World's smallest handgun: [link]

Smaller than the average thumb, shoots real (tiny) bullets.

More pictures: [link]

I don't think I'd want my kids seeing Donnie Darko as freshmen. But they showed us Franco Zeffirelli's version of Romeo & Juliet which had scads of violence, blood and we even got the shot of Olivia Hussy's bare breast.

Of course, I think this is a much better way to interest teenagers in Shakespeare than with boring, old Julius Ceasar.

well, after all the tell all stuff

The title love on ita moon has a 20.1% chance of being a bestselling title!

In the town I work in reading list go out all the time - because in CA , the schools don't supply the books. So parents should be aware. however, there is an amazing amount of ignorance about what kids are doing in school.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint on Tuesday against three pharmacists in upstate New York claiming that the pharmacists "refused to fill prescriptions for refill doses of emergency contraception," the Associated Press reports. What is particularly striking about this case -- as opposed to the run-of-the-mill pharmacists who refuse to fill E.C. -- is that the women needed refills.

The pharmacists apparently had no religious or moral objections to E.C. the first time around; it was that second time that proved the women's behavior was "irresponsible" as Andrea Barcomb, a CVS supervisor, put it to the AP. (Actually, it seems to us that taking preventive measures as soon as possible to avoid unwanted pregnancy is the very definition of responsibility.) As Elisabeth Benjamin, director of NYCLU's Reproductive Rights program, told the AP, "these refusals seem to just be based solely on moralistic assumptions of women's sexuality."

[link]

tommyrot again makes my head explode. GHA!

Just in case anyone still has doubts that the new plots were (at the least) hyped:

[link]

[link]

Isn't it a bad idea to tell people how to mix those chemicals? Isn't that bad karma?

I'd argue that the mental illness on the protagonist's part and the attendant anguish that causes him are sufficiently adult subjects that an R rating is called for, far moreso than a few f-bombs dropped in conversations that kids probably hear in real life fairly regularly.

I think reading The Bell Jar and Johnny Got His Gun in high school probably disturbed me more that that freaky bunny would have. But to me, the more real the story is the more disturbing it can be.

I remember Sixteen Candles being shown at my high school. The vice principal was in the projection booth turning down the volume or putting his hand over the lens at the "objectionable" moments. It was lame, but I think they avoided parental complaints.

Isn't it a bad idea to tell people how to mix those chemicals? Isn't that bad karma?

Pretty widely known. Also more of a deterrent than anything -tells you how tough it is, does not really tell you how to get around the obstacles (though I bet you could find out pretty quickly).

Also given that we are keeping people from taking water onboard airplanes (which have dangerously dry air) on the grounds that particular chemistry was to be used to blow them up, it seems reasonable to explain why it would not have worked. I mean do you leave overhyped allegations unrefuted? Or simply say that the plots as described were implausible without providing evidence?

Here's an explanation, TB.

[link]