Word: stiffs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...California husband and wife convicted of transmitting pornography through an Internet computer bulletin board wound up with stiff sentences in federal court today, raising the possibility that people who put risque material online had better watch theobscenity standardsof any community that can access their system. Robert and Carleen Thomas, who founded the Amateur Action Bulletin Board System from Milpitas, Calif., received 37 and 30 months, respectively, but plan to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their attorney has accused federal prosecutors of holding the trial in the Bible Belt -- Memphis, Tenn., where someone accessed the bulletin board...
...nearly a year, the Rodriguez brothers have been trying to cut a deal with the Colombian government in exchange for slap-on-the-wrist punishment. For just as long, impatient drug fighters in Washington have been pressing Bogota to make the narcobosses pay a stiff penalty for their crimes. When Ernesto Samper Pizano was elected President nearly five months ago, the Clinton Administration thought it had assurances that the Rodriguez brothers would not get the deal they wanted...
...Queen Liz et al. in their present place, and serialize their trials and tribulations on BBC-1. In many ways the royals do satisfy our need for instant gratification--so why not acknowledge it and give them their own television series? "Melrose Place" and "90210" will finally have some stiff competition. After all, as the Economist points out, even Bagehot conceded that to expect the sovereign always to be "virtuous [is] not rational...
...tableau-like settings are meticulously rendered as if the characters were part of a still-life painting, and at times the director Alain Corneau (who co-wrote the screenplay with Alain Quinard) makes them seem too stiff and doll-like for their own good. Most of the interior shots are done in warm, gentle lighting, making the tones subdued while the textures are palpable. The velvet and silk costumes are nothing short of sumptuous. Indeed, the entire film is a lavish production which has been a huge success and garnered many awards...
...characters here. It seems that Davies is afraid that if an idea was too subtly communicated, the audience might miss its overarching significance. Most characters are caricatures of exceedingly distasteful personality traits. When Davies wants us to know that the stepmother, Katherine, (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) has a problem, a stiff gent with the curiosity of a TV reporter blurts out, "She's taken a bottle... she's started to drink...