That said, as offensive as I find foul language, I find it more offensive and disturbing to see a tape of a cop telling someone to stand up and then shooting them three times when they obey, and hear them screaming in pain.

That’s what they showed on the news, but they bleeped the swear words.

It seems a bit odd to me. I think there’s a time and place for witnessing horrible human behavior, because it’s educational. So sanitizing just a part, and the least evil part, seems strange.

You know, the Bible is filled with descriptions of people’s sins. They’re there (and news reports such as this are supposedly there) to educate or enlighten, not to entertain.

I don’t believe in glorifying or even normalizing immoral behavior, but let’s not swing too far and think we can’t ever depict it at all, for any purpose.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

That was so important they put that in the Constitution itself. Freedom of speech isn’t in there. It’s in an Amendment. But Habeas Corpus is a biggie, it made it in straightaway.

But now the government doesn’t want to follow the Constitution. And 43 Senators are okay with that.

And they are ALL Republicans, except one Independent, Lieberman. All Democrats, and all other Independents, voted to restore a Constitutionally protected freedom. 6 Republicans crossed the party line to vote for upholding the law.

I’m not a fan of many positions the Democratic party supports. But in this case they are doing the right thing and the ‘publicans are not.

Is it too strong to call the 43 Senators voting to continue the denial of Constitutional freedom traitors? I don’t think it is.

They are traitors to the United States of America.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield’s death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

“One, she’s in a wheelchair. Two, she’s schizophrenic. Three, they’re using a Taser on a person that’s in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes,” Alexander said.

Why do people persist in thinking it’s okay to use tasers whenever they want? Because they are supposedly non-lethal?

People can die because of tasers. There have been plenty of incidents.

That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be used. But they should only be used when the alternative is using a gun.

Before tasers, police had a baton and handcuffs, or they had a gun. Nothing in between. If they couldn’t subdue someone with physical force, if the person was dangerous, they’d use the gun to kill.

Tasers are a better way, because they let the police subdue dangerous people (usually) without killing them.

If someone charges the police with a knife, and they get tasered and live, great. If they get tasered and die, well, if the cop didn’t have a taser, they’d be dead from bullet wounds anyway.

The problem is when cops use tasers for things they would ordinarily use their batons and cuffs for. Women in wheelchairs come to mind. Obstinate women at traffic stops refusing to exit the vehicle are another. Grab ‘em and put the cuffs on them. If they resist, slap ‘em around, use the baton, they shouldn’t be resisting. But taser them and they die? It’s out of proportion.

The problem is cops buy into the “non-lethal” idea of a taser and think they can just use it whenever. It’s more properly called “less lethal” because it kill less often than gunshot wounds.

Then again there is the fact that the taser can be used to basically torture people. When do you cross the line between “pain inflicted in order to subdue someone” and “pain inflicted as punishment for resisting arrest.” Of course people are often tased for not obeying an officer’s commands, before they are even told they are under arrest.

Why don’t we hold the police accountable when they kill people in easily preventable ways?

So far it’s causing cars to slow down.

Wood said he is now getting calls from police departments and neighborhood associations across the country.

Presumably he’s getting calls to buy the cutouts, which he sells for $60 each.

Only problem is, it won’t take long for people to catch on that these are cardboard, and then when there’s a real child near the road, there may be a delay in slowing down while people try to decide whether the child is real or not.

Possible Result: dead children.

I thought The Boy Who Cried Wolf was required reading.

This is the part that makes me crazy:

Here in the heart of conservative, Catholic Belgium, few were surprised that the churchgoing couple produced a total of 14 children – 10 girls and four boys – or that Dethy had hung a crucifix on the wall in each room, including the kitchen.

His strong religious beliefs did not prevent him, however, from committing adultery, and when his wife caught him in bed with another woman 20 years ago she walked out, taking the children with her. Dethy then retreated into a reclusive existence behind the net curtains of his home.

Relatives say he never forgave his wife for divorcing him, or his 14 children and 37 grandchildren for having little to do with him. His bitterness grew into a desire for revenge when even his mother became estranged from him.

He never forgave his wife? He’s the one who committed adultery on her. She had a right to divorce him, and the kids were right to side with her.

Usually people end up sticking by their parents or children no matter how worthless they are. In this case it seems people did the right thing. Too bad he couldn’t humble himself and seek forgiveness, instead of harboring resentment over the consequences of his own evil acts.

And now he is dead. What a waste of a life on this earth.

There are several issues here. One, is IVF okay to use at all? Two, is using IVF to not just have a baby, but have a particular kind of baby, okay? Three, is using IVF to purposefully have a baby with a disability okay?

