Tigger, Why Are You...

...bouncing my mommy?

Um...It's Not In the Woodpile...

...it's in the sperm vial.

A white Ohio woman is suing a Downers Grove-based sperm bank, alleging that the company mistakenly gave her vials from an African-American donor, a fact that she said has made it difficult for her and her same-sex partner to raise their now 2-year-old daughter in an all-white community.




h/t Gay Patriot.

Bear Grylls: Let Kids Use Knives

Trying to roll back the nanny state that is UK.

Children should be allowed to play with knives because it can “empower" them by teaching them how to do something dangerous but safely, Bear Grylls has said.

The adventurer said a “mega-sharp penknife” is a great tool for the young, even though his six-year-old son, Huckleberry, recently had an accident that would have led many other parents to take the opposite view.

“Sometimes in life we get cut. My six-year-old recently cut himself on a knife, and came in with blood pouring everywhere, but, you know what? He’s not cut himself again.

“He learned how to handle a knife,” said Grylls, who is also father to Marmaduke, eight, and Jesse, 10.

“When I say to budding adventurers, ‘Listen – a blunt penknife is a dangerous knife. Make sure it’s really sharp’ – the kids’ faces light up. Like all kids, they want a mega-sharp penknife – great, but teach them to respect it and use it properly.

“Two hundred years ago, I doubt there was a six-year-old in Britain who couldn’t start a fire with a knife and a flint. It would be like a six-year-old today using a fork to pick up a fishfinger. Kids were taught to be resourceful and practical.”

I can't but agree. If you go out of your way to infantilize your children, then don't be surprised if they turn out to be infants when they should be adults.

Precocious Little Tyke, Ain't He?

"Georgia 3rd grader suspended for snorting Smarties."

Monroe Abuse Case Update

Neighbors are shocked - - shocked, that abuse was going on.

As of this writing only 46 news sources show up in a Google News search. Looks like the female involved was in charge of the Union County DSS department that handles child protective services, irony of ironies. Her male companion is an emergency room nurse at the Monroe hospital. The house they live(d) in looks like a set from Hee Haw, with barnyard animals running around out front; the abuse was discovered because a hog was running loose and rooting up the neighbor's yard:

Meanwhile, Just South of Monroe, NC...

...where they chain foster children to the porch with a dead chicken tied to its neck...

Later on, of course, they progress to tying people to trees and making them squeal like pigs:

A Union County social worker was one of two adults charged with intentional child abuse Friday after deputies found a child handcuffed to a porch with a dead chicken around his neck.

Dorian Lee Harper and Wanda Sue Larson, both 57, have been charged with numerous offenses after a deputy discovered the child at 4116 Austin Road, south of Monroe, authorities said.

Larson is employed as a supervisor with Union County Department of Social Services. She and Harper had adopted four children and were serving as foster parents for a fifth child, officials said.

A deputy was responding to an animal services complaint at a neighboring home Friday when he walked up to Harper’s and Larson’s residence and saw a “10-12-year-old child secured to the front porch at the ankle, by what appeared to be a pair of handcuffs,” officials said.

“The child also had a dead chicken hanging around his neck and appeared to be shivering,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

Larson was not present when the children were discovered but is accused of being complicit in the ongoing mistreatment of the children, the Sheriff’s Office said. She was also charged with willful failure to discharge her duty as a public official.

The child handcuffed to the porch is the 11-year-old Harper and Larson had been fostering, authorities said. The children are now in custody of an undisclosed social services agency outside Union County.

Well, that ought to discourage immigration to this part of North Carolina for the forseeable future.

Update: It's on Drudge, so now the whole world knows about it.

Indoctrination Chronicles #6

Down in Memphis, Tennessee, a teacher who asked the lil' chirrens to write about a person they idolized was less than happy when one of the lil' tykes wrote of God as her idol.

When asked by the news reporters what the school policy was, they admitted it was a mistake for the teacher to prohibit God as Elementary Idol. When asked what disciplinary procedures/recriminations the teacher would face, they babbled about privacy policies.

50 Adventures Every Kid Should Have

Story.

Most of the list includes stuff that any outdoor-oriented child of the past would do, such as fly a kite, go blackberrying, or learn to ride a horse. "Catch fish with a net" is listed, although catching them with a handline, cane pole or fishing rod would do just as well, I suppose. And no mention of cleaning and eating the fish afterwards.

Since it is a UK list, nothing about shooting a BB gun, shotgun or .22 rifle, as rural American kids do (and as UK rural kids did in the past). What sort of things do you think an American would add to the list? I'd say "build a tree fort," because I built more than one of those in my youth. How about "explore a 'haunted' house?" Skinny-dipping? Let me hear your ideas in comments.

They're Made In China, Now

Just like most everything else is, these days. I refer to Official Cub Scout Knives, and Official Boy Scout Knives. I recently picked up a sample of the Cub Scout Knife off of eBay for $20.

