YGTBKM

Sorry 'bout the absence this weekend (if anyone noticed at all, that is). I had a belated birthday party to help clean for and attend (Saturday), and then recovery from said party on Sunday, along with another birthday dinner. It wasn't exactly social, but I wasn't sitting on my butt all day, so that's good.

I've been keeping up with everyone even though I haven't been commenting much, so rest assured that I haven't missed much, if anything. Bless you, Google Reader...bless you.

On with the snark!

Remember when Tam wrote about that prom party where the mom supervised while the teens drank some beer and hung around? Well, she's been sentenced to 27 months in jail. This was down from 8-10 YEARS.

Why? Well, aside from the fact that ommitted the happy little fact from the other parents that there would be alcohol available to the teens (which I do disagree with), she...well, the reason is that she gave them alcohol at all. MADD was the group wanting to give her the 8-10 year sentence, which is EXCEEDINGLY amusing to me, given the fact that the kids all had their keys taken away, and none of them drove at all, under the influence or no. If anything, she might have saved their lives or even the lives of others, should they have chosen to drink elsewhere (and subsequently try to drive home drunk).

And I'll go ahead and say what others have said, because it's the truth: If I was a parent, I would MUCH rather my child drink in the safety of his/her own home, if they were to drink at all. A kid's going to do it, anyway, so you might as well make it as un-rebellious as possible by not necessarily making it commonplace, but removing the glamour and the taboo associated with it - basically, the parents should show the kids that they're well aware of what kids want to do, so the kids don't think they're doing anything that hasn't already been done before. Obviously I'm not condoning giving your kids something to drink, but I think that should be up to the parent to make that decision.

Again, that's the only problem I have with what this woman did - all but one of the children involved WASN'T hers, so I could see how some of the other parents would get pissy. But for fuck's sake - this is ridiculous.

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Speaking of ridiculous, that former teen (now 21) who was sentenced to prison for consensual oral sex between him and a 15-year-old girl (he was 17) was told that he could just have 12 months of probation, and the time he served in jail was more than enough.

Well, of course someone filed an appeal. Because god forbid older teens make any decisions of a sexual nature that don't result in pregnancy and don't involve rape.

At the time of the encounter, the law forbid such action (was it the ages of the two teens? the action itself? or the fact that it was videotaped?), but it was changed shortly after this guy was sent to prison. They didn't apply the law retroactively, though, even though his case was the partial reason for the law change.

And now, after two years of fighting, and after a judge in a court of law ruled the punishment "cruel and unusual", this prick of a prosecutor feels the needs to make a point by filing an appeal and trying to get the rest of this sentence carried out.

What a douche.

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Daughter killed by parents after she falls in love with someone of a different religion.

It's like a really fucked-up version of Romeo and Juliet, except the Capulets just decided to off Juliet themselves rather than deal with the drama maturely.

They might as well bring back the guillotine, because that appears to be the way things are headed.

I just can't believe someone would kill their own child, least of all for something so petty. Beliefs aren't diseases, y'all. You can catch them by being around them, and you can just ignore them if you want. It's not like this guy threatened her family or their way of life. They just didn't want to be known as "those parents whose daughter's arranged marriage failed". Then she had to go fall in love with someone else. How dare she.

Boot, meet ass. Face, meet floor.

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Why won't Bono just go away?

I can understand wanting to help people, but no one likes a whiner. And you're whining. A lot. Shut the hell up.

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Five Republican senators have voted to oust Gonzales.

The head honcho, Arlen Spector, has said he's going to vote "No Confidence" on Gonzales.

It's a shame that it might not make it through, but it's good that people are finally going, "WTF?" and trying to get rid of this dumbass. "President Bush's best friend" isn't a qualification, it's a description.

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I just wanted to post this link (regarding juvenile diabetes and how it can strike adults, as well), because I LOVE this woman's attitude about it: "You deal with it."

She's not whining, she's not suing anyone, she's not demanding that things be changed for her.

She's taking care of herself, exercising, eating right, etc.

Granted, there's a chance that she should have been doing all that stuff before she got sick. But there's no "woe is me". That's refreshing. So I'm going to just end my post there.


Hope everyone's Monday has been as relatively uneventful as mine (I mean that in a good way).