mystified

US politicians have stepped into the storm over secret sex scenes in the best-selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game.
The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly called for investigation into the companies behind the game.

The uproar is over explicit sexual scenes in the game that can be unlocked with software created by a fan.

Last week the game was given an adults-only rating, leading big US stores to stop selling the title.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4717139.stm

So why are people so outraged about the possibility that teenagers might be seeing (and vilrtually participating in) sex acts, but the same people seem to be perfectly OK with teenagers seeing (and virtually participating in) murder, arson, and robbery?

I'm not advocating a ban on violence in games, but I am advocating calling these self-proclaimed moral arbiters on their hypocrisy. Sex is bad, but murder is OK? It's inappropriate for a high school student to see two imaginary people copulating, but it's not a problem for that teenager to see one imaginary person empty an automatic weapon into another? It seems to me as if these people's priorities are in serious need of a refit.

john_arundel, this is for you!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4717745.stm

The Forma Urbis, or Severan Marble Plan, is a giant map of the city of Rome constructed around AD200 by the Emperor Septimius.

It was fixed onto the wall of the Templum Pacis (Temple of Peace) in the heart of the city - a massive display symbolising both the greatness of the city, and the emperor's power to know its every nook and cranny.

But with the decline of the empire from the 4th Century, the vast marble map - measuring 18m by 13m (59 feet by 43 feet) and intricately carved onto 250 separate slabs - was prised off the wall.

The building stones were stolen, crushed into cement or merely slid down off the wall to lie buried in the gardens below for the next 1,000 years.

Historical challenge

The rediscovery of some of the pieces during the Renaissance ignited an interest in reconstructing the map that has bewitched scholars ever since.

Now scientists at America's Stanford University have joined Italian archaeologists in the capital's Museum of Roman Civilisation with a multi-disciplinary and hi-tech approach to solving the ancient riddle.