Boy Burned In Vicious Attack

Ok, the quick-and-dirty:

An 11-year-old boy walking by a group of older guys (aged 16-20) smoking cigarettes comments on how they're just trying to look tough and are only killing themselves by smoking. The older guys knock him a good one and put a cigarette out on his stomach.

What a bunch of asshats...putting a cigarette out on an 11-year-old CHILD just because he said something that had the ring of truth and they didn't want to hear it? I hope they are caught and punished accordingly.

However, people like the guys who used this kid as an ashtray DO exist. People who blow things out of proportion. Drunks at bars you avoid eye contact with because you know they're just looking to ruff somebody up who they think looked at them funny. Sometimes you can't even pick them out of a crowd. Maybe this kid wasn't old enough to be aware of these sorts of people, or maybe he's one of those who've grown up sheltered and think that free speech (does that exist in Australia?) is a license to be a smart alec to people twice your size (and almost twice your age) without repercussions.

I dunno, but I bet he learned a valuable lesson. Keep your mouth shut. Don't smart off to tough guys. They had no right to do what they did in a legal sense, but that doesn't mean they aren't going to do it anyways. With miscreants of the caliber he came in contact with, he's lucky he didn't get beat to death. Likely, there is no law enforcement following you around on your CarbonMonoxide Crusade, so isn't this a case of you deserve what you get when you go making inflamatory statements to tough guys when you could have just gone on your merry way and not said anything?

It'd be like me strolling through the ghetto at O-Dark-Thirty AM screaming about how I hate folks darker than khaki [which by the way is patently untrue]. Legal, but stupid. And really stupid if I think I won't get the crap beat out of me for it.

Where Is The Madman Who'll Take Us To Mars?

Great article by Ray Bradbury detailing how we've grown complacent about space travel. For real space junkies only. :)

Gulag To Be Turned Into Holiday Camp

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A PROPOSAL to turn a former communist gulag island off the Croatian coast into a tourist camp drew protests from an independent group which is investigating crimes committed by the communist Yugoslav regime.

"It is unacceptable that a tragic place of execution like Goli Otok, where Tito's Yugoslav communist regime killed over 30,000 political prisoners, will be used in future as a tourist destination," the Center for Investigation of Communist Crimes said in a statement.

A study recently ordered by the government envisaged "hard-labour holidays" on Goli Otok, a rocky and inhospitable island that was virtually abandoned following the dismantlement of a detention camp there as the Yugoslav federation crumbled in the late 1980s.

The aim would be for guests to survive long enough to receive a certificate at the end of the 'holiday' proving they had done their time.
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GREAT IDEA!! Why don't we turn the barbed wire pens into petting zoos for children? Why don't we turn the incenerators at Auschwitz into tanning beds? Maybe we could have a scavenger hunt for various types of human remains in mass gravesites!

Principal Takes Whipping For Troubled Kids

Hat tip to The Raving Atheist on this one.

Here's the quick and dirty: A principal of an Alaskan Christian school, Steve Unfreid, catches two male students kissing girls in a locker room for the second time in a week. He figures the way to keep from expelling the students as per the school's policy is to keep it quiet and take the punishment on himself. He and another teacher take the boys into the school's basement and Unfreid takes off his belt, gives it to the other teacher, and tells her to punish him like she would her own kids. The boys "learned their lesson" but Unfreid brings it up in Bible class, resulting in the word getting out about the incident and the school board fired him. Big surprise.

Man, some people are just that fucked up, I guess.

SpaceCadetZoom...

Unfortunately, I've gotta sell the Prelude. I knew you'd grieve with me so I had to mention it.

On a positive note, I'm buying a Toyota Tacoma 4WD pickup. I can haul stuff and ride Jeep trails with my buddies a lot easier with that vehicle. :)

Diaper-Clad Man Fools Healthcare Workers

What a sick bastard. I mean, I'm all for people engaging in whatever twisted fetishes they have in the privacy of their own homes, but there's a very clear line when you start pulling people in who aren't willing participants. ::shivers:: Ugh... If somebody ever tried to pull one over on my wife (she's a RN), he'd have a long hospital stay ahead of him but he'd have a hard time fondling the nurses with grotesquely mangled arms and hands.

Lives Changed By Snuff Film

I understand Christians wanting to celebrate "Jesus' triumph over sin," but why celebrate his death in such gory detail? Maybe all of us ARE really that warped.

Walking Made Difficult By Attached Ball & Chain

So I got married last weekend. I've had enough "family time" to last me the rest of my life. Things should be getting back to normal for me soon. In all this mess, I think I'm going to have to drop one of my classes, but oh well, there's always next semester. More to come...maybe I'll actually have something interesting to say in the coming week. :)