Our soon to be masters South Korean scientists have finally cracked the puzzle that has tormented mankind since the beginning: What would happen if cats could glow in the dark? A: A whole mess of mischief, that’s what! I bet these scientists throw some killer Halloween parties!

From Salon:

There’s a new electronic device out there that can protect your children from perverts! Or so the manufacturers would like us to think. Offendar, a tiny radar device the size of an electronic car key, alerts people that a sex offender is approaching.

This, in an age in which California passed a law requiring sex offenders to wear GPS monitoring bracelets for the rest of their lives and To Catch a Predator is a consistent ratings winner.

I don’t know why we feel that pedophilia is the one crime that should be treated differently than any other crime. Personally, I wouldn’t be too psyched to live next door to a murderer or a thief, either, but I can’t look online to see if there are any murderers in my neighborhood like I can with pedos. (BTW, if anyone from the California Registered Sex Offender website is reading this, you really should get some Google Maps action going on your website. That mapping system you have up right now is terrible! 5 children could have been violated in the time it took me to find my address!)

We are terrified at the thought of sexual perversion, more so than we are at any other crime. I wonder why that is? Is it because child molesters represent America’s darkest fantasies? Or do they seem like the weakest of all criminals, like that kid in high school who even the nerds could pick on?

Regardless, I sure don’t think anyone should be forced to wear a GPS tracking for the rest of his life, no matter what he’s done. And I don’t understand why, if we’re so terrified of child molesters, we don’t just put them in jail for longer periods of time? Why would we proclaim that they’re ready to reenter society yet force them to live as outcasts? I think I’d rather just stay in jail.

Any pederasts out there want to chime in?

Sidenote: here’s a website someone has set up to make money off of the child molester registry. God bless America!

Update: This registered sex offender website is really fascinating. I can get the names, pictures, and addresses of all the sex offenders in my neighborhood, so that the next time I see them at the bar I can say, “hey, get my friend here an 8-year old scotch … and an 8-year old!” The scariest part is that there’s a special icon for “multiple sex offenders” in one location. It is so common for sex offenders to live together that they had to invent a special icon for it.

My daytime job is doing freelance work for a publishing company. They have recently instituted a new warning that is displayed at the bottom of all communications with their employees. This is what the warning reads:

The information contained in this message is intended only for the recipient, and may be a confidential attorney-client communication or may otherwise be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, please be aware that any dissemination or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify us by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. The M_____ Companies, Inc. reserves the right, subject to applicable local law, to monitor and review the content of any electronic message or information sent to or from M_____ employee e-mail addresses without informing the sender or recipient of the message.

I’m sure we all know that companies are reading our emails, so that should come as no shock to anyone. The part that gets me are these lines - If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, please be aware that any dissemination or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify us by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer.

First of all, I love their claim that forwarding an email that is sent to you by mistake is “strictly prohibited.” It’s not illegal, mind you. There is no law anywhere that would prevent you from forwarding an email. It is just “strictly prohibited.” I guess they must mean “according to some voluntary code of ethics,” since no such law exists. I am also mightily impressed that they feel it is within their rights to demand that this accidental email recipient delete the accidental email and alert the company immediately. If the recipient refuses to do so, he or she may face “unintended consequences” such as “nonbinding declarations” or “noninvasive repercussions”.

I watched The Prestige last night, which was pretty good if slightly anti-climactic and bullshit at the end. David Bowie was in it. He was shorter than Hugh Jackman, which I found surprising, because I always thought David Bowie was like 6′6” or something. I learned today that he is only 5′9”. The reason this is funny is because I discovered this information by doing a Google search which landed me on a website called, I swear to God, CelebHeights.com, which is one of those sites you can tell is just a way of bringing spam into people’s lives. But it isn’t totally a trick, because the site actually did give his height, along with what has to be the most awesome celebrity picture I’ve ever seen:

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — President Bush said today that despite a new intelligence report asserting that Iran stopped its development of nuclear weapons in 2003, “nothing has changed” in U.S. policy.

“Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the know-how necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” Bush said at a news conference Tuesday. Noting that Iran had yet to acknowledge its nuclear past, Bush said the National Intelligence Estimate released Monday only underscores the need for international diplomacy to pressure Iran to “change their ways.”

The report “makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat,” said Bush. “Somebody hid their program once, they could hide it again.”

Matt and I have had an ongoing conversation over the past 7 years in which we repeatedly declare a particular statement or action to be the straw that will finally break the camel’s back — the camel being the American public, the media, and the Bush administration. I recognize that I should no longer look with shock at anything the administration says and does. Still and all, when I heard George Bush declaring on the radio that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat because they have been proven to no longer be a threat, I did a triple-take. There are two things that I want before I die:

#1 - to find out once and for all just what in the Hell is going on with Michael Jackson, and
#2 - to see an interview with George Bush in which he is actually forced to defend himself against someone who is not afraid to be disrespectful.

oh, and:

#3 - a tiny robot pocket monkey.

Update:

From The Hill:

Congressional Democrats are capitalizing on the latest intelligence estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons development to question President Bush’s credibility amid an angry stalemate with the White House over funding government operations and the war in Iraq.

Man, political reporters are really insufferable, aren’t they? I don’t know how many Congressional Democrats really give a shit about honesty and integrity, but how cynical do you have to be to see everything in terms of who does the best job of “capitalizing” on a sad and depressing situation? I can’t even say for sure that George Bush lied about anything … I think in order to lie about something you have to understand that there is such a thing as “truth.” I just don’t see why this has anything to do with Congress or Democrats or anything besides “reality” vs. “not reality”.

The ever-useful website Lifehacker just saved my life again. You know those impossible-to-open plastic packs that seem to encase every product you buy lately? Use a can opener! Brilliant!