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?

Yeah, I concur...I was right there until I reached that phrase. Sure, we know the Feds would like a "new," "revamped" Internet...one with far more built-in peepholes, and some sort of licensing structure to positively identify users. Thanks, but no thanks...

Hey, you have to go with whatever talents you have. We happen to be very good at litigating stupid shit, thank you. Actually solving problems, not so much....besides being a lot harder, it might actually reduce the amount of stupid shit available to litigate. Then where would we be? Who's going to pay to retrain all those out of work Stupid Shit Litigators? We might get desperate and have to import other countries' stupid shit to litigate. What would that do to our balance of trade?

Clearly, you just do not understand how America works...

Also, most poor people are too busy just trying to survive to plot and plan a terrorist attack. A store holdup, maybe. Isolated violence against individuals, sure. A mass terror attack, not so much. But the children of privilege, who have all their material needs met, and are well-educated, often have a lot of time on their hands. Couple that idleness with intelligence, the money to travel, and the general ennui that can't be satiated with material things, and you're looking at a breeding ground for radicalization in an Islamic society. Sure, the poor can hold extreme religious views, but they're pretty much powerless to act on them to any great extent.

9/11 had such a profound impact on the U.S. because it was spectacular, it was unprecedented, and it happened here. And, thanks to the 24/7 cable news cycle, we watched it unfolding, live, from our living rooms.

Anytime you have a large number of fatalities occurring from a single spectacular event, it will have a stronger emotional impact than a much higher cumulative tally of deaths over time. That's why airliner crashes, for example, are newsworthy and annual statistics are not -- those 100, 200, 300 deaths may be statistically a drop in the bucket compared to the annual deaths from car crashes, cancer, or whatever, but they occurred in a single, dramatic event.

The notion of using airplanes, and civilian airliners at that, as flying bombs was also not a possibility that was in the popular consciousness, not even as a plot element in an action movie. (How many people commented, on 9/11 and in the days following, that it all seemed unreal, like watching a movie and not reality?) And crash those planes into three of the most well-known, high-profile buildings in the world (the two WTC towers and the Pentagon), with a fourth crash into the White House or the Capitol (depending on who you believe) prematurely thwarted, and you have the ingredients for a real-life spectacular that will have a profound impact, regardless of how the numbers stack up statistically.

And it happened on U.S. soil. Prior to 9/11, with the possible exception of the OKC bombing, large scale terrorist attacks were something that happened in those "other" countries around the world. And with the perpetrators being "foreigners" (as opposed to a domestic malcontent like McVeigh and whatever conspirators he may or may not have had, depending on what you believe), and it's not hard to fathom the almost immediate adoption of the "America is under attack" and "we are at war" memes that were so adroitly exploited by the government.

Finally, the smug xenophobia and self-centeredness of Americans played a role. Why do you think a domestic plane crash, even a smaller commuter plane with fewer than 100 souls on board, gets hours of constant, live coverage on CNN while a jumbo jet with hundreds aboard crashing halfway around the world merits but a sentence or two at the hourly update? Think of the impact Hurricane Katrina had while killing fewer than 2000, compared to the Asian tsunami that killed 250,000 five years ago. Now consider how much attention, concern, and TV time were devoted to both. Sure, the Pacific tsunami did get some screen time, especially now that the ubiquitous presence of video cameras in average people's hands gave us some shaky, dramatic, horrifying footage to see. (Though I strongly suspect that if there had been no video at all, the event would have been even more marginalized on U.S. media.) But with the exception of a handful of Western tourists caught up in the disaster, those quarter million souls are "other" people..."fer'iners"...you know, them people that dress weird and talk funny and don't look like us. On the scale of emotional involvement, a couple thousand American lives merits an "OMG, this is horrible, something must be done" while 250,000 Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Thais, et. al. elicits an almost Seinfeldesque "Ah, that's a shame....wonder what's on HBO right now..."

So, it's not sheer numbers that determine what impact death has on a culture; it's all about context. Who got killed, where, how and why.

Your last sentence gives the reason why your first sentence is undesired from a privacy standpoint. Cash still provides an almost traceless means of exchange. When everything becomes an electronic transfer, anyone who wants to poke into your financial affairs and monitor your purchases can do so.

As for checks, people still like to use them primarily because you if you're technically broke but facing an imminent need to buy something, you can still write a check Tuesday, knowing it won't be cleared until Thursday when the money will be in your account. This doesn't work at larger retailers now, since they do electronically run it through to verify if sufficient funds exist, but at smaller stores or for private exchange between two individuals, this is still an option.

There are still some valid reasons to use checks in certain situations. Rather than eliminating them entirely, let companies, retailers, and individuals decide for themselves whether or not they will continue to accept checks as policy, and let everyone else that wants to accept them, accept them. But let's keep the option. (Choice is good.)