Eternal Life Sentence for Sex Offender

You know you've been bad when your next 40 lives will be spent in prison.

Violent Rapist? Get Rehabilitated In Vermont

If you've watched the news, you know about the little "missing" girl from Vermont. Well, her remains were found yesterday on her uncle's property. Vermont, it turns out, has a wonderful sex offenders rehabilitation program. Daniel Goleman (of Primal Leadership fame) enthuses in the New York Times fifteen years ago:

The sex offender treatment program in Vermont, among the most sophisticated in the country, showed similar successes, according to a report at the Kent State meeting. In an evaluation of 473 sex offenders who have been released from prison for up to eight years, the average rate of sex crimes in the same period for a comparison group who received no treatment was 38 percent, at least double the rate of those treated for various sex crimes.

For child molesters in the treated group, the rate of sex crimes after release from prison was just 7 percent; for exhibitionists or voyeurs, 3 percent; for rapists, 19 percent. While the figure for rapists is highest, it is still just half that of those who did not receive any treatment.

To be sure, not all sex offenders respond to treatment. Among rapists, for instance, rape is often more an act of violence than of sex. This kind of rapist is less likely to benefit than are those for whom fantasies are more important than violence.

So my take away is that treatment may or may not work and we have no way of telling who it will work on, but we should be thrilled because maybe it will work on someone. And of those treated, one out of five will offend again. That means that one out of five will commit a violent rape again.

Let's just look at Brooke Bennett's case. Her uncle Michael Jacques has done this before:

In 1993, he was convicted of kidnapping and rape committed in June 1992. Court records show that the victim was an 18-year-old young woman he supervised at a fast-food business in Rutland. The records show he and a friend got her drunk and then Jacques alone forced her into his car and over the next four hours raped her several times. The police affidavit says she was choked with a rope around her neck, gagged with a cloth in her mouth, and handcuffed with police-style cuffs. Police say Jacques eventually let her go after he told her he needed help and was going to seek psychiatric counseling.

The victim told police that Jacques said he had killed a 12-year-old girl he raped in Arizona in 1985 because she threatened to go to the police, "so he had to kill her."

And he has been treated in Vermont's stellar program:

The police were unable to confirm his claimed killing of the 12-year-old in Arizona, but Jacques did plead no contest to the charges of kidnap and rape in Vermont. In return, under a plea agreement, he got six years in prison, but was released after serving only four and half with credit for good time.

That 1992 plea deal also required Jacques to complete the sex offender treatment program before he could be released from probation. According to the records, he did complete the therapy program, and was released from state supervision in December 2006. Corrections officials say Jacques completed his sex offender treatment program in 2000.

Do you see how insane it is to release these criminals from prison with or without treatment? If they don't get treatment, nearly half repeat offend. If they do get treatment, only one out of five re-offend--that get caught, anyway.

Since no one knows who will or who won't re-offend, why are any of these people released back into the community? And I don't put the flashers or oglers in the same category as a violent rapist. A violent rapist should know that if he gets convicted, he's in prison for life, period. Sure, some of these guys might reform or go impotent or get too old to have the energy to commit their dastardly deeds. The problem is, since no on knows who will and who won't offend, the risk is too great.

Let them rot in prison. Keep society safe from these freaks. Prison does not reform these jerks. At best, some inhibit their impulses. Let them be free of temptation. Keep them in prison.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Texas is Great! Give Me Chocolate Cake!

That was an inane Bill Cosby comedy reference. But check this out via Don Surber:

Brian Stevens told News 4 his wife, whose six months pregnant, had just called him after she noticed someone lurking around the house. When Stevens got home, he saw the suspect going house to house. He went inside his home and then heard some rattling coming from his own back fence. Stevens then ran upstairs and grabbed his gun.

"I was waiting for the police, and he just walked in the door. He just walked in," explained Stevens.

Stevens said a man later identified as Stephen Garcia made his way inside the home and started walking towards him.

"I gave him plenty of times. I mean, I was screaming at him, telling him 'Get out of my house. Who do you think you are? Just get out. Get out!'," Stevens told News 4.

