I came across a number of articles today showing our fear of pedophiles is truly out of control. (Thank you, Free Range Kids.) Here are some:

- A St. Louis TV station led its newscast with “Breaking News” about a “suspicious man in a suspicious pickup truck” who asked a girl to come over to his vehicle. She didn’t and told police, who then had every patrol car looking for the truck. Meanwhile, the news station said it had multiple people working the story. No crime was committed here. No one was hurt. End of story!

- Virgin Airlines apparently suspects all men of being pedophiles. It doesn’t allow men to sit next to children who are not their own.

- What is with people being creeped out about their children being photographer in public by strangers? The Guardian wrote about schools forbidding parents from taking pictures of children at school plays and other events:

The spread of photo bans is not really a response to child abusers stalking school sports days. Instead, it reflects the contamination of everyday adult-child relations – and the new assumption, as the children’s author Philip Pullman put it, that “the default position of one human being to another is predatory rather than kindness”. Any adult looking through the viewfinder at a child is viewed as potentially sinister and in need of regulation.

Of course, none of these restrictions would stop a paedophile getting hold of images of children; and apart from anything else it would be easy enough to pay £12 for a school nativity DVD or, indeed, register their camera.

Angst over public picture-taking is all over Mommy blogs. New Jersey even considered legislation to forbid taking pictures of kids without parental consent. I know people uncomfortable with putting pictures of their kids on Facebook.

What exactly do people think will happen will pictures of their children going down the slide at the playground? If someone is truly acting creepy, such ogling girls in bathing suits, call the cops. But generally speaking, if you don’t want your kids to be photographed, don’t take them in public.

- Finally a dose of sanity. A man writes people need to put down the pitchforks and get some common sense.

Links of the Day:

- Some people want a new Bills stadium in downtown Buffalo, instead of the planned renovation of the current facility. But some municipalities have found new stadiums to be a major drain.

- Eliot Spitzer has a way for governments to limit guns without passing laws.

- The Senecas want to build a gas station at their Niagara Falls casino. The state and local businesses are mad.

- Supermarkets are increasingly tailoring prices just for you! If you’re brand loyal, you could get a lower price on those items. Wegmans already does this to some extent by sending you coupons for stuff the chain knows you buy.