See Me Rot: Live Coffin Cams

http://www.seemerot.com

'Worst of 2k3.

Awful. Simply awful.

Howard Dean's campaign came to an early end when he announced that his hopes for presidency were over on Wednesday. No one could have predicted this six months ago. Some may lay blame on the power of news networks like CNN, whose portrayal of Dean's infamous scream heard round the polls was over-exaggerated by a super-sensitive microphone.

Reportedly, no members of the audience heard anything out of the ordinary that day. Those of us tuning into the news stations heard something different. Soon, sites like http://www.deangoesnuts.com popped up and remixes were even made in which Dean's scream was put to music.

Sure, he's arguably an a-hole - but he may also have been one of the wiser choices in the upcoming Presidential elections. Nevertheless, this man's aspirations were quite literally crushed by the power of the media and modern technology.

Although CNN apologized for the microphone and willingly accepted blame, the effects of their actions are irreversible. It's a sad and incidental side effect of recording equipment, but far from the most absurd application of it.

On the other hand, putting a camera in a coffin is just WRONG. It may not result in amplified screams (or, at least, we hope not) but this employment of technology is hard to rationalize. It's possible that it can lower the rate of people being buried alive, as if there was a huge epidemic of such instances, but we highly doubt that was the desire of the folks responsible for SeeMeRot.com.

It is entirely possible that this site was created as a spoof, but there's nothing funny about the idea of a coffin camera. That's almost as ludicrous as the idea of putting a camera in your pants and broadcasting it over the 'Net. Oh wait, that's happened already too. Honestly, it has. Go to http://www.pantscam.com if you don't believe us.

What possible good can come out of leisurely watching someone rot inside his or her coffin? If you answered "none," you passed our ethics and morality quiz of the week. But that still doesn't change the fact that Dean took it in the butt.