For the first issue, my answer is this: IVF is not okay in any case, if you are against abortion. IVF always results in the destruction of embryos. Eggs are fertilized, becoming unique individuals with their own genetic code, and then destroyed.

I’m actually going to ignore the second issue for now.

The main thing I find fascinating is that people want to purposefully have babies with disabilities so they will be like them.

Of course, the people wanting to do this do not consider themselves disabled. Many deaf people resent being called disabled.

The way I was raised, being disabled is not a bad thing. It’s not a negative word, it’s not an epithet. It just means you can’t do something that the majority can naturally do. If you can’t see, but human beings as a group can see, then you are disabled. If you cannot hear, but humans generally can, then you are disabled.

It doesn’t mean you are any less of a person. It doesn’t mean you even miss the ability, since you never had it. You might be fine to not hear, have friends that are deaf, a whole community.

But you can’t hear, and the rest of us can, and you are disabled. That’s just a fact. If other people have made you think that fact is bad, then they are wrong for doing that.

So a disability is nothing bad. You might be fine to not hear. However, that doesn’t mean that deafness is superior to being able to hear. If your child can hear, they can still learn to sign, they can just also hear. How is that bad?

If deaf people have a child that is deaf, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. But if deaf people purposely try to have a child that is deaf, I think that’s bad. They are depriving their children of a useful ability on purpose.

If people with dwarfism purposely try to have a child with dwarfism, I think that’s bad. Not because it’s bad to be short, but because it’s a fact that there are several medical problems associated with dwarfism, and why have your child have to deal with that?

Cara Reynolds of Collingswood, N.J., who considered embryo screening but now plans to adopt a dwarf baby, is outraged by the criticism.

“You cannot tell me that I cannot have a child who’s going to look like me,” Reynolds said. “It’s just unbelievably presumptuous and they’re playing God.”

The irony! Embryo screening is playing God. No one is saying you can’t procreate with your husband. But when you screen embryos (and kill the ones you don’t like) then it is you who is playing God.

Karen Krogstad, a 25-year-old partly deaf student in Bozeman, Mont., said she understands why parents “would go to great lengths to make sure their child will be deaf.”

She and her deaf friends “see ourselves as fully functional human beings who can’t hear. People who wear glasses, are they disabled? No, but if you have hearing aids, to assist with hearing, you are labeled as disabled.”

Ah, the irony! For years I have argued the opposite of this. I think people who have to wear glasses are disabled. I wear glasses, and I hate it. I have worn glasses since the 5th grade. I still hate it. All the time. Without them, I can barely see.

How is that different from someone who is missing a leg and has an artificial limb? There are people with artificial legs that can run faster than I can and do flips. I can’t do that. So I can see okay when I have my assistance devices, but not otherwise.

Because a very large percentage of people wear glasses, we act like it isn’t a disability. But it is.

I am having a child. It’s possible she may have bad eyesight. I hope not though. I don’t want her to have to wear glasses so she looks like me. I’m disabled. I’d rather she not be.

I certainly wouldn’t try to have a nearsighted child.

What about a paraplegic having in-utero surgery on her baby so it had no arms? So it would look like her?

Is the “I want the child to look like me” defense really sustainable? It’s really just selfish.

You do not have the right to do whatever you want so that you can have a child that looks like you. That is not your right. Wanting something does not make it okay.

People are such scum. I always though red hair was real neat. My wife has red hair and people are always complimenting her on it.

The idea of teasing people for having red hair is weird enough, but actually bullying them? What the smeg is wrong with people?!

A family are being forced out of their home by a gang of thugs because of their red hair.

Kevin and Barbara Chapman say they and their four young children have already moved twice to avoid the taunts but at each address have been subjected to attacks.

Their windows have been smashed, the walls daubed with graffiti and their children physically assaulted in the street by other youths.

“There seem to be around ten or 12 families who have relations in the different areas we have been,” said Mr Chapman. “Word seems to get around and it starts again.”

The children have changed schools three times in the last two years. “Every time we make new friends we end up getting bullied whenever we leave the house,” said Ryelle.

Okay, I do tease my wife about her hair in one area. When I see another red-haired person, I ask if she knows him/her. See, cause all red-haired people know each other! It’s actually more an anti-tease.

What’s scary is if you read the comments to that dailymail.co.uk article, some people aren’t even appalled.

Surely, if it’s as bad as the article makes out they could dye their hair?

They shouldn’t have to. People should just not be so worthless.

Unfortunately, most people do not like ginger hair. ‘In the olden days’ folk were too polite to say anything but nowadays children are not so nice, so it turns to bullying. Shame.

Most people don’t like ginger hair. Wow. Glad I don’t live there.