But Stevens said the 21-year-old intruder kept coming.

Castle doctrine. Smart wife. Armed husband. Almost dead dumbbell burglar. All in all, a good day for crime abatement in Texas.

Where The Children Are

Ann Althouse wonders where the kids are. Makes me think about the book Where The Wild Things Are. Our neighborhood is full of kids, yet good luck finding evidence of them. Where are they?

Swimming--in public pools or in pools in the back yard. Summer camp. There are camps for everything and since playing stick ball with make-shift bases isn't part of the modern world, a child goes to a camp organized by adults, supervised by teenagers and it kills a couple birds with one stone. Children and teenagers, occupied! Wii--We bought one two weeks ago and I've been beaten in baseball, bowling, boxing, and my Mii has been beaten severely in tennis, though I have yet to play. My children have created a Wii community filled with mutant beings. It's great fun to make your dad bald, short, fat, with strange facial hair, a unibrow, pink cheeks, disco shades and eye shadow. Don't forget the moles. Cartoons. Come on! They are a summer staple. Yes, your children sit like mindless blobs of protoplasm absorbing what little mental nutrition can be extracted from these worthless shows. On the plus side, mom blogs in peace! Trampolines--Nothing says summer like working up a sweat engaging in repetititve bouncing activities. It's therapeutic. Down side--intracranial injuries. Eh, our generation rode bikes without helmets and skateboards without elbow pads, they'll be fine.

Kids are doing lots of stuff, just not the stuff that puts them in the public square or their own backyards much. Have you watched the news? No, most bloggers don't watch the news. Do blog readers watch the news? Well, if you watched Greta VanSusteren, last night, you saw children, young women, young men and families who were bludgeoned to death by a rampaging psycho. Oh, and then there were the three or four young women who were raped and killed 1) by relatives 2) while jogging 3) while taking a bath. My husband and I were talking about implanting a GPS device in my daughter. I kid you not. Evidently, we're not the only ones with this train of thought. For now, it looks we'd have to settle for cell phones.

The point is that parents don't feel free to let their kids roam like we did when we were kids. At five or six, we'd walk a couple streets over to play (walking through yards). At eight or nine, we'd be outside for hours until dinner time. I think my mom locked us out. Not now. Parents must observe children non-stop. What if something happened?

It might not be rational. In fact, upon researching it, it looks like it's not rational:

Research has shown that between 40 and 150 incidents of child abduction murder occur each year, which is less than one half of one percent of the murders committed nationally.

[Katherine M. Brown, Robert D. Keppel, Joseph G. Weis, and Marvin E. Skeen. CASE MANAGEMENT for Missing Children Homicide Investigation. Olympia, Washington: Office of the Attorney General, State of Washington, and U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, May 2006, page 1.]

This is small comfort for the parents of those children, but the threat is not as great as the amplified news makes it seem. Yet, it happens. And parents think, how could I live with myself if something happened? Here's more:
The U.S. Department of Justice reports:

797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.
[Andrea J. Sedlak, David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Dana J. Schultz. U.S. Department of Justice. "National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview" in National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, October 2002, page 5.]

Still, most people don't read statistics. They watch the news. And the news freaks parents out. Yes, I think we're in that Twilight Zone episode. A nuclear blast didn't decimate the world. A news blast did.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Don't Mess .... In Texas, You'll Get Shot and Killed Dead

Why would you be a bad guy in Texas? Everyone owns a gun and people really, really like to use them. Dave from Ace's blog has been watching this case, as have I. He explains what happened:

To recap: Joe Horn, a resident of Pasadena Texas observed two men (illegal aliens as it happens), burglarizing a neighbor's home, and he called 911.

He spent some time on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, waiting for law enforcement to arrive.

They didn't, and he grabbed a shotgun and went out to confront them.

According to the transcript, the 911 operator repeatedly urged Joe to stay inside and wait for law enforcement. Joe waited a while, then said 'he did not believe it would be right to let the burglars get away'.

