Connecticut State Attorney Dick Blumenthal is hoping to score points with the perpetually frightened, by challenging MySpace.com to either get rid of known “sexual predators” or institute age verification on its web site. Essentially Dick Blumenthal Thinks Web Sites should monitor users.

Attorneys general nationwide issued an ultimatum to MySpace Monday, demanding that the Internet’s largest social networking site make public the profiles of convicted sex offenders and divulge the steps it is taking to eliminate those profiles from its heavily-trafficked site.

Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, co-chair of the eight-member executive committee of attorneys general that represents all 50 states, spoke in Hartford about the letter the committee sent to MySpace, a site with more than 160 million personal profiles that Blumenthal called “a virtual playground for predators seeking to prey on children.”

More inquiry than accusation, Blumenthal said the letter was written because he and his colleagues learned last week that MySpace had received the results of an investigation performed by a hired consultant to cross-check state sex offender registries with the site’s own profile lists.

The results are staggering, said Blumenthal, and they do not account for unconvicted predators or profiles of convicted offenders using aliases.
“There are literally thousands of convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace and we are demanding to know their names, their residences, their (telephone) numbers, and what steps have been taken to remove them from the site, as MySpace has said it would do as a matter of its own policy,” he stated.

The letter implores MySpace to formally reply by May 29, at which point the attorneys general “will take appropriate action” if they have not received a response, Blumenthal said without elaborating.

Of course Blumenthal doesn’t realize that on the Internet no one has to no that you are dog. Fortunately identifying a dog of a bill is much easier.

Meanwhile the House and Senate Republicans yesterday want to roll back the 25 cent-per-gallon gas tax from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

There’s a problem with both these issues. Neither one will do any things to address the underlying problem. In the case of sexual predators on the Internet, there is no amount of verification that will work, if it doesn’t work in the real world either. Case in point:

Authorities in Arizona arrest Neil H Rodreick II, 29-year-old convicted sex offender who posed as 12-year-old in public school in Surprise, Ariz, for four months; say he shared home with three other convicted sex offenders and predators who posed as his relatives, preying in part on one another; say Rodreick is under investigation in three states, and authorities in four jurisdictions say he repeatedly failed to register as sex offender; say he housed large cache of child pornography in his computer and, based on videos found by police, had sex with at least one boy; other three, Lonnie Stiffler, Robert J Snow and Brian Nellis, face multiple charges along with Rodreick, who spent seven years in prison in Oklahoma for making lewd and indecent proposals to two 6-year-old boys; authorities say Rodreick posed as minor for nearly two years, registering at four charter schools in Arizona, until school administrators in Chino Valley called sheriff this month; relatives say Rodreick himself was sexually abused as child (source: New York Times)

If a parent is concerned that their child may be interacting with people on the Internet then supervise the Internet session. It’s that simple.

The gas tax is another useless suggestion. First, it assumes that the gas stations will keep the gas price lower just because the tax is reduced. Funny how every time we hear that price of oil goes down it never seems to affect the price of gas, but when the price of oil shoots up the price of gas jumps instantly to the new price. The reality is that the price of gas is based on supply and demand, we demand too much of it so the price reflects our willingness to pay it. To effect change on the price of gas, we need to cut back on buying gas, not just for one day, but everyday.

The latest statistics:

Check out the stations which have the cheapest gas here: Connecticut Gas Prices

From Statemanster.com:

Alternative Fuel Vehicles: 3,384
Alternative Fuel Vehicles (per capita): 0.964 per 1,000 people
Coal Consumption: 1,627,000
Gas Price Average > Diesel: $3.12
Gas Price Average > Regular: $3.14
Gasoline Consumption: 35,436,000
Nuclear Energy > List of nuclear reactors
*Millstone 2 - 3.2 MI WSW of New London; owned by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. *Millstone 3 - 3.2 MI WSW of New London; owned by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.
Oil Consumption: 795,000
Oil Consumption (per $ GDP): 0.425 per $100,000 of GDP
Oil Consumption (per capita): 0.226 per capita

SOURCES: Daily Fuel Gauge Report, AAA, 7/03/2006.; National Priorities Project Database, 2001; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The state average gas prices from AAA fulegaugereport.com.

UPDATE: I neglected to link to MattW at MyLeftNutmeg.com who took the time to write an excelent letter to state legislators about the egregious language in a Blumenthal’s proposed bill, HB 6981 (”An Act Concerning Social Networking Sites”). I support the letter, a full copy is here.

Source: Norwalk Advocate, GOP seeks to suspend gas tax for 3 months, By Brian Lockhart, May 15 2007