Oh suuuuuuure. It makes perfect sense as long as you’re NOT talking about gun control.

Age Verification on MySpace is Not Working:

In the spring of 2006, Shawn Little met a 14-year-old Bucks County boy on MySpace.com, the self-styled “place for friends.”

Little, however, was no friend. He was a 25-year-old man trolling the Web for boys.

Posing on MySpace as a fellow teen, Little approached the youth online, lured him to his Levittown home, and sexually assaulted him.

Calling him “every parent’s nightmare,” Bucks County Court Judge Albert Cepparulo sent Little to state prison last spring for six to 15 years.

“When you hear of a case like this,” the judge said in court, “you want . . . to take the computer and to hit it with a sledgehammer.”

There’s a typical liberal response if I’ve ever heard one. “BASH TOOL! TOOL BAD!” What the hell did the computer do? I use computers every day and they don’t turn me into a child predator. I make a living off it. Wonderful little invention, these things.

Answer me this … what is a 14-year-old doing unsupervised on a computer for possibly hours at a time? Was it just sitting there in his room?

Distressed by such incidents, 49 state attorneys general last month announced a safety agreement with MySpace - the world’s largest social networking site, with 110 million users - aimed at shielding children from strangers in cyberspace.

In theory, most adults would be unable to view the sites of users younger than 18, or contact them online.

Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one.

But even the pact’s backers - MySpace’s security chief included - admit it would not keep a predator like Shawn Little from underage prey.

That’s because the safety barriers it prescribes depend largely on MySpace subscribers’ truthfully reporting their ages when creating online profiles. And it offers no reliable means of identifying or policing the suspected millions who do not.

Well, HONK MY HOOTERS!

IMAGINE THAT! Criminals not telling the truth! “Holy MOST-PREDICTABLE-FUCKING-RESULT-IN-THE-UNIVERSE, Batman!”

What’s amazing is that they actually print this argument in the paper when it deals with MySpace, but don’t dare for a moment bring it up when it comes to issues of the law-abiding being compared to common thugs on 2A issues. Nonono, then it’s just RIDICULOUS to assume that new laws don’t do jack-fucking-shit. Make it illegaler, I say!

Until that nut is cracked, no set of guidelines can keep 12-year-olds from registering their virtual selves as adults, or stop 60-year-old creeps from masquerading online as high school cheerleaders.

Exactly:

Editors Note: That’s NOT me.

“Kids are still very vulnerable online, even with the agreement,” New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said.

I can just picture Anne narrowing her eyes and looking around suspiciously, wondering aloud, “It’s almost as if … criminals aren’t obeying the law …”

MySpace, though, is not necessarily liable for those shortcomings.

Of course not. Not unless you’re John Edwards or something.

A federal judge in Texas last year threw out a $30 million lawsuit filed against MySpace by the mother of a teen allegedly assaulted by a man the child had met on the site.

The 13-year-old girl had lied about her age, claiming to be 18, when setting up her profile. A 19-year-old college freshman who contacted her was later accused of sexually assaulting her.

WHAT!? But … little girls are just honest victims in all this! Clearly it’s the work of those eeeeeeevil computers! And the Evil Computer Lobby that funds their daily assault upon innocent victims of browser manipulation!

The article goes on and on, spinning around itself trying to solve every parenting problem in the book and failing miserably. My favorite thought is this one:

Another provision of the agreement allows parents to submit their child’s e-mail address to a registry, preventing it from being used to create a MySpace page. But critics say many kids, without their parents’ knowledge, obtain multiple e-mail addresses available for free through AOL, Yahoo and other sites.

Yeah! That’s it. “Honey? Mommy made an email address for you so you can talk to your friends in Senior class! It’s mywiddlechubbywubbybaby@mommyprotectsyou.com!”

As if we needed any further proof that legislators are idiots, parents are woefully uninformed, and that good ol’ mainstream media is more than happy to make 2A supporters into inbred redneck killers who can’t possibly make a single worthy argument against gun control and the ridiculousness of making things like murder illegaler by throwing more laws at those who won’t break ‘em anyway.

Saw it over at Snowflakes In Hell …

“Personal Liberty,” Paul? You keep usin’ dat word. I dunno think it means what you think it means.

