Imagine a world in which the police -and parents- say anything other than, "What? That's obviously stupid. Even if the words parse so that this looks like a crime, it's obvious that a fourteen year old cannot commit a felony taking her own picture."

Imagine a sane adult claiming that the kids' lack of belief that he would bust them with a felony is the problem, not the law or his lunatic zealotry. Why do sane people hate the police? Because this guy is typical.

I'm telling you this is what has happened with almost everything around here. We are police crazy. This "nation of laws" business is leading up to insanity and it's all because of the Righties. No hippie would even imagine that the law would be applicable in this case and no cop not infected with a rigid moralism would even consider treating this as a crime.

For good measure, we all know that the cops are broke and in entire states, the cops are saying, "We can't enforce this or that kind of crime because we just don't have the money for police and trials." So we all know that the idea that "there's a law, it's God's will that it be enforced," just plain doesn't mean anything in the real world.

And what about those laws that say you can't have oral sex? They don't enforce those either. It's just freaking insane. And it's the Right, starting with Nancy Reagan and the second most pernicious idea that ever was invented in modern America (after her husband's idea that tax money was theft from the people).

The idea that there is anything that we dogmatically do not allow. That there is some social practice that doesn't result in instant death of the innocent that cannot be tolerated and must be actively expunged from our universe. That people in Texas should support you in a cell for decades and take away your possibility of happiness and freedom because you have a little bit of some herb in your pocket- that doesn't result in the immediate death of the innocent.

Imagine telling a kid, if you get a naked picture of your girlfriend, you are obligated to call the police or you are committing a felony and we will ruin your life because of it.

That is exactly what the Gestapo told kids in Germany.

And it didn't just ruin the kids' lives, it ruined the entire world.

tqwhite| sexting # Comments (View)

I have bought two V-Moda Vibe II headsets for my iPhone. Both of them died.

Lacking a receipt (I had bought the first set out of town when my previous set died) and not feeling able to go for a long time without a working headset, I bought a second set (people insisted they had good experience with them and I was a fluke).

The second headset died (in a different way) in less than a week!

I check out their warranty page and I have to send the item in - at my expense - and then they will "process" my replacement. This means at least a couple of weeks without functionality.

When I call Amazon.com, they send me a replacement. When I get it, I send the dead one. End of story.

Stay away from V-Moda. Their quality control sucks. Their warranty policy sucks. Not a good company at all.

Ps, Buy from Amazon. They rock.

tqwhite|tqwhite # Comments (View)

Judith Warner writes in the Times:

I think this is a valuable article. I had not previously thought of the correlation between the culture of intolerance among boys and the sexualization of younger and younger girls. I think it's a very useful idea.

I have often wondered how people in the intolerant countries with Taliban-like social structures work. One reads of people cooperating with them. Men accepting the idea of roving gangs of enforcers. Women, presumably, still marrying and having relationships that comfort them. (Though I understand that many might be coerced, not everyone can be.)

This article inspires me to see an underlying relationship. The feelings of powerlessness or whatever, that stimulate intolerant behavior in boys simultaneously stimulates a desire to conform in girls. This results in the reducing of strictures that allow boys to set free their inner thug, the part of them that can't deal with the 'refined' modern life where so much is outside one's control and, in girls, to release their inner tart, the part of them that seeks safety and control in by appealing to the animal urges in those that can control the environment with violence.

The consequences are frightening, as they are for the intolerant cultures. Men are encouraged by both their powerlessness (and/or whatever other cultural influences support this), the benefits of violence to their standing in the local pecking order and the support of increasingly, desperately powerless (ie, physically weak) women who increasingly resort to sexuality to gain a modicum of control, to become increasingly harsh in their desire to enforce conformity. Women are increasingly victimized since they can only enforce conformity over their own individual selves and, once that has hit it's maximum, they have no way to escalate and so become victims.

Eventually, the men, realizing that women have been exerting power over them by appealing to their sexuality see this as another aspect of powerlessness.

QED, Burkhas.

Acid in the face for learning to read is not far behind.

Welcome to your future America.

tqwhite|tqwhite # Comments (View)