Delicious LiveJournal Links for 10-1-2009

[andrewducker]

• No, I Will Not Molest Your Kids
  A reaction to the extreme care some people now take.
  (tags: children Child_abuse society)
• Marmaduke meets Cthulhu!
  (tags: comics funny cthulhu)
• An Artificial Heart That Doesn't Beat
  "You put this in cattle and they stand up and moo and eat and wonder why everyone is looking at them so weird," says William Cohn, a collaborator on the research and director of minimally invasive surgical technology at the Texas Heart Institute. "You see a cow wagging his tail and you say, wow, this is the future of the artificial heart."
  (tags: future technology science biology heart)
• French drop Polanski release call
  A drop of common sense.
  (tags: rape politics France)
• Comics Review: Alan Moore & Bill Sienkiewicz, Big Numbers 3
  Oh, what I'd pay for a completed Big Numbers.
  (tags: comics alan_moore BillSienkiewicz review)
• RAF leaflet box kills Afghan girl
  Now _that_'s not going to be winning any hearts or minds
  (tags: Irony EpicFail afghanistan)
• A list of people who think that raping 13-year-olds is fine, if you make movies.
  (tags: polanski rape EpicFail)
• PC tune-up software: less effective than spending the cash on RAM
  (tags: software windows memory)
• Online advertising overtakes TV advertising in the UK
  Now that was unexpected.
  (tags: internet advertising tv)

Comments

[andrewducker]

To be slightly less pithy - it's a list of people that object to the arrest of pedophiles, if the arrest happens at a film festival. Or can you see some other way to read the text?

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Minor semantic point and I'm not condoning anything, but according to the evidence Roman Polanski is neither legally not clinically a paedophile.

[andrewducker]

Good point. But then they don't actually mention the crime, they merely say that they object to people being arrested when travelling to film festivals. One wonders if there are any crimes they would want attendees to be arrested for.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Well, I was really just calling foul on your wording, not theirs. I'm not sure what to say about theirs.

I honestly think the whole thing was political maneuvering on Switzerland's part.

I also think that putting a 76 year old man who, as far as we know (and let's be honest, we'd probably at least have heard rumours) has done nothing suspect in the 30 years since the original case, and whose victim has precious little animosity towards him, is bordering on the pointless. But that's because I believe in imprisoning people (a) to keep them from doing harm and (b) to discourage them from reoffending, and neither points really apply here.

That being said, he should never have skipped bail.

That being said, his judge shouldn't have reneged on his plea bargain.

That being said, he should never have been given a bargain that let him off jail time in the first place.

And of course we don't want to encourage child molesters to skip the country, filmmakers or not. Which maybe satisfies point (a) above.


...So I guess what I'm saying is that whatever happens now, to my mind, is a bit pointless and doesn't make anyone involved look good, and as such all the to-ing and fro-ing more bores me than anything else.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Nicely put.

[andrewducker]

To be honest, the idea of Roman Polanski not ever having been arrested and never facing a court wouldn't bother me.

What bothers me is people saying that he should be set free, having been arrested. I can think of no conceivable reason why he deserves special treatment. Pretty much any emotion is feel is aimed at them, not him.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I know exactly why people want him freed. It's because they expect an example to made if he gets back into a courtroom, and for him to spend the last years of his life in prison, and they his release as the only way out. And I don't know about you, but I think they may well be right.

[andrewducker]

It wouldn't bother me if they were right. Or, on the other hand, if they were wrong and the original plea bargain was carried out. I have neither sympathy nor malice towards him.

I simply wonder how many of the signatories would be coming out on his side if he wasn't a famous film maker, but a normal fugitive...

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I know that I personally would feel the same about any 76 year old man who I reckoned not to be a thread to society who faced jail. But yeah, I doubt there'd be a celebrity petition.

Then again, you weren't particularly up-in-arms about the rash of people who petitioned to have Alan Turing receive an official apology from the UK Gov rather than the thousands of faceless, nameless men who suffered the same tortures and iniquities, were you? Stop press, celebrities get more attention.

