Now here's an interesting question

Attorney for sexual abuse survivors John Manly links a very interesting article that deals with the detection and punishment of child pornography.  It's saddening to consider the poor guy who has to look at the stuff, and it's not surprising that those who look at child porn are also likely to molest children, but the thing that raises the most question is why black men are only 3-5% of those convicted of possession, trafficking, and the like--when they are 12% of men overall. 


You could argue it's poverty, but if so, Hispanics are also strongly likely to be poor--and about 2/3 of blacks are middle class or upper class as well.   Now I admit I'm working from stereotype, but I have to wonder whether the (again, stereotypical) preference among blacks for more prominent "features that become prominent after puberty" (hips, breasts) inoculates them against child porn.


Is it possible that doing what both feminists and traditionalists have been pleading for for decades--to redefine beauty away from the "Twiggy" standard--might put the kibosh on this perversion?  I don't know, but it's worth a look.

Snort

Apparently some clowns in Philadelphia have stolen half a million bucks worth of colonoscopy probes from a hospital.  So we would infer either that there is a market out there for back-alley colonoscopies, or somebody has a level of sick I don't even want to consider. 

Good news from Paris

Apparently the organ at Notre Dame escaped damage during the fire.  Especially interesting to me is the notion that the instrument ought to be played during the restoration to keep it healthy.  I'm guessing that this will NOT be done while the masons are restoring the vaulted ceiling!


On the flip side, talk about a great job--restoring one of the premier cathedrals of the world while listening to its organ being played.  Well, great except for the possibility that said vaulting might be fairly unstable and dangerous, of course.

Votes for felons?

Apparently some of the Democratic candidates for President are all in favor of letting convicted felons vote, including those who are still in jail.  It really boggles the mind; these guys are in jail for various kinds of assaults on their fellow man--physical, financial, drug related, etc..--and Democrats seem to want to allow them to continue their assaults on society by how they vote.


Of course, the big reason Democrats want to allow felons to vote is because they believe those felons would vote predominantly for Democrats.  Makes one wonder, really, whether we ought to rewrite the Democratic Party platform as "we victimize you". 


In other fun news, Hilliary Clinton has come out saying that if Donald Trump were not President, he'd be being prosecuted for obstruction of justice.  Now for starters, the woman who "lost" her Rose Law Firm billing records until the day after the statute of limitations expired, and who evaded prosecution for her server based on a rather novel interpretation of the law by Jim Comey, really ought to be lying low for a little while, I'd think.


But more importantly, she's showing her status as either not very smart or a demagogue here, as any halfway intelligent person knows that the entire case Mueller might have made against Trump hinges on....actions Trump could only have taken as the President.


Nice rhetorical flourish, Mrs. Bimbo Eruptions Team, but let's try reality for a while.

Now there's brilliance

New York City mayor DiBlasio has argued that steel and glass buildings ought to be banned due to perceived energy inefficiency.  Lost in his argument, really, is the fact that despite the fact that even "Thermopane"/"low-E" glass has abysmal insulation value, big buildings like the World Trade Center and the Sears Tower do not have boilers for heating because lighting, people, and the like heat them.  They run air conditioners year-round, and hence those big glass windows are actually a feature, not a bug--they allow heat to dissipate. 


Plus, the masonry that characterizes Gotham's iconic brownstones and other historic architecture has about the same "R" value--about 2.4/12" thick--as thermopane windows.  So DiBlasio's proposal would, if implemented, have about the same effect as it would if all of New York City's residents decided to live like the mayor--driving a big SUV to work each day, living in a big mansion, and the like.

Missing your Easter basket?

Apparently the Easter Bunny got involved in a brawl in Orlando, Florida this year.  So if your Resurrection Day treats were a little bit scant this year, you might know why now.  No word if he spent time in the pokey, but obviously fights like this are going to make it more difficult to deliver Easter baskets.  And if you follow the link to the local coverage, evidently the Easter bunny knows him some serious Anglo-Saxon words, and you can see the poor guy who will be known forever as "the guy who got beaten up by the Easter Bunny". 


