Poor Ducky

This thing was lucky. (The one pictured above is not the duck in question, but one like it.) It would only have been luckier if it were made of rubber.

Some MORON shot a pet duck. The duck struck back though and got a protection order.

Seems the legal system is working for this duck. The poor thing got shot in the voicebox! No more quacking for this duck.

Brilliant Idea of the Day

A church in New Orleans is fighting mad about the murders taking place and not being solved in their area. So they've made a murder wall to commemorate the victims and to bring attention to the situation.

Two years later, the people of New Orleans still wait. This will go down in history as the biggest F-up of our time. Between "you're doing a heck of a job, Browne," and sending troops to Minnesota to a bridge collapse that were never sent to New Orleans for the total destruction of one of our oldest and greatest cities....from sea to shining sea.

Great journalism here....seriously.

A story in the Free Press today talks about how homes that were also crime scenes are a hard sell.


That gets the "No Shit" award of the day. This commentary shows why:

These homes, real estate agents say, are a tough sell once buyers discover their story. Even a stunning piece of real estate tends to lose its allure once people see crime scene tape running across it.

Yeah...um...DUH.

True dat, my friend

This article from the Free Press website talks about our nation's obsession with missing white, middle-class, expectant mothers. How true that is. This country cannot get enough of stories of that. Yet look around a trailer park or the inner-city and those murders and abductions don't get the same fanfare.

File this under "sad but true."

The Story that Keeps Breaking My Heart

Charlsie Adams-Rodgers took the stand in her own defense today in the Involuntary Manslaughter case involving the death of foster child Isaac Lethbridge. Her testimony is not shocking in content, but if you think for a minute that she was not responsible, even she admits her legal responsibility for the boy.

Lest you forget, they found blunt force trauma to be the cause of his death, but Isaac had burns, bruises and even cigarette marks on his body.

It made me sick to read this morning in the same article linked above (being updated periodically by the Free Press) that she said the children arrived at her home without anything and were "nasty." Who does she think she is to call two children "nasty"? Granted, I'm sure there's more to the context of the comment, but I think she picked her words wrong because it sounds even worse now that she's spoken.

There's another reason that OJ was smart to take the Fifth.

It just gets sadder and sadder

While a certain socialite who will remain nameless continues to enter and leave jail as if it were a resort, there's a manslaughter and child abuse case going on in Detroit that is wrenching my heart every day. Issac Lethbridge was taken from his biological parents along with other siblings because of neglect in their home. He was then placed by a foster care center which is now shut down.

The testimony that takes place each day (like this testimony today about his foster sister who was accused of actually causing his death, or this testimony last week about him being continuously neglected and harmed) rips my heart apart and the enchanting young boy is always looking on as I read on the right hand side of my screen. I just want to reach out to him and children like him--taken from abuse and landing right back in abuse.

Something has got to be done. Flat out--something MUST occur that ensures that this, and what happened in the Ricky Holland case, never happens again. Seems that notwithstanding promises previously made, many children are, in fact, getting left behind.

I don't even know where to begin. I wish I could give suggestions or even a place to start, but it seems to me that major investigations and licensing regulations need to be changed and put into place immediately and that we ought to have an agency that is fully-committed to handling the care of these children.

If we can't protect little people like Isaac then we have truly lost touch with what is important.

The Bitch is Back

I started to write this entry and all of a sudden Elton John's "The Bitch is Back" came on my iTunes player, which is currently in shuffle mode. Call it fate, call it justice, call it what you will--but the subject of this blog fits perfectly. And I will continue to hit replay as long as I wish for inspiration.

Yes, dear readers, it's true--Paris Hilton is out of the clink.

It just sickens me to the core that someone who willingly and knowingly violated her probation TWICE is allowed to walk away after three days in jail. Mind you, in those three days she was in seclusion, not required to participate in events with other inmates, and given a private cell. Reportedly, she wasn't required to go through the cavity searches that other inmates are forced to endure. Sure as shit, though, she was released early. And I am sure that no excuse I hear will be a good one.

It's a sad day in our society. And I'm not giving Paris Hilton more credit than she deserves, because I'm talking about the state of celebrity and what it brings. If you or I willingly and knowingly violated our probation twice we'd be lucky to get the 45 day sentence she originally received, let alone the reduction to 23 days and now to 3. Granted, the prisons are overcrowded, but people who commit crimes and then are put on probation only to violate that probation should not be allowed to wander off to Rodeo Drive.

This is just another instance in a long line of celebrity crimes that goes without justification or punishment because the person at issue happens to have appeared on People or US Weekly a few times. And then we wonder why people don't respect the criminal justice system, or the legal system at all.

This is bigger than Paris Hilton. I'm not a fan of her, that's no secret. The issue here isn't really her...it's the disregard for procedure, punishment and process so blatant that causes Oliver Wendell Holmes to turn repeatedly in his grave.

Today, justice is not only going to the highest bidder, but the one with the most paparazzi following behind.

How in the hell do you steal a bathtub?

I'd really like to know how you do it--especially in a busy hotel. Seriously...any thoughts? I'm just curious as heck.

This story at Yahoo News tells the tale.


I hope no one wants my 1950s-esque teal bathtub.