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I'm not sure that Dateline's To Catch a Predator program is illegal, but let me tell you about why it's annoying.

There's a lot of crap on TV that I am willing to watch. Some shows I really look forward to each week, but if I'm feeling bored enough, curious enough, or vindictive enough, I'll watch just about anything. I do have boundaries though. I refuse to watch talk shows that announce lie detector results and/or babies daddy's, I won't watch high school dramas, starring 24-year-olds, and I can't stand watching Dateline's To Catch a Predator' series.

Generally speaking, I've been a longtime Dateline fan. It's one of the most entertaining shows on non-cable television, featuring news elements, medical discoveries, scientific breakthroughs and compelling social experiments. I especially like to watch the murder mysteries, but after years of observation, I've learned there are three elements you can always count on. First-the killer is never who you think it is at the start of the show, second-either the victim or their spouse will always have a secret lover and or a hidden past (involving drugs or pornography), and third-the spouse is almost always the killer, even if they seem like a really nice person.

I want like the show but I just can't. Even though shows like Dateline have a long track record of ambushing people on camera, To Catch a Predator' reaches new levels of absurdity. It's biased, partial, unfair, and really not much different than hidden camera shows like Punked.' The biggest difference between Punked' and To Catch a Predator' is that Punked' people know their being ridiculous, while To Catch a Predator' operates under the guise of investigative journalism. If Chris Hansen dressed up like a circus clown or yelled surprise' when he came out, the show would seem much more credible than when he pretends to be a journalist busting all those pedophiles from Ohio.

The amount of time and energy that goes into these shows is mind boggling. Imagine if we could mobilize the government to get things done the way Chris Hansen does. The show spends hundreds of hours baiting stupid men into chatting with their decoys, which has to be incredibly interesting work. Most people get fired for sending and receiving dirty emails at work, but what if it's you job? Professional sexy decoys are supposed to send sexually explicit emails all day long. What kind of training do you give a sexy decoy; an anatomy test, creative writing exercises? And what kind of bonus incentives

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