While perusing our incoming referrals via Sitemeter, I like to check the various Google and other searches to see how people who aren’t regular readers find us. And I spot one in which the search phrase was,
“causes of rectal hemoraging”
Hmmm. I don’t recall any column about this, unless, maybe it was something Chad was interested in. Chad’s our designated authority on medical issues and stuff; yeah, that’s the ticket.
Lately, I've had a couple of people find my site by querying for Will Kenyon's blog, or Comics in Action, or "Drug Defense No Constructive Possession". Understandable. But then I get people interested in:
Random Sexual Questions
Movie Slyvia
and I think they'll be disappointed.
Dave Barry points out SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE NO. 34,918 - Digital Bagpipes.
SpongeBob isn't out after all. Dobson was protesting against exploiting SpongeBob in a tolerance video, not the cartoon itself.
OTOH (On the other hand, Nelle
) Tinky Winky has no one else to play with. Though I've always had my suspicions about Ernie and Bert, the eternal "roommates."Via Salieri and Instapundit.
Instapundit also notes this New York Times article that seems to imply the internet is responsible for perpetuating child porn. I read the article as saying that the 'net improves the opportunity for those who already have the impulse. It does rather imply that it is responsible for creating perpetrators where none existed before:
I asked about the Internet, whether it may bear any causal responsibility along the path toward offending. ''It's a fairly complicated issue,'' Berlin said, and one for which there appears to be, again, no solid research. ''I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Internet creates desire, but I do think it is creating significant difficulties.'' To some extent, he explained, it is merely a ''new and different vehicle'' for those who would offend against children anyway. But it ''provides temptation for some who might not otherwise have crossed the line.'' He added: ''There are three areas of concern. First, the illusion of anonymity -- an illusion because Internet use can be easily tracked -- leads to disinhibition. Second, there's a blurring of fantasy and reality. There's someone at the other end of the Internet conversation, but it's not quite a real person; there's a feeling of playing a game that can lead to actually doing what one otherwise wouldn't. Third, the easy accessibility can facilitate'' moving over boundaries.
Over the past decade, with the surge in Internet use, there has been no spike in the overall number of cases of sexual abuse against children. (There has been, it appears, a significant decrease, attributed by some to the success of harsher sentences and offender registries and by others, in part, to the possibility that those sentences and registries discourage victims, who tend to know their abusers, from reporting the crimes.) But Berlin's concern was echoed by Prentky when he described the Internet as ''a catalyst for fantasy and dangerous if the control over behavior is markedly impaired.'' And by David D'Amora, Patrick Liddle's boss and the head of the Center for the Treatment of Problem Sexual Behavior, who has about 800 child sexual abusers under his watch in Connecticut, when he talked about the Net's abundant porn and disembodied chat-room conversation as a ''disinhibitor.''
Easy access to porn has been blamed by many as the "cause" of various socially undesirable sexual interests. Witness the recent series of articles on Randy Brown in the Des Moines Register, that as I blogged on earlier seem to make him out as a victim of the internet.
Matthew Yglesias has this to say:
But, clearly, we had child molestors before we had the internet. And if child abuse is dropping while internet use is skyrocketing (and we all know that pornography is a hefty part of that use), then it's really, really, really hard to see why we should think that the internet and its disinhibiting properties are part of the problem. I mean, if one day low alcohol beers show up on the marketplace, their sales skyrocket, and the incidence of alcoholism starts to go down, then our hypothetical alcoholic's claims don't seem nearly so absurd.
Greenman enters the dialogue on the Englert, linking to a video made at the beginning of the project which should help show the original intent of the venue.
For those who want more on the "are women statistially handicapped at math and science" issue, there are some good posts at the Volokh conspiracy here and here, both discussing the statistics and science behind the issue. Armando at Daily Kos has a post up here, finding Summer's remarks inappropriate regardless of accuracy due to his position and the topic of the conference. And Instapundit notes: Though it seems that it's okay to talk about sex differences, so long as it's done in a way that reflects badly on men.
Okay, that's about half my virtual "clippings pile" for the week. Why is it half the time there's not much to write about, and the other half you're snowed under an avalanche of information?
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