that people should be locked up for possessing verboten information e.g. weapons plans. I might call that thoughtcrime. Quasi child porn is not information - it is obscene material.
Not necessarily relevant, but calling Iraq a Muslim country is much more accurate now than it would have been pre-invasion.
I didn't talk about quasi child porn here because it is several layers away from either Kill Bill or a snuff flick - and you didn't raise the question. That and well it takes longer for me to explain my position on that issue. If your interested in why I think it is right that quasi child porn is illegal see my post here
Laws are passed to ensure a healthy society, laws that prohibit one party from doing something that does not directly cause harm to another. This in itself is a good thing. Some of the laws are good, like obscenity (of which child porn is a subset) and prostitution laws, and some are wrong, like sodomy, and Jim Crow laws. I think it is important that society has the right to set social boundaries - that is the right not to deal with, and punish, certain anti-social behaviors. While prostitution and obscenity doesn't (necessarily) hurt any one individual it does deleterious effect on peace and order with offering no real benefit to society or the person committing the offense (unlike free speech.) Obscenity is not similar to sodomy laws in that it is possible for two consenting adults to "commit" sodomy, whereas it is not possible for a child to consent to be sexualized.
Obscenity is different from violent or otherwise distasteful displays (Nazi demonstrations for example) because of the sexual element. It is a fact of human existence that sex complicates things; sex can be either good (as in a healthy expression of love) or bad (as in objectification, degradation, and rape) and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference (as in a couple acting out a rape fantasy, or S&M, or swinging, or voyeurism etc.) That is why sex has earned itself its own niche in the free speech issue. While a loving couple may know that it is a rape fantasy, it might appeal to an entirely different and prurient interest to someone else who gets his hands on, copies and distributes the video tape. In addition to this, the creation of obscene material is market driven, that is to say that it is made because there is a demand. This is where hate material is different. A video of a lynching may be equally or more distasteful, but the video is legal because it was produced not because someone wanted to watch it but because someone wanted to create it (same story with beheadings etc.) If no one wanted to watch - and pay for - child porn for whatever reason production would plummet. That is what obscenity laws try to do.
Now, as for quasi child porn...
Since pornography production in general is market driven it makes sense to attack the market that is essentially paying to watch children be abused. This market's borders are not limited to actual cases of abuse, but sprawls to slightly less evil, but still wholly unacceptable portrayals of child abuse that do not involve an actual child. Going after someone who possess quasi child porn is attacking the root of the child porn problem because in the final product (not in the manufacture) there is no substantial difference between a photo, a photo realistic artists rendering with a model, a photo realistic artist rendering without a model, a CGI rendering, and a stylized artist rendering. Again this is the crux of my point - the market is the problem, possession of the material is the crime, quasi child porn and real child porn are indistinguishable if you don't consider the manufacture.
The problem that an accusation = evidence is a problem is not unique to this niche. We are not enforcing thought crime because the accused must actually posses something illegal - that he didn't think it was illegal is no more a defense here than it is in drug paraphernalia cases.
Miller v. California is erring on the side of caution to the extreme. I also think this is a good thing, it is better to let somewhat distasteful material through than to risk banning something meaningful. Also note that all these laws incorporate the SLAPS caveat - material with significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific value is not illegal. American Psycho etc. pass this test (note: this is a question for the jury.)
First of all I'm assuming that by snuff flick you mean a film that captures someone's actual murder.
I think and again IANAL, that a non-sexual snuff flick is not illegal. If it were illegal the nightly news would frequently run into trouble.
Kill Bill is and should be legal because no one was (intentionally) harmed by its making, and because it does not purport depict actual violence.
It becomes sticky if it is a sexual snuff flick, i.e. depicting or appearing to depict a rape/murder in a sexually explicit manner. It is my opinion that the Miller Test is a good way to draw the line. It draws on an average person applying community standards. It IS NOT a line in the sand, and IMO that is a good thing.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/u
I'm all for free speech, but it IS NOT an absolute freedom. IMO this is not a slippery slope, your to speak on any other subject is not infringed by societies right not to have to deal with child pornographers.
There is no way by looking at the product to determine if the manufacture involved abuse. Again the abuse isn't the crime, possession of the product is. Since there is no way to tell whether or not the manufacture was criminal, anything that is designed to look like it required abuse to make is illegal. That doesn't mean that porn is illegal by default unless verified to be kosher, it does mean that if a reasonable person would consider the subject depicted to be a person under 18 it is the same as if the person is under 18.
It matters not at all that the manufacture was completely legal if the consumer believes, or should believe that the manufacture consisted of abuse of a child. This is why the photo-realistic artist rendering of an underage model is illegal, or a lifelike computer model is (and should be) illegal if a reasonable person should believe that the creation endangered a child.
methadone is not to quasi child porn as heroine is to child porn
Heroine use creates a high/withdrawal that is anti-social and in many cases causes the user to hurt himself and/or other people. For that reason it is illegal and users are prosecuted.
