Sex shops and strip clubs would have to pay an extra 25% tax on their sales and services under a proposed state law supposedly meant to offset the costs of allowing such businesses into a community.

But California's $4 billion-a-year adult industry has attacked the proposal by Assemblyman Charles Calderon as unconstitutional and based more on opinion than on fact. Adult-business owners in Orange County say the tax would put strippers out of business and break sex shops that already must abide by strict rules about where they can operate.

I don't know how this business has any kind of bad reputation, said Jerry Tatarian, the manager of the Flamingo Theater, a strip club in Anaheim. You walk in here on your own free will. We don't show anything outside. We're just a regular business. Twenty five percent? he added. What's he trying to do, become a partner?

On the other side of the debate are teacher unions, which see a new line of revenue for districts hard-hit by budget cuts and layoffs. The sex tax would essentially target luxury items, said Linda Barnett, the president of the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association.

The bill would add the 25% tax to any items sold in an "adult entertainment venue." That would be anyplace that gets at least half of its revenue from sexually explicit performances or from the sale of adult videos, magazines or other media.

In other words, you would have to pay a 25% tax on anything you bought in a porn store – even a pack of gum.

Calderon's bill says that strip clubs, sex stores and other adult venues generate community problems such as prostitution, drug use and sexually transmitted diseases. It also says the easy availability of Internet pornography is unhealthy for children. The tax would pay for education as well as social services that could include law enforcement and treatment for substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases.

The industry has challenged the legality of Calderon's bill, saying that it targets sexually explicit performances at strip clubs, but makes exceptions for "legitimate" theatrical productions. Gray also dismissed many of the claims made in the bill, saying they were based more on opinion than on studies or other real evidence.

See full article from AVN

After an hour and a half of discussion, Charles Calderon's porn tax bill, AB 2914, never made it before the nine members of the Assembly Revenue & Tax Committee for a vote yesterday, with Calderon electing to keep the bill in the suspense file.

The suspense file is for any bill that costs more than a certain dollar amount, a threshold, and in this committee, that's $500,000 to implement, explained Matt Gray, California lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry.

What happens is that all the bills that cost over that $500,000 mark are put in that suspense file, and then at the end, they prioritize which bills come out based upon how much money they have to spend. The earliest it could come out is this coming Monday, and the latest is sometime probably in August. It's a two-thirds vote bill and can move without deadlines. But the important part to remember is, it was supposed to be considered along with all other bills on suspense file yesterday, and he announced that it would not be taken up on suspense.

Criminal Social networking website Facebook has instituted a number of enhanced privacy safeguards and obscenity blockers.

The move was part of an agreement with 49 state attorneys general to increase the level of protection for the site's younger users.

The company also agreed to join MySpace on the Internet Safety Task Force, which MySpace established in its agreement with state attorneys general. The task-force agreement calls for the social networking sites to establish "age locking" around the profiles of users younger than 18.

In September 2007, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened to subpoena Facebook after investigators posing as underage users were sexually solicited by adults.

Facebook agreed to enhance its age and identity identification tools, issue automatic warning messages when children attempt to give personal information to unknown adults, restrict users' ability to change their listed ages and immediately sever links to pornographic websites.

The deal also calls for Facebook, which has about 47 million users, to allow someone independent, and approved by Cuomo's office, to report on its compliance with the new safeguards for two years.

An association of First Amendment supporters and retailers have filed suit against the state of Indiana over a new law that would require sellers of sexually explicit and even softcore material to pay a litany of fees in order to do business.

Among the plaintiffs in the suit are the ACLU of Indiana, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Media Coalition, the Association of American Publishers Inc. and the National Association of Recording Merchandisers.

At issue is Indiana House Bill 1042, which Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law at the end of March. The new law, which covers any business opening after July 1, 2008, or any existing business which changes location after that date, requires the affected business to register with the Secretary of State and pay a $250 registration fee, with several other fees possibly to follow, if the business sells sexually explicit materials.

