Total agreement here. Look at the much more irreligious Euro and Scandinavian countries -- crime isn't running rampant in the streets there, and they have a much lower crime and incarceration rate than the good ol' God-fearing U.S. of A. The fallacy is the notion that morality can only be imbued into a society by appealing to some higher power dictating commandments to the poor, sinful mortals, and threatening fire and brimstone upon those who disobey. In the long run, a more just and peaceful society can be realized when citizens have legitimate, intelligent, logical reasons for restricting or outlawing certain acts and behaviors, not just "God says it's wrong, so don't do it." But it takes a wholesale shift in attitude that cannot be easily achieved when most kids grow up with some degree of religious belief pounded into them, when even politicians and lawmakers appeal to the unseen old man in the sky, and the techniques of reason and critical thinking are not only not taught from an early age, but actively discouraged by the educational system.

Nothing new or earth-shattering here. People tend to invest themselves emotionally in their beliefs. They will often cling to a discredited belief because it fits with their general worldview, and gives them a feeling of comfort, power, or righteousness. Plus, few people enjoy being proven wrong.

When you attack someone's preciously held beliefs, no matter how graciously or tactfully, the reaction is often the same as if you took an axe, went into their house, and started destroying their furniture. The natural reaction is to both defend and counter-attack.

Until and unless critical thinking is taught and instilled in people from a very young age, this will continue to be the norm. And, believe me, the powers that be do NOT want kids learning how to question and examine things critically -- by and large, they want moderately-educated clones who will quietly fall into line and do the bidding of the corporate interests that really run things.

I'm envisioning a day when crowds at sporting events sing one of these, then at the end of the game are barred from leaving the stadium until they cough up a fee...

Generally, the bigger the corporation and the larger the customer base, the less emphasis that is placed on customer service. Fact is, most customers never complain, and of those who do, most will eventually give up and either suck it up and write it off as a lesson learned, or just take their business elsewhere. IF there IS an "elsewhere." If there is no comparably-priced alternative that provides everything you need, then you pretty much resign yourself to being screwed and live with it.

Look at Wal-Mart. In many, many communities, they are THE one and only big-box, cheap prices, we carry most everything store. If your alternatives are shopping at a smaller store and paying 15-25% more, or driving an hour to another town, or staying in town but spending all day running around to 5 or 6 stores to get what you can get in one stop at Wal-Mart, then Wal-Mart it is. And if the aisles aren't clean, or the clerks and manager are surly, or they keep refusing your coupons, or whatever...well, you're probably going to curse them and wish nasty consequences upon them...but you'll still shop there.

The Big Boys know this, so they don't even concern themselves with customer service. They know that the really persistent complainers, the "hotheads" (in their eyes) who will make a federal case out of their problem make up maybe 0.5% of their customer base. If your annual profit is in the mega-millions, you're probably not going to give a rat's ass about that half a percent.

So, we have a proposed law that will do nothing to stop criminals from:

-- Using a fake ID to purchase the phone

-- Forcing, coercing, or paying some sap to buy the phone for them

-- Stealing phones, either from a store or an individual

On the latter (and expect such thefts to multiply several-fold if this passes), if they steal from an individual, they often think they've just misplaced or lost it, and it may be some time before they contact their provider and have the service suspended. Even a store theft can go undetected for several hours, add on a few more to determine which phones (numbers) have been stolen, a few more for the bureaucracy to get those numbers blocked, etc. In either case, a thief could easily have 24-48 hours of use before the phone is disabled or monitored. Considering many crooks go through prepaid phones like candy anyway, this won't slow them down too much. That only leaves the dumber crooks, and if they're stupid enough to buy a phone with their real ID, they're probably stupid enough to get caught pretty quickly even without this law.

On the other hand, this law would enable law-abiding users to be more easily tracked and identified by criminals, private eyes, general snoops, bill collectors, stalkers, blackmailers, and so on. Not to mention the guvmint, should you happen to hold ideas or engage in activities that, while not necessarily unlawful, are considered a "threat" by whomever is in power.

So, all in all, we have a law that would (a) do nothing to reduce crime and, indeed, likely increase it (the aforementioned assumed rise in phone thefts), while (b) inconveniencing, harrassing, and possibly endangering law-abiding citizens.

In other words....typical.

How and why did we develop this obsessive need to be communicating, interacting, "in touch" with others constantly? Have we become so shallow and insecure that it is intolerable to simply be alone with one's thoughts and reflections for even a short period of time? This is not healthy. While man is a social animal and requires some degree of contact and interaction with others, "alone time" is just as important and beneficial. If you monitored and analyzed all the cell, texting, and IM "conversations" that take place constantly around you, you'd probably find that much of it is "blather" -- little meaningful content; much prattling on for the sake of just "saying" something, anything; a multitude of shallow, time-wasting exchanges that could easily be eliminated without any lost benefit. And in the process, the avoidance of actually communicating with oneself -- thinking, reflecting, meditating, ruminating, working out of feelings and problems -- the kind of thing we used to do while driving or shopping or walking down the street or just lazing about the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We don't know how to be "alone" anymore, and our sense of self is being subsumed by a constant integration into the "hive."

Good luck getting funding for THAT study. As someone else said (to borrow his words), the whole subject area is "EVIL, EVIL, EVIL" to many, who would rather use a broad brush to paint generalities and condemnation rather than actually study the matter and perhaps seek to understand the why of how such an interest develops, and possibly develop strategies for prevention and treatment. It's SOOO much easier just to write pedos off as sub-human monsters and treat them as such.

