Strange Happenings in Vancouver, and the Universe

I've not conducted any sort of scientific analysis, but I'm starting to get the feeling that Vancouver has an abundance of slightly weird stuff going on. Either that or the Vancouver Sun's editorial staff have a bent bent. There's currently a debate raging in medico-governmental circles around whether or not hoarding qualifies as a mental disorder. Apparently, if they can't find your corpse under all the junk you've collected, you had a problem.

Also in the mental health arena, a government-sponsored research facility has just been handed a "Cease and Desist" order which stops them using a "penile tumescence"-measuring device called a "penile plethysmograph" to determine the likelihood of re-offending among adolescents charged with or suspected of sex offenses. Once the device was attached to the youths' genitals, they were shown ..."images of an adult man and woman having consensual sex, as well as adolescents, children and infants in various states of undress. While the images were present, a male voice described vignettes of coercive or forced sexual activity."

Stopping sex offenders is a laudable goal, but, as Annabel Webb, director of Justice for Girls, stated: "In any other context, subjecting children to violent pornography would be considered child abuse."

The research facility has been conducting this research - inconclusively - for over 20 years, and it's debatable whether or not they'd have been shut down had one of their lab technicians who administer the test not himself been charged with a (non-work-related) sex offense.

In other news, we've had naked women wandering around downtown trying to convince people to go vegan, which may or may not be related to PETA's attempts to convince Miss Australia to leave her high-heeled woolly Ugg boots at home, rather than wear them in the National Costume segment of the Miss Universe pageant. Someone should have had a crack at convincing Miss France that a shit-looking brown-cardboard model of the Eiffel Tower stuck on the top of a black beret makes a shit-looking National Costume.