The big question, of course, is, what constitutes sexually explicit materials? Well, among other things, it's any product or service that is harmful to minors or that is designed for use in, marketed primarily for, or provides for the stimulation of the human genital organs or masochism or a masochistic experience, sadism or a sadistic experience, sexual bondage, or sexual domination.

As to what is harmful to minors:

• It describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse.
• Considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors.
• It is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors.
• Considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value to minors.

Rep. Terry Goodin claims the law will target pornography vendors that pop up along interstate exits in unincorporated areas. What it will do, however, is to require any business that deals in any way with any product or service that's remotely sexual - for instance, museums or art stores that sell statues of Michelangelo's David, or bookstores that sell mildly erotic literature or information on erectile dysfunction - to pay the $250 fee.

We're talking about a law that has very broad and very vague and, we would contend, very unconstitutional restrictions and burdens, said Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana: To the best of my knowledge, there is no similar law in the United States.

With Grand Theft Auto IV in the headlines, a bipartisan pair of House members has introduced a bill that would require videogame retailers to check identification in order to prevent minors from buying games intended for adults.

Representatives Lee Terry and Jim Matheson have introduced the Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act to ensure that children can only access age appropriate content without parental permission.

Terry said. Many young children are walking into stores and are able to buy or rent these games without their parents even knowing about it. Many retailers have tried to develop voluntary policies to make sure mature games do not end up in the hands of young kids, but we need to do more to protect our children.

Bill would require ID checks for purchases of games rated M (mature) or AO (adult only). It would also compel game retailers to post ratings system explanations in the store. Retailers found in violation of either requirement would face a $5,000 civil penalty.

Several state legislatures have enacted similar laws, but each has been struck down by courts on First Amendment challenges.

Terry said he remains optimistic because, unlike the state laws: This bill doesn’t involve itself in content or defining the standards for ‘mature’ or ‘adults only’. It simply requires the retailer to post what the industry has defined as ‘mature’ and ‘adults only’ so that parents can know, and requires checking of identification.

A children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books some people object to the most.

And Tango Makes Three, released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most "challenged" book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.

The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don't agree with that, Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press.

Other books on the ALA's top 10 list include Maya Angelou's memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in which the author writes of being raped as a young girl; Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, long attacked for alleged racism; and Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, an anti-religious work in which a former nun says: The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.

Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750. For every challenge listed, about four to five go unreported, the library association estimates.

The atmosphere is a little better than it used to be, Krug says. I think some of the pressure has been taken off of books by the Internet, because so much is happening on the Internet.

The city of Troy in New York State is facing legal action for shutting down the Sanctuary for Independent Media for building code violations when a controversial exhibit opened in March.

The New York Civil Liberties Union and the arts group filed a notice of claim against the city and city Public Works Commissioner Robert Mirch seeking unspecified damages.

The city shut the facility to public gatherings after digital artist Wafaa Bilal's video game and exhibit Virtual Jihadi moved there from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

City officials cannot selectively enforce building codes to shut down an art exhibition they find distasteful, said Melanie Trimble, executive director of NYCLU's Capital Region chapter.

The notice is a first step toward filing a lawsuit. Trimble said the arts group and NYCLU have not assessed what damages they seek.

There is a climate of fear in the city, Sanctuary for Independent Media co-founder Steve Pierce said. Pierce, who is also an adjunct professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said city officials use their government authority to go after people who do not agree with their political views.

Mirch led a demonstration protesting Bilal's video game exhibit, which features himself as a suicide bomber on a mission to assassinate President Bush. Mirch supervises code enforcement and also is majority leader of the Rensselaer County Legislature.

Among the millions of clips on the video-sharing Web site YouTube are 11 racially stereotyped Warner Brothers cartoons that have not been shown in an authorized release since 1968.

Despite efforts to suppress them, racist cartoons from the 1940s have been circulating on the Web.

Some of the cartoons were removed on April 16. A message saying the cartoons were no longer available because of a copyright claim by Warner appeared in their place. By evening the messages disappeared, and some of the cartoons were back. Representatives for YouTube and Warner would not confirm whether the companies had tried to remove the cartoons.

