Political Debates

    Something to ponder at 3 AM when you can't sleep, Libertarian edition.

Art Appreciation Tuesday

    So that's how they got away with it.

I agree with Homer & Jethro

The Supreme Court issued two interesting rulings today. The first is that juveniles convicted of crimes other than homicide cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The court ruled 5-4 that that was "cruel and unusual punishment". Okay, fair enough. Makes sense to me. . The other ruling was that federal officials can hold sex offenders indefinitely in prison, even after their sentences have expired, if officials feel they are "sexually dangerous". You can read MSNBC's article about this here. . The vote was 7-2 on this, with the numb-nuts duo of Clarence Thomas and Anthony Scalia, a modern-day Homer-&-Jethro tandem, in the minority. My problem is, I find myself siding with Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. . I understand the logic of the majority opinion. Sex offenders are perverts with a capital "P", and no one wants an additional child molested because we let these creeps out on the streets again. But who decides if they are still "sexually dangerous"? And what meaning does their original sentence have it they aren't freed after they serve their time? . Even more chilling is how far we take this. Today, it's child molesters. Tomorrow, it might be anyone perceived to be a gang-banger. Or a drug-dealer. Or an alcoholic who might continue to drive while under the influence. Shouldn't all of us law-abiding citizens be protected from these as well? . But why stop there? Personally, I find Sarah Palin criminally dangerous. And Rush too. To be fair, they feel the same about me. Can we toss each other in prison and throw away the key? . If you don't want sex offenders out on the street, make the penalties harsher. Molest a child, and go to jail for life. Without parole. I don't particularly care whether you're a juvenile or not. Kill the child after you've molested them, and its a capital offense. . But don't corrupt our judicial system by holding them arbitrarily and indefinitely. This isn't Nazi Germany. When a person has served his time, he's entitled to be let out of prison. Slimeball or not. Now excuse me, I have to go give myself a lobotomy for siding with Tony and Clarence on this.

RIP - Shaniya Davis

Shaniya was the 5-year-old North Carolina girl whose mom allegedly rented her out for prostitution. If there's a more heinous crime than this, I'm at a loss to think of it. . We will allow justice to run its course. After all, the first thing the police did when the girl went missing was to throw mom's boyfriend in jail. It's always the BF that did it, don't you know? Especially when we're talking about blacks. Until a motel employee came up with a videotape showing a completely different guy carrying Shaniya to a motel room. So Bro #2 is now in jail, and the authorities had to reluctantly let the BF walk. For now. . I don't know what drives a mom to do this to her own daughter. Drug addiction? A controlling man in her life? A desperate need for money? No matter what the reason, why didn't the mom turn the tricks herself? . I do know this is why I support the very un-liberal institution of Capital Punishment. Yeah I hear you. Executing the mom and the guy that (presumably) raped and killed Shaniya won't bring her back. But hopefully it will deter the next hard-up mom and child-molesting dude(s) from engaging in this kind of perversion.