Here’s an interesting tidbit from the news:

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney
General Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday said they are continuing to lead
a 50-state investigation into Facebook, a social networking Web site…

Cooper this summer was one of several attorneys general who demanded
MySpace provide data on how many registered sex offenders were using
the site, along with information about where they live…

"We presented to them some of the more graphic and unacceptable
material found on portions of their site, but also design aspects that
must be changed to protect minors against predators," he said.Cooper
has pushed for legislation in North Carolina that would require
children to receive parental permission before creating social
networking profiles, among other changes.

This is brilliant!  But I don’t think Mr. Cooper goes far enough.  First of all I think we should demand that parents procure training in graphic design for their children before they allow them on a social networking site.  I mean have you seen some of these kids’ pages?  Who’s protecting my brain from being seared out of my skull by these emoticons layered upon animated GIFs and then overlaid with an illegally downloaded Nelly Furtado track?  Forget the sickos out there, we need to protect these kids from themselves.

And why is Mr. Cooper confining himself to social networking sites?  We need to protect our kids from the bookstores.  Have you been in a Barnes & Noble lately?  There are books with pictures of naked people in there!  Rumor has it that some people also use naughty language while they’re walking the aisles.  Worse, apparently bookstores will allow anyone to walk through the doors so I think we need to demand that they provide an accounting of every criminal they serve.  After all we must keep our children safe.

What about ice cream stores?  Those are well known to be places that kids like to go, but I’ve also heard that they will serve anyone.  What’s to keep sickos from sullying our childrens’ brains there as well.

What’s that?  You think it’s a bad comparison because parents will protect their kids since the kids need to be with them to go to those places so by default the parents will be able to protect them?  Are those the same parents the kids need to provide the computer and the internet connection in order to use social networking sites?