A representative for Warner wrote in an e-mail message that Warner Brothers has rights to the titles in question and that we vigorously protect all our copyrights. We do not make distinctions based on content.

The cartoons, known as the Censored 11, have been unavailable to the public for 40 years. Postings no longer appear if YouTube is searched for Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, a parody of Snow White and the most famous of the cartoons. But a search for Coal Black does find the cartoon.

These cartoons were controversial when first released; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) unsuccessfully protested Coal Black before it was shown in 1943. Richard McIntire, the director of communications for the NAACP, wrote in an e-mail message that the cartoons are despicable. We encourage the films’ owners to maintain them as they are — that is, locked away in their vaults.

WMAV01, a YouTube user who posted some of the cartoons wrote in an e-mail message that these cartoons were never officially ‘banned’ by any law and added that the cartoons had historical value. WMAV01 said the cartoons were available on other websites like foundrymusic.com.

The cartoons are also available on bootleg DVDs from Web sites like banned-cartoons.com, which sells a collection of 165 such cartoons.

Michael Barrier, author of four books on the history of animation and comics, said the cartoons should be presented in an informed way for an intelligent, adult audience.

They're proudly displayed by any self-respecting bull, but dangling big metal ones on the back end of a truck could be banned in Florida.

Metal replicas of bull testicles have become trendy bumper ornaments in some parts of the Sunshine State, but state Sen. Carey Baker is campaigning to ban the orbs.

Baker acknowledged that Florida lawmakers have more pressing issues, including huge revenue shortfalls, but said the state needs to draw a line on what's obscene before more objectionable adornments appear.

State Sen. Steve Geller argued against Baker's bill: I find it shocking that we should be telling people that have the metallic bull testicles ... you're now going to have points on your license for this.

Geller was in the minority. Baker's bill to fine drivers $60 for displaying the ornaments passed the Senate. It's now up to the House, but there's only a slim chance that members of that chamber would pass the measure before the session ends this coming Friday.

If it were to be passed, Gov. Charlie Crist has not indicated whether he would sign it, although he has not been too critical of this and other not-so-pressing issues.

It's good to have some things that maybe aren't quite as serious. Got to have a little levity, the governor said.

Portland bookseller Michael Powell and owners of a dozen independent bookstores and community organizations are suing the state attorney general and all 36 county district attorneys to block enforcement of a law forbidding the sale of sexually explicit material to people younger than 18.

Attorneys for the booksellers claim the four-month-old law violates their constitutional right to free speech and criminalizes material that would otherwise not be considered sexually explicit, like textbooks, comics or magazines.

The lawsuit was filed Friday, April 25, in U.S. District Court. No date has been set for a hearing on the issue. The booksellers and organizations are seeking an injunction to block the law. State Attorney General Hardy Myers and the district attorneys have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit filed by attorneys P.K. Runkles-Pearson and Michael A. Bamberger, the plaintiffs focus on House Bill 2843 that was signed into law July 31, 2007, by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. The law went into effect Jan. 1 and makes it a crime to provide sexually explicit material to a child through sales or viewing, if the material was meant to satisfy a sexual desire.

Bookstores are liable if they sell books about sex to minors, even if the material is in a textbook, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims the new law violates the booksellers’ U.S. Constitution First, Fifth and 14th amendment rights to free speech and equal protection. It claims the law is overly broad and promotes self-censorship by creating a chilling effect on the sale, display, exhibition and dissemination of constitutionally protected speech and expression.

In an affidavit, Michael Powell said his six stores sold books of all types that could be considered sexually explicit under the new law. Those include the sale of books in stores and online on photography, graphic novels and health and wellness titles.

Powell’s has in stock over 2 million volumes constituting over 1 million titles, Powell said in his affidavit. We receive on an average over 5,000 new titles per week. Obviously we cannot read each new title to determine whether there are any sexual explicit portions and if so whether such portions ‘serve some purpose other than titillation’ (even if I knew what that meant).

From Northern Virginia to Southern California, federal and state prosecutors and grand juries across America continued to bring criminal obscenity charges against adult operators during 2007. Some of the cases were widely reported in the adult trade publications, while others were barely reported at all.