I like Sebastian’s take:

Was a sign saying “no guns” really going to be effective against someone intent on mowing down town council?

I propose a new tagline for the Brady Campaign … “INCONCEIVABLE!“

Bill Quick has set in motion a most excellent and worthy exercise, the American Conservative Party.

From everything I’ve witnessed in the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that the Republican party has become a big spending nanny, filled to the core with populists that are quite honestly a little too close in ideals and practices as their Democratic counterparts. Why not set the wheels in motion for a group of like-thinkers that respect the Constitution as written, respect individual liberty, small government, and freedom in all it’s wonderful forms.

Stop by, join up, bookmark it, blogroll it, or do whatever it is you’re capable of doing to stay involved in the project. There are excellent people working on this project (myself included as an editor on the site) and it promises to grow by leaps and bounds. It’s impossible to know what scope it will end up with, but it all starts with a little bit of involvement - even if it’s just reading and joining in some of those spirited discussions. I’ve added the site to this blogroll and I’ll be linking to it often.

Come on, people. All this “vote for the lesser of two evils” talk is just pure silliness.

Do you want 4 years of Hillary? 4 years of Obama? Imagine the battles on immigration, gun control, and taxes.

Or do you want 4 years of McCain? Imagine the battles on immigration, gun control, and taxes.

If given the choice, I would rather be prepared to face 4 years of fighting for what I believe in than 4 years of being repeatedly stabbed in the back by a “maverick” President and a bunch of GOP busybodies who feel they have no choice but to go along because they too have an “R” after their name. We’ve seen plenty of that already. That’s why I’m taking the summer off from politics. That’s why I’m not going to bother casting a vote. There’s no convincing me that somehow one evil is eviler than another evil.

As a liberty-loving individual, you have no choice in the next election. I’d rather take some time off, sit poolside with a pina colada, and get myself psyched up for all of the letter writing, phone calls, and faxes that I’ll be dispersing for the next 4 years fighting the good fight against an enemy I’m well aware of. Otherwise, you’re deserving of every pang of pain yanking yet another knife out of your back all courtesy of the “lesser evil” you supposedly voted for.

Let me introduce you to Sania Mirza:

This beautiful young lady is a professional tennis player from India. She’s 21 years old, has a good future ahead of her, and is not-so-arguably the biggest tennis star in Asia. She’s a Muslim. She was also forced to pull out of a tennis event in her home country with a purse of $600K because … oh why do I even try the suspense …

Indian tennis star Sania Mirza plans to skip the Bangalore Open next month to avoid possible controversy in her home country.

Mirza, ranked 29th, said she was advised by her management to skip the $600,000 tournament, billed as the richest in India.

“Every time I play in India there is a problem,” Mirza said in The Times of India on Tuesday. “Considering all that, I thought it would be better not to play in Bangalore.”

She’s a little too “Western” for hardline Islamic tastes, I suppose. There’s a fatwa on her, too. Because of the whole short skirt and being near a mosque thing. Religion of Peace my fanny.

Earlier in her career, the Muslim player was assailed by conservative elements of the Indian community for competing in short skirts and sleeveless shirts.

“It does take its toll because it’s not easy to deal with that kind of pressure,” Mirza said. “It’s not normal for any youngster to block such pressure all the time and keep performing.”

“assailed by conservative elements of the Indian community”?

Oh why don’t you just say it. A bunch of sharia-loving jihadists want to remove her head from her body and replace it with a tennis ball.

I’m sure they’d be more than happy to watch her make a fool of herself tripping on a burqa as she runs around chasing backhands. Not too many sponsorship opportunities, I suppose. Islam, sending civilization and sports back to the stone age one fatwa at a time!

Salem Fire Department Loses 911 Service For Hours

Officials in Salem said they want some changes after the Fire Department went without 911 service for up to 15 hours over the weekend.

Fire Chief Kevin Breen has begun an investigation after two communications companies spent Friday and Saturday pointing fingers at each other.

Hey, if you’re in trouble, just call 911, right? I mean, that system always works, doesn’t it? No? Maybe they don’t believe you. Maybe they don’t send help. Maybe it takes hours to respond?

