YOU SUCK!!!!

Jell-O. And they’re little Temptations pudding advertising. See, the idea is that it’s not like their other desserts (somehow). I mean, it probably still contains the exact same ingredients. But somehow this one isn’t for kids. They’re not only saying so. They’re forbidding kids from getting free samples of it through fancy machines!

The current offer is for Temptations by Jell-O, the brand’s first product designed specifically for adults. The machine is equipped with technology to determine the age of the person requesting a sample. If the machine senses a child, a panel lights up with the words, “Sorry, kid. You’re too young to experience indulgence like this. Please step away so the adults can get their free treat.”

You’re too young to experience indulgence like this? Even if I weren’t outraged on youth rights grounds, I’d want to smack the person who came up with this. Are they actually implying eating this particular pudding constitutes sex?

We’ve been discussing this a bit on the NYRA board e-mail list, and Eric Goldstein suggested the restriction could be for liability purposes. And he’s probably right. Except if that were all it is, you’d think they could at least try to be respectful about it. Having a machine say the equivalent of “ha ha, you can’t have this!” pretty much shows there’s more to it than that.

Unless it’s 50% vodka, there’s nothing “adult” about Temptations, no matter how much Kraft tries to implicitly sexualize it. No, they are very obviously taking the alcohol and cigarette tactic of using age restrictions to boost youth desire for the product. To make them want to be “adult”. As well as making adults want to use the product because it’s not for kids, so they can quench their adult insecurity by indulging in what might be usually pegged a kids’ dessert but not feel young doing it because kids can’t have it.

We see this with so many products, that kids can’t have or can’t have fully usually under the guise of safety. But that’s an excuse. I’ll bet more adults support the drinking age not so much becase of desire to keep youth healthy, but because they see youth as “other”, as inferior, and that they have some right to be superior to them and to have things those inferior others can’t have. And this makes them feel good and triumphant, that they’ve won over those evil youth, who’ve committed the horrible sin of existing when they haven’t existed long enough. Hell, I’ve seen ads for parental controls on things that promote it not to keep kids safe but to be able to block them and say/think “haha, you’re blocked, you stupid kid!” It’s a dangerous combination to set something where one group can feel super privileged and superior over the other, all with the excuse of “safety”. Safety, my ass!

And youth aren’t the only ones victim to this method, though they fall victim to it perhaps most severely. Dr Pepper Ten ads are promoting themselves explicitly that “It’s Not For Women!” Why? Because the idea is men don’t want to drink Diet Dr Pepper because “oh noes, diet soda is for women!” So they have this product that’s pretty much identical, just with added sweetener and caffeine, that’s not only marketed to men but supposedly only men. Because nothing kills manliness like using the same product women use. Men can’t be women!

And so we have Temptations, despite containing nothing uniquely harmful to youth (any more than any other sweet dessert anyway), promoting itself as “just for adults” so adults don’t have to feel degraded by eating the same product kids eat. Men don’t want to be women. Adults don’t want to be children. That’s the idea that is being promoted here to sell products.

Maybe we all need to get over our insecurities, and loudly, and make clear this kind of advertising doesn’t appeal to us. Because you don’t need to tell me a product will make me feel more adult. I don’t need something to do that for me, and I’m not stupid enough to think your product will do that.

And today came the verdict at last…

7-2, in favor of EMA. Two dissenters were Stephen Breyer and (surprising absolutely no one) Clarence Thomas.

WE WON!!!!

Check out the official document here!

I’ve been retweeting a lot of remarks and articles today in response to this ruling, so here’s a nice roundup.

Hypervocal says

This marks the first time the Supreme Court has ruled on video games, and now, because of this decision, it seems that video games have earned an equal place at the First Amendment cultural table along with books, music, movies and other entertainment products.

Slashdot notably notes that

Notable in the opinion is a historical review of the condemnation of ‘unworthy’ material that would tend to corrupt children, starting with penny-novels and up through comic books and music lyrics. The opinion is also notable for the odd lineup of Justices that defies normal ideological lines, with one conservative and one liberal jurist dissenting on entirely different grounds.

Good ol’ Reason, complete with a pic of Schwarzenegger signing something behind a Protect Our Children sign, quotes some of Scalia’s great majority opinion and concludes with:

Acknowledging the legitimacy of concerns that some violent entertainment is inappropriate for minors, Scalia nonetheless reminds us that ‘even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply.’

