Bush tells grads, "Do as I say, not as I do"

In giving a recent commencement speech at Oklahoma State University, Bush told grads to use novel technology for good not for evil, "Science offers the prospect of eventual cures for terrible diseases — and temptations to manipulate life and violate human dignity." I know when the guys over at Pfizer came up with Viagra they were totally thinking, "Man it is so awesomely tempting to violate human dignity with this here science. Titillating even..."

He goes on to warn, "with the Internet, you can communicate instantly with someone halfway across the world — and isolate yourself from your family and your neighbors." But luckily we'll be able to track your interent use by 2007 so we'll be sure to keep tabs on you and your anti-American activities even if your family can't. It's a slippery slope you know, first you're chatting with an old friend halfway around the world, and then pretty soon you're slutting it up in the middle of Islamabad, running an Al-Qaida cell.

Does this implication remind anyone of those old scare-tactic pamphlets that got handed around in middle school by the weird kid's mother, that warned that playing D&D led to drug addiction and satan worship?

Maybe it's just me, but isn't warning us about the possible dangers of the uses of the internets kind of like warning us on the possible risks of... walking? You can basically do anything with the internet, you can basically walk anywhere. Probably you're not going to give your personal info out to the creepy come-join-our-cult sites, just like you're probably not going to go walking through the Tenderloin alone at three in the morning. If they're graduating from college, they've probably figured out the whole using the web in a safe way thing.

And while we're on the subject, what does Bush think he really has to say to a bunch of 21-year-olds about use of the internets anyway, they've grown up with the internet in their lives; if anyone needs help on avoiding the porn pop-ups it's going to be Bush himself.

Maybe it's good to tell the kids not to isolate themselves from their families and spend too much time on the web though, 'cause they might end up learning stuff about how the world isn't limited to their local Walmart and combined TacoBell/KFC. God knows what might happen then.