Don't forget a culture of Puritans. As much as I don't want to see people walking around nude (for æsthetic reasons, considering how most nudists/naturists look), there is nothing morally wrong or inherently sexual with the human body in its natural state. The only saving grace of growing up in a religious household is that for me, sex will always be dirty.

I'm one of the happily child-free, but I actually do fear the day when my siblings drop sprogs and what could happen to me when I hang out with said spawn. I can't claim any understanding of your situation, but I wish the best to you

That's part of the problem of having draconian laws coupled with a sensationalist media. Despite the fact that all crime is only a small fraction of what it was in the era when old-timers tell us that they didn't lock the doors, we have an entire populace that is afraid of everyone.

It's insane what can get people on the sex-offenders register, such as drunks pissing in the alley after last call, or a couple swimming nude in their own pool despite having a 9' privacy fence because some neighbour's crotch-fruit decides to have a peek. In the former case, the guy should get court-ordered alcohol education at the very worst, and in the latter, the brats should be prosecuted for trespass. In fact, a good friend of mine could be labeled a "sex-offender" under California statutes (which have no "Romeo and Juliet" provisions) for sleeping with her then-boyfriend,, and now husband of almost 15 years during the two weeks between her 18th birthday and his.

Perhaps my aversion to having kids myself stems from not wanting to bring a child into a world where I see things as only going from bad to worse

I was raised Catholic, so I got exposed to that silly bit of dogma at an early age. The whole bit where "it looks and tastes the same" is basically hand waved as some sort of divine mystery to explain why it doesn't taste like Soylent Green.. Even though I was only seven when they started trying to drill that stuff into my head, my bullshit detector was already developed enough to start critically examining and disbelieving the whole thing.

Actually, some denominations (such as the Catholics and, IIRC, the Orthodox) believe that it becomes flesh and blood in the literal sense.

Because the land in Zimbabwe wasn't given to farmhands or people who would be willing to learn. It was given to Mugabe's thugs and cronies who don't care if their country starves because *they* certainly won't.

Hate to be pedantic, but Shepherd's pie is made with lamb, not beef. Cottage pie is the one with beef in it.

I'm not exactly sure I feel on the issue, but many would argue that corporations *are* the government these days. They certainly have disproportionate control over out congresscritters.

Why are you guys even talking about Wilma Flinstone in a sexual manner? You know she'll never leave Fred.

The tentacle pr0n meme has spread further in the popular consciousness simply because deeper and more interesting titles tend to be dismissed as "mere cartoons," and therefore not worth taking seriously. Now, when the "cartoons" are not so innocent when tentacle beasts are violating schoolgirls, it becomes suddenly amusing enough to spread.

In this guys case, he probably just had a copy of something as innocent as Evangelion on his drive and the mouth-breathing cop freaked-out.

It's one thing to tell them to take down material using stills from the films, which is a perfectly reasonable course of action. Forcing them to change their name/menu or go out of business is disproportionate.

I doubt that the ACLU involves itself much in British cases.

Aye, there is. spreadingsantorum.com/

Thanks for the good wishes. And you're right, the model has to be totally revamped in order to the sort of abuses that we see on the front page here every bloody day. The entire purpose of copyright has been hopelessly perverted. And honestly, unless it was $MEGACORP I'd be angrier that nobody had been courteous enough to call and ask for permission that I'd probably freely give than any money that may or may not be involved. In terms of my own work, and given the cost of producing and properly framing pro-quality prints[1], I'm tempted to put full-quality .tiffs on the site and just stick a PayPal link to collect donations.

[1] The cost of a decent 11"x14" print, matting and framing it plus shipping costs easily exceed the costs of a DVD boxed-set, so I have no illusions that anyone who doesn't want a perfect copy would ever buy it.

For part of me, my opinion is formed by the fact that I"m starting to get back into doing photographic work and hopefully, when I manage to get my portfolio back together, make some money off of it (even if I still need to keep a day job). Since I'm more inclined to the Fine-Arts and want to sell prints rather than commercial work (which would be a work for hire in any event), I really don't care if .pngs are downloaded/used by anyone on the Net. If it brings someone joy, or they want to use it as a starting point for some work that they're creating, good. I didn't grow up in a cultural clean-room, and neither has anyone else. Where I draw the line is if someone who is trying to make a buck decides to use my work to make money.

The only problem with abolishing copyright altogether is that it allows groups like the MAFIAA and affiliated companies to take the work of artists who don't even make a deal with the Devil and sell them, and make huge amounts of money off said sales.

IMO, copyright needs to be amended to automatically include the terms of some sort of Creative Commons license, as well as have drastically shorter durations. No artist has a right to profit, but I do believe that allowing an actually limited fictional monopoly on commercial use stikes a good balance between giving the creator a chance to make money off it, but protecting the rights of the culture to whom creative works ultimately belong.