Ars Technica seems just plain sick of this shit and is glad to see the ban failed, saying

The law, as it was written, was bound to fail. Every previous state law that tried to enact some sort of ban has been struck down as unconstitutional. California’s law sought to control the sale of games with “deviant violence” to children, but lacked a clear definition of what deviant violence would entail. While the California law would have added an exception to the first amendment to exclude certain content from protection, in essence saying that video games were not speech, the Supreme Court has decided that video games are in fact expression, and are afforded the same rights and protections as every other art form sold to consumers. With a decision this clear, we’ve hopefully seen the last of state laws attempting to regulate the sale of video games to minors.

GamePolitics shows that butthurt California State Senator Leland Yee, the guy who proposed and has relentlessly pushed for this video game ban and wasted a lot of taxpayer money on it, is butthurt

California State Sen. Leland Yee said that today’s ruling by the Supreme Court “put the interests of corporate America” before the interests of children.

…

Yee went on to say that the eight years of legislative and legal battles were worth it because it raised the consciousness of this issue for many parents and grandparents, and has “forced the video game industry to do a better job at appropriately rating these games.”

Taxpayers in California probably disagree with Yee, who encouraged the state to spend money to defend a law that was inevitably struck down. The only ones truly enriched by the legal battle and victory was the videogame industry because this ruling has set a precedent that can’t be ignored by lawmakers daring to tackle the subject of violent videogame legislation.

Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress goes in-depth about the opposing arguments between Justices Scalia and Thomas.

Thomas draws a draconian line in the sand, saying that children have no right to read or access any material or speech without obtaining their parents’ approval first: “The historical evidence shows that the founding generation believed parents had absolute authority over their minor children and expected parents to use that authority to direct the proper development of their children. It would be absurd to suggest that such a society understood ‘the freedom of speech’ to include a right to speak to minors (or a corresponding right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents.”

Yeah, Clarence Thomas is a douche. But then Antonin Scalia rips him apart!

And it’s a delight to see Scalia utterly dismantle his total disregard for the rights of minors in a footnote, saying:

Justice Thomas ignores the holding of Erznoznik, and denies that persons under 18 have any constitutional right to speak or be spoken to without their parents’ consent. He cites no case, state or federal, supporting this view, and to our knowledge there is none. [...] It does not follow that the state has the power to prevent children from hearing or saying anything without their parents’ prior consent. The
latter would mean, for example, that it could be made criminal to admit persons under 18 to a political rally without their parents’ prior written consent — even a political rally in support of laws against corporal punishment of children, or laws in favor of greater rights for minors. [...] In the absence of any precedent for state control, uninvited by the parents, over a child’s speech and religion (Justice Thomas cites none), and in the absence of any justification for such control that would satisfy strict scrutiny, those laws must be unconstitutional.

In other words: “Jesus Christ, Thomas, STFU already!” But go read that whole piece for the two justices’ opposing recounts of history.

Our good friends National Coalition Against Censorship give NYRA and the ACLU a shoutout in mentioning our joint amicus brief for this case, and say

The impulse to ‘protect’ children by restricting what they can read, see, and hear is pervasive, and the decision issued today makes it clear that vague assertions about harm, or social disapproval of certain kinds of material, do not justify government restrictions. That also applies to books in public schools and libraries, which are of course challenged regularly.

The Court also rejected the claim that “the state has the power to prevent children from hearing or saying anything without their parents’ prior consent.” The decision thus leaves it up to individual families to set their own rules, without officials saying “what the State thinks parents ought to” do.

Whether it’s video games, movie, comic books, or music, parents and youth have a legitimate interest in making choices about what is appropirate without unwanted and unwarranted state interference.

And there’s Mother Jones in all its glory, promising that

To the nation’s young gamers—

I know you are no longer satisfied by the rantings of Cave Johnson, the eccentric dead billionaire in Portal 2. I’m aware you cannot countenance another 30 levels of Angry Birds. I sense that, just for once, you want to see something hemorrhage like the old days. Well know this: the judicial branch has not forgotten about you.

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court on Monday put an end to a long-stalled California law that would have prohibited the rental or sale of violent games to minors.