I think the more hysterical, over-the-top anti-pedos might fear that such a study WOULD show that so-called "virtual kiddie porn" DOES act as a "safety valve," more often preventing such an interest from escalating to harming or exploiting actual children. I don't know if that is true, but a study showing it to be thus would take some of the wind out of their sails.

Or not. Hell, plenty of studies show that abstinence-based sex education does absolutely nothing in the long run to prevent teens from having sex, but that hasn't quieted the naysayers. A similar mentality keeps the War on Drugs chugging along when it does little to actually curb drug use, whether habitual or recreational. Remember that most of the "antis" in these areas have a strong religious bent, and will easily ignore or reject practical solutions in favor of simple condemnation and prohibition because "God says it's wrong" requires so much less actual thought.

If you read the previous articles about this yahoo's quixotic quest, you'll find that he's not attacking the general notion of hyperlinking per se, but whether linking to allegedly defamatory content is, in and of itself, an act of defamation. To me, that's like saying that if a print newspaper publishes something libelous or defamatory, then anyone advertising, selling, or telling you where you can buy that newspaper is also guilty of defamation. The previous ruling seems to establish a test of context -- a mere link to the material is not actionable, but a link actively promoted in the context of implying that the content is true might be.

But in any case, hyperlinking is not "publishing," and a blanket ruling to that effect would be incredibly ignorant. There are ways to deal with the specific parameters of this case without causing collateral damage to the Net and undermining the very basic concepts that make it what it is.

Never, never, EVER use an ATM to make a deposit. I learned that the hard way. That receipt it spits out is worthless if the contents of that envelope are misplaced, lost, or stolen. Until a human being actually verifies those contents, there is no deposit. And if the envelope, or its contents, pull a disappearing act twixt machine and homo sapiens, you're screwed. You can wave the little receipt in their face and yell and scream and make dire threats, and you will simply be told that the machine receipt isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss. After all, think about it from their point of view -- one could put an empty envelope in the thing while punching in a $500 deposit, and then claim that it was stolen or otherwise misplaced. So, there is no deposit until a bank employee says there is a deposit.

Whether or not such "virtual porn" is a "gateway" to actual harm and molestation or not (and I believe, in most cases, it's not) isn't necessarily the issue for those who want to prosecute these sorts of things. Even if you could prove scientifically through some sort of brain scan that an individual would never actually harm or molest a living, breathing human child, the mere fact that he thinks and fantasizes about such things -- even in an abstract, purely theoretical and fictional manner -- is enough of an "eewww!" factor to brand him and make him subject to punishment and ostracization.

Frankly, though, given the evolving state of copyright law, I'd be more worried about Groening and 20th Century Fox/Gracie Films going after him for infringement. The way things are going, the punishment for that may end up being even more draconian than that for possessing kiddie porn.

Honestly, in the current environment of paranoia, how is it that unregistered, unlisted, untraceable cell phones can still be purchased, for cash, with no forms to fill out or IDs to be checked, at any Wal-Mart or 7-11? I've been expecting this loophole to be permanently sealed for years now, and am shocked that it hasn't been addressed by the Powers That Be(TM).

Well, that's another potential response -- denying anything unusual had been seen, for fear of being thought a fool if you are wrong. Reminds me of the two garbagemen witnessing the Bird of Prey uncloaking and taking off in "Star Trek IV":

"Did you see that??"
"No...and neither did you!!"

With or without a cellphone, this could be very closely related to Doug Adams' SEP effect. I think sometimes people see things that are so bizarre and out of context that it's easier to subconsciously edit out the image rather than try to make sense of it. Or, alternately, some people are so jaded and inattentive to begin with that the anomaly doesn't even register.

Case in point is a similar college campus experiment I read about. Researchers posed as clipboard-bearing survey takers. One would approach a student and begin asking questions. At some point, in a deftly choreographed stunt, two confederates posing as workmen would briefly pass between interviewer and interviewee, carrying a large door that momentarily obscured sight of the interviewer. A quick switch was made during the maneuver, so that when the door was no longer obscuring sight a few seconds later, there was now a completely different person conducting the interview, picking up where the first had left off and acting totally matter of fact, as if nothing unusual had just happened. What they found was that, even when using obvious extremes of appearance (say, a large African-American man replaced by a small Asian woman), a significant percentage of the subjects never batted an eye, and would later deny they had seen anything unusual when "debriefed" after the mock survey was completed.

There is more and more a trend towards structuring society in such a manner as to accommodate every potential disability, no matter how small the number of affected individuals, in every possible scenario and situation. There has to be a reasonable middle-ground that will assist most disabled folks most of the time, while not unduly burdening or inconveniencing the majority.

I'm all for reasonable accommodations for the disabled. Things like curb cuts and ramps for wheelchair users come to mind. They assist the disabled while still permitting normal use by everyone else. But carry access for the disabled to an extreme, and it just starts to become ludicrous. Should office employees be banned from using perfume, aftershave, or scented hair products because a single employee has an allergy? Must buses accommodate wheelchair users when that extra few minutes loading a passenger may well mean missing a transfer connection and making the other 20 or 30 riders late for work? And while I understand the need of some people for service dogs, I don't really want one at the table next to me in a restaurant.

Again, reasonable accommodations are fine, but I also believe disabled people have to accept at some point that there are some things they just aren't going to be able to do, certain places they can't access, and situations that are best avoided. And, unfortunately, the less common and more obscure/unusual your disability, the greater the odds of limitations. That may not sound sympathetic or P.C., but it's realistic.

All adults were 12 at one time. Including every other female who has posed for Maxim. How is that creepy?