Odds and ends..

OCTOBER 14--A South Carolina teenager is facing a felony charge for throwing a "deadly missile" at a moving vehicle. The armament in question was a burrito. (various sources)

Regarding the above...it doesn't matter what it was.  He claims "it was only a prank".  A jest..a simple jape...no harm here.  Bullshit.  Anything winged through the open window of a car traveling next to you at speed is criminal.  Period.  What could possibly be "prankish" about it?  "Gee officer, I only meant to distract him long enough for him to lose control and crash...it was only a prank".  In fact..I'm not even sure the window being open should be considered.  I know that I would have pulled hard right upon something hitting my window...that I would have seen..at best..with my peripheral vision at the last second.  I'm annoyed that this is being reported as a "joke" story.  This was dangerous, and well worth the felony charge.  Don't let him off the hook.

I was going to continue here by lambasting the authorities for PC above and beyond the bounds of PC...but upon reading further than the headline things become less clear.  The story was about parents being arrested for washing their 8 years olds mouth out with soap...(something many of us managed to live through, and we managed to be more circumspect around elders, if not each other..^_^).  However..this is also described as being forced to "eat" soap (which I might consider going a touch to far), and more importantly...not getting aid for the child when she had an allergic reaction to the soap, however..that may not be true either, since they did call for aid, which is what brought the police in the first place.  You would think that a news organization would at least attempt to get the full story before bothering to run it for everyone else to make fun of.  There is just too much here that is unknown.

OK..unlike most of the news reports..I did look a bit further.  The mother has had run ins with child services before it seems...and while she was finally taken to a hospital, it was long after she should have been..and it seems only then because the mother got afraid she would be in worse trouble if the girl died...not out of any compassion for the child.  I think I may now switch position, and rather than swearing at a government agency for being to aggressive, I should swear at them for maybe not removing the kids from that home sooner...^_^.