shelbinator.com

I feel like the last blogger in Georgia to chime in on the ridiculous SB 59, a bill crafted by Republicans to be exactly the kind of “nanny state” they accuse Democrats of foisting, and to make the internets come to a screeching halt. Okay, not really; the internets would go on unmolested, but Georgia would be made to look even more asinine in the world of science and technology after getting its teeth kicked in by federal courts.

For my out-of-town readers, here’s the crux of the proposed law:

It shall be illegal for the owner or operator of a social networking website to allow a minor using a protected computer to create or maintain a profile web page on a social networking website without the permission of the minor’s parent or guardian and without providing such parent or guardian access to such profile web page at all times.

Right. Implausible enforcement (and Republicans thought undocumented Latinos were hard to catch?), questionable constitutionality, and general lack of a clue, all in one delicious crime.

In poking around for a little more background info to include with my pending Street Team blog post on the subject, I saw, right there on WikiPedia, what the even bigger underlying problem with this whole situation is.

Republican state Senator Cecil Staton, the Chairman of the Senate Science and Technology Committee, is a “publisher” with three advanced degrees.

A Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology (thesis: “A study of the language of theophany in the Old Testament with special reference to the niphal of [raah]”) from the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. And a Ph.D. from Oxford (yay? oh no, wait) with a dissertation titled, “‘And Yahweh appeared … ‘ : a study of the motifs of ’seeing God’ and of ‘God’s appearing’ in Old Testament narratives.”

The Reverend Staton is in charge of our science and technology legislation here in Georgia. Giddyup and pass the leeches.