Here are some of the cases brought, pending or resolved in 2007 that are most useful in taking the temperature of the waters in which the adult producers and distributors swim.

...Read the full article

A complaint by games nutter, Jack Thompson, has prompted Miami’s transit authority to remove ads for Grand Theft Auto IV from local bus shelters.

Miami thus joins Chicago as the second major US city to pull GTA IV ads from its public transit system in recent days.

GamePolitics reported on Thursday that Thompson had complained about the GTA IV ads to Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez. The GTA IV ads were apparently removed sometime on Friday afternoon.

Hugh Chen, Miami-Dade Transit’s deputy director of operations, told GamePolitics on Friday evening, via e-mail: The posters were removed after a review of our approval process and contract… Be assured that the circumstances around placing and removing these specific posters were reviewed before action was taken. We are governed by our contract with our shelter contractor and County ordinances.

In the wake of this success, Thompson is proceeding to get all GTA IV ads pulled from all US transit systems since such ads clearly violate promises made by the [ESRB], found right at its web site, not to place “Mature-rated” game ads in venues that will be seen by teens.

However, Thompson’s contention about the ESRB appears to be incorrect. An ESRB spokesman told GP on Friday, Considering the overwhelmingly adult demographic profile of mass transit riders… the placement of GTA IV ads in these types of outlets would typically not be in violation of [Ad Review Council] guidelines.

A US government decision to limit the First Amendment to certain often-fenced "zones" is being tested in a court case in Philadelphia by a man who was arrested for not following by the terms of a "speech permit" he didn't request and didn't agree to accept.

The judge hearing the case against Michael Marcavage of Repent America this week heard prosecution arguments, then agreed to review written motions to dismiss the case and said the hearing would be continued at a later date, if it is needed.

Marcavage is a street preacher who regales passers-by on public property with exhortations to review their own spiritual condition and consider their future whether they choose Christianity or not.

He was arrested in 2007 by rangers at the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia, which houses the Liberty Bell, the artifact from American history that rang to announce the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence and is inscribed with Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

Marcavage was speaking to passersby about the national issue of abortion when he was arrested.

This case is not just about Christians, he said: The outcome affects everyone. His arguments are focusing on the government's ability to censor the speech of dissidents by requiring them to protest in a single location separated from the audience the protester is trying to reach. The government alleges the preaching created a safety concern.

At the Liberty Bell Center, Marcavage had preached a number of times. But in the 2007 visit, he was told that new rules required him to be in a specially designated permit-required free speech zone that was located on the far side of the property away from the audience.

The ranger told him since it was a new policy, he would grant Marcavage a verbal permit for his preaching. Marcavage rejected that, saying he did not need a permit to exercise his First Amendment rights. He then was arrested for violating the conditions of the permit he did not accept.

Marcavage noted on a free speech blog that such free speech zones are routine when cities sponsor various "gay" parades or other events, as well as on college campuses where officials want to maintain a tight control over events.

Adult industry attorneys today blasted a Georgia lawmaker, who has introduced a proposal that would further restrict adult material sold at military exchange stores.

The Military Honor and Decency Act, introduced last week by Representative Paul Broun would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that limited sales of sexually explicit material on military bases.

Broun said in a statement that he wants to bring the Defense Department into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law so that taxpayers will not be footing the costs of distributing pornography. The Military Honor and Decency Act will right a bureaucratic — and moral — wrong, he said.

Broun’s proposal would require the Defense Department to review on an annual basis all material that is not deemed sexually explicit now, and is therefore allowed in military stores, to determine if it should be prohibited.

Broun’s legislation also would modify the current definition of sexually explicit, to lower the threshold required to deem material sexually explicit. It also adds a new definition of “principal theme,” adds a definition of “lascivious” that is broader than what is included in the current definition, and adds a definition of “nudity” that makes it much more difficult for the sale of sexually explicit material.

Attorney Greg Piccionelli told XBIZ that he was offended by the proposal by ignorant and intolerant hypocrites like Broun and his ilk that are currently plaguing the planet.