Use of methadone without a prescription is illegal and prosecuted. Methadone does not cause the user to hurt people, provided a steady supply is available. The steady supply portion ought to be guaranteed or the user will not use methadone, as it doe not produce the high. Use of methadone is government sponsored to assure quality, quantity, and compliance. Your argument still wouldn't be cogent if there was a quasi child porn prescribing agent because the physical addiction associated with heroine is in no way similar to the mental addiction associated with porn.
On an interesting, but not relevant note heroine received its name because it was supposed to save people from dangerous and anti-social morphine addictions.
I believe the standard test is to ask the jury if the subject of the photo, or drawing appears to be under 18. The prosecution can put up photos of very mature looking 18yr olds, and the defense can put up photos of very immature looking 18yr olds.
It is possible to have child porn without a child - look at thought exercise I posed again, and tell me where the line is.
My interpretation (again IANAL) of Miller v. California and the state laws where I live is that you would not be guilty of child porn laws for taking pictures of your own wife even if she is under 18 since it is not contrary to sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law. (You might get in trouble if your wife were 18+, looked under 18, and you distributed the photos however.) The standard with porn is the appearance, the standard with sex is the actual age. The reason should be obvious. First you have to draw the line somewhere. Second if you are actually having the sex you are in control of the situation, if you are merely looking at the sex you can't be expected to know the age of the parties involved - if they look under 18 they essentially are under 18.
I'll take the bait.
It is socially less acceptable to fantasize about child molestation than murder. To tell you the truth I don't really have a problem with that.
The difference between watching Kill Bill, or playing GTA and child porn is that child porn creates a real threat to someone. What I was saying isn't that child porn causes someone to molest children, but rather that quasi-child porn breaches the barrier to real child porn. I won't argue that someone who looks at kiddie porn is a molester (although if I had kids I wouldn't want them around) but I will argue that quasi child porn is similar enough to real child porn that there is no substantial difference between a child porn consumer and a quasi child porn consumer.
The offence that kiddie porn consumers commits isn't the molestation itself it is the creation of a market that hinges on abused children. If you get your rocks off looking at quasi porn you are creating the exact same market as if you were looking at real porn.
I'll again pose the challenge, what is the difference between real child porn, photo-realistic child porn with a model, and photo realistic child porn without a model? Now what is the difference between photo-realistic porn and more stylized child porn?
If you believe this I'm frightened. People who look at child porn, or quasi child porn aren't helping themselves or anyone else, and should be arrested and severely punished.
Child porn laws aren't just there to protect the children who are being abused, but also to set clear boundaries as to what is not acceptable. If quasi-child porn were legal it sends the message that there is nothing wrong with fantasizing about children. This isn't calling the thought police - looking at quasi-child porn is a real offence and puts real children in danger. It whets the appetite of the perv.
Consider this thought exercise: Clearly photographs of actual children being abused is illegal. What about a photo-realistic painting that used actual models (for lack of a better term.) How is a photo-realistic painting different from a photograph? Now what if there isn't a real life model? Now what if it isn't photo-realistic? Is realism going to be the litmus test? I say no otherwise you will have child pornographers simply adding effects to their pictures - it isn't "realistic" so it isn't illegal.
I think you must call anything that depicts children in a sexually explicit manner as child porn. This means that photos, paintings, cartoons, and drawings clearly portraying child abuse are illegal. Photographs of actual girls who are 18+ designed to look like children are also illegal. This all is to send the clear message that if you sexualize children you will be punished. Add the boilerplate, the work does not contain significant scientific, literary, or artistic redeeming value caveat, and I am very comfortable in saying that those in possession of such an image have committed an actual crime. (IANAL - but I believe that this is the way the law is written in the US)
This isn't a think of the children argument, nor is it trading liberty for security, or any such nonsense. It is protecting real people from real predators as well as society defining its bounds of acceptability.
On a completely unrelated note apperently Florida has established its own currency, FTFA (Northwest Florida Daily News)
(from the website)
is a tad harder.
You mean like this?i tions/futuretruck/index.html
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/research/compet
Looks like the project ended in 2004, and there are no 1000+ mpg vehicles - but Wisconsin increased the fuel efficiency of an Explorer by 33% (to 25mpg)
So it looks like your cousin isn't doing anything illegal now if the law in your state is similar, but would have been in trouble a year ago.
The whole point is that of course consent matters, but in most cases a 15yr olds ability to give consent is mitigated by her age and especially by the age of her (or his) would-be adult partner.
It doesn't matter if it is the first time the girl got laid.
It doesn't matter if it was consensual. (It probably wasn't forced sex, or he'd be charged with rape, not sexual assault)
It doesn't matter if this would never have come to light had the mother not found out.
He's 19. She's 14. As you said the law is the law, and sexual assault is sexual assault.
He should be prosecuted - it is his fault he fooled around with a minor, and all accounts indicate that she said she was 14 on myspace.
Oh, and btw, suing myspace is ridiculous.