For anyone who hasn’t heard already, the background for this story is that someone allegedly created a mod called “Hot Coffee” that adds a sexual mini-game to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. As a result, Rockstar Games, which was suspected at one point of hiding the mini-game in GTA, has been embroiled in controversy over whether the ratings system for games works. The latest to weigh in is Sen. Hillary Clinton. ...

Kerst ter Weele is running for Culpeper County, Va., treasurer. Shared an office with him for two years at Virginia Tech. He’s good people. :)

The Guardian is running a blog updated throughout the day with more information. It is important however that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world. - Prime Minister Tony Blair ...

Wow, didn’t see that one coming. It makes sense, since there are likely to be several retirements over the next few years, but with Chief Justice William Rehnquist ailing, I think everyone thought he would be the next to retire. O’Connor’s confirmation is one of those moments that sticks in my head from when I first started paying real attention to politics. I remember the Iran Hostage Crisis, the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. holding out of the Moscow Olympics, Carter losing to Reagan, and O’Connor’s appointment as one big lump of events that ushered me into paying more attention to the wider world. It’s kind of sad she’s retiring. ...

Police Officer: Thanks for helping us catch those copyright violators, Thor. We couldn’t have done it without you. Thor: My existence negates all your Judeo-Christian beliefs. Every one. The Apropos Comics archive, featuring Captain American Government, The Bat-Botanist, and The Amazing Amazon.com. :) Link courtesy of Metafilter

Mainline? Mainline? ;) According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #1 belief match is Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION Actually, my second option, at 93%, would be closer to where I grew up: According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #2 belief match is Orthodox Quaker. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION Link courtesy of Too many topics, too little time, which will be living up to the latter half of its name, as Jeremy pauses for dissertation. Good luck, dude. :) ...

Supposedly these are questions asked in the Church of Scientology while people are hooked up to the E-meter. (However, the questions were pulled from the first issue of Radar, so who knows where they came from.) I shall endeavor to answer them, even though I am not currently in possession of an E-meter: 1. Have you ever enslaved a population? Well, no, but if this is to be part of later performance evaluations, I’ll need a measurable. How large a population? 2. Have you ever debased a nation’s currency? I ripped a dollar to make a point one time. Then I taped it back together, but it wouldn’t work in the vending machine. 3. Have you ever killed the wrong person? I haven’t had occasion to choose between people to kill. 4. Have you ever torn out someone’s tongue? They’re slippery, so no. This fellow did it to a leopard, though. 5. Have you ever been a professional critic? Enthusiastic amateur. 6. Have you ever wiped out a family? I don’t think I did it, but I’ve met some families where it would be hard to tell. 7. Have you ever tried to give sanity a bad name? Only by example. 8. Have you consistently practiced sex in some unnatural fashion? Uh, no, I don’t think so. Of course, the questioner could be going off a different list. 9. Have you ever made a planet, or nation, radioactive? Only in my imagination, when I was a kid. 10. Have you ever made love to a dead body? No. If that’s not covered by question 8, I don’t even want to know what the list includes. 11. Have you ever engaged in piracy? ARRRRR! 12. Have you ever been a pimp? No, but I’ve always been envious of the tall-soled shoes. 13. Have you ever eaten a human body? That would have to be a really small body. I’m not the best at cleaning my plate. 14. Have you ever disfigured a beautiful thing? Only in misguided attempts to make it more beautiful. 15. Have you ever exterminated a species? Maybe. A rare spider species, perhaps. 16. Have you ever been a professional executioner? Enthusiastic amateur…of spiders in the house. 17. Have you ever given robots a bad name? I usually have the opposite problem. I know they’re talking about me behind my back, whispering… 18. Have you ever set a booby trap? Yep, also elementary school. Kid was stealing my pencils. 19. Have you ever failed to rescue your leader? No, because I’ve usually put them in that situation, so it’s easier for me to get them back out. ...

Another modest proposal from U.S. Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters. This time she proposes eliminating the current section of law that allows musicians to record covers, as long as they pay a fee. She proposes that a private organization set the rules and rates. Ms. Peters seems to be making this sort of grand gesture a habit. Link courtesy of the Lessig Blog

Okay, I don’t have a cat of my own to take pictures of, or even a neighborhood cat. But we did just watch Cat People --- the great 1942 Val Lewton original, not the Nastassja Kinski version from 1982. :) It’s always good when you watch a low-budget film that simply suggests horror outclass a film that has to show every detail. Of course, the original version does have a lead actor who apparently wasn’t paid to show any expression at all. ...

A 73-year-old Kenyan grandfather killed an attacking leopard with his bare hands by ripping out its tongue. He dropped the machete he was carrying to do so. 8O Courtesy of Reuters