It appears that the blogosphere, the media, and parents everywhere are “outraged” because of this photograph being taken and used in the June issue of Vanity Fair. It seems that the 15 year old super-star allowed herself to be photographed by Vanity Fair photographer Annie Leibovitz, the FAMOUS photographer. This was done while her father was right there. A blogger by the name of Lin Burress was quoted in an interview as saying, “Parents should be extremely concerned. Very young girls look up to Miley Cyrus as a role model.” Frankly, if I had a young daughter, I would prefer that she look up to Annie Leibovitz as a role model, though I have nothing at all against Miley. 

Come on people! I’ve seen more “naked” 15 year olds in magazine ads and walking around in public. Ooooh… she’s showing her naked back! So what? Has everyone gone crazy out there? There are kids her age dying every day in Iraq, or being slaughtered in Darfur. Police just discovered that some sicko in Austria began raping his own daughter at the age of 11, and has since fathered at least 6 children with her! If parents want something to get upset about, what about these things? Where is everyone’s priorities? For God’s sake, open your eyes and look at the real world!

Most people are aware of the debate regarding the possibly illegal, and probably unconstitutional, access to Americans’ phone records, credit reports and internet traffic requested (or demanded, depending on your point of view) by the FBI and Homeland Security. These abuses 0ccurred mostly from 2002-2007 and were supposed to be the result of investigations aimed at potential terrorists and spies. The FBI claims that it enacted broad overhauls in March 2007 to prevent future lapses. (Personally, I think these “overhauls” are to prevent such lapses from again becoming public.)

I recall very clearly when some of the ISPs, telecom companies, and even public libraries refused to cooperate with these “requests” from the government. FBI Director Robert Mueller claims that those lapses were caused, in part, by banks, telecommunication companies, and other private businesses giving the FBI more personal client data than requested.

So I guess that those “national security letters” that the FBI sent had no bearing on the amount of information that companies were forced to provide. I suppose that the content of these letters, and the fact that it was the FBI requesting their “cooperation”, didn’t cause those companies to adopt a “take anything you want!” attitude. I’d love to see exactly what these letters said, but I’m sure they are unavailable to the public, in the interest of national security.

Computer, cellphone, and PDA users in the U.S., from big corporations to individuals, are going to have a major headache this coming week. The U.S. Government, with minimal input from the people, has decided to change the dates when daylight savings time begins and ends. So now we have to worry about computers getting confused as to what time it is. If you don’t have all the necessary “hot fixes” to your software, you may find yourself out of synch. I’m not even sure how this will affect companies and organizations that use time clocks at work, so check your paychecks closely.

It’s bad enough that we even use this archaic method of time keeping. The original idea came from Benjamin Franklin, primarily as a means to assist farmers. It was implemented with the idea of saving energy. But not every state participates, making it very confusing for me personally because I have family in Arizona, which doesn’t participate. So half the year California and Arizona are on the same time, but the other half of the year Arizona is one hour ahead of California.

The whole concept is stupid, especially during our modern era of global communications and commerce. The military and most transportation industries use Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), using the 24 hour clock instead of a 12 hour one. Our concept of “time” has always been based on the rising and setting of the sun. GMT is based on longitude, which makes sense because the earth rotates, exposing the planet to sunlight.

A lot of people have difficulties with the 24 hour clock, where 5pm is 1700 hours. I understand that it can be confusing, because not only do you have to know how to convert it to the 24 hour clock, but you also have to know how many hours different you are from GMT. In California, we are currently GMT+8 which means that when it is 1300 GMT (1pm) in Greenwich, England, it would be 2100 (9pm) in California. 1300 + 0800 = 2100

So why are we messing with the system even further? The worst part is that the government is calling this change an “experiment”, suggesting that they could change their mind if it doesn’t work as expected. If for some reason they decide to change it again, then all of the clocks that are programmed for daylight savings time will have to be reprogrammed yet again.

Personally, I think the whole world should be run on the 24 hour clock and GMT. Set it once and leave it alone!

Proving that politicians in the U.S. aren’t the only nuts in the tree, France has just passed a new law criminalizing the act of filming or recording of acts of violence, including acts of violence committed by police. Ironically, this law was passed exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers were caught on film, beating Rodney King. The violent arrest was filmed by George Holiday, an amateur videographer. If the same thing were to happen today in France, Mr. Holiday would very likely end up in jail for his efforts. Doesn’t this sound like a reversal of the final episode of Seinfeld, where they were sent to jail for witnessing but not doing anything to prevent the robbery?

The law also applies to anyone who publishes these images, including websites. What does this mean for companies like YouTube? Will they be held accountable for any violent images on their site that are accessible from France? It’s a crazy world.

In 1968, Andy Warhol was quoted as saying “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Today that expression has been paraphrased simply as “15 minutes of fame”.

For the most part, I think Warhol was right. But I think his numbers were off. These days, people become famous for the most ridiculous reasons, and their fame lasts much longer than just 15 minutes.

Take William Hung, the guy who made a fortune after his American Idol performance, singing “She Bangs” so badly that it made him famous.

Or how about the latest media craze, Jennifer Mee. Jennifer is a 15 year old from St. Petersburg, FL. What is her claim to fame? She hiccups. She’s been doing it for the past four weeks, and she can’t stop. That’s it. Yet, NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America fought each other to be the first network to get an interview. (NBC won.) She has also been interviewed by Inside Edition, and is fielding calls from the Ellen DeGeneres Show, among others.

What do I need to do to become an instant celebrity?