General Discussions

And people marry love pillows.

Don't take this as racist, but Japan's culture was not ready for the late 19th century, much less the 20th or 21st. They were thrown into modernity by their rulers far too quickly. They made a jump from feudalism to consumerism in the course of a few decades. Russia wasn't ready for the 20th century, either; their serfs went from feudal slaves to second-class citizens to collectivism slaves in just under 60 years.

APRIL 2ND
Couple: Internet gaming addiction led to baby's death
Suwon, South Korea (CNN) -- A South Korean couple whose three-month-old daughter died of malnutrition while they were raising a virtual child in an online game pleaded guilty to negligent homicide on Friday.

Kim Jae-beom, 40, and his common-law wife, Kim Yun-jeong, 25, will be sentenced on April 16.

Prosecutors are seeking a five-year sentence for the couple, whose defense included a statement alleging gaming addiction.

The pair is expecting a second child in August. Their first daughter's name, Kim Sa-rang, means "love" in Korean. She died in September of malnutrition while they were engaged in overnight sessions at a PC Bang, or a 24-hour Internet cafe. The couple would allegedly put her to bed and leave for 10-hour gaming sessions.

They were playing Prius Online, a 3-D fantasy game in which players raise an online girl who gains magic powers as she is nurtured and grows older.

The case could set an important legal precedent if it establishes that gaming addiction is a mitigating circumstance in crime.

Korean law accepts drunkenness as such on the basis that the perpetrator is not acting according to his own will. With neither defendant having psychological problems beyond game addiction, the judge may set a precedent.

"Since they were addicted, the judge could make it a factor in cutting their sentence," the lawyer said.

I think this is ridiculous. I've always thought that the Asian countries have a problem as far as video games go. And this couple are the perfect example, they need counseling and ideally sterilization.

The idea of playing an online game where you raise a kid sounds pretty stupid as it is, it sounds like the kind of game you'd buy for a 6 year old girl, not fully grown "adults".

Here in Wisconsin, we're having a rash of infants killed due to co-sleeping with parents. The parents roll over and kill the baby.

But, I'd never heard of such a thing until recently. I mean, who would even dream of putting the baby in the bed with them? Every human culture had the invention of the crib for a reason.

It's like, as a species, we've lost the ability to raise our young.

[Edited by Dhampy, 4/2/2010 10:40:32 AM]

Absolute nonsense, this couple does not deserve to play games or have children.

Ideally, these people should be sterilized, and even subjected to similar torture they put their little girl through.

And blaming games for their own psychological or emotional inability to care for their children, and as such making it a mitigating circumstance in their sentencing, is yet another case of scapegoating to the extreme with the Video Game industry being blamed for the shortcomings of society.

The parents may have been addicted, yes, but that doesn't excuse the fact that they murdered their little girl sure as if they'd smothered her or snapped her spine.

A 5 year sentence for murdering their little girl... Sounds like the world needs someone to go out and blow away some people to make room for those of us who CAN use common sense.

The fact that they left their REAL daughter to die to raise a DIGITAL REPRESENTATION of a FICTITIOUS BEING is a testament to how insignificant their lives really are. They chose a bunch of pixels over their flesh and blood daughter. They deserve to be shown firsthand what their daughter went through while they were satisfying their want of fiction...

APRIL 4TH
Dubai kissing couple face jail as appeal fails
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN -- A Dubai appeals court judge has upheld the verdict against a British couple caught kissing in public.

Unless the couple makes a second appeal within 30 days, the court's decision Sunday means authorities will jail the couple for a month and then deport them. They will also be fined $300 for drinking alcohol.

Ayman Najafi and Charlotte Adams were arrested in November, accused of kissing and touching each other intimately in public -- violations of law against public indecency -- and consuming alcohol.

Najafi is a British man who lives and works in Dubai; Charlotte Adams is a British female tourist who was visiting the city-state at the time.

The couple was dining with friends at Bob's Easy Diner, one of a stretch of cafes on a popular strip behind the city's Jumeirah Beach. An Emirati woman with her family reported their behavior to police.

The foreign population has soared in Dubai in recent years as expatriates, courted by the country, flock to the booming emirate to work.

Now, expatriates outnumber locals by more than eight to one in the port city -- one of seven emirates that make up the oil-rich Gulf nation.

But the population changes and the breakneck modernization of the sheikdom has also often caused friction with the deeply conservative social and religious identity of the locals.

In 2008, a British couple were sentenced to three-month jail terms for unmarried sex and public indecency, but those were suspended on appeal.

The two were arrested on a public beach shortly after midnight. Both denied they had intercourse.

The UAE was supposed to be the civilized part of the Middle East, I guess that's all just a lie. I've always wanted to go there one day but if this is the kind if stuff that happens to foreigners then that's definitely not going to happen. Pretty much puts the whole Middle East off limits now.

And the really confusing part is the alcohol. I saw a documentary on the CBC where they went over how people had to get a license to consume alcohol. So I really don't get why someone would be charged for drinking. But then again, but I guess you can't apply democratic ideas to what is basically a dictatorship.