This man has obviously never been laid

Our favorite asshole lawyer, Jack Thompson, has discovered *gasp* that people are actually naked under their clothes. This revelation came when Jack discovered that the game Oblivion accurately rendered women nude under their shirts.

Like most Republican prudes, Jack has never seen a naked woman and believes that people come from storks, at the ordering of God. He was also dropped on his head as a child.

I really do not understand the issue here. He does not even mention what I have already pointed out the most shocking aspect of this mod. How does plain nudity offend anyone, *unless* they are retarded prudish idiots? Maybe someone needs to talk to Jack about how babies are made.

In a game where you have missions to murder people and can kill people with swords and magic at will, the one thing the media and zealots pull out is a couple breasts. My solution? Get laid. I swear how messed up is this country? Isn’t this fairly analogous to art? What’s next, a condemnation of naked Barbie dolls? Perhaps you should rate them mature. People are naked, this is a fact. People have sex, this is a fact. There is no choice in the matter either, both of these things have to happen to continue living as a species. What does not have to happen is senseless violence. The fact that in American culture the thing that is natural is taboo and the thing that is not is totally integrated into our culture is just plain sad.

Everyone has heard of the Hot Coffee controversy courtesy of a modification to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that allowed you to have “sex” with a pixilated nude woman in the game. It was retarded, as Maddox pointed out, because it is a freaking game where you run around and steal cars and shoot police. To claim that the worst part of the game is the terrible sex scene really says quite a few things about the American value system.

Thankfully, a nerdy role-playing game called Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has outdone the stupid Hot Coffee crap. In a nod to realistic gameplay, the designers have left in skins and models for females that include *gasp* breasts. The default game covers *gasp* breasts with a default bra or whatever that thing is that covers them. So what do you think one of the first mods released is? Of course, the topless mod!

The caveat? Well kids were complaining they cant see their electronic breasts immediately after loading their modification. See, the women still have clothes on as they walk around the game world. Anger ensues. Anger leads to violence. The best way to get to see the boobies is to murder a woman character and strip her of clothes. Oh the humanity! That’s right, in this game you have to find a woman, kill her, and then strip her of all clothes just to see her naked. Now all you “games lead to real life violence” people can start crying about it. Yes, your kids are ritualistically killing women in a video game to see their naked corpses. Sounds pleasant?

I am certainly laughing. I will be keeping count of how many nerds go crazy and start killing women to see them naked in the real world after playing Oblivion. In the meantime let me continue my nude killing spree.

I just have to comment about this escalating situation all over the world, as it seems to be becoming a flash point for major violence, and I don’t see it ending anytime soon, perhaps escalating more as larger amounts of people catch wind of it.

For those of you that don’t know, a Danish newspaper published various cartoons relating to Islam and caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The cartoons were largely poking fun at various aspects of contemporary fundamentalist Islam. Though largely benign to western people, these cartoons are viewed as very serious shots at Islam, even blasphemy. This all began around October and has been building ever since. There has been continued threats and violence to Danish people, as well as the taking over of an EU office by masked gunmen in protest. The Danish prime minister has refused to really apologize for the cartoons, and I think he is correct.

As Americans and Europeans, we share a common western culture that values liberalism and democracy, and all the individual rights that encompass those ideas. Many other parts of the world value a different set of principles. The difference is obvious, but the question is should we capitulate and give up some of our free speech rights to more radical and less liberal parts of the world who take offense to western values. The answer is an emphatic NO!

We have protesters who are so angry that Islam is characterized by violence that they are committing large scale acts of violence as protest. We have more moderate Muslims condemning the violence but saying that westerners, the Danish in particular, should recognize the differences of cultures and apologize. Finally there are the fundamentalist Islamics who are already so angry at the west as a whole that violence has been occurring for decades. There is irony in each of these situations. How can someone protest and deny Islam is a violent religion by committing acts of violence? How can you preach for taking care in noticing cultural differences and then overlook the core difference in liberal ideology in the west that permits such speech? The anti-western movement and the movement against post-modernity has been going on in the middle east for decades, and I don’t think it is going anywhere until one of two things happen: the majority of the middle east adopts liberal values or they are marginalized by continued conflict and evaporating global importance (resources such as oil being used up).

One thing is clear. No one who values their free speech or western values needs to give in to “terrorist” demands that cartoons and humor about Islam is forbidden. It should be quite obvious to the middle east and Muslims who are protesting that the west is not going away, nor will it adopt Islamic values.

Another thing, I am completely and totally DISGUSTED at the major media outlets of the United States for being hesitant about showing the cartoons. This is ridiculous. I’m wondering if they even value free speech at all, or just use it as a tool when they think they can milk money out of some kind of juicy tidbit they get their hands on. Is the issue too hot? Are you afraid you will lose your vast viewership in the Middle East? (laugh) How can you coherently even do a story on these cartoons without showing them to anyone?

