You Must Be Joking

In honor of April Fool's Day, here's a story from this week's Boston Globe so absurd and so incredibly, offensively stupid that you'll be certain it's a prank. It's not.

Two teenage girls face child pornography charges after posting sexually explicit photographs of themselves on the Internet.

That's right. Photographs of themselves.

If convicted, these girls will spend the rest of their lives branded as Registered Sex Offenders — for posting photographs of themselves on MySpace. Everyone involved with this case should be fired: The police officer who reported the photographs, the district attorneys who filed charges, and the judges who presided over the girls' respective arraignments. We're spending tax dollars to jail, prosecute, and possibly imprison two girls whose lives are about to be ruined because they posted photographs of themselves on the Internet.

What the fuck.