Congratulations. You're Halfway Through Consember

Happy Consember 34th! What? You don't know what Consember is? It's a new month I've added to the calendar.

Consember ends on December 31st. It's the start of the month that's a bit tricky to pin down. Technically, Consember starts on the day that Wal-Mart, KMart and all the giant retailers start putting Christmas items in their "Seasonal" departments. In decades long gone, America at least had the common sense to kick off Consember on "Black Friday," the Friday following Thanksgiving. That would keep the holidays from encroaching on Thanksgiving and would let us enjoy our turkey and canned cranberry sauce. Regrettably, however, Consember has grown in duration and now not only eclipses Thanksgiving completely, but has successfully overshadowed Halloween as well.

This year, Consember started earlier than usual - the weekend before Halloween. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means that Black Friday will fall on Consember 36th. This means we won't celebrate Christmas until Consember 65th and New Year's Eve until Consember 71st.

On Thanksgiving tomorrow (Consember 35th), Santa will ride the last float in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, formally ringing in what used to be the first shopping day of the holiday season. Won't he be surprised to find that consumers have a 35-day head start on his elf workshop?

Internet Porn Crack-like, Needs Banning

Among the recent developments concerning the "shield my eyes" crowd...

Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."

Last I checked, one didn't require Internet porn in order to masturbate. If these "naturally occurring opioids" were as addictive as heroin, none of our male population would have made it out of their teens alive.

Gee, I was starting to worry that the hairy palms and blindness folks had gone extinct.

You Wish, Powell

Looks like the FCC isn't getting enough jollies censoring content on network TV and radio alone. Now they want to start censoring cable, satellite and the Internet. Too bad their mandate doesn't extend that far. If Powell's crew wants to sail into those waters, it will be faced with opposition that understands the difference between the limited-bandwidth "public airwaves" that carry TV signals and private signals like those that enable cable TV , satellite and the Internet.

And no, we haven't seen any reason to wrest the Invisible Conceptual Idiot Baton away from Michael Powell and re-gift it to someone else.

The RFID Indoctrination Starts Now

"It's too Big Brother for me," said Kenneth Haines, a 15-year-old ninth grader who is on the football and debate teams. "Something about the school wanting to know the exact place and time makes me feel kind of like an animal."

Young Mr. Haines is describing his participation in a pilot program at his school in Texas to test RFID's ability to track the movements of schoolchildren.

The lazier we are about safeguarding our children's safety, the more parents are going to sacrifice privacy, trust and responsibility. While I'm not usually a fan of "slippery slope" arguments, how long before the government points to this program to justify some other use of RFID?

I wonder how long it will be before it becomes mandatory to accept an RFID-enabled pass to get on a city bus? Or to enter a government building? I wonder how long it will be before the technology becomes ubiquitous and corporations and the government start using the data for more nefarious purposes. Shouldn't be too long now...

Advocates of the technology said they did not plan to go that far. But, they said, they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags.

Umm... If anybody needs me, I'll be in an undisclosed location outside of the country. Bye.