Got news for you. If you’re ever in trouble and in the unfortunate situation of having to defend your life from a thug; a firearm is faster, more effective, and more reliable than a municipal agency will ever be.

Here we go …

WARREN COUNTY—Three million Americans carry concealed weapons.

The Glens Falls Post-Star wants to know the names of all pistol permit holders in Warren County and has submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to the Warren County Clerk’s Office to obtain a list of the concealed carry permit holders, apparently with the intent to publish those names.More…

This request, apparently being undertaken by Post-Star reporter Nick Reisman, has initiated a firestorm of protest from local law enforcement officials, county officials, and certainly among gun owners and holders of concealed carry permits.

There should be a special place in hell for folks like Nick Reisman. Make no mistake, there’s intent to publish the names, but there’s also backpedaling, apparently … and some contradictions …

By mid-day Monday, Post-Star editor Ken Tingley had posted a notice to “our readers” on their website denying that they had any intent of publishing the names, giving the lame excuse that they wanted to know if any convicted felons had guns. Considering that New York State has one of the strictest screening processes in the country for obtaining handgun permits and it is a felony by itself for anyone convicted of a felony to possess a handgun, it’s unlikely that convicted felons would appear on the list of persons having a concealed carry permit.

While Tingley was busying making assurances on the blog of the NYS Rifle and Pistol Association at 10:25 a.m. Monday that “there is no intent to publish the names and towns of gun permit holders”, editorial page editor Mark Mahoney was arrogantly and defensively asserting their right to do so at the same time in emails to angry gun holders.

Angry gun holder emails! Here’s the link: http://blog.nysrpa.org/?p=1200

Check out this very interesting comment:

I have talked to the reporter Nick Reisman from the Post Star, he is the reporter who has submitted the FOIL request for Warren County. He has told me that the plan at this point is to establish a database that will be put on their website. He has said that if he had his way it will be set up in a searchable format, which would require someone to type in a name and it would show them if a person had a permit or not. He wants to respect the privacy of gun owners. I also spoke with the Warren County Clerk who has said that she is supposed to be meeting with the Post Star’s editorial board to discuss what will happen. Mr. Reisman told me nothing is set in stone at this point, the only thing Mr. Reisman did say was that the list will not be in the print edition. He encourages anyone who has questions or comments to contact him or the editors, their email addresses are on their webpage.

And the follow up from Ken Tingley, Editor at the Post-Star:

As editor of The Post-Star I can assure you there is no intent to publish the names and towns of gun permit holders.

It is simply not true.

This is part of a computer assisted reporting project where you can combine two data bases. In this case, the idea is to get a list of convicted felons in the county and run their names through the gun permit data base to find out if anyone who should not have a permit — such as a convicted felon — does.

I hope this explains our position.

Ken Tingley
Editor
The Post-Star

Isn’t that what the County Clerk is for?

And yet another contradiction by … a different editor.

Tingley’s lying. This is a message received from Mark Mahoney, another Post-Star editor. You never could believe a thing The Post-Star says. Driver’s license holders are public info too—they gonna publish all of them too with names, birthdates and addresses. If someone wants to know if Joe Blow has a pistol permit, then let them do a FOIL request to county clerk’s office for that info.

Mark Mahoney wrote:
> Your boycott is misplaced.
> The information is public. It’s available to any citizen with a simple
> Freedom of Information Law request.
> We’re doing nothing wrong by seeking the list and we’re not revealing
> any information that any other person can’t access legally and easily on
> their own.
>
>
>
> Mark C. Mahoney
> Editorial Page Editor
> The Post-Star
> Box 2157, Glens Falls, NY 12801
> e-mail: mahoney@poststar.com
> Direct line: 518.742.3220

Gah.

“I’m here today to ask the people of New Jersey to do the same, cast the same votes for Barack Obama as they cast for John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy,” Ted Kennedy said.

Is there anything that criminal pile of corrupt elitist flesh won’t say? I don’t think so. At least, nothing that would surprise me. I could easily picture him saying, “If Obama was with me in Chappaquiddick, he would’ve saved Mary Jo Kopechne!”

Okay, maybe there IS something that criminal pile of corrupt elitist flesh won’t say …