<p>Sounds like it. Maybe McCain is right. Who really needs it.</p>
<p>[Business</a> Technology : The Web: Still a Vast Pornographic Wasteland](<a href=“http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/09/19/the-web-still-a-vast-pornographic-wasteland/]Business”>http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/09/19/the-web-still-a-vast-pornographic-wasteland/)</p>
<p>Wow - the percentage of porn sites and others catering to our more basic instincts surprises me. I love the net- whenever I want to know anything- directions, a good restaurant, hotels, books, you name it, there’s nothing like it. One night my daughter was lost after a concert in Los Angeles because they were working on the freeway she was supposed to take, which was closed. At 11pm, she called her dad and he went on the net and was able to direct her to the best detour. This situation would have been much harrier for her without the internet, or her cell phone, for that matter.
It may have a lot of junk, but you don’t have to go there. I think it’s wonderful!</p>
<p>I do everything on-line that I can. Just since this morning, I have done the following: (1) booked travel for S2 to come home for fall break, (2) deposited money into his Flex spending account, (3) printed directions for travel this weekend, (4) transfered money from savings to checking, (5) played on-line poker, (6) ordered pizza for dinner, (7) looked up an address, (8) found S2’s former grad student piano teacher from almost 10 years ago and sent him an e-mail; (7) communicated with colleagues in France, Belgium & Canada as well as several places in the US, (8) processed a Fed Ex shipment to S2, (9) did a Sudoku puzzle and (10) looked up temporary health insurance options for S1. I suppose on-line poker / Sudoku could be seen as a wasteland but they’re fun.</p>
<p>The sale of sex is nothing new. The internet is just another means of distribution. </p>
<p>The internet is a vast resource for everything you ever needed or wanted to know, or what you didn’t want or need to know.</p>
<p>Truly, it’s a diversion for every perversion, from soup to nuts, proselytizing to pornagraphy. </p>
<p>Tis neither good nor evil in and of itself, but how an individual chooses to utilize the resources.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is sort of a dumb way to put it. If we compare how many printed pages of smut have been ever published versus how many of say, classic literature, the ration will probably turn out to be the same.</p>
<p>It’s even dumber to simply count pages. Most of the pornographic pages are front ends for a single much larger back-end page that actually contains any material. It would be more appropriate to divide the number of pages by 10 or 100 to get an accurate estimate.</p>
<p>I agree with cronie - a lot of junk, but you don’t have to go to it. Any media that is built communally will have lots of porn. No surprise there. But, if you are a member of CC, I don’t think you could have escaped noticing the invaluable resources the Internet has to offer. We are, after all, currently on one.</p>
<p>But due to the Internet, people are lured into pornography who perhaps would not have been in the past. I’m not talking about a teenage boy getting a copy of a magazine; I know that’s always been common, but it doesn’t typically lead to the kind of addictions we see today with the internet. And I wonder about pedophilia. Was it as widespread in the days before the internet, or has the easy availability of child porn created new pedophiles?</p>
<p>I don’t know what other people find, but I’ve never stumbled upon child porn or anything leading to it. I don’t think anyone would find it unless they were already looking. Maybe people are curious against their better natures - I don’t know - but I really don’t think anyone would just randomly find child porn and become a pedophile.</p>
<p>True, I don’t think you would stumble across it, but like you said, I think people might be curious. And if they are already looking at a lot of smut, then they might go looking for something a little more “dangerous”.</p>
<p>It just seems like there are way more pedophiles out there than there used to be, and I wonder if it’s due to the Internet.</p>
<p>The internet is the best thing to happen to the sharing of information since the invention of the printing press.</p>
<p>don’t we always mistrust what we don’t understand?
[Obama</a> vs. McCain on media policy 2008. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine](<a href=“Obama vs. McCain on media policy 2008.”>Obama vs. McCain on media policy 2008.)</p>
<p>I don’t think there are more pedophiles out there because of the Internet. I think it is because the public is more aware that it is going on and willing to talk about it.</p>
<p>Yes the spreading of numerous ridiculous vicious false stories about Sarah Palin by a Democrat PR firm sure helped the public information cycle.</p>
<p>Politicians have to do their part to support late- night talk show hosts.
After all, Jay has his eye on a sweet little Jag.
;)</p>
<p>Now Jay was at least funny and people knew it was satire. I LMAO at the Pailn interview bit.</p>
<p>But seriously, here’s what might have been going on</p>
<p>September 22, 2008
Hope, Change, & Lies: Orchestrated “Grassroots” Smear Campaigns & the People that Run Them [Updated]</p>
<p><strong><em>Sticky</em></strong>Scroll past on main page for newer posts<strong><em>Updates sprinkled throughout post and summarized at end</em></strong></p>
<p>Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views. </p>
<p>Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure. </p>
<p>It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:</p>
<p>Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.
The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.
Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.
Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.
This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”
David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.
The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.
This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe.</p>
<p>Damn! The way they are acting you’d think they were republicans…</p>
<p>At its best, the e-world simply cannot be beat for accessibility and immediacy. </p>
<p>This morning, for instance, while checking what is likely my favorite Website, [Arts</a> & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate](<a href=“http://www.aldaily.com/]Arts”>http://www.aldaily.com/), I came across a link to an article, recently published in the NYT, profiling philosophy professor Kelly Jolley (<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21jolley-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21jolley-t.html?em=&pagewanted=all)</a>. Having a good deal more curiosity than knowledge about philosophy, and thinking that Professor Jolley might be receptive to such a query, I decided to send him an email to see if he might have any suggestions for someone like me, a middle-aged autodidact wanting to read more in this area. In less than a half-hour, he got back to me with a thoughtful and helpful response:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This entire transaction - from checking the a&l Website to reading this NYT article to writing Professor Jolley to hearing back from him - took place in the space of an hour.</p>