"Well, here it goes, buddy," Horn can be heard telling the operator. "You hear the shotgun clicking and I'm going."

He went out, told em to stop. They didn't. And he shot both of them, in the back.

Allah says:

There’s the “stand your ground” provision. If it justifies him leaving the house to face them down, it’s not so much an exemption from the duty to retreat as an affirmative right to advance. And how was deadly force “immediately” necessary if it could have been prevented just by sitting tight? He’s got the shotgun and he’s watching them; if they try to come in his house, they’ll never know what hit them. Eh, whatever. It’s not worth parsing the statutes too finely since ultimately it’s in a (grand) jury’s hands and they’re not going to send an old man to jail for shooting two felons caught in the act, whatever the felony and time of day.

Well, this is Texas. The police took a long time to show up. A plain clothes detective saw it and did nothing. Will this force a change in Texas concealed hand gun statutes? Doubtful. Will the Castle Doctrine and its parts and pieces get revoked? Doubt that, too. Will it confirm for knobby-headed elites that Texas is a barbaric, cowboy-attitude-infested wasteland? Probably. Just want to remind the naysayers of this.

One would think that a few instances like this would be a major deterrent to crime. Move to DC, it's safer to be a criminal there.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

New York Without Giuliani and With Stupid Priorities

Is New York returning to the bad old days pre-Giuliani? Maybe:

The NYPD's CompStat data indeed show upticks in violent crime since last year. The city has had 238 murders so far this year (as of last Sunday), up 7.6 percent from 221 last year, and 664 rapes, up 6.2 percent.

Should we be worried? Queens Councilmember Peter Vallone, chair of the council's Public Safety Committee, thinks so. "We're seeing the beginnings of a return to the bad old days," he says. "We should never forget that we're a thousand percent better off now than we were in 1991, when we had only 31,000 police officers on the street, and we made a decision, through the Safe Cities program, to increase that number by 10,000.

Over at Blue Crab Boulevard:

The new mayor, Michael Bloomberg is very, very concerned with trans fats and the harvesting of organs. Crime? Not so much, it would seem. Quality of life for the taxpaying citizens? Very little.

I remember reading The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell, where he posits that the crime changes in New York had everything to do with population age distribution and nothing to do with Giuliani. Maybe.

It seems to reason that part of the reason that America has been spared more attacks during the Bush years, has not only been his policy but his emphasis and leadership. When criminals of any kind sense weakness they exploit it. If they think they can get a way with murder, they'll try to get away with murder. It might not be causation but certainly there's a correlation.

Allowing crime to increase would be bad news for New York. Security first, then economy. If people are afraid, they won't visit. Three summers ago, I was in New York, all over the city, with my kids and friends. I felt safe everywhere. The police presence was obvious but not obtrusive. With crime rising, Mayor Bloomberg might want to reevaluate his priorities or else families won't be visiting. Between taxes and everything else, New York won't seem so appealing to work in or visit.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

When A Woman Rapes A Man...

Dr. Helen has a must-read piece about female aggression and rape. I'm reminded of a friend's story of how he lost his virginity at the hands of a babysitter when he was 12 or 13. He was clearly distressed on the one hand but socialized to believe he should be okay with it, on the other. To me, it was clear that the woman had used her position of authority to abuse him. Even the other men at the table shifted uncomfortably upon hearing the story. Every twelve year old boy fantasizes about these things happening, but the consequences when it actually does can be devastating.

This part of the man's letter is especially horrifying:

After most of my drunken stupor wore off around 7 am or so, I awoke again to find her on top of me — this time with a more menacing attitude as she knew I was in a better position to respond physically this time. I had began to wiggle out from under her (taking care not to hurt her baby) when she sternly warned me to “be quiet” and “not be forceful” and made it clear that she would cry rape if I tried to stop it. I was stunned to say the least and not sure how to respond. I could easily have thrown her across the room and off of me, but was concerned for her child and took her threat very, very seriously. She said it so easily that I doubt I was her first.