That articles also points out…

There are of course more extreme cases of double standards and slippery slopes. With all the demands to have video games like the Grand Theft Auto series (content includes gang warfare, indiscriminate violence, colorful language, and some tongue-in-cheek depictions of sex) kept out of reach of children, an impressionable youngster can still stroll into any Barnes & Noble and pick up a copy of Justine by Marquis de Sade (content includes sado-masochistic Christian monks, orgiastic rape, mass murder by arson, and rampant torture).

It’s not a stretch to claim the latter would be more damaging to your average fifth grader.

Reminds me of a guy at our rally who brought with him a comic book or something, whose video game version was M-rated and would have been banned, while that comic book would be perfectly okay for anyone to buy.

Unfortunately, there was the annoying one from Scientific American, harping on that Leland Yee is a child psychologist and therefore knows best what’s good for children

Yee’s stance on whether to let children under the age of 18 play video games depicting violent scenarios—murder, car jackings and the like—is that such games cause “an increase in aggressive behavior, physiological desensitization to violence, and decrease [in] pro-social behavior,” according to an earlier statement on Yee’s site. His position lines up with those of the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Among other supporters of Yee’s position is a group of psychologists and social researchers led by Craig Anderson, director of Iowa State University’s Center for the Study of Violence, who last year authored a paper that pointed to “clear and convincing” evidence that “media violence is one of the causal factors of real-life violence and aggression.” The study, entitled “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth” and published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, concluded that “research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts.”

Somewhere I think Tipper Gore had an orgasm.

SciAm does throw a bone to the opposing side. Uhhh, sort of.

The other side of the violent video games disagreement claims that violent crimes among juveniles are declining even as video games have gotten more violent and that it is difficult to establish a causal relationship between any one medium and a group’s behavior, let alone the actions of an individual.

In a June 2010 Scientific American article social psychologist Dara Greenwood evaluated arguments on both side of the debate. Whereas research by Cheryl Olson, a public health specialist at Harvard, found that children’s reported motivations for video game playing and found that their top rated choices were to have fun, to compete well with others, and to be challenged. Olson also elaborated on the psychological benefits such play might afford, describing how video games facilitate self-expression, role play, creative problem-solving, cognitive mastery, positive social interactions and leadership.

Greenwood acknowledged that “no media psychologists worth their salt would conclude that violent video games will turn your children into gun-toting sociopaths.” Still, she concluded that violent media, including video games, may affect people in “countless subtle ways, increasing hostility and apathy to those around us.”

That’s… something? Maybe?

Well, then there’s this at the end…

California’s loss in the Supreme Court has a greater impact than simply scuttling that state’s attempt to limit children’s access to violent video games. The 11 other states—Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia—that submitted an amicus brief in support of California’s law now find their options likewise limited.

OMG like oh noes! You mean states who want to infringe on the free speech rights of young people and game sellers are finding their options limited? Oh, we must feel so sorry for them! How dare they be blocked from violating their young citizens’ basic liberties based on not-very-conclusive “science”?

Yeah, go to hell, Scientific American. I am disappoint.

Hate to end on that note. So here’s one more bit of awesomeness from Mother Jones on the Scalia versus Thomas battle!

So it’s a good day for free speech and youth rights! My beloved organization NYRA was closely involved in this case, signing onto the amicus brief and holding that kickass RALLY late last year, and today all of our work has come to fruition, and justice has been served! Even just the tiniest victories take enormous work and dedication, but we’re on our way to a world where rights of youth are actually respected. It may seem a video game issue is trivial, but it’s not, it’s sooo not. Because when something turns discriminatory and could mean criminal penalties, especially for no real compelling purpose, it gets real.

In closing, here’s Eric’s review of the case on the NYRA blog.

This has been Day 35 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 11.

Your cultural traditions are NO excuse for harming others!

In the New York Times today was a piece by Nick Kristof about female genital cutting, and after glancing at Feministing’s mention of it, found a piece from two years ago in American Prospect, Rights Versus Rites.

Rights Versus Rites is about the debate about female genital cutting. That’s right. Debate. As in there’s a side that’s all for it. Seriously, go read it. It’s long and horrifying, but read it.

Okay, seeing as the practice is still going throughout Africa, despite little victories here and there where small areas decided “meh, let’s not do this anymore, seems harmful”, of course it has supporters and lots of them. How do they defend it? Why, with the well-worn: “It’s our culture!”

