As for “lines I would draw”, there’s plenty of them… but I tend to avoid the kind of “zero tolerance” or “technically unenforceable” crap that spawned this lousy proposal.

Politically, this is “Moral Majority” classic gold…. but like most zero-tolerance policies, the lazy thinking “Just ban it all” doesn’t work in reality.

Let’s address just two faults. First, there is no plain English definition of porn. Second, there’s no way to technically prevent dissemination of the same.

Go ahead and create a definition, so internet service providers can know what to block. Be sure to excludes videos that document how to check for breast cancer and how to breastfeed children, because that’s medical and parental. Be sure to exclude videos about various historical artistic masterpieces. I’ll leave you on your own to figure out what to do about Japanese animation or Italian television… their cultural norms are different…

Oh, speaking of cultural norms – since this is a Federal law, it will have to be uniform in L.A., Miami, New Orleans, Houston TX, Peoria, IL, Hershey, PA, and Paducah, KY… and I’d suggest checking a few beach-web-cams because .. different standards…

Okay, now that you’ve got a standard, we’ll assume it’s technically possible for a computer, rather than a person, to “watch” every single scrap of video uploaded to the internet, whether it’s from a college kid’s cell phone, a web cam, a doctor’s office, or whatever. Otherwise, your regime requires an entirely new bureaucracy of porn-censors, y’see .. and that’s going to get very expensive very fast.

Now. How do you implement your standard in a way that the tens of thousands of 12-17 year olds can’t break it? This becomes a “Chinese Lottery” problem – i.e. using tens of thousands of relatively dumb computers rather than one massively smart computer to solve complex problems. Can’t try ‘em as adults, and once one of ‘em figures it out, the method will spread like wildfire.

If you still want to try to do this, that’s fine, just don’t spend my tax dollars on it. I’d rather see ‘em spent on a moon colony. That’s more likely to succeed.

Mew

my second paragraph?

COPA, the “anti internet porn law” is so 1998 .. and its’ predecessor CDA is so 1996…

A bad idea remains a bad idea whether it’s Santorum or Clinton talking about it.

Mew

Yes, Romney would be the same person, but .. he wouldn’t have the same groundswell of support for not-Romney that’s led us here if he’d done some outreach to conservatives instead of .. whatever it was he *did* do for the last 3 years…

Yes, Romney wasn’t vetted much in 2008 .. because McCain was “inevitable” .. and the reason for that is McCain was undeniably strong on one conservative point – national defense – and could make enough of a case for himself on the others – strong families, strong economy – to get the nomination.

Yes, Romney hasn’t been vetted enough in 2012 .. because he’s the “new inevitable”. The Media are even trying the McCain rope-a-dope strategy again… and Willard’s walking right into it.

Where I disagree is that, unless you’re proposing to develop telepathy or something, we can’t know the honest and true records .. we can just get closer to surety.

For myself, I’ve done my own research, and drawn my own conclusions. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but so far the Romney supporters seem much more interested in attacking other candidates than in talking about his record.

Mew

As for Sen. Scott Brown (pudding-MA) he’s a moderate, but a very necessary moderate.

I view the circumstances of the Tea Partiers and Establishment coming together to get him elected as a recognition of a common enemy … something we’d all do well to remember.

As for Romney .. if he had effectively reached out – not just helping moderates, but working in the public eye to elect conservatives – enough folk wouldn’t wonder about him today.

Mew

p.s. Elba.