It reminds me of the time when my brother and I, along with my cousin, found that a rabbit had burrowed into our basement while my mom and aunt had gone out to eat.  They arrived to find us all downstairs, and when my aunt asked her son what we were doing, he happily announced (at about age six) that we were hunting the Easter Bunny.


Upon which my mother and aunt wondered if they'd underestimated how much they'd had to drink that evening.  The good news is that the offending rodent was safely captured and released into the wild after getting stunned by a piece of plywood we'd put across an open doorway (it was otherwise hidden by a curtain). 

A cure for drug addiction?

Researchers have found evidence that alcohol-dependent rats drank less after being given a dose of oxytocin, the "cuddle hormone."  One might wonder whether getting oxytocin in the normal way might be helpful, too.  I'm telling Mrs. Bubba that we've got to do what it takes to prevent addiction. 

Picture of a bad witness

Or, in some regards, a witless witness.  Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is, after being convicted of crimes including perjury, saying that he's going to fill in the blanks of the redacted Mueller report.  Neat trick, knowing first of all that part of the redactions involve classified information, so if he filled in those blanks, he'd get some more time in the pokey for revealing that.  Going further, another portion of the redacted information is privileged testimony from grand juries, and if he revealed that, again, more time in the gray bar hotel.


Finally, you've got the simple fact that Cohen isn't privy to what is going on in the Attorney General's office, so he has absolutely no clue about redactions besides a hunch about those involving himself.  So he's doing nice theatre, much like fellow crook Michael Avenatti, but it's nothing that should be taken seriously.

Another imploding edifice

Apparently a "chain" of seven abortion clinics in New Jersey is set to close because its owner--who may not have been aware he owned the clinics--has lost his license to practice medicine.  Interestingly, the previous owner has also lost his license to practice, and the current owner was found to have had improper sexual contact with patients in 1993.  Both the current and former owners are also, quite frankly, geriatric. 


Now perhaps competition from Planned Parenthood--owner of about half the "market share" in this atrocity--is partially at fault, but at another level, it stands to demonstrate what I've noted before; that in terms of financial viability, abortion is on very shaky ground.  Just a little nudge--requirements they must adhere to standard practices for medical care, requirements to report likely cases of statutory rape, loss of state and federal subsidies or Medicaid coverage--and a great portion of that edifice collapses.

Yikes

As Notre Dame burns--losing at least its roof, time will tell on the vaulting--one thing that strikes me is that either they didn't dare put much water on the fire because one could end up destroying the whole structure, or the city of Paris needs to invest in some fire trucks with some serious water cannons.  The pictures I saw indicated only a few hoses getting water to the area which was burning. 


Put gently, as tragic as it is to see this damage to a priceless historic edifice, getting out of that fire was likely simply an orderly retreat from the stairs up to the towers and out of the sanctuary. Lots of physical damage, but hopefully there won't be too many injuries or deaths.


Now look at those pictures, and notice how many buildings of similar height (apart from the towers and roof) surround Notre Dame.  Imagine trying to get out of one of those in a narrow staircase at night while the Paris Fire Department has trouble putting water on those flames. 


Again, either the structure wouldn't do well with that volume of water, or somebody needs to invest in equipment that will put water and fire retardant a couple hundred feet above the ground.  It wouldn't hurt, either, if the rebuilding of Notre Dame added some "sprinklers" and used non-flammable materials like steel.


And rebuild they will; remember that after the USAAF performed their "mass urban renewal program" in 1944 and 1945 in Germany, almost all of the great churches of that were destroyed (usually the roofs caved in, including vaulting) were rebuilt.  As a rule, you can hardly tell--which should be some consolation to those who, like me, are saddened by this damage to a cultural icon.

Why black rifles matter

It's been interesting seeing the Democrats, especially Rep. Swalwell, arguing for a complete ban on large magazine semi-automatic firearms because of their killing capacity.  Why so?


Well, at the same time, this is what I see:

• The left is all but endorsing infanticide
• Significant portions of the left are endorsing euthanasia.
• Disagreement is greeted with shunning and even an endorsement of some form of re-education
• At least a fringe of the Democratic Party is endorsing Communism--e.g. Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, etc..
• Swalwell all but endorsed nuclear war against the U.S. population if they didn't give up their guns.  He walked it back, but sometimes you trust the first thing he says.

