Hah. I think someone challenged their conviction on insufficient evidence, so the state court just had to decide that a reasonable jury could conclude that it was extremely provocative. One of those easy cases that make weird law. In my state, precedent has established that “unwanted hair-cutting” would qualify as…

Noticed that! Somehow the term is fitting for this discussion. 

I am more proud of my work as a public defender than anything else I have done in my life. You are free to feel whatever you wish about me and my choices.

I’ve practiced as a criminal defense lawyer for a decade, so I feel confident telling you that what the person described in the letter is not “assault” in any legal sense of the world (I would also note that “casual contact” while flirting is not necessarily “hoping for a sexual response,” but we’re probably splitting…

That’s “traditional” assault. I think every state has added the “extremely offensive or provocative” touching option as well, just as essentially all states have incorporated the traditional offense of battery into their assault statutes. There are a lot of interesting variations in how that offensive touching is…

I think this may be a little overblown. I know nobody likes when people lawyer up on this stuff, but the absolute lowest form of assault would be to intentionally cause physical contact with someone that a reasonable person would regard as extremely offensive or extremely provocative. “Unwanted physical contact”…

Yep, 26 U.S.C. 5845 and 5685, among other possible offenses (for example, if the detonation of the ATM were itself illegal, like he didn’t actually own it, then using an explosive to commit that federal crime would be its own federal crime with a 10-year mandatory minimum). He would need a permit to possess it, and…

Credit to Sufjan Stevens for first rhyming “Fourth of July” with “We’re all gonna die.”

I could imagine a scenario in which a therapist says, “There may be ways to fix your issues with sex, but what if there aren’t? Would your partner continue to support you? Would you continue to blame yourself? If this can’t be fixed, how would you move forward in your life? It can be unhealthy to evaluate a…

Ooh I’ll play.

I think the idea is, “If this was really a legal-team-gone-rogue situation, then have you actually taken action to correct your rogue legal team?” That is, they don’t believe that legal did this with no input from management. Rather, Katzenberg is blaming legal as a convenient excuse for an obvious screw-up.

I worked at a Blockbuster, and what I can say is that the quality of the selection was dramatically affected by the location and the manager. The one I worked in was in a kind of upper-middle class area of my town, with a lesbian film-buff manager, and it had a surprisingly good “indie” section. It was the kind of…

While I agree with you on the holistic approach as a life goal, I don’t think that a 40 year old who has multiple kids and a job and STILL wants to have sex once a week is really a problem that needs fixing. That’s pretty good by most standards! If I had to guess, I’d say that she’s more making excuses for the fact…

This is an incredibly helpful reply. Thank you.

Hi! If I checked out of this series sometime in the PS3 era, what would be a good game to get as a one-off? I.e., not to re-dedicate myself to the “lore,” but just as a good game? I always enjoyed them, but I’m mostly looking for lots of hours of story value and fun RPG elements. Any thoughts appreciated!

This was a fantastic read. Thank you.

Let’s not forget the early-00's habit of including a woman being painfully injured for laughs! Glad to see that old gem back in action here.

I haven’t and was considering it!

I finally beat Nioh 2 (the main story at least). I really enjoyed the game and found it to be a perfect time-waster in quarantine land. As you say, there are not MANY moments where you connect with the story, but one or two. Now I’m thinking about my next game. I’m torn between Control, RE7, and maybe breaking out my…

I’m so sorry. Relating this to Prine, just because you did, I am very sad for my home city of Nashville, which can’t properly grieve these lost legends. Normally you’d have some sort of outrageous concert/memorial service here that would be an outpouring of grief and great music (the roster writes itself for this…