Bill does little to combat online porn

Sometimes, ineffective legislation is introduced that would appear to be based more on a personal dislike rather than a need for a new law. One example is State Sen. Doug Jackson's proposal to ban the "Girls Gone Wild" advertisements on late night cable television.

Jackson says that the ads show censored shots of young ladies exposing themselves. The bill would fine cable companies up to $50,000 for airing ads for obscene products. An amendment was also added that would also hold satellite companies liable. The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate Commerce, Labor and Agriculture Committee on Tuesday.

But Jackson has got a very, very long way to go if he intends to really stop the porn industry, which is a lot larger than you might imagine. For example, did you know that U.S. porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC?

I didn't, and a lot of folks will probably be stunned when they see just how enormous the skin industry has become. According to Internet Filter Review, which tracks all sort of statistics about the porn business, the worldwide industry made $97.06 billion last year. That is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined -- Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink.

Every second, $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography, 28,258 Internet users are viewing it and 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is being created in the United States, the stats say.

China counts for most of the porn revenue - $27.4 billion, followed by South Korea and Japan, while the U.S. came in at number four, spending $13.33 billion. We have a long way to go to be competitive with China in this regard; a substantial pornographic imbalance.

Porn websites number 4.2 million with 420 million webpages, which is 12 percent of websites on the Internet and 25 percent of searches are for the dirty stuff. In the peer-to-peer download world that is under attack by the music and movie industry, porn takes up 35 percent of the traffic.

The average age that a child first views porn on the net is age 11.

What Sen. Jackson is going after is generally considered "soft porn" and doesn't even address the real hard-core stuff that anyone can access with a few keystrokes. If the law passes, all it will do is stop one method of advertisement that would likely be shifted to other avenues the state can't regulate, like the Internet.

Jackson may have good intentions with this bill, but it is like using a Band-Aid to treat multiple shotgun wounds.

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The recent hostage taking by Iran has tensions hiked all around the world. Carrying on a tradition that goes back to the late 1970s, 15 British personnel were seized last week by the primary sponsor of worldwide terrorism.

We shouldn't be surprised by their actions, but what is jawdropping is the reaction, or lack of reaction, from some prominent people in this country.

This writer doesn't take the rantings of those in show business very seriously but, unfortunately, many do. That's why it was so disturbing to learn that Rosie O'Donnell suggested that the whole incident was a hoax so that we could start a war with Iran.

On Monday, Rosie ranted on her show, "The View," that viewers should Google "Gulf of Tonkin" when thinking about the current crisis. For those of you not well versed on history, the Tonkin incident was an allegation of North Vietnamese aggression on our warships that led us into the Vietnam War.

This isn't the first time that the talk show host has veered into conspiracy theory territory. Two weeks ago, she leapt to the defense of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suggesting the government had gotten a false confession from the 9/11 mastermind through harsh treatment. And according to a recent posting on her blog, Rosie suggests that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government.

On Thursday, co-host Elizabeth Hassleback confronted Rosie, asking if she believed in the conspiracy theories. Rosie said, "No, but I do believe the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics ... it is physically impossible."

Rosie has obviously never visited a steel mill.

The ravings of a celebrity is something that a sensible person could ignore, but inaction by our representatives on this matter is something that can't be overlooked. Right now, there's a proposed resolution in the House of Representatives condemning Iran for the seizure of the sailors and expressing support for our British allies. It calls for no action to be taken, just to condemn what Iran did.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't even allow the measure on the floor for debate.

So Iran seizes British vessels outside their territorial waters, kidnaps its sailors and parades them in front of the cameras to humiliate them, but some in Congress have got more important things to do, like setting surrender dates for our troops in Iraq.

Elections have consequences and it would appear we're now seeing them.