I weighed my options for a moment and came to the conclusion that a sober, 6 or 7-month pregnant college student of 24 was far more likely to be believed by the authorities than a drunk 19-year old Marine in the best shape of his life. I frequented that club a lot and I’m sure several people saw me leave with her. I was pretty much fucked — in more than one way — at that point.

Rape is about power first, and sex, second. This is rape.

Annie Git Yer Gun--Even In D.C.

Via the Scotusblog:

Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession. Although times have changed since 1791, Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority, “it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

Justice Scalia’s opinion stressed that the Court was not casting doubt on long-standing bans on carrying a concealed gun or on gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, on laws barring guns from schools or government buildings, and laws putting conditions on gun sales. [Opinion here.]

Well, the solution to yesterday's problem, seems to be this: Keep your child with you at all times, arm yourself and shoot the f__________. (John won't let me use swear words. Sometimes they just fit.)

The thing that seem unfathomable to me is that four justices voted against this obviousness. Anyone who reads the constitution, sees the right to own a gun. Only lawyers twisting themselves into self-righteous pretzels could see this any other way.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Supreme Arrogance and Common Sense

Even Barack Obama feels the Supreme Court overreached with their asinine ruling where they came to the conclusion that there is a "cultural consensus" against capital punishment for child rapists. It seems that there's a cultural consensus, alright, and it is exactly opposite to the court's. Here is what Obama said:

Democrat Barack Obama said Wednesday he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people who rape children, a crime he said states have the right to consider for capital punishment.

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said at a news conference. "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution."

Well, duh. The constitution is clear. The justices are pushing for a situation where the death penalty is never permissible. I mean, if men who rape five year olds don't qualify to get a one-way ticket to meet their Maker, who does?

And to address the fear of "murdering the witness" should the death penalty be allowed.. The court doesn't seem to follow their own logic. What will happen is this: People will take the law into their own hands. When justice isn't swift or just, people get frustrated. And who would blame the guy who goes after the child rapists? And these guys are not exactly treated well in prison. That's not cruel and unusual? So the justices essentially condone street justice for these freaks.

Here's the consensus, since the justices seem to be breathing the same elite rarefied air: Normal, average people have children. They watch the news and know that there are depraved people who are incapable of rehabilitation. A person who can do these things to a child ceases to demonstrate any ability to function in society. Period. For the safety of the community, they need to be dead. I don't want my tax dollars feeding this animal. I don't want my tax dollars spent protecting him in prison. I want him dead. And I'm not alone. Every person I know, liberal or conservative feels the same way. I call that a consensus.

Some truths are so self-evident they are call common sense. The Supreme Court's decision yesterday demonstrated a decided lack of this increasingly rare trait. They also demonstrated that they have no problem taking legislative power as their own.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Because A Child Rapist's Life Is Worth Saving

The Supreme Court issued another stellar ruling: It is "disproportionate" to take the life of a child rapist. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. As opposed to what the child endured, which falls into the category "lucky to be alive". Lucky, lucky child! Here is a sampling of the reasoning: (Opinion here.)

Part of the Court’s rationale for nullifying a death sentence for raping a child was that the child victim gets enlisted, perhaps repeatedly, to recount the crime, forcing on the child “a moral choice” that the youngster is not mature enough to make. “The way the death penalty here involves the child victim in its enforcement can compromise a decent legal system,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

More here. Ann Althouse notes Alito's dissent:

ADDED: In dissent, Justice Alito (joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas) emphasizes the breadth of the decision:
The Court today holds that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. This is so, according to the Court, no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be. The Court provides two reasons for this sweeping conclusion: First, the Court claims to have identified “a national consensus” that the death penalty is never acceptable for the rape of a child; second, the Court concludes, based on its “independent judgment,” that imposing the death penalty for child rape is inconsistent with “ ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’ ”

Leaving aside that gem, the Court took more rights from the state to punish as they see fit. Taking away states rights has become a disturbing trend of the Supreme Court.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

High Gas Prices Cause Parents To Murder Children

Murderous impulses abound these days. In Houston, children seem to be particularly vulnerable to their parent's frustration. It's a new phenomenon, really, child abuse, and the local government officials are grasping for reasons what has so recently gone horribly wrong. The Houston Chronicle's Dane Schiller reports:

With word Saturday that yet another parent was implicated in an attack on his children — police say he led them to the partially burned bodies — there was a feeling that something is horribly wrong with some families in the Greater Houston metropolitan area.

