UPDATE: The Hill has since updated its post to say that they were mistaken in reporting that the USS Illinois would be crewed only by women. The Hill left unclear whether this mistake was made completely erroneously or because the Illinois would have more than the usual opportunities for seawomen seeking posts on nuclear submarines. Please enjoy the rest of this post, which is still otherwise about factual gender opportunities or lack-thereof in the U.S. armed forces and Command Sgt. Maj. Jane Baldwin and Col. Ellen Haring’s lawsuit against the mandates that restrict them.

Nuclear submarines have been some of the last holdouts in co-ed military integration worldwide. Long deployments and superlatively cramped and mostly communal living spaces kept most navies from being comfortable with bunking men and women together. The strict economy of space has kept separate bathrooms and sleeping quarters low on the priority list of technological innovations for new submarine classes.

However, in the past year or so, the United States increased the categories of women allowed to set foot on submarines from “female civilian technicians for a few days at most; women midshipmen on an overnight during summer training for both Navy ROTC and Naval Academy; [and] family members for one-day dependent cruises,” to allow women to serve in certain cases. But yesterday, Memorial Day, First Lady Michelle Obama sponsored and announced the creation of the USS Illinois, a Virginia-class nuclear sub that will, when it enteres the Navy fleet in 2015, be crewed by women, exclusively.

The American military is generally pretty cool with cooperating with Hollywood on making military stories look as authentic as possible (while still making the military look honorable). And while they have lent their expertise and image to many fantastical kinds of movies — including Marvel‘s Iron Man — there was just something bugging them about where they fell in the food chain in The Avengers. Namely, were they going to have to answer to the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury? Because apparently, this was unclear, and the military brass were not cool with that. And that’s why the highest level of “official” crimefighting came from the New York National Guard.

Stories like this make me feel, more than ever, that I’m living in a cyberpunk world. The genre is generally about a crappy future, not a shiny future. For example, in the year 2012 we aren’t sailing through space trying to decide whether robots should be considered citizens, we’re trying to figure out whether or not clicking buttons on the internet should be protected free speech.

According to U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson, it isn’t.

If you read The Hunger Games hoping that the tyrannical President Snow would eventually be subject to some serious comeuppance, you are not alone. But would you take the steps necessary to hold a trial and convict him of his various crimes against the people of Panem? That’s exactly what a group of kids did on Take Your Child to Work Day in Broward County, Florida. On a field trip to the Broward County Courthouse, one group of kids took a trip to the local courthouse and held a mock trial against President Snow, acted as the jurors, and found him guilty, providing an alternate version of, well, we won’t spoil it for you.

May the tiny white plastic marbles be ever in your favor. (Fashionably Geek)

One Michigander and security technician has gotten tired of the exorbitant prices at most movie theater concession counters, which is probably something that we can all relate to. But it seems that for Joshua Thompson, the last straw was when his local AMC Theater told him he couldn’t even bring his own soda and candy to a showing.

He’s started a class action law suit against the theater, for violating the Michigan Consumer Protection Act, but it remains to be seen whether he’ll get anywhere with it.

It’s been two and a half years, but after a lengthy legal process, Yoko Sekiguchi has won her court case demanding that Konami pay damages after demoting her and cutting her salary because she chose to go on maternity leave.

After taking the company’s regular stint of maternity leave, from October to April 2009, she returned to her job of negotiating soccer team and foreign player licensing rights for Konami’s soccer games to find herself demoted because of the “burden” her new circumstances placed upon the company and with a corresponding pay cut of close to 20%. Yup. That makes sense.

Last week we told you the story of an Iowan encyclopedia writer whose epic Reddit comment might just get turned into a big budget movie, after the concept behind the script he is developing with Madhouse Entertainment was picked up, before it has even been finished, by Warner Bros., who also claimed to have acquired the exclusive rights to the concept. Specifically, James Erwin’s story of whether a US Marine battalion could overthrow the Roman Empire if unexpectedly transported there during the rule of Caesar Augustus, Rome Sweet Rome.

But The Hollywood Reporter raises an interesting question: is it legally possible for Warner Bros. to nab the rights in the first place? Naturally, this question involves talking about Reddit’s terms of service.

One half of the bullying Crabbe and Goyle duo is taking his mischief-making role way too seriously. Jamie Waylett, who played Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter movies, has been arrested on charges that he was in possession of a homemade bomb intended for use at the London riots earlier this year. Police also found a few marijuana plants in his home, which is probably not going to be too great for Waylett considering that he was arrested for that back in 2009. (Which was why Crabbe was nowhere to be seen in the last Harry Potter movie.)

The Florida State Senate recently passed a law making bestiality illegal, at least by October 1st of this year. At least, the law is one “prohibiting knowing sexual conduct or sexual contact with an animal; prohibiting specified related activities; providing penalties; providing that the act does not apply to certain husbandry, conformation judging, and veterinary practices” (which means we assume you can still go through the motions necessary to create vital ingredients for veterinary artificial insemination, as in the case of endangered species and livestock).

However, anyone familiar with the taxonomic definition of the word “animal” will realize that humans are included, which means that in a strictly taxonomic sense, Floridians better get all the hanky-panky out of their systems by the end of September, because after that humans having sex with other humans will be illegal. Fortunately, in a strictly legal sense, the sense that matters… the law isn’t that horrifically stupid.