but what He really meant was...

Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believed in me, it were better for him that millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea, but enough about that. How a national conservative pressure group which badly needs a win right now broke the law to try and get it in Florida, and how Jeb Bush gamed the system to try and help them.

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). Remember Anita Bryant? She was a popular flyover singing star and the face of Florida orange juice in the late seventies, as well as the woman who unleashed Kathie Lee Gifford on a world that never did nothing to her. Unfortunately for Anita, who doesn't appear to be a very bright woman, in 1977 she and her husband decided that it would be a good career move to become the face of one of the christian right's first major forays into political bigfooting. It was unfortunate for a lot of other folks too.


( Sorry, it's another stemwinder. more... )

What the hell, she probably asked for it.

Judge returns convicted sex offender to the home where his victim lives

The system became aware of the bad results of this unfortunate judgment call when the young lady came up pregnant.

The judge overruled the prosecutor, the police and the offender's therapist to put the child abuser (who had undoubtedly suffered enough) back into the home with his victim.

"I'm not responsible for people committing crimes," the judge said yesterday. "Okay, I made a judgment. . . . What do you want me to say, that I'm omniscient and I know what's going to happen in every situation?

"People violate probation all the time," Thompson said. "You want to blame the system? You know what? It's not the system that commits the crimes. . . . I'm here to make judgments, that's what I'm here for."

Two years ago, Thompson angered women's groups when he reproached the parents of an 11-year-old sexual assault victim during the sentencing hearing for the girl's assailant. "It takes two to tango," Thompson said, referring to the girl's correspondence with men on the Internet before the assault.

Then in March, Thompson, a judge since 1994, created controversy by overturning a jury's guilty verdict in a rape case. Thompson said the victim, an illegal immigrant from Indonesia, might have been seeking revenge against the defendant, who had been her boyfriend, because he refused to marry her.

In Richardson's case, investigators said they believe he fathered the baby based on interviews with the girl and the fact that Richardson cannot be found. They are awaiting the results of a DNA test.

At what point does judicial discretion become child abuse?

Why is this piece of trash still administering the law?

Hmm.

James Copozzola, of the Rittenhouse Review, has an interesting piece up about Opie and Anthony and anti-Catholic sentiment ("the anti-semitism of intellectuals," someone once called it).

Perhaps because I was brought up on the periphery of the church (we stopped attending after my parents' divorce) I haven't got the fierce reaction, for or against, that most people who are involved more deeply seem to have. One of my greatest friends is an extremely conservative monsignor, while other friends would be just as happy to see the church disappear.

Perhaps it's naive of me to mentally separate the behavior of the institution from the principles of the religion - certainly I couldn't argue with anyone who said that if held to its own standards, the institution wouldn't do too well just now.

On the other hand, I know people who find a fulfilment of their desire to become a better person and a better citizen of the world through belonging to (catholic upbringing giveaway) the church.

I suppose, though, that if William F. Buckley can argue the use of american might to bring the world into line behind fourteenth century sexual morality on a platform of papal inerrancy while maintaining that the holy father was "misinformed" on the issue of the living wage, I can teach my daughter about redemption while hoping against hope that Cardinal Law goes to prison.

Which makes me a cafeteria catholic, and intellectually dishonest, and probably the spiritual kin of the new age dharmic cherrypickers.

But, you know, none of the options are pretty.

Stupid Republican Tricks

Where do they find these people?

A report Friday in the Evansville Courier & Press told of a meeting earlier this year in [Indiana Rep. John] Hostettler's congressional office when a group of 11 breast cancer survivors asked him to support some pending bills on research of the disease.

The women, most of whom live in Terre Haute, said Hostettler "seemed obsessed" with the studies linking breast cancer to abortion. They said he gave them the impression he thought they had had abortions.

Hostettler said in an interview Thursday that he thought it was important for women to be informed about the studies, but he said the 11 women didn't want to hear that information. He said he did not imply that they had had abortions, and said he couldn't help it if they felt offended.

As a breast cancer survivor in the article asked, are we checking on the behavior of men who get prostate cancer?

on the other hand

I had to go have a root canal done this morning, out on the ass end of nowhere where the busses don't run. Way too much novocaine, way too much scraping and tugging, that scorchy smell that's so disconcerting when you can't feel your tongue, he started an hour and a half late and he made me listen to Britney Spears _and_ Celine Dion (whose date of departure must surely be The canadian national holiday). Despite all of which I was in a neutral mood when I left, for no particular reason I can make out.

I finally figured out where the nearest bus did stop and went and stood there listening to bad pop music from the early seventies on my spiffy new birthday iPod and getting agreeably maudlin about things I don't really miss, against the fence of a few back yards with monster cucumber and pumpkin vines carpeting everything and one or two flowers resisting the drought and a pair of moths spinning around each other at a high rate of speed up and down the shaft of light reflected from somebody's improbably colored above ground pool.

And I thought, for a minute, cool world.

Well, maybe leave some children behind

Are we all clear that there's a difference? Are we all clear on what the difference is? Let's review:

From Portland, by way of Counterspin:

We brought our children to a peaceful protest, we stayed in the back and we were walking on the sidewalk. The march stopped at the intersection of 2nd and Alder we could not see why from our position on the SW corner of the intersection. Police quickly moved up behind us and a moment or two later sprayed pepper spray into the crowd from the NE corner of the intersection. the crowd ran toward us to escape the spray. We asked the oficer closest to us how we should exit the intersection. He pointed and said to exit to the NE, into the spraying police opposite him. as the crowd pressed toward us I yelled to him to let us through (south on 2nd) because we had three small children. He looked at me, and drew out his can from his hip and sprayed directly at me. I was at an angle to him and the spray hit my right eye and our three year-old who I was holding in my right arm. In the same motion he turned the can on my wife who was holding our 10 month old baby and doused both of their heads entirely from a distance of less than 3 feet. my six year old daughter was holding my left hand and was not hit directly. We ended up on the sidewalk a few feet down alder with fellow protesters holding my screaming children and and pouring water on our eyes. Someone yelled that the police had said that we could pass through the cordon on alder with the children. I picked up the baby and other protesters brought my wife and other children to the police line. We attempted to pass through but they leaned in shoulders to block us. I yelled at them to let us pass for about two minutes and finally some officer up the line nodded me and the baby through. they were not going to let my wife and other children out but after a few minutes of pleading from the crowd and another signal from up the line they let them out. As we passed the officers were laughing and said something to the effect of "thats why you shouldn't bring kids to protests".

sigh.

Vote early and often.