A picture is worth… one’s humanity. In Australia, authorities are forbidding military photographers to take pictures that might “personalize or humanize” asylum seekers. That makes sense, since if you made asylum-seekers seem human you might have to address the Australian government’s massively inhumane treatment of these people. People? Shh, don’t tell the Australians. As with the US, their government thinks they’re truly that stupid.

So I’m writing about the Blogger’s Code Of Ethics for YIL, which is a mainstream print magazine about the Internet. In the process, I sent an email to the fellow who’s writing the code, who does what he does (microcontent news — check it out) in part because mainstream print media has covered blogging so poorly in the past. As evidence that his excellent site is on the right track, he cites coverage in the mainstream media. When I write to him, I include my oh-so-official .sig with my two showiest print affiliations as well as a link to this page, which of course has my blog. So your breakfast for thought today is: Which of those .sig items is supposed to make me “real” to this guy? What, in other words, is a credential?

I just finished reading Fast Food Nation (and about time too, as the library fine’s nearly as expensive as the book at this point) and recommend that you read not only that, but the inspiring tale of a renegade (freedom-fighting?) cow. Go Cinci go!

I hope this funny little satire is the last word on so-called “Internet addiction,” ever. In a word where people regularly get addicted to hand-washing, doesn’t blaming the technology per se seem just a bit facile?

Scariest. Movie. EVER. Even this list has me jittery. Yeah, you know.

Interesting / appalling lexical shift: The US is attempting to change the phrase from “suicide bombers” to “homicidal bombers.” Um, isn’t the idea of “bombers” kind of sufficient to indicate the homicide part? Isn’t the point that these folk are willing to strap deadly force to themselves and, whomever else they take out, absolutely guarantee their own demise? Oh, wait, the point is that we’re just not going to admit that something has to be pretty fucking wrong in your world to cause you to do that. Next thing you know we might have to ask how things got that bad and if there’s a difference between killing civilians by detonating your own body in a shopping mall and killing civilians by getting in a heavily armored tank and crushing them in their living rooms.

And we all shine on: Instant karma strikes some of the assholes who bought those nasty little X10 cameras, the pop-under ads of which litter the Web from one end to the other. Pity innocent folk will get caught in the whirlpool, though.

Fascinating straw poll in progress at Access Atlanta, and the story’s worthwhile too. I’m always alarmed when I see a lot of people say an opinion about our government is so out-there that it ought not to be spoken aloud when it’s obvious, from these numbers, that a lot of people (25 percent as I write this) are most definitely speaking and thinking that the White House wasn’t entirely unaware of the 9/11 attacks before the fact. And twenty-five percent’s a lot — after all, that Yale ape is in the White House based on the votes of less than 25 percent of the eligible electorate. Think about it.

So this guy falls into a river and swears somewhat copiously. Some delicate lady nearby witnesses this and, instead of making sure the poor fellow’s okay, frets because her toddler heard some bad lanugage. Some cop is in the vicinity and, instead of making sure the poor fellow’s okay, writes a ticket for the language. Now some random writer is telling the newspapers that he would have been better off using a word like “shucks!” or “gadzooks!” Since everyone’s got an opinion here, allow me to introduce mine: SAY WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET ONE OF THESE FUCKWITS TO PULL YOU OUTTA THE GODDAMNED RIVER.

Thank you. That is all.

Ladies, gentlemen and 133t d00dz, “The Love Song Of J. Random Hacker.” Puts my “13 Ways Of Looking @ A Dot-Com” entirely to shame.