And there’s this bit from Rights Versus Rites:

For Ahmadu, the time came when she was a 22-year-old senior at George Washington University. When her family decided to bring her and her 8-year-old sister to be initiated in their ancestral village, she went willingly. It was a discombobulating, sometimes thrilling and physically agonizing experience, and one that she now values deeply. Ahmadu reminds us that what public-health officials call “harmful traditional practices” are in fact the very texture of life for many people, the rituals and norms that imbue existence with order and purpose. To talk to her is to begin to understand why a practice that causes so much pain nevertheless remains so entrenched and so zealously defended by its ostensible victims.

All the same, for Ahmadu circumcision was a choice, one she made as an adult. For the overwhelming majority of girls who undergo it that is not the case. Most only have such options when a cluster of deeply rooted values, beliefs, and hierarchies begin to deteriorate, a process that causes anguish and panic for some and offers the promise of liberation to others. The fact remains that, in general, the more alternatives girls have and the more exposure to the outside world, the less likely they are to opt for these old ways.

Ahmadu was quoted throughout this thing talking about how awesome FGC is and that the snotty Western world needs to butt out of their traditions… yet here it is revealed that she CHOSE to undergo it even though she was in a position to very easily escape it. Vast majority of those subjected to genital cuttings are children and have no real choice. Ahmadu was 22 and chose it. That’s an important difference.

Then look at the next part there. “The more exposure to the outside world, the less likely they are to opt for these old ways.” See, that’s the thing. While many of these girls may be okay with going through this, despite the torture and severe bodily destruction, as far as the only lives and culture they have ever known, this is pretty much the only way to do things. If they’ve been exposed only to their own little village, only to their own people, and know absolutely nothing else, that this and only this is the path to womanhood and honor and whatnot, that to not do it means shame and isolation, of course they’ll want it. Yet the girls who are aware that there are other traditions and values in the world, that not everyone does this and that there’s no real benefit to it, they aren’t so keen on the idea. With Ahmadu being an obvious exception.

What does that mean? It means that these apparently sacred cultural traditions seem to only survive through… keeping children ignorant and forcing violent rituals upon them whether they want it or not. Now, call me a privileged white American liberal preaching from my comfy ivory tower here, but if you can only keep your cultural traditions alive through the violent coercion of children, I’m not so sure it’s in the world’s best interest to keep that cultural tradition alive at all. Traditions are only healthy if everyone is participating willingly, knowledgeably, free of harm, and able to opt out without being socially destroyed. I’m not at all claiming that “western cultures” are in the clear here, HELL no! I’m not saying that worrying about one’s culture being phased out due to the influences of bigger ones isn’t a valid concern. But if you believe that maybe dropping or altereing ONE troublesome ritual seems to mean dropping it all, then what’s really so great and strong about your culture that makes it worth preserving? Want to hang onto it because it’s yours and therefore dear to you? Fine. But in that case… slice your OWN damn genitals if you want to so badly and leave those of others (your children count as others) alone!

Awww, isn’t that cute? You hear that sugar is evil and want to keep kids away from it. You’ll go to any ridiculous lengths to keep them from buying it themselves!

What’s this? You soooo badly don’t want students drinking anything other than water ever that you’ll bully stores into not selling anything to them? Stores that, I might add, have no connection to your school whatsoever? Oh, well, isn’t that just lovely. I mean, that’s totally justified seeing as the students aren’t people or anything and as their principal, I believe they are officially your own property! Goodness, why stop at dictating food and drink choices? But I digress.

Or, wait a minute. That’s not right. I’d say that students are PEOPLE. And as real individual people, they belong only to themselves. You aren’t even their parent. All you do is act as administrator of the place they’re forced to spend several hours of their day whether they like it or not. Does that make them constitute your property? And doesn’t the idea I even have to ask that question raise concerns over whether you should be teaching or even being near any children ever?

So sugar is just sooooo bad for children that it’s abuse if an adult were to allow a grain of it to touch the child’s lips. Is that what you believe? No, moron, I’ll tell you what’s abuse. The abuse here is dictating the living shit out of every little thing a child does, denying her the choice of what food and drink she consumes, and preventing her from exercising even the tiniest bit of economic autonomy just to buy a goddamn bottle of juice if she wants it!

In short, go die in a fire. Or at least stay away from kids. You’re a thousand times worse for them than sugar ever could be.