May I remind the congressman that our troops honor stems from their willingness to lay down their lives to preserve the very freedom that he is so willing to take away from them. They are defending our way of life, which fortunately includes our ability to read Playboy and Penthouse magazines. How dare he insult our brave soldiers by claiming they can be sullied by viewing ink on a page.

If one of our troops, who daily risks being blinded or killed by a roadside explosive tomorrow, would like to view nude images of one of God's greatest creations, a woman, on what could be his last day of sight, how dare this hypocritical imposter of a patriot try to take that sacred right away from one of our true guardians of freedom. Shame, shame, shame on you Mr. Broun.

With the Grand Theft Auto IV launch less than a week away, the expected wave of nutter publicity continues with an alert issued by watchdog group the Parents Television Council.

According to PTC president Tim Winter:

Since the first version was released in 1997, the Grand Theft Auto series has lowered the bar for appalling video game content…

In past versions, players could re-enact having sex with a prostitute, beating her bloody, taking her money and running her over with a car; shooting at police officers; and, by using a code easily accessible on many internet sites, having a realistic sexual encounter on screen — complete with audio commentary.

In the alert, PTC urges its members to pressure retailers not to carry GTA IV. Or, if retailers do choose to stock the game, PTC suggest that it be displayed where minors will not see it.

Based on article from Game Politics

On the side of a bus kiosk in South Florida, there is a poster. On the poster is a drawing of a man. The man is sneering, but he’s not doing anything remotely pornographic or violent. He’s not doing anything, really. There are some words on the poster, too. They’re not obscene. Nor do they incite violence. The poster is an ad for Grand Theft Auto IV.

And anti-game nutter attorney Jack Thompson wants it torn down and wrote: I was shocked today to see a six-foot-high advertisement for Grand Theft Auto IV, a hyperviolent video game… on the side of a Metro Miami-Dade bus stop located… near Children’s Hospital. In fact, the advertisement was adjacent to a kids’ park…

The Grand Theft Auto games have been obsessively played by a number of teens who have then copycatted the outrageous, sociopathic violence in the games and killed innocent people…

The ESRB descriptor on GTA IV indicates this game contains “Strong Sexual Content.” The sale of this game to any minor will constitute a criminal act violative of… Florida’s “Sexual Material Harmful to Minors Law”…

A deeper investigation into the story that a sex-tape of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe had been sold to an anonymous New York collector, shows that the sale of the tape is most probably a hoax.

The New York Post's Hasani Gittens broke the story after speaking with Keya Morgan, a memorabilia collector who claimed to have sold the 15-minute reel of a young Monroe performing a sex act on an unidentified male.

However, Morgan is well known in Monroe memorabilia collector circles as being hungry for press to promote his upcoming documentary on the silver screen starlet.

Morgan did not give details or the name of who he sold the alleged tape to, and has not been able to provide evidence that the sale of the tape even occurred.

Collector keeps Marilyn Monroe blow job film to himself

15th April 2008, See full article from the Guardian

A 15-minute film of Marilyn Monroe engaging in an oral sex act with an unidentified man will be kept from public view by a New York businessman who has bought it for $1.5m (£750,000), the broker of the deal said.

Memorabilia collector Keya Morgan said he recently arranged the sale of the silent, black-and-white film from the son of a dead FBI informant who possessed it to a wealthy Manhattan businessman who wants to protect Monroe's privacy.

The gentleman who bought it said out respect for Marilyn he's not going to make a joke of it and put it on the internet and try to exploit her, said Morgan.

Monroe is clothed and the man's head remains out of the frame for the entire 15 minutes of the film, said Morgan, who viewed the footage.

Monroe was rumoured to have had an affair with former US President John F Kennedy, and Morgan said former FBI director J Edgar Hoover, a Kennedy rival, went to great lengths to try to prove it was Kennedy in the film.

Morgan said he learned of the existence of the film while working on a documentary about Monroe. A former FBI agent told him about it, and Morgan said he confirmed it by tracking down the son of the FBI informant, who had provided a copy to the FBI.