Now given the heritage of things like this--those who remember the history of the 20th century might come up with some examples of how policies like these went wrong--one would hope that they might understand precisely why conservatives are loath to give up legally owned firearms. 

Clarified for the deliberately obtuse

James Comey has apparently claimed that he has no idea what Attorney General Barr was referring to when he claimed that the Trump Campaign was being spied on.  Well, we're here to be helpful, so we'll spell it out in big letters so Mr. Comey can read it.

U.S. Intelligence Agencies were collecting data about the Trump campaign. 

There you go.  Not quite sure why Comey is unclear on this, as it was his job for a few decades to work with intelligence agencies and the like, but again, we're here to help.


Alternatively, Comey is lying his heiney off, which is probably the better assumption.

Just mind-boggling

I just received a note from the Home School Legal Defense Association (to which I belong) noting an upcoming set of hearings on the question of whether social services workers can perform a strip search of children without a warrant.  Apparently circuit courts are divided on this issue, and it just boggles the mind.  You can not go into someone's home without just cause or a warrant, but you can take off a kid's clothes?  Seriously?


And needless to say, this explains a LOT about why many parents don't open the door for social services workers without a warrant.  The HSLDA notes that being forcibly disrobed, especially by non-medical personnel like social services workers, can cause PTSD in the same way that sexual assault does. 


We've come a long way in the past 20 years in our understanding of the 4th Amendment, but this case makes it very clear that we've got a long way to go.  There are certainly times when social workers investigators do need to see a child's skin to see if it's torn, cut, or bruised, but quite frankly, those marks don't heal up in the hour or less it takes to get a warrant. 


Moreover, a friend of mine who got his degree in social work noted that social work was (in his opinion) the easiest degree in college--maybe, just maybe, we ought to have the examinations done by people who actually know "from Shinola" about "bedside manner" (so as not to cause needless trauma) and what bruises, cuts, and the like actually mean--people like doctors, NPs, PAs, and nurses?


I guess I'm dreaming here, but that would seem that there are some obvious improvements to be made.

Canadian government school logic?

Apparently, in Canadian shades of American Lampoon's Vacation, a family decided to keep their dead patriarch in the car for the drive home because they were afraid of "U.S. health care costs."  Someone needs to explain to them, apparently, that it is undertakers, not doctors, who work with the deceased.  Put another way, a quick stop at the hospital for the ER staff to say "yup, he's dead" and get a signed death certificate probably doesn't cost that much. 


Looks like Canadian education is giving nothing up to U.S. government schools, to put it mildly. 

Now this would be fun

Congress-critter Adam Schiff is apparently still claiming that there is evidence that President Trump colluded with the Russians.  Now that's very interesting, because what that means is that either Schiff is withholding evidence that ought to have been reviewed by Robert Mueller and his team, or Schiff has (illegally) reviewed the evidence collected by Mueller.


Which is to say that Schiff is more or less admitting that he is guilty of obstruction of justice.  Throw the book at him, President Trump!

Advice missed

In an otherwise excellent article about how to avoid and deal with carjackings, Brett and Kate McKay of The Art of Manliness ignore two important strategies for avoiding car theft:

1. Your vehicle should be a rusted out, 22 year old pickup with a bent front bumper and a dent or two.
2. Your vehicle should have a manual transmission.

I figure that if someone steals my ride and gets caught, his punishment might be to drive it for a while.  One disadvantage of driving a rusted out pickup, by the way, is that police officers occasionally give you a close look while you drive by. 

Unplanned

Tired of those controlling the gate deciding what movies you're going to see, not see, and the like?  Maybe make a gentle but emphatic point to them by going to see a movie they don't want seen.  It's called Unplanned, and it traces the journey of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood volunteer who repented and allowed God to transform her life when she realized what Planned Parenthood was really about. 


Bonus points if you follow it on Twitter to annoy their gate-keepers.