finethen wrote:
How can people so young be so violent and destructive?

How? Its called zero respect for authority. Back in the day when I was in public school (1974ish - 1987), it was still legal for school officials to administer corporal punishment – within reason of course. Today? You even threaten to touch a child and their parents sue. Gotta love the lawyers!

Kids have nothing to fear today. There is no such thing as a true "authority figure"; the concept is totally alien to them. Cops are all bad - their shitty rap songs constantly remind them of this.

Kids in my day didn't walk thru metal detectors en route to class, because no one was callous enough to take a gun to school with the premeditated intent of mowing down classmates.

Make it legal once again for parents and principals to "tan ass" when it’s called for, and MAYBE you might see this shit stop.

-LB

RE: Chron.com | Drinking May Have Fueled Ala. Church Fires

Authorities with the U.N. war crimes tribunal are investigating the death of Slobodan Milosevic after the former Yugoslav president was found dead Saturday morning in his cell in The Hague, Netherlands. He was 64.

Slobo takes the eternal dirt nap. Good riddance, bastard.

CNN - 'Butcher of the Balkans' found dead

wilpig wrote:

The bloodied body of a collaborator on the children's book series Curious George was found Tuesday morning covered in black garbage bags in the driveway of his impeccably landscaped mobile home.

This is absolutely terrible but sometimes you want to blog things like this because the press won't pay much attention to them.

That is horrible. And the timing couldn't have been worse as "George" just made his big screen debut.

Story has been updated. They have 2 suspects in custody that have confessed to the murder.

-LB

RE: Curious George collaborator found dead

TORONTO, Ontario (Reuters) -- Giving homeless alcoholics a regular supply of booze may improve their health and their behavior, the Canadian Medical Association Journal said in a study published on Tuesday.

Seventeen homeless adults, all with long and chronic histories of alcohol abuse, were allowed up to 15 glasses of wine or sherry a day -- a glass an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- in the Ottawa-based program, which started in 2002 and is continuing.

After an average of 16 months, the number of times participants got in trouble with the law had fallen 51 percent from the three years before they joined the program, and hospital emergency room visits were down 36 percent.

"Once we give a 'small amount' of alcohol and stabilize the addiction, we are able to provide health services that lead to a reduction in the unnecessary health services they were getting before," said Dr. Jeff Turnbull, one of the authors of the report.

"The alcohol gets them in, builds the trust and then we have the opportunity to treat other medical diseases... It's about improving the quality of life."

Athorities stunned by massive homeless migration north. Film at 11

-LB

CNN - Study: Free booze benefits homeless alcoholics

"A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Monday to either charge terrorism suspect Jose Padilla with a crime or release him after more than 2 1/2 years in custody.

U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., said the government can not hold Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," a designation President Bush gave him in 2002."

It's about F-ing time. Actually it was about F-ing time two years ago. If Padilla is a POS terrorist, charge and try him. Or release him - thats the LAW. Can't help but wonder if the real reason the govt. is dragging their feet is that maybe their case is flimsy with a massive loophole that could let him walk.

While I agree totally with Judge Floyd's ruling, I expect it to be over turned by a higher court... and so it will start all over again. *sigh*.

LB

Judge 'Charge or Release Padilla'

Bank of America said Friday it lost computer tapes containing account information on 1.2 million federal employee credit cards, among them those of U.S. senators, potentially exposing them to theft or hacking.

The bank told CNN/Money that federal government's General Services Administration (GSA) cardholders' account information may have been on the tapes.

The tapes were lost in December, but a bank spokeswoman told Reuters that bank officials were not allowed to notify cardholders until they received permission from federal law enforcement authorities

WAY to GO B of A!!

1.2 million Bank of America accounts jeopardized

abaddon wrote:

] This is the slickest electoral college map site.

"The United States is the oldest continuously functioning democracy in the world."

BZZZT. We're a republic - not a democracy.

Cool site though. Just hope the current prediction is wrong. :/

LB

RE: Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

This is no longer an interesting coincidence. It is an unmistakable message from God. I hope everyone is listening.

message-from-God.gif (GIF Image, 744x900 pixels)

For those that didn't watch the VP debate last night, at one point VP Cheney tried to refute some statistic that John Edwards had dropped. Cheney invited viewers to "go to factcheck.COM" when apparently he meant to say factcheck.ORG

factcheck.COM redirects to "Billionare Bush Basher" George Sorros' website georgesorros.com and surfers are met with a banner stating "Why we must not re-elect President Bush". and headline proclaiming "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests and underminning American values"

Funnier still is that George Sorros states he does not own factcheck.com and was unaware of the redirect - aparently till his web stats started going balistic last night and today.

D'OH!!!

LB

] SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) -- A black bear was found
] passed out at a campground in Washington state recently
] after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a
] campground worker said on Wednesday.
]
] "We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and
] wondered what was going on until we discovered that there
] were a lot of beer cans lying around," said Lisa Broxson,
] a worker at the Baker Lake Resort, 80 miles (129 km)
] northeast of Seattle.
]
] The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years
] old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and
] teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.
]
] It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate.
] He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to
] Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his
] drinking binge.
]
] Wildlife agents chased the bear away, but it returned the
] next day, said Broxson.
]
] They set a trap using as bait some doughnuts, honey and
] two cans of Rainier Beer. It worked, and the bear was
] captured for relocation.

Bear guzzles 36 beers, passes out at campground