The FCC has been collecting comments on the subject of text message censorship in preparation for a policy review that will address whether or not mobile carriers should be allowed to discriminate against text message transmitters based on content.

The controversy over text message censorship began last year when Verizon initially declined to permit pro-choice abortion activism group NARAL to use an SMS short code for distributing opt-in messages to Verizon customers. Verizon doesn't monitor or filter individual messages, but does reserve the right to deprive short code holders of access to its networks in cases where the company deems the content too controversial. Verizon was the only carrier to turn down NARAL, and quickly reversed the decision after receiving widespread criticism.

Tech freedom advocacy group Public Knowledge, Free Press and other groups were unsatisfied with Verizon's turnaround and have asked the FCC to issue a clear policy position that will block Verizon from engaging in similar practices in the future. Noting that the FCC already unambiguously forbids similar discrimination in voice calls and e-mails, the activist groups argue that there is no reason why those same protections shouldn't extend to SMS messaging, especially since it is becoming an increasingly important vector for communication.

On the other side of the debate, the carriers claim that regulation barring any discrimination of short code usage would be detrimental because it would weaken their ability to block legitimately obnoxious content like Viagra ads and phishing schemes.

The FCC will have to decide whether SMS short codes should be held to the same standards as common carrier services like voice and e-mail.

Evil Angel has launched DefendOurPorn.org, a website that will serve as the company’s hub of information related to the obscenity prosecution brought against its owner, John Stagliano (alter ego Buttman).

DefendOurPorn.org contains news links about the case from numerous media outlets, a Contact Your Congressperson button, a PayPal page to make a donation to Stagliano’s legal fund and a guestbook.

Evil Angel established the Defend Our Porn fund in response to fans wanting to help Stagliano’s defense effort. Donations initially will be applied towards Stagliano’s case, and the fund will live on after the trial. Any funds left over will be rolled over to other free speech causes.

Stagliano will be arraigned April 21 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. after which he will hold a press conference where he and his attorney, Allan Gelbard, will make statements and answer questions from the press.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is struggling to find enough support from a majority of the agency’s commissioners to regulate cable television companies more tightly.

The five-member commission is set to vote on Tuesday on a report, proposed by Kevin J. Martin, the agency’s chairman, that would give the commission expanded powers over the cable industry after making a formal finding that it had grown too big.

After news reports this month that Martin supported the finding — along with the commission’s two Democrats — the cable industry heavily lobbied the commission and allies in Congress to kill the proposal. Those efforts may be paying off.

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday backed away from a proposal by the agency's chairman that would open the door to broader regulation of cable TV operators.

The FCC balked at a finding proposed by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin that cable companies' subscribership levels had risen enough to justify broad regulation of the industry, agreeing instead to postpone a decision and approve more limited restrictions on the industry, Martin said.

Martin said a majority of the FCC's five commissioners were in agreement on the compromise. Martin said the agreement includes a measure that would limit the rates that cable operators can charge to lease spare channels to independent programmers.

The agreement came after a day of tough negotiations that began after Martin was unable to get a majority of the five commissioners to support the proposed finding.

The idea ran into resistance from Martin's two fellow Republicans on the commission. They questioned the way Martin had arrived at the 70% figure about the reach of cable TV, saying it conflicted with previous reports on the issue. The FCC's two Democratic commissioners also had reservations.

The curtain went down on Ronnie Larsen's play, Making Porn, only shortly after it opened over the March 11 weekend at SPOT, 4146 Manchester Street.

According to a press release by SPOT owner Thomas Long, St. Louis police halted the show during its second performance on Saturday night. The show is a comedy about the pornographic industry that does contain on-stage nudity, Long said in the release. That nudity allegedly broke the ordinance, according the city. It is unclear whether the nudity in Making Porn or its gay-themed subject matter was the catalyst for this action compared to other shows.

Long pointed out that Making Porn was being produced at SPOT by a California-based production company who had leased the space for a three-week run. The show has been produced in numerous other cities in the United States and internationally.

Unhappy with her daughter's private school, Sonjia McSween created a blog to warn other parents.