Wishing You Great Pain,

Katrina

Mother Sues McDonald’s for ‘Interfering’ With Kids

Happy Meals just got a little more expensive for McDonald’s: the fast food chain has been sued by California mother Monet Parham for using toys to make her two young daughters want nutritionally unsound Happy Meals…

Parham, mother of a six-year-old and two-year-old, said in a CSPI press release that: “I object to the fact that McDonald’s is getting into my kids’ heads without my permission and actually changing what my kids want to eat… what kids see as a fun toy, I now realize is a sophisticated, high-tech marketing scheme that’s destined to put McDonald’s between me and my daughters… I want McDonald’s to stop interfering with my family.”

Owwwww! My head hurts! Soooo much concentrated stupid!

*clutches head*

*takes ibuprofen*

Sigh. Okay, feel a little better now.

Are you fucking kidding me?! This Parham woman actually sat down, thought anywhere in this her complaint made any real legal sense, and went through the process of filing the lawsuit? I mean, I guess she’s got CSPI behind her, and they’re pretty nutty themselves, but shit, still!

She’s just another parent who finds it easier to file a goddamn lawsuit and go on some spurious health campaign when she’d accomplish a lot more and save a lot of energy by merely saying to her kids “no, I’m not going to buy that for you right now”. That far, this seems pretty run-of-the-mill.

But then she out and says the real issue here, and you see McDonalds is merely the scapegoat rather than any real cause: “I object to the fact that McDonald’s is getting into my kids’ heads without my permission and actually changing what my kids want to eat.”

That’s right. Her major complaint is that some entity other than herself is communicating with her children. Only SHE may indoctrinate them, of course! What next, if she’s super Christian, would she sue a Jewish person for telling her kids about Chanukah or mitzvahs? God forbid her children have tastes other than what specific ones she decides they may have. If someone provides her children with any contrary ideas or temptations, OMG they’re interfering with her authority as a parent!

I mean, most when seeing this would want to defend McDonalds, but I’m not interested in that. McDonalds can take it. What worries me is this idea that a parent has some inherent right to be the sole provider and dictator of any and all information and tastes the children may have. That this control is so sacred that it’s a lawsuit worthy offense should it be breached. It is an egregious lack of recognition that these children are SEPARATE PEOPLE, so much that she is filing a lawsuit, with the CSPI’s support, for anyone daring to send a message to children as if they’re anything other than the bubble-wrapped property of adults.

It’s not uncommon for parents expect their children to think and act like themselves, often that being the very reason they had children to begin with, expecting to train them up in a certain philosophy or to a certain end. Trouble is, many seem to think that to do so, they must be the only ones who influence their kids at all. While parents are by far the biggest influence on kids, they are also no where near the only influence. That is just a fact of life. There are other people in their lives, or at least there should be if you expect to have kids who are even remotely socially healthy.

And that’s what is happening here, taken to a frightening extreme. Parham believes anyone other than herself having any influence on her children at all is a crime worth making others pay for. Rather than, you know, teaching her children to make their own healthy decisions. Then again, making personal healthy decisions is something humans do, humans being something Parham must certainly think her children are not.

So, basically, some guy tried to blow up the plane but failed miserably. The passengers saw what he was trying to do, seeing how very close they were to a horrible fiery death, and leapt up and subdued him, stopping what could have been a horrible Christmas for a lot of people.

How does the TSA respond? By making it illegal for passengers to move around in the last hour of the flight. So in other words… what the heroic passengers did is now against the rules. Because how dare they move around during a flight, when they should have been good little people and… let the terrorist kill them all. *headdesk*

And because a fucking terrorist will totally obey these little rules, right?

Some other rules I heard of include not allowing passengers to know the flight path or what cities or landmarks they are near. Which pisses me the fuck off because I think this means that airlines that allow you to watch your flight path on the little screen in front of you, such as JetBlue and British Airways, will now no longer be allowed to have that feature, a feature I fucking LOVE! What the shit?!

That’s the TSA. It’s not important for them to actually stop terrorists when the most important part is to just LOOK like it.

Taser gun used on 10-year-old girl who ‘refused to take shower’

The officer had been called to the girl’s home in Ozark, Arkansas, by her mother because she was behaving in an unruly manner and refusing to take a shower.

In a report on the incident the officer, Dustin Bradshaw, said the mother gave him permission to use the Taser.

When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, and resisting as her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed.