If this family are well behaved then this is disgraceful…

Goes on to express sympathy, but notice the weasel wording. I think it’s bad to paint “gingers are gay” on someone’s house even if they aren’t well behaved.

He was charged with disorderly conduct. That’s normally what they charge if you pull a fire alarm or something, because making people think there’s a fire and they are in danger harms people. And, I think, the fact that we all know that’s the result is important.

But here the teacher was upset the content of the essay, even though all admit the content was not directed at any particular person.

How is that disorderly conduct? So the teacher was upset. How can writing an assignment which upsets someone but doesn’t threaten them, either overtly or subtly, be disorderly conduct?

If he had written it before the Virginia Tech shooter was shown to have written violent stuff, would anyone have batted an eye? I guarantee no one would have been arrested.

As if we don’t have enough of a hard time getting kids to do their homework, let’s let them know if they right the wrong thing we’ll have them arrested.

Some kids already don’t like to write assignments that call for revealing their thoughts and feelings. They don’t want other people to read them, even the teacher, but certainly not the class (since many teachers read excerpts, without permission). How much more will they feel that way now?

When I was a kid, I was told that we lived in a free country. Are kids told that any more? We see our freedom, our essential liberties, being stripped away, not for security, but for the pretense of security.

Arresting students for violent essays will not stop the next shooter. All it will do is harass a lot of innocent people, make them feel their thoughts are criminal, keep them from revealing them to anyone, and put an end to essays with any depth. (Okay, so school essays have never had depth. But I’m ranting here.)

When I was in 9th grade, I wrote a poem for English class called “Decapitation,” about how fun it was to chop off heads. It didn’t mean anything; I’m not violent, I don’t plan on being violent, I was just trying to be weird.

The teacher was grading the papers while we watched a film or something, and called out, “Who wrote Decapitation?” I thought I was in trouble, but it just turned out I hadn’t written my name on it. He treated it like any other assignment.

And that was fine. Why are we now so scared? 40,000+ people die in car accidents every year, but we are never scared to get in an automobile.

I’m tired of people getting scared and taking away freedom, adding unnecessary “security features” to everything to make us think we are more secure.

Simpson’s attorney, Yale Galanter, said the incident was about race, and he intended to pursue the matter and possibly go after the restaurant’s liquor license.

What. In. The. World.

I wasn’t raised to look at people in racial terms. But by now I’ve read enough history to have an inkling of how awful people treated other people because of their skin colour, in this great nation of ours.

We’ve come a long way since then, especially where I live. I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood, and attended diverse schools. There was no majority. Every single “race” was a minority. I suppose there may have been racial tensions, but I didn’t really experience that. The people I associated with didn’t have those issues. Nobody cared what colour people were.

So things have improved, in a lot of ways. But society as a whole is not as enlightened as my neighborhood was. There’s a lot of racism still out there, and we’ve done the old pendulum swing and now there’s a lot of anti-white racism.

If you are white, you are automatically judged by many people to be in a position of power or privilege, and if you hold certain opinions, people thing they can tell your motives for those opinions on the basis of your skin colour.

What kind of sick society do we have when a white man doesn’t serve a murderer, and the assumption is it’s because he’s black?

If you’re white, you can’t be against murder. It’s got to be racially motivated, because all white people hate black people, apparently.

That’s ridiculous. And I know that many, hopefully most, will see right through this pathetic ploy of Simpson and his lawyer. But they wouldn’t have said it, if they didn’t know that some people would either believe it, or at least act like it wasn’t utterly pitiful and ludicrous.

If you’re straight, you can’t think homosexual sex is immoral without being homophobic.

If you’re male, you can’t be against abortion without wanting to oppress women.

If you’re white, you can’t be against murder if the murderer is black because that means you’re racist.

If you believe any of the above three statements, then you’re actually a bigot.

If you disagree, please comment and tell me why you think you’re not.

I only vaguely heard about it yesterday, and didn’t try to find out more. School shootings no longer surprise me, so I don’t really rush to see the news about them.

I think it’s sad that people on both sides of the gun control debate are not even waiting until the murdered people have been buried before using their senseless deaths to further their own agendas.

And I’ve heard rumors that some might be using what happened to further their “video game violence can lead to real-life violence” philosophy.

I can understand it; I sure want to say things about how perhaps our society’s purposeful derision of traditional morality fuels this sort of behavior.

But you know what? Only the people who already agree will agree; everyone else will just be all the more convinced of their position, because they’ll see the opposition as opportunistic and heartless for trying to capitalize on a tragedy.

So, whatever your thoughts, give it a rest. Why don’t we all agree that murdering people is bad, offer our support to the grieving families, and wait until next week to start the “I told you so” nonsense.