The unexpected result: The New School of Orlando Inc. slapped McSween with a defamation lawsuit to stop her from publishing and talking about the school and force McSween to pay damages.

Some say it's a case of censorship. Others say First Amendment rights have nothing to do with it.

Rebecca Jeschke, spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates digital free-speech rights and maintains a legal guide for bloggers said: People need to get used to this new world where everyone has a soapbox and can use it.

Also known as New School Preparatory, the kindergarten-through-eighth grade school alleges that McSween deliberately told unflattering lies, causing enrollment to drop. It alleges defamation, libel, slander and interference with business relations.

McSween contends that she was just sharing what happened to her and her daughter, Logan.

The problem started after Logan, now 7, began kindergarten at New School Preparatory in 2005. She withdrew in January and attends another private school. McSween said she spent thousands on tuition, books and registration for the school to "mistreat" her daughter.

My daughter went from being a happy child to a child who was scared to make a mistake because she was not perfect, McSween said.

The lawsuit says McSween posted false and otherwise libelous remarks alleging that students at the Marks Street school were belittled, exposed to "extreme stress" and "dictatorial conditions." She further alleged that the school told parents how to run their homes and threatened parents for speaking negatively about New School Preparatory.

Lawrence Walters, an Altamonte Springs First Amendment lawyer unfamiliar with the New School case, said lawsuits often are designed to stifle criticism by forcing defendants to back down to avoid expensive litigation.

Two game industry veterans have launched a website that aims to help parents who might not know what a first-person shooter is but have kids clamouring for the new Halo 3 game. The site features reviews not for the kids playing the games but for the parents supervising them.

As former editor in chief of two magazines for devoted gamers, John Davison published hundreds of reviews that might as well have been in Klingon to someone who's never picked up a joystick.

"We wanted to provide a place where parents can turn to for neutral, objective information on the games their kids might want to play, said Davison. He and co-founder Ira Becker are counting on advertising to pay the bills.

Davison and Becker believe that parents want trusted, jargon-free information on games that can help them decide what's appropriate for their children. That exists for films, with websites such as Yahoo Inc.'s Movie Mom. But for games, there are few places for parents such as TereLyn Hepple to turn to that don't have social or religious agendas.

Davison said it was important that the editorial content remained neutral and descriptive because what might be scary to one child might be fun for another. For more subjective commentary, the site invites parents to write their own reviews.

We really believe that it's the parents that should be controlling this stuff, Davison said. And the best way to do that is to tell them the facts so they can make the call.

And just to show that ratings are hardly an exact science

	BBFC UK Rating	ESRB US Rating	WhatTheyPlay Parents Rating
Manhunt 2 [Cut M rated version]	Banned	17+	14+
Mass Effect	12+	17+	16+

During recent Senate confirmation hearings for Michael Mukasey, President George W. Bush’s nominee to fill the vacant U.S. Attorney General position, Mukasey said that if he is confirmed, he will reevaluate the Justice Department’s obscenity law enforcement strategy.

Senator Orrin Hatch raised the topic of adult entertainment, asserting that the Justice Department has in recent years compiled a terrible record enforcing adult obscenity law. Saying that pornography and obscenity consumption harms individuals, families [and] communities, Hatch asserted that the Justice Department in recent years had prosecuted too narrow a range of obscenity.

In his response, Mukasey appeared to agree with Hatch’s assessment, saying I recognize that mainstream materials can have an effect of cheapening a society, objectifying women, and endangering children in a way that we can’t tolerate, and promised to review the Justice Department’s current policy of prosecuting only “extreme” materials.

Asked for his reaction to Mukasey’s statement, Jeffrey Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, told XBIZ that he was not worried that a major shift in obscenity prosecution strategy would take place at the Justice Department if Mukasey is confirmed.

When juries already are refusing to convict on material that can be described as ‘extreme,’ it seems naïve to believe that a future jury would turn around and convict on standard, run-of-the-mill hardcore, Douglas said.

Ten years after Congress banned sales of sexually explicit material on military bases, the Pentagon is under fire for continuing to sell adult fare, such as Penthouse and Playmates In Bed, that it doesn't consider explicit enough to pull from its stores.

