Think of the Children

This article, about a proposal in the Virginia legislature intended to restrict the internet usage of convicted sex offenders, strikes me as a bit...

Well, I'm not really sure how to explain it. The high-pitched wail of "think of the children" has always bothered me, mostly because it seems far more like an appeal to pathos rather than any sort of, you know, actual reasoning. Yeah, kids are vulnerable and need to be protected. And yeah, the world is a dangerous place. And yeah, that dangerous world is getting closer and closer to home the more pervasive the internet and information-collating gets.

But the thing is... deleting a profile? I mean, MySpace *has* kids on it, yeah -- most social networks I know of do -- but it's not a place *for* kids. There are legitimate uses, even for a convicted sex offender. It just seems... excessive to say, "woah, woah, not you buddy." (Oddly, it reminds me of a Dilbert, wherein he plea bargains to have an assault charge reduced to 'lewd conduct with an appliance, or something. 'Would you like a moment alone with Mr. Coffee?')

Never mind any arguments of Big Brother or the slippery slope. 'Think of the children!' is very good at sidestepping those concerns. Like I said, ethos.

But what alternative is there? I hate complaining without offering some alternative. But the convict is the one who can be coerced. You can't depend on kids to enter their real birthdate even, so you can 'protect the children' against their own will -- I have no fewer than 3 or 4 cousins on MySpace claiming to be 2 and 3 years older than they really are. But the thing is that I don't think this registry will *really* make much of an impact because, as the article states, the bigger problem, the real threat, is unregistered, un-convinced offenders. And none of the protections that they're putting into place, nor this proposal, will address that.

So, yeah.

Regarding HIV in India

This article talks about a boy who was kicked out of school (well, 'sent home and told to never come back') because he was HIV-positive. And apparently it's not the first time, nor isolated incidents. There's apparently at least one (I would imagine several) school specifically for HIV-positive children.

My response: What? Why? Last I heard, you couldn't get HIV from proximity or touch. It's not communicated except through bodily fluids, right? So why kick a four-year old to the street?

More of the Same

Related to my earlier post: Federal legislation to Protect the Children, which in part targets convicted sex offenders specifically, but another part also may effect little guys, too.

From the article:
Then, any social-networking site must take "effective measures" to remove any Web page that's "associated" with a sex offender.

A McCain aide, who did not want to be identified by name, said on Friday that the measure was targeted at any Web site that "you'd have to join up or become a member of to use." No payment would be necessary to qualify, the aide added.

Does anyone else think this sounds a lot like denying offenders nearly any and all access to the Internet? Does this make anyone else concerned about how far this could stretch? It sounds an awful lot like censorship and denial of free speech?

SQRT(All_Evil);

From a comment by Daetrin on a Slashdot article on how Craigslist hasn't sold out:
I just finished re-reading "The Door Into Summer" by Robert Heinlein and I'm reminded of the part where the main character's business partners are trying to force him out of so they can sell the company to a big corporation. He says something along the lines of "You can't use more than one swimming pool or more than one yacht at a time, and you'll have both in another year with the way we're doing business now so why should we sell out to another company and put them in charge?" But his partners are intent on having more money and power than they can actually use, just for the sake of money and power.

I want to read that book, now. Not because I expect it to be amazingly well-written and provocative (it could be, but I can't say I expect it), but because the love of money and the unreasoning pursuit of power are two root causes of most problems I see in society.

Update on Life.

This is me being grumpy.
I'm grumpy because, for the very short term, it's the only alternative to despondent.
It's now been about a week since I last emailed Kira; no word in reply yet. It was a long, long email, though, so I'm trying to believe she's just busy. I have no reason to believe otherwise, but the longer the silence draws out the more my confidence wanes. I don't deal well with silence. And I hate me without confidence.

Speaking of weeks, this is my last one at my Internship. Friday is my last day, which means I get another paycheck and a half out of them. In the meantime, pretty much all of my actual-work has stopped, and I'm doing little more than the clean-up paperwork for leaving. I like to imagine that most of that (the work-stoppage) isn't my fault, and the fact that we had to send 3 of the 4 phones I was working on back to the manufacturer for repaires helps that belief.

In other news I have a room-mate but no apartment in Monterey. I've also done approximately 70% or 80% of my Christmas shopping (though one gift will yet require a few hours of assembly...). My mom is bringing a couple of my brothers down here on Monday to pack up my stuff and move me out of my apartment. This means I need to get the mess that's accumulated over the last week or so cleaned up, partly so my stuff is ordered well and can be packed easily, but mostly because I don't want my place being messy when mom comes by. I never believed her as a kid but she was right: it makes a difference when it's your own space.

I have almost no food in my apartment. Aside from a few eggs, a little oatmeal, lots of chocolate, and some stale cereal, I'm pretty much living lunch-to-lunch. Part of this is laziness, which is helped by the fact that I'm leaving at the end of the week so getting more food seems wasteful. Part of it has to do with the fact that I have approximately $4 in checking until Friday (though more than plenty in Savings, so I'm hardly scraping the barrel).

Meh. I think I'm gonna go play video games or maybe cook an egg...
(I friends-lock too many of my posts these days. I need to remedy that.)