“Her mother told me to take her if I needed to,” the officer wrote.

The child was “violently kicking and verbally combative” when he tried to take her into custody and she kicked him in the groin.

He then delivered “a very brief drive stun to her back,” the report said.

The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock, who is divorced from her mother, said the girl showed signs of emotional problems but did not deserve to be “treated like an animal”.

He said: “Ten years old and they shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this.

“If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like a dog. She’s not a tiger.” Local Mayor Vernon McDaniel said the FBI should investigate.

He said: “People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation.” The local Police Chief Jim Noggle said no disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw.

“We didn’t use the Taser to punish the child, just to bring the child under control so she wouldn’t hurt herself or somebody else,” he said.

He said if the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg.

Mr Noggle said the girl will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile.

A little girl was violently electrocuted by a police officer, at her idiot mother’s consent, because she didn’t want to take a shower and was upset at being forced to.

Come here, Officer Bradshaw. You too, girl’s mother. Look at this trough full of water I have here. Lovely, isn’t it?

*grabs their heads, holds them underwater*

You LIKE that, you fucking assholes?! Like being forced into water?!

*ties them down so heads are still underwater as they thrash around desperately*

Like electricity, too? Well, have some goddamn toast!

*throws plugged-in toaster into water, the two are being electrocuted and drowning at the same time*

This is still too good for degenerate monsters like yourselves! Hope Satan has fun raping you with flaming pitchforks! Because even all that is too lenient for anyone, ANYONE, who tortures a child.

Why? Why in the fucking HELL does this shit keep happening? A depressing part of being a youth rights supporter is consistently hearing the most horrifying news about parents, police officers, school officials, and others using outrageous force and torture on kids for the tiniest reasons. Whether it is little kids getting tasered or school security guards beating up special ed students for not tucking their shirts in, it’s just a stark sobering reminder of just how deeply our world hates children. They make up the weakest excuses for the obvious pleasure they get out of hurting these young people, because we live in a fucked up world where everyone is continually taught the dangerous message that kids are inferior beings and always bad and you can do whatever you want to them. And, what is at the same time even more depressing yet with a hint of hope, this is all still better than it used to be.

But, seriously, even after the above scenario, it’s hard to describe how much more ways I want to mutilate anyone who harms a child. Perhaps in the above also employ some pickaxes somehow.

I do sort of wonder why the little girl was so upset to begin with, something people seemed to not give a shit about asking. Okay, she didn’t want to take a shower, but you think maybe there’s more to it than that? Does her mother molest her during showers or something? True, it’s not unusual for a little kid to get that upset and throwing a tantrum even if it is just an ordinary shower. But then again, so what if she doesn’t want to take a shower? How long had it been since her last one? The little girl was still being forced to do something she didn’t want to do, and that sort of thing tends to make people of any age lash out violently. But, goodness, who gives a shit what the little girl has to go through? It’s not like she’s human or anything. What’s more important is that she’s disobeying for mother and for that she must be tasered and fucking arrested. How many people get arrested for getting angry and throwing a tantrum in their own homes? Funny, if this is the sort of thing this mother does to deal with her daughter’s behavior, there’s probably other horrible shit going on that she does to the girl, that would have gotten the little girl also tased and arrested had it been the other way around. Oh, but this is all for the benefit of children, right?

Also, to answer one issue I know will come up. The “youth rights supporters” who might think this sort of thing is fine since “the same would be done to an adult” and that this is somehow the more youth rightsy outcome. Don’t be fucking stupid. Youth rights does NOT mean that kids would be treated exactly the same as adults. There are inherent differences between kids and adults that do call for different approaches to be taken when dealing with members of each group. Youth rights is certainly about changing dramatically how those differences are dealt with and choosing when something is and isn’t appropriate, but it’s not about throwing out that system entirely, as such would be impractical, impossible, and would open youth up to much more harm. So STFU with that or you get to join the two frying drowning bitches.

Except I did get caught by one earlier this year because it was hidden in a parked car. So I received a lovely photo of the back of my car and was out $40. Meh.

Anyway, the other day, saw this article come over NYRA’s youth rights news wire.

Why speed cameras hit over-60s hardest

Older drivers are six times more likely to be fined for speeding than a decade ago, according to a study which also reveals that young motorists have adapted far better to the increased use of speed cameras.