Dozens of religious nutter and anti-pornography groups have complained to Congress and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that a Pentagon board set up to review magazines and films is allowing sales of material that Congress intended to ban.

They're saying 'we're not selling stuff that's sexually explicit' … and we say it's pornography, says Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, a Christian anti-pornography group. A letter-writing campaign launched Friday by opponents of the policy aims to convince Congress to get the Pentagon to obey the law, he adds.

In an Aug. 15 letter to the groups, Leslye Arsht, a deputy undersecretary of Defense, said the Pentagon's Resale Activities Board of Review uses appropriate guidelines to review material for sale.

This year, the board reviewed Penthouse and several Playboy publications and determined that based solely on the totality of each magazine's content, they were not sexually explicit, Arsht wrote.

The Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996 bars stores on military bases from selling "sexually explicit material." It defines that as film or printed matter the dominant theme of which depicts or describes nudity or sexual activities in a lascivious way.

Challenged as a First Amendment violation, the law was upheld by a U.S. appeals court in 2002.

Defense officials don't want to take porn away from soldiers, says Patrick Trueman, a former federal prosecutor who now works with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group. They say, 'well, 40% of this magazine is sexually explicit pictures, but 60% is writing or advertising, so the totality is not sexually explicit.' That's ridiculous.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who sponsored the law, says the military is skirting Congress' intent. He notes the material also could contribute to a hostile environment for female military personnel. If soldiers want to read that stuff, they can walk down the street and buy it somewhere else, Bartlett says. I don't want (the military) to help.

Nadine Strossen, a New York Law School professor who heads the American Civil Liberties Union, says the law effectively censors what troops get to read in remote areas or combat zones. We're asking these people to risk their lives to defend our Constitution's principles … and they're being denied their own First Amendment rights to choose what they read, she said.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's US boss, and Michael Callahan, the company's top lawyer, were lambasted as moral "pygmies" by a top House Bay Area Democrat for the firm's role in helping China identify and jail a journalist in 2004.

Lawmakers of both parties accused the Sunnyvale Internet giant of prioritizing its profits in a booming China market over human rights by turning over secret data that enabled Chinese officials to track down and punish dissidents.

While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, said at the end of the three-hour hearing.

Yang defended his company's efforts to operate in a country with severe free speech restrictions, but was criticized by lawmakers who were furious that Yahoo didn't resist China's efforts to censor its citizens.

Yahoo bosses argued that it was better to try to expand the Internet in China, even if it meant agreeing to live under its repressive rules.

But most lawmakers complained that Yahoo appeared more focused on making money in China - with more than 150 million Internet users - than boosting the freedoms of its people. Smith compared Yahoo to IBM, whose punch card technology helped the Nazis accelerate their campaign to exterminate Jews in Europe.

Callahan noted that Yahoo had little choice about whether to agree to Beijing's orders because Yahoo employees would have been jailed for refusing to comply: I cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if in my personal view the local laws are overbroad.

Congress is considering legislation that would ban U.S. Internet companies from providing information on its customers to repressive regimes.

Lawmakers also complained that Yahoo has done little to help the families of the jailed dissidents: You're one of the richest companies in the country and you don't know if you can meet the humanitarian needs of a couple of families? asked Brad Sherman, D-Los Angeles.

Yahoo has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought against it on behalf of several Chinese dissidents, according to papers filed in a California court.

No details have been given of the settlement, but Yahoo will cover legal costs and will also set up a fund to support other political dissidents.

The case alleged Yahoo had provided information to the Chinese government then used to prosecute the dissidents.

Yahoo said it had to comply with Chinese laws to operate in the country. But after settling the lawsuit, Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang said it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo and for the future.

A statement released by the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which brought the case, said Yahoo had decided to settle the case following criticism at a US Congressional hearing on 6 November.

One journalist cited in the case, Shi Tao, was tracked down and jailed for 10 years for subversion after Yahoo passed on his e-mail and IP address to officials. He was convicted in 2004 of divulging state secrets after posting online a Chinese government order forbidding media organisations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.