"Whether it is high gas prices or people not happy with their jobs or whatever, we have got a lot of anger and violence in our society, way too much, particularly family violence," Houston Councilman Peter Brown said.

Later, another expert gives his explanation:

Still, Klineberg said, they speak to growing stress for families, including the challenge of making ends meet.

"It is tough out there. People snap," he said. "And when you have 6 million people, one or two are going to snap in a bad way."

A few years ago, Andrea Yates drowned her kids in a bathtub. The gas prices were a moderate sub $2.00/gallon. Houston didn't want for violence in 2005 and gas prices were fantastic.

Houston's unemployment rate was higher in 2006 than it is now, so murders should be lower now. And maybe they are. You won't find this out from the local press, though, because it doesn't fit the narrative. And what is the narrative? The economy is horrible. Life is horrible. Gas prices are high, oil companies are bad and that's horrible.

Oh wait, when looking at the numbers, though, murders were up in 2006, but it wasn't unemployment, it was the fine folks from New Orleans. As those yahoos got put in the clink, the murder rate declined in 2007. And looky here:

HPD officials say that the City of Houston has recorded the fewest numbers of murders for the first quarter of this year since 2005.

The unofficial numbers show 78 murders were recorded through the first three months of this year.nThere were 88 murders for the same period in 2007. That’s an 11.3 percent decrease.

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said the decline shows that the department’s targeted crime initiatives and overtime programs throughout the city are paying off. “While murders are nearly impossible crimes to predict and prevent, we do feel our overtime programs in place, including those officers assigned to our Crime Reduction Unit, can impact crimes that could escalate to murder,” said Chief Hurtt.

Wow, those are dramatic numbers and not at all the impression one gets from reading something like Dan Schiller put together. The notion that there are always going to be nutso crazies killing their kids doesn't occur to these people. What occurs to them is that it's politically expedient to exploit a child's horrific death at the hands of a parent and blame......the latest trend.

Whether it be Twinkies (really depression) or oil or the economy or global warming or fill-in-the-blank excuse, according to Leftists no one is responsible for his murderous impulses and it's always worse Right Now! because it fits the latest trendy, alarmist call to action. It's stupid. I hope no one is paying attention to them.

Oh wait, they're not.

H/T Rorschach

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

High Gas Prices Are Turning More Consumers Into Criminals

I am not freaking kidding. MSNBC's national news blames oil prices for making people criminals. My brother said, "Next up, unemployment turns more people into armed robbers." And the genius they quoted said, "stolen fuel costs the industry $140 million last year, and I expect it to go up this year." Ya think? I mean gas prices have doubled. If less gas gets stolen this year, and this is a stretch because I was public school educated, it will still cost the industry more money. Sometimes I'm so impressive. I can't help it.

And there isn't a direct link for this stupidity because it's not on their website yet.

Thank God Abortion Is Legal

I mean, if it were illegal, people would prey on women and women would be harmed by untrained people posing as medical personnel:

The owner of a clinic has been charged with posing as a doctor to perform abortions, some of them unsuccessful or resulting in severe complications and hospitalization, prosecutors said Friday.

Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 48, was arrested Thursday after a yearlong investigation, San Diego County district attorney spokesman Paul Levikow said.
She was charged with 10 felony counts, including performing medical procedures without a license and grand theft, he said. She faces more than nine years in prison if convicted.

Bugarin, who was being held on $500,000 bail, was scheduled to be arraigned July 2. An call to her attorney Peter Hughes after business hours Friday was not immediately returned.

Prosecutors said Bugarin at one time operated six clinics in Southern California that provided abortions. For her clinic in Chula Vista, near the Mexican border, she advertised her service on Spanish-language television and charged $500 for an abortion.

Wow, America dodged a bullet. Legal abortion makes everyone safe.