The number of older offenders may be higher partly because, unlike a police officer, a speed camera has no discretion, the study author says. Most speed enforcement a decade ago was carried out by traffic police, who often gave older drivers a verbal warning rather than a ticket.

The Department for Transport commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to analyse the age of offenders in two three-year periods: 1997-99 and 2003-05.

It found that the number of men aged 60 and over receiving penalty points for speeding increased by 540 per cent between those periods. Among women aged 60 and over, there was a 1,200 per cent rise, though starting from a very low base.

By contrast the number of drivers under 25 being caught for speeding grew by only 18 per cent.

The study, based on an analysis of the records of 300,000 motorists, also showed that in 2003-05 there were almost three times as many drivers aged 60 and over with speeding convictions as drivers aged under 25. In the 1997-99 period, young offenders outnumbered older ones by more than two to one.

The age group most likely to have a speeding conviction changed from 24-34 in the earlier period to 45-59 in the later period.

The number of speed cameras increased from fewer than 500 in 1997 to about 5,000 in 2005. The increase was partly due to changes in funding rules in 2000 that allowed police to keep a proportion of fines to pay for the cameras. That system, known as “cash for cameras”, was abolished last year.

Speeding convictions from cameras grew from 337,000 in 1997 to a peak of 1.91 million in 2004, before declining to 1.74 million in 2006.

Jeremy Broughton, author of the study, said that the low number of older drivers being prosecuted for speeding in the 1990s might be explained in part by police showing more leniency to them than to young drivers. “Police would have a mental image of the sort of person they were expecting to stop and if it was an elderly lady they wouldn’t look at her in the same way as a young male,” he said.

Rob Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said that older drivers had been accustomed to driving on roads without cameras and would have found it harder to adapt when they spread across the country.

“Police may have given elderly drivers a telling-off rather than a fine whereas cameras are blind to the age of the driver,” he said. “It was wrong to be lenient with older drivers because they were posing a danger on the roads by ignoring the limit. Since the growth in cameras, the proportion of vehicles breaking the 30mph limit has fallen from 75 per cent to 30 per cent and deaths have fallen sharply.”

Mr Gifford said that the rise in older speeding offenders helped to explain the emergence of a vociferous anticamera campaign dominated by drivers in their fifties and sixties.

Paul Watters, head of roads policy at the AA Motoring Trust, said that older drivers had grown up with a different attitude to speed. “They were more used to driving at a speed they judged to be safe according to the conditions rather than sticking to the legal speed limit,” he added. “Older drivers have also had to cope with the introduction on many roads of lower speed limits imposed for environmental purposes.”

o snap

Ah, speed cameras, the great equalizer. Ever wonder if this is the reason everyone says young drivers are such menaces on the road? The stats get skewed against them because cops are more likely to issue them tickets, thus the speeding incident being recorded, than older people. Cop has no problem ticketing a driver young enough to be his daughter but will cringe at ticketing at one old enough to be his mother.

Do the stats lie? What a dumb question. But what we do have here is a rather big self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s the idea that young people are bad and old people are to be respected. And when put into practice by traffic cops such as in this case, we are left with stats seemingly supporting such a premise. Imagine that.

Stats don’t lie. But they don’t exactly tell the truth either.

Girl Punched Dad During Spanking

CRESTVIEW, Fla. — A 16-year-old Florida girl who hit her father when he tried to spank her has been charged with misdemeanor domestic battery.

An Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office report said the father told a deputy that he was attempting to spank the girl when she turned around and struck him in the face with her fist.

The report said she tried to hit him several more times before leaving with friends.

Both father and daughter said the argument started over an item that had been broken. She acknowledged that when he went to spank her, she punched him, the report said.

….

Do I even need to point out everything that is very WRONG with this scenario?

I feel like it all should be very obvious. And the fact that very many people do not see everything that is wrong here is a major shot at any semblance of faith in humanity. It’s like you’re trying to explain it to someone, something that should be as clear as the sky being blue, water being wet, and two plus two being four. You finally just roll your eyes and say “come on, are you really THAT stupid?!”

Are people SO afraid of ever questioning the almighty power and authority of parents, that when it comes time for their children to defend themselves from them (a far too common time), it is they, the children, who are considered the criminals? It’s probably safe to assume the father is a lot larger than the girl, so she was faced with a larger, menacing being coming at her, so she reacted by fighting back, a reaction that is a natural instinct of self-preservation that all normal humans have, and somehow she’s the one who got arrested and sent to jail. Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!?!

