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U.S. Supreme Court To Rule On Online Porn Law
froggle2003 writes "Sites like goodfig.org and NEWS.com.au are among the first to report that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to rule on the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The COPA was passed in 1998 in an effort to crack down on sites that don't block porn from children. It calls for 6 months in jail and $50,000 in fines for first-time violaters. Opponents of the COPA led by the ACLU are quick to note that the COPA makes criminals of many individuals using the internet for legitimate purposes such as providing information on anatomy, gynecology, safe-sex advice, etc."
I personally like the sites that require you to click and confirm that you are of right age. That would be better than having libraries or any other place censor your ability to view web sites.
Ladies and gentlemen... I have a confession to make.
I hate Linux.
Don't get me wrong. I love that Linux exists. I love that there is an open source community that challenges the Microsoft monopoly. I think Linus Torvalds has done a great thing for planet Earth. I love that there are thousands of people who are programming free software for the simple joy of it.
I just don't want it anywhere near me, that's all.
I've been studying computers and computer technology for a while. I've taken one course specifically devoted to Linux, and I have had considerable dealings with it since. So, sure, I'm not an expert. But I'm not exactly a novice, either.
First of all: you have to learn all the stupid little abbreviated commands to use it, even if you have a nice clean GUI. There are no exceptions. Want to install that nice free software you just downloaded? Gotta do it from the command line. In contrast, Windows does everything for you. They dumb it down for you. Sure, it's a little insulting, a little demeaning... but I don't have to work at it.
Secondly... the infamous blue screen of death. Sure, I don't get it when I run Linux... but only because the screen of death in question isn't blue. It's more like black. Windows crashes when I try to run eight programs at once. Linux crashes when I close the laptop lid.
And I'm not talking about a little crash. I had to flip the bloody thing over and pull out the battery.
Thirdly... I'm sorry. Linux people are nerds. Now sure, nerds are a good thing... but you're all nerds. If I wanted to deal with a 100% nerd social circle, I'd go to Star Trek conventions. Let's face it... if you even know what Linux is, you're in the top five nerd percentile of the planet.
Fourth... crappy web browsers. Like most of the planet, I use computers primarily for the Internet, and the Internet primarily for the Web. My web access is important to me. I downloaded Mozilla once, just to try it out on my home computer.
It's slower than IE, and doesn't display some sites correctly. That makes it worse than IE. Period.
My dislike (and yes, a certain amount of contempt) for Linux is the main reason I don't like to refer to myself as a computer geek. Yes, I definitely have a lot of geekish tendencies. This website is a shrine to my geekiness. I am very geeky, adjective. But I am not a geek, noun.
Because I don't live on caffiene, I don't play Quake, I don't read Slashdot, and I hate Linux.
And that's all there is to say.
This is just another ridiculous attempt by the ACLU to turn our country into bedlam. Let's not forget that they're the very same organization which supports NAMBLA. They use extreme cases (anatomy sites, which kids just LOVE to venture into) to try to prove their point. If there is any one organization which is doing more damage to this country than any other, it is the ACLU.
A blog like any other.
I'd vote for prison time and sterilization for the irresponsable parents who allow their kids to view pornographic material. There is a world of difference between making something availiable and people choosing to look at it. If a parent has decided to allow their child unsupervised internet access, then the parents (as legal guardians) have made that choice for the child.
Still, puposefully misrepresenting pornographic content as something innocuous should not go unpunished.