Thong-Induced Injuries Deserves Class Action Status

Some things are inevitable, you just wonder why it took so long:

As she was attempting to put on a Victoria's Secret thong, a Los Angeles woman claims that a decorative metallic piece flew off the garment and struck her in the eye, causing injuries and a new product liability lawsuit against the underwear giant. Macrida Patterson, 52, alleges that she was hurt last May by a defective "low-rise v-string" from the Victoria's Secret "Sexy Little Thing" line, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. A copy of her June 9 complaint, which does not specify monetary damages, can be found below. Patterson's lawyer, Jason Buccat, told TSG that a "design problem" caused the decorative piece to come loose and strike Patterson in the eye, causing damage to her cornea. He added that the eye injury, which caused Patterson to miss a few days of work, will be "affecting her the rest of her life."

Most women I know have been injured by thongs. Besides the physical damage, there's the humiliation of knowing that she's willfully put a clothing garment in her butt crack ostensibly to avoid a lesser disaster: the dreaded panty lines. Men wouldn't wear a bra. Men wouldn't wear high heels. Men wouldn't wear panty hose. And men certainly wouldn't wear thongs. It's a conspiracy to create a perpetual state of discomfort and misery in the fairer sex.

This lawsuit deserves a lot more attention. Women of the world unite! Bring Victoria's Secret down for being the purveyors of a clothing product that has complete disregard for human health and dignity.


Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Family Of Austrian Freak Recovers

The daughter who had been put in a coma and was the reason why the secret family was discovered in the first place, emerged from her coma this week. The family adjusts to their new reality which includes gazing at clouds through protective sunglasses--as their eyes and minds become accommodated to the wide world.

Shoot Mugabe Now

Can we just dispense with the formality of civil society and rid the world of this animal? This is what it means to be the political opposition in Zimbabwe:

The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.

And a four year old niece saw it all. Mrs. Chipiro's husband, when he returned and after trying to put out the fire of his torched homes, went to the police, who falsified a report before rewriting it to say this:

The report said that seven men assaulted Mrs Chipiro “before dragging her in one of the houses and set all three houses on fire”. It said that the body showed “signs of assault since all hands and legs were broken”. The doctor who carried out the post-mortem described the cause of death as haemorrhaging and severe burns. “These youths are taught cruelty,” Mr Chipiro said. “They get used to murdering. They enjoy murdering. They are doing it for money.”

The people in Zimbabwe suffer. They starve. The seized farms no longer produce. Publications like The New Black Magazine ponder a false premise: what would be better now for Zimbabwe--Mugabe or Smith? How about this? Both are bad, and Mugabe is bad, now, and the Zimbabweans today deserve better than either of them.

Most of the world lives under different forms of tyranny. Burma (Myanmar) suffers at the hands of the Junta. 120, 000 people have died there. More will starve. Try doing business in Russia. Or, try having a sense of humor there. Try being free in China or being a neighbor of China. Try speaking your mind in Canada or Great Britain. Try saying offensive words in France.

America is rare in the world. Freedom, and the rule of law it is based upon, is rare and needs to be protected. It is a quick slide into tyranny and misery. Hugo Chavez demonstrates just how quickly a country can be unmade.

I sit here horrified at the oppressors of the world like Mugabe. Limb chopping and being burned alive in 2008.... it boggles the mind. What should America do? We watch and hopefully, learn, what it means to be free. Intervention would serve America's national interest... No it wouldn't. I know. I know. I would still like Mugabe shot. Now.


Cross-posted at Right Wing News

More Vegan Stupidity

Children need protein. Children need minerals. Children need fat. Children need the nutrition in fat and protein. Parents who feed their babies vegan diets are worse than ignorant, they're abusive.

Van Helsing at Moonbattery notes the latest example, of, well, moonbattery:

The youngster, fed on a strict meat- and dairy-free diet from birth, is being treated at the city’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children. She is said to have a severe form of rickets and to have suffered a number of fractured bones. The condition is caused by a lack of vitamin D, which is needed to absorb calcium and is found in liver, oily fish and dairy produce.