As for the counter to all this, the growing anti-Muslim sentiment that probably triggered these cartoons. Deal with it. Seriously, stop being cry babies. Sometimes in life your feelings are hurt and people don’t believe the same as you do. This isn’t “politically correct” world where we have to be careful what we say … this is clear cut free speech. Was it irresponsible to publish the cartoons? Probably. Was it driven by anti-Muslim sentiment? Probably. Should this kind of activity be permissible? ABSOLUTELY. It’s fundamental to liberal values to have almost unfettered access to freedom of speech, even when such speech may hurt someone’s feelings or interfere with their belief.

Of course my view is that something as widespread as religion (there are thousands of religions, maybe millions from the past, present, and more in the future) should not be something you fight over. Your religion is just one of many, you can believe everyone else is going to hell or something, just keep it to your damn self and quit trying to tell everyone else. Unfortunately it is in the nature of Christianity and Islam to spread aggressively which causes inevitable conflict.

Anyway, here are the cartoons .. because I happen to value my freedom of speech and expression.

Blizzard says no to any player who wants to role-play a same sex marriage. Apparently Blizzard has the policy that if anyone in the game ever thinks that what you say or do is offensive and they report it, then it is. This is the best policy to keep everyone happy, while at the same time pissing everyone off. Way to go Blizzard.

Because girls kissing or getting married to each other in a game is going to make your daughter a lesbian, or guys role-playing gay relationships is going to turn your WoW addicted nerdy son into a raging homo. Its just distasteful! It ruins the entire sanctity and seriousness of .. uhh .. virtual world marriages! Because its so hard to ignore someone in game and the game is clearly about chatting and never playing.

This is ridiculous and I think Blizzard knows it. This is a policy that says, no one may make references to sexual orientation, ever. This is to keep people from harassing other people, calling them gay and what not. Ok, that’s a good policy I guess. Now when a man and woman in game role-play a couple … isn’t there an implied sexual reference? Even expressed in many cases? It’s not getting reported, and if it is, how is it treated? The same as if it were a gay reference? I doubt it.

What about when that big ugly Orc marries that blood elf or something. That’s more offensive than girls kissing for sure. But why does anyone even care? Seriously, if you think boys and girls kissing the same sex is the most terrible thing happening in your life and it needs to stop .. MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS. WHY DO YOU CARE?

There was a gay player in my World of Warcraft guild when I played, and he played a lot. It’s these kind of policies that drive away players that are really playing the game, not farming loot and gold 24/7.

Bottom line Blizzard takes a biased and discriminatory approach to the whole thing. They make the assumption that any reference to alternate sexuality is immediately offensive. When a gay person acknowledges that he or she is gay, they are not offending themselves or anyone else. When someone continually harasses a player using sexual orientation references, its the harassment part that’s important. The sexual orientation part is just what he uses to accomplish it, he could just as easily be calling him an asshole over and over again.

I happened to be working a desk job during the Alito hearings that allowed me to watch it on CSPAN the entire time, so I saw everyday. It was actually pretty interesting, seeing the various senators, mostly saying the same things over and over again. The more partisan democrats making wild accusations, the more partisan republicans asking no questions and refuting the democrats. The others feel somewhat in between.

However, I believe it was senator Biden (D. Delaware) who brought up the usefulness of the judiciary committee debating over the confirmation of a justice. Now there is value in actually debating the confirmation of a justice, in so far as the justice actually practices prudent law. This was largely addressed by Judge Alito’s record of nearly flawless regard for the law, the glowing recommendations of his fellow judges from both sides of the ideological spectrum, and his approval by the American Bar Association. Clearly he has a high regard for the law and it’s application.

Therefore, much of the confirmation hearing was politicians asking political questions based on decisions that they think are important and will be decided in the future by the Supreme Court. These questions simply were not appropriate for Judge Alito to answer. His reason was logical and relevant, his job is to decide cases based on arguments between the lawyers and application of law, not to decide before a judiciary committee and then apply later, disregarding or affirming what he had already said. His most prudent choice of action was what he chose, not answering questions directly about political issues that may be heard on the Supreme Court.

Now I am a fan of decisions and justices that have a regard for individual rights, privacy and the like. A more liberal judge that would support a woman’s right to choose, etc. However, I do not see it appropriate for a judge to have to answer questions about how he or she would decide such a case in the political atmosphere of the senate. It would essentially politically bind him to whatever he said. Judge Alito was right to dodge the questions.

I wrote earlier about how abortion was really not in danger just yet. I still think that is definitely true. Based on what I heard at the hearings, Alito will be a very conservative judge that will rely much on stare decisis and careful application of law. This is actually much better than a conservative judge who is also very activist.

The bottom line is if you want to see a different kind of judge appointed to the Supreme Court, then take it up the only way you can: with your vote. This year 33 senators are up for reelection and the whole house. These elections are important, do not miss them. They will add steam or take it away from the presidential race in 2008.