*Edit* Although I realise that you're also suggesting that they might have the opposite opinion if it was a normal fugitive, not that they simply wouldn't give it their attention. I'm not even sure on that one - I'd imagine few could say.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Also:

One wonders if there are any crimes they would want attendees to be arrested for.

...Watching Uwe Boll films?

[andrewducker]

Punishment enough, one feels :->

[andrewducker]

I actually got a chance to look this up (didn't want to from work)- and the definitions pretty much all say "One who has sex with children", which he did.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophilia#Diagnosis

I was referring to the DSM diagnostic criteria.

My remembering was actually that it was under 13 (ie: 12 and younger) which is apparently slightly wrong (although now that I think about it I think maybe in the UK it's 12 and 13 in the US), so theoretically Polanski could qualify (although these things are by no means cut and dried of course). But there you go anyway.

[broin.livejournal.com]

It's not pithy, it's blithely diminishing an already complex issue. Tilda Swinton doesn't have Eyes Wide Shut rape orgies, nor is Terry Gilliam sitting down to wonder which teenage girls he can rape this week.

As you say, it's a list of people who object to the manner of his arrest. I do too. That's separate from the crime he confessed to.

And where did you get the idea he was a paedophile?

[andrewducker]

Tilda Swinton doesn't have Eyes Wide Shut rape orgies, nor is Terry Gilliam sitting down to wonder which teenage girls he can rape this week.

Did anyone say they did?

As you say, it's a list of people who object to the manner of his arrest.
Which strikes me as barking mad. Film festivals are suddenly law-free zones???

And sorry, yes - I'd replace "paedophile" with "rapist", but sadly I can't.

[broin.livejournal.com]

"A list of people who think that raping 13-year-olds is fine, if you make movies."

I do not think Tilda Swinton and Terry Gilliam are in favor of the rape of 13 year old girls, single or en masse. You do. Right?

[andrewducker]

I think they're standing up in defense of someone who raped a 13 year old girl, yes. If that's not tacit defense of the act then what is it?

I've already seen Whoopi Goldberg offer the incredibly dumb response that "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape." - which is simply incoherent to me, and does seem to be defending the drugging and rape of a 13 year old as not being sufficiently rape-ish for her to be upset by it. Goodness knows what these other people are thinking.

[broin.livejournal.com]

For some people, rape and responsibility is more complex than either/or.

Furthermore, if I felt there was injustice in the arrest of someone, then pointing out that injustice does not mean I condone the alleged or actual crime.

I opposed the extradition of that hacker last month for similar reasons.

[andrewducker]

For some people, rape and responsibility is more complex than either/or.

Absolutely. And this is why juries and judges exist, to weigh things up.

I can't understand how his arrest was at all injust, to be honest.

[broin.livejournal.com]

So he lives in Switzerland. Owns property there. But they arrest him at a film festival? Someone is trying to score political points with this.

[broin.livejournal.com]

You didn't answer this one.

Let's be entirely clear: You're saying I condone child rape, right?

[andrewducker]

Wrong.

I haven't heard you speak either way about whether child rapists should face trial.

Got an opinion on the matter?

[broin.livejournal.com]

One set of goalposts at a time, please. ;)

I would be happy to have my name on that petition. You're saying that means I condone child rape. Yep?

[andrewducker]

Also, I don't find it to be a terribly complex issue.
Man commits crime.
Man flees country for one with no extradition agreement.
Man enters country which has extradition agreement.
Man is arrested so that he can be extradited to face trial.

I don't see where the complication lies.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

"Paedophile" strikes me as exactly the right word for someone who likes having sex with thirteen-year-olds. She was a child; people who have sex with children are paedophiles. This particular paedophile is also a rapist. Rapists should be jailed, and age does not entitle them to special treatment, particularly when the reason they are being arrested at an advance age is that they fled from justice. The issues are not at all complex, and everyone who signed that petition or is defending those who did should be ashamed of themselves.