Dr Faisal Ahmed, the consultant treating the child, said he believed the dangers of forcing children to follow a strict vegan diet needed to be highlighted. “Something like this needs publicity,” he said. However, he refused to blame the parents, who are understood to be well-known figures in Glasgow’s vegan community: “We shouldn’t name and shame \. Mum feels guilty about the whole thing and feels bad about it.”

Aw, mum feels guilty. Does she? Guilty enough to give up her religion? A lifetime of proper nutrition for her daughter will not compensate for her daughter's health today. Because of her long-term Vitamin D deficiency, her daughter is at risk for:

• Colon cancer
• Impaired neurological and cognitive development
• Osteoporosis (duh)
• Anemia
• Breast cancer
• Heart disease (?), new research
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Crohns disease
• Hypertension

The list goes on and on. And no amount of health building now will make it right for this girl as she grows into womanhood. Her mom feels guilty? Her daughter may never be able to have children. She wasn't just being stupid about her own health, but the health of her daughter's. I think she should feel guilty from behind bars.

The Mean Streets of Cleveland

Marines as targets.....in America.

Child Pornography As Art

In America, it's "spiritual marriages" or slut baby clothing. In Australia, it's "art". Either way, exploiting children seems to becoming more normed throughout Western civilization. Make sure to watch the news clip at the link. Even Australia's leftist Prime Minister is appalled.

My question, upon watching all this, is where are the parents? There are laws against child pornography, but there's no law that can stop parents from being complete morons. Why would a parent allow this? The child has no consent. The child will grow up some day and see these images and try to rationalize his parent's failure to protect him and worse, his parents cooperated.

Of course, the art community feels persecuted because police are investigating. Enter the obligatory Nazi references:

Commenting on the decision to shut down the Henson exhibition, he said it was "a sad day that an artist or a gallerist has to edit an exhibition on the basis of public fear".

"It's like Australia's way back in the 1950s again," he added. "It's a reminder that we still live very much in basically a philistine country."

Judy Annear, senior curator of photography at the Art Gallery of NSW, says artists like Henson need to continue to push the boundaries, despite public opinion.

"The day art museums and artists decide that the only thing they can do is react to public opinion is the day that we are in the same scenario as people were in the 1930s in Germany," she said.

So, the Nazi's were preventing children from being exploited? Why, if my cursory understanding of history serves, it was the Nazis who were doing the exploiting. Lampshades were art, no doubt. Hitler hated modernism and artists in general because of his own failings as an artist. What deep chasm in the modern public psyche accounts for the outrage at seeing children exploited?

It is never possible that the artist has crossed a inviolable moral line. Nope. The Australian populace are a bunch of Philistines. How open minded! Only if you agree with the art communities are you a free thinking genius, but if you disagree--you're a Philistine. To the true artist, there are no boundaries. To the average person, artists have no sense.

H/T Reader Dana Hanley

FLDS's Culture of Depravity and CPS' Culture of Duplicity And I'm Sick of Kids Being Harmed By Those Who are Supposed To Help

Fox News shares these absolutely disgusting pictures of FLDS "spiritual leader" Warren Jeffs spiritually sticking his tongue down the child-wife of his "spiritual marriage". No, he and his followers aren't pedophiles. No way.

Now, I know that Texas social workers can behave badly. In fact, any agent of the state I suspect almost as a matter of course. I'm just saying that it's possible that funky stuff is going down in that compound and that sending girls back there will be endangering them. The fact that Texas CPS acts above the law and family courts in general have no constraints engenders doubt even in legitimate cases.

Children will be harmed because of this mess and if f*cking pisses me off. Man, I'm in a bad mood and this kind of shit makes me even more irritated. Oh, and in case American kids are not sexed up enough, LL Cool J is here to help. I thought that guy was supposedly a Christian. Oh, and here's more irritation: imagine being forced to have only one kid and the kid being crushed in a substandard government-built building. Some days I just want to smash some stupid skulls. This is one of those days. Damn. How am I going to sleep with my BP this high?