I applaud this girl for fighting back. I echo what Galen said about this: all kids should fight back when their idiot parents resort to cruel barbaric practices against them, the physically weaker innocent people their only-sometimes-trustworthy procreators are foolishly given ultimate unquestioned power over. I don’t care what the stupid law or the mindless sadistic pro-corporal punishment morons or the ultra anti-teen whiners out there say, this girl did the right thing by defending herself and there is absolutely NO justification for her even having to live in a house where she is under the threat of physical abuse, NONE!

You people wonder why there are so many women out there who stay with abusive husbands and believe their abuse is a form of love? Here’s your answer. This is how they were living ten years ago! You want to save the battered wives? Maybe stop excusing the parents of the battered daughters so the girls learn that is no way to be treated so they don’t grow up to become the battered wives who stay with their asshole abusive husbands. Ever thought of that, geniuses?

And, of course, the other vomit-inducing thing about this story. The girl is 16. Unless she’s a majorly late bloomer, she’s a physically mature young woman who was just defending herself from being unconsentually touched on an underwear covered part of her body by a much older man. Shit, she shouldn’t have just punched him. She should have pepper sprayed him until he collapsed in agony and stomped on a few sensitive vital organs. That’s what any woman would do when a man comes at her that way. But, no, because he’s her father and she’s not that magical age of 18 yet, instead somehow she, the smaller one and the real victim here, is considered the dangerous criminal while the menacing insane pervert older man is considered the poor little victim. Again… are you fucking KIDDING ME?!?!?!

Well, with the way society is, all I can really do about this is rant about it here and devoutly hope this man someday soon drowns slowly in sulfuric acid after having his intestines mauled by rats.

[Some redneck]’s backing John McCain because the Arizona senator “thinks murdering little babies is not a good idea”.

Ah, we saw this four years ago. And eight years ago. And so on. Many Republicans’ persistent belief that if an anti-abortion president takes office, abortion will become illegal and never be done again. You know, I wonder what life is like to live in such a strong delusion, for these people seem to completely ignore that even though we’ve had anti-abortion president George W. Bush in office for the past eight years, abortion is still legal. I’ve got news for you. John McCain is not going to make abortion illegal. He and Sarah Palin may talk all the time about how bad it is, but the fact is, it won’t be made illegal even if they are elected. So you Republicans thinking the McCain-Palin team is going to be the saving grace of embryos and fetuses from women making an excruciatingly difficult decision, and you Democrats thinking the McCain-Palin team will take away a woman’s inalienable right to kill her unborn child, you’re living in a serious fantasy world.

A lot of people seem unable to separate their personal opinion on something from their political opinion on something. Plenty of people believe abortion is wrong yet do not believe it should be illegal, for example. Not to mention the many online idiots you’ll find that, any time you mention you don’t like something or think it’s wrong or whatever, they’ll pipe up with “why should that be illegal?! how dare you push your opinions on others?!” to which you say “uhh, I never said anything about it being illegal.” So this concept is lost on a lot of people. Legal versus illegal and right versus wrong are two very different concepts, and would remain so even in the most libertarian of societies.

Funny thing about Republicans, though, is they hate abortion and won’t shut up about how bad it is (citing “religious” reasons of course and leaving the very many real reasons unused). But other than pissing and moaning about it, they aren’t doing much to actually reduce it. In fact, other Republican policies seem to be explicitly trying to increase the number of unplanned pregnancies. Then again, if these people think John McCain will outlaw abortion, it’s no surprise they also believe that if you never let anyone under 18 know what condoms are, they’ll never have sex. Not to mention their insistence of shaming anyone who gets pregnant outside of marriage. Or their opposition to any kind of assistance for the needy, which often includes pregnant women. So, yeah, these people seem to be the types who play with matches all the time but are pissed and surprised when there’s a fire.

While you’re putting that McCain-Palin sticker on your pick-up truck, right next to your “God Is Pro-Life” one, your 14-year-old daughter is first learning about sex from her horny 20-year-old cousin. Your grandchild/grandnephew is about to have a date with a coathanger, and you’ll be burying your daughter after she succumbs to septic shock after the home procedure. But you thought this was impossible. I mean, your sticker does say that God is pro-life!