A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

A possible first in child porn

via Volokh.com: A minor has been charged with child pornography after distributing nude pictures of herself in sexual situations via chat rooms.
I don't think I have ever heard of such a thing before, and I would be interested in finding out what happens here. These laws are presumably designed to protect innocent victims of sexual exploitation. It is assumed that the perpetrator of these crimes is not innocent in any way; they sexually exploited a minor and willfully distributed pictures of them. So it stands to reason that she, even as the minor, was not innocent in posting the pictures of the minor. At least she doesn't sound lke an innocent victim to me.She wanted the pictures to be out there, and wasn't harming herself.

There is the argument that, yes, she is an innocent because it is presumed that she does not fully understand the gravity of what she has done. For example, people have children pose for these things, and they don't appear to be forced into it. They might look happy for the camera because for all they know, it's just a fun game.
Still, she broke the law. I wonder if there are versions of the law that provide for the fact that the perp is a minor.
Unrelated: Child-porn laws are not age-of-consent laws. IANAL*, but as I understand it, age of consent has nothing to do with the age at which nude and lascivious pictures of someone becomes illegal. As pointed out, in many places two 16-year-olds are allowed to have sex, and therefore see each other naked. But if one takes a picture of another, even if it weren't distributed, this is illegal because the "victim" is a minor.

*IANAL: I am not a lawyer.

Affirmative Action Lameness

Many government agencies require prospective suppliers to go through a ridiculous registration process before they can do any business with you. Some require their suppliers to have affirmative action in place. One such organization is the City of Cleveland. I have been told that it is the armpit of America. Others say that it rocks.

As part of their supplier application, they ask about the racial and sexual makeup of the prospective supplier. You fall into one of four categories as a minority:

1. Black;
2. Asian American;
3. American Indian;
4. Hispanic

There's nothing else.
Some co-workers were trying to fill out this application and realized that it wasn't clear to them which category someone from India would fall in. Clearly Asian-American doesn't just mean anyone from the continent of Asia. But does this mean that they count as black? Naturally they asked the expert, meaning me. And I had little to tell them other than, "This is fucking stupid."
I can understand them wanting to do business with companies with good hiring practices, but it's not like we keep records of who is black, French or gay. Two, if they are going to try to class people as one or the other thing, they should have some diversity to their choices. Or at least an "other" category. How do you calssify the Iraqi Jew? (We have one.) What about the guy from India? If he is dark skinned, he's black, and if light skinned, then Asian?
How would you classify Suj? He's from the middle of India, so he's sort of half/half. Or would you rather discuss why this is a good way of approaching affirmative action?

Further proving that everyone in the world has a blog

The official weblog of Noam Chomsky

Workers of the World...Relax

I was recently told that I am expected to be here from 8:30 to 5:30. This seems oppressive to me. I would like to start a Montreal chapter of The Vancouver Work Less Party.

Moblogging

I need a moblog. When I conquer Movable Type, I'm going to create TextCanada.ca. Unless you beat me to it.

I'd join TextAmerica, but I'm not American, and I don't have a decent phone. Of course, that probably doesn't really matter.

How do I know about this? The cute and lovely (although I have never seen her show) Cat Schwartz, of course. Just famous enough to be out of reach, but just cute enough to make you think you had a chance.

Completion

The splash page is completed, at least until I get a picture of my cheese slut for the front. Let the real entries begin.

Slowly getting there

Slowly and surely I am getting to the heart of this Movable Type business. Things are looking up.