Users uploading content are now asked to identify their photos as “safe,” “moderate” or “restricted.” By default, searches on Flickr return only images that have been categorized as safe. To include images from the other categories, users must be logged in to Flickr, and must specify these options on the Advanced Search page.

When I first read the headline to the above article about Flickr, appropriately titled “How Porn And Family-Friendly Photos Co-Exist On Flikr,” I thought, Oh Geez, here’s another rant on how pornography online is destroying families. Then I realized it was a Wired article. Wired magazine doesn’t generally engage in such rants, so I was intrigued.

Instead, the article focuses on how Yahoo has transformed Flickr into a safe place for anyone to view photos while protecting the rights of erotic photographers and their audiences to see the material that they want to see. I’ll have to admit, the solution is rather simple yet quite sophisticated. Who’d have thought that Yahoo would use socially-driven technology to solve a social (RE: non-political) issue.

I call it a non-political issue because it doesn’t require a political solution. Too many anti-pornography enthusiasts expect Big Government to punish those who exercise their God-given inalienable rights to perversion. While it is entirely reasonable to believe certain images are objectionable - even downright offensive - it is also reasonable to expect that an individual has a right to their own viewing pleasure as long as it doesn’t impinge upon the rights of others to be free from seeing the same material that, antithetically, brings them pain. Yahoo has effectively presented a solution to an age-old problem that to date no government bureaucrat has been able to muster - how to respect the rights of two adverse and directly opposed groups without infringing upon the rights of either.

It’s the government’s job to do this, but more often than not, it fails. Do any of us ever wonder why?

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A class-action lawsuit was inevitable. It was filed yesterday by a lesbian from (naturally) the San Francisco Bay Area. She claims that eHarmony’s no-gays policy is discriminatory under California law. The company replied that it might offer gay matching services in the future and denied that it discriminates.

There is an irrational prejudice consuming our society. No, I’m not talking about prejudice against gay people. I’m talking about prejudice against conservative Christians.

As a semi-conservative Christian, I have my differences (mostly political) with people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. I don’t believe God ever intended the Bible to be used as a political baseball bat to beat sinners into submission with. Furthermore, from a Constitutional perspective, anyone who wishes to pursue happiness in such a way that is not destructive to anyone else not involved should have a right to do so. Nevertheless, a private business is a private business and eHarmony is a private business, which means its owner - Neil Clark Warren - has a right to make whatever decisions he deems best for his business.

Warren, a psychologist, told NPR’s Terry Gross a couple of years ago that “I don’t know exactly what the dynamics are [with gay couples]…We’ve done a deep amount of research on about 5,000 married people, but never on people who are same-sex. So we don’t know how to do that, and we think the principles probably are different, and so we’ve never chosen to do it.” He noted later in the interview that “same-sex marriage in this country is largely illegal at this time, and we do try to match people for marriage.”

Can you say cop-out?

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I agree with Insta. This is just downright stupid:

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

Republicans are supposed to be pro liberty and for free enterprise. But when it’s being practiced by small businesses, that’s a different matter altogether. Evidently, the Bush Administration is only for free enterprise when it benefits the rich and corporate elite, or when they can fight a war to ensure that American corporations can pillage and plunder foreign soil. This is not free enterprise; it’s protectionism. And it should be challenged everywhere it rears its ugly head.

That’s just one more reason not to vote Republican. Ever!

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Whatever happened to the good old days when a politician could say what he meant and stick to his guns? GOP presidential hopeful recently made a bold statement then apologized, blaming it on his hearing aid and bladder:

(Lake Geneva, Wis.) — Tommy Thompson cited a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom in explaining on Saturday why he said at a GOP presidential debate that an employer should be allowed to fire a gay worker.

“Nobody knows that,” Thompson said. “I’ve been very sick…I was very sick the day of the debate. I had all of the problems with the flu and bronchitis that you have, including running to the bathroom. I was just hanging on. I could not wait until the debate got off so I could go to the bathroom.”

One of the biggest sacred cows in the U.S. right now is the anti-discrimination sacred cow, which also happens to be freedom limiting. A large cross section of U.S. citizens are so afraid of discrimination that they believe the answer to curing it is to criminalize it. This is wrong-headed and bodes for disaster for any freedom-loving people. Tommy Thompson’s political career is all but over, not because he uttered a remark that seems on the surface to be pro-discrimination, but because he changed his mind and blamed it on his body functions.

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I knew it. It was bound to happen. MSNBC threw Don Imus out on his ear.

MSNBC has announced it will no longer simulcast Don Imus’ radio show. The cable TV network has had a strong following for the morning program. But Imus’ use of a racial slur on last week’s show, while discussing the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, brought heavy and persistent criticism.

This is just evidence of the social climate in which we live in these United States. I won’t defned Imus’s comments. They were rude, obnoxious, racist, sexist, and offensive to most Americans with any sort of sense of decency. I sort of think that was the point in the first place. Imus has always had the qualities and he’s been on the air for 30 years. His audience loved it. His advertisers encouraged it and his radio platform tolerated it. No one cared.

That is, no one cared until race baiter Al Sharpton, who poses as a New York reverend, was offended. One of the most powerful African-Americans living today, when Sharpton is pissed, the entire black race is pissed. And that’s not racism; it’s just an observation through these white vanilla-flavored eyes.

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LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — The nation’s first low-cost housing development aimed specifically at gay, lesbian and transgender retirees opened its doors in Hollywood on Thursday with a promise to provide a dignified haven for elderly homosexuals to live out their days.

Now this is really what America is all about. Let every man sin and live. There are some among us who want to throw us back into the medieval ages, when, if you didn’t go to the right church or pray to the right God, then you had your head chopped off. And if the ruling elite thought you were a heretic or a heathen you were just burned at the stake without a proper trial.

Not that every neighborhood in America should invite a homosexual retirement home into their community, but that any community can do so is evidence that, at least, there is some freedom left on these shores.

The only thing we’re really missing here is a picket line across the street.

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