Pic:



Fit and finish on this Chinese-made knife are excellent. Right out of the box I noticed that the leather punch didn't close properly, and required a little bending to allow it to slip inside properly, but I've seen the same from US-manufactured knives. Blades are all stainless steel rather than carbon steel, saddening to an old-timer like me who grew up with knives that developed a patina with use. Handle scales are dyed bone, and the Cub Scout logo inletted into the scale appears to be brass or bronze. The main blade came with the same sort of utility edge these knives have always been shipped with, even from the US factories; a few strokes on an A. G. Russell crock stick and the blade was hair-popping sharp.

The Chinese seem to have problems getting the bottle openers on these sort of knives correct, mainly getting the catch hook curved and pointed enough to catch on a bottle cap; I have three Chinese-made knives with bottle openers: this one, a Boy Scout pattern made for Kissing Crane, and another Boy Scout pattern made for Rough Rider, and all three have crappy bottle openers. On this Cub Scout knife I used a round diamond hone to re-shape the catch hook to make it easier to open bottles, although I may have taken too much metal off. We'll see.

A well-made knife for one of today's Cub Scouts. If I myself regret that the knives aren't made in the US any more, young scouts of today probably won't even notice, since anything associated with patriotism isn't taught any longer in US public schools (and the boy couldn't carry his knife into school any more without being arrested as a dangerous criminal).

Just...sad, when you think about it. Good knife, though.

Take Your Soylent Pink, Dear

The Chinese are making dead babies into capsules to be sold as medicine in South Korea, reportedly.

Generally Oriental remedies involve killing endangered species in order to make a Chinaman's dick hard - - powdered rhinoceros horn immediately comes to mind. Wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that they do the same with dead babies.

Today's Viral Video

This is currently burning up the internet and facebook:



The Facebook page for the father, Tommy Jordan, is here. I notice he lives 30 miles east of here, in Albemarle, NC. I ought to go buy him a beer sometime. Hell of a guy.

Your reaction to this will probably fall along the blue/red divide. Blue parents/individuals will probably see Tommy as a dangerous individual, a cruel father who needs to have the State called and his guns taken away. Red parents/individuals will probably applaud his actions. Just read the comments on the Facebook and you'll see what I mean.

h/t Kurt at A Trainwreck In Maxwell.

update:He's made the UK Daily Mail. Drudge should be next, I guess. He posted this follow-up on Facebook refusing to go before media, but that will probably fall by the wayside in a day or so. I hope he's consulted a lawyer, I think that, unfortunately, he's going to need one.

Update 2, 4:00 p.m. Friday: Drudge finally noticed. The father (Tommy Jordan) has been posting updates regularly since he got home from work. I'd imagine the Raleigh and Charlotte news stations are camped outside his house, hoping for interviews. We'll see what he does.

Update 3, 4:17 p.m., Friday: Yep, they called the cops and DSS on him.

His Widdle Feelings Are Hurt

In Australia, a mother forced her 10-year-old son to wear an "I Am A Thief" sign.

And, of course, the government organs get involved:

Diane Mayers, who has worked with Child Safety Services in the past, said she was so "horrified" when she saw the boy that she immediately notified the department.

"A lot of people walked past and were laughing at him, including boys who would have been his age," Mayers said. "At one point, the boy had taken off the Shrek ears. My daughter walked past and heard the mother say, 'Put them back on or I'll smack your head in.'"

Mayers said she feared the long-term effects from the public humiliation would be worse than the potential effects from physical abuse.


Yah, it's hard for a precocious thief to develop self-esteem if his parents are embarrassing him like that and threatening to smack him around. How dare they?

This One Seems Dubious

"The baby did it: Father blames two-year-old son for shooting death of mother."

First of all, can a typical 2-year-old even manipulate a Glock to fire it?

The dad has a license to carry concealed, indicating a clean (conditionally) criminal record, which would mitigate against him being the shooter. Of course, if he were wearing rubber gloves and had his son in his lap with the gun held in both his own hands and his son's, the gunpowder trace residue would show up on the boy's hands but not his...

A lot to think about in this case, huh?

I'd Wrap Them Up In Celophant

It's the only way to keep the little chirrens safe, you know.

This passage made me LOL:

Researchers found that conkers have been banned from nearly one sixth of playgrounds for fear that they could cause injury or trigger a nut allergy, even though they are not nuts.

update: Not to be outdone by the UK, the state of New York thinks Freeze Tag is dangerous.

h/t Jammie Wearing Fool.

Mexican Schools Teach Duck & Cover Drills

Not from fear of an atom bomb, as US schoolkids did during the Cold War, but because of gunfire from drug cartels.

Judge: It's OK To Deep Throat Dildoes In Front of Chirrens

Actually, the judge ruled that simulated sex is not really sex, which sort of suggests that the judge was appointed by Bill "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" Clinton.

I wouldn't normally use such a coarse title for a blog entry, but hey! If it's ok to deep throat a dildo in front of the little chirrens, then it's certainly ok to write about it, right?