According to Louisiana news website 2theAdvocate, Louisiana Sheriff’s Capt. Spense Dilworth seized videogames from the home of a teenage murder suspect, Edward Neher, believed to have slain a West Feliciana Parish man on Tuesday. That in itself isn’t too disturbing. What’s disturbing is why this officer decided to seize said games. The reason: Jack Thompson told him to. That’s right, everyone’s favorite zany jackass suggested a link to violent videogames. According to published reports, Nehrer killed the man because he wouldn’t allow him to borrow his car. Thompson says this follows ”the same scenario in Grand Theft Auto.” John Bruce also had this to say:

“Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you’re a hit man or a video gamer”

To put this in (sarcastic) context, I give you Kotaku’s Eliza Gauger:

“Man, I hate that one mission in GTA, you know the one where you’re trying to borrow that guy’s car and he won’t let you, so you just totally stomp his ass and blow his face off and score mad points. I always have to tank cheat my way through that one.

As a hilarious aside, the shooter was home alone because his mother, the exquisitely-named Happy Morris, was booked last week on “simple battery of a juvenile and unauthorized entry into an inhabited dwelling”. The specifics? She broke into a house and slapped a fourteen-year-old girl.

There’s undoubtedly a video game at the root of that particularly heinous crime, too. Nobody slaps fourteen-year-old girls in the face unless you’re a Hot Dog on a Stick employee or a dating sim enthusiast.”

In conclusion, there are now three constants in this world: death, taxes, and Jack Thompson wackiness.

—via Kotaku. Read the news article here.

Game Politics has posted a list of the most controversial upcoming games of 2006. Leading the pack is of course GTA4:

• Grand Theft Auto 4
• Resevoir Dogs
• Sadness
• Bully
• Hitman: Blood money
• 50 Cent: Bulletproof G Unit Edition

Most of those are controversial for obvious reason. The curious standout is Sadness. Having read a little about the project now, I have to say, it sounds cool. Sadness is a survival horror game in development for Wii. The website for it mentions using the Wiimote for waving torches, tossing lassos, and slitting throats. It’s this last action that puts it on GP’s controversial list. Wii has the potential to let supposed “murder simulators” actually simulate murder. Instead of pressing a button, players can actually “stab” someone, for example. Interesting.

 Controversial or not, Sadness sounds like it could be a cool title.

Do those two old ladies to the right look like hardened criminals to you? Well, they are. These women are Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, and Helen Golay, 75, two Californians with no criminal record. They were recently arrested for mail fraud. The scam? Take out life insurance policies on homeless men, kill said homeless men with well planned hit-and-runs, and collect on said life insurance policies. So far, the LA Police can only charge them with mail fraud but are trying to build the murder case. The life insurance policies—taken out on two homeless men—were worth over two million dollars.

Why is this story on 8-bit Ninja, you ask? I’ll tell you. If these two fine ladies were in fact young men, you can bet your ass they’d be using the Grand Theft Auto Defense ™. Hell, they still might, it’s not too late.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that the Oklahoma State Senate recently passed what amounts to an anti-gaming bill. Basically, the bill (HB 3004) makes it illegal to sell games that are “harmful to minors” to children. This bill, once signed by Governor Henry, will add any games under this loose defintion to the short list of government regulated media.

Here is the current list of government regulated media:

• Pornography

Like I said. It’s a short list. The point I’m getting at here is this: I live in Oklahoma. This law won’t affect me, but I personally believe it’s a bad idea. The heart of the idea is good, I just don’t think it’s a legal issue. All other media is internally regulated and that should be good enough for games—which are prohibitively expensive to most children anyway.

I sent Governor Henry a letter on the subject not long ago and was delightfully surprised that he actually responded—and quickly, too. I still think he’s going to sign the bill. He pretty much has to, as it passed through both the State House and Senate unanimously. Still, I wanted to take this time to thank Governor Henry—and specifically his Policy Specialist Leslie Tabor—for taking the time to respond at all.

—UPDATE: This is post is now linked to the resplendent Game Politics. Thanks, Dennis.