Is Gas Really That Valuable?

I realize times are tough and gas is expensive.  Where I live its around $4.30 per gallon for the cheap stuff.  But c'mon mom!

A woman was busted in Aurora, Colorado for three seat belt violations; hers, her 14-yr-old son, and the little one in the back seat.  The gas canister was not cited.

The Colorado Dept. of Transportation posted this picture on their Facebook page.

Facebook Junior: Evil Scheme To Hook Your Kids

From LATimes.com: The evil overlords at Facebook are considering new ways to data mine the populace.  Now they're cooking up a way to circumvent privacy laws regarding children and hook our kids on the same brain crack that many adults find themselves hooked on.

Introducing Facebook Junior - aka Facebook for kids that should be outside playing instead of sitting in front of a computer interacting with total strangers and racking up hours on inane games, all for the sake of generating marketing data.

Facebook is evil.  Its marketing intentions have never been clearly articulated by its CEO because if they were, no one would join voluntarily.  Remember the Zuckerberg interview at the 'D' Conference and the waterfall of sweat from Mr. Z as he tried to explain what Facebook was up to?  Facebook's stock price is currently the butt of jokes on Wall St. because there is no real value to the company (remember MySpace?).  No one trusts Facebook to keep their data safe or secure, their privacy settings have been laughable and their 'errors' in releasing private data have always been to Facebook's benefit and not the users.

And yet like lemmings, adults keep logging in and using it.  Up until now, the younger generations have been uninterested in Facebook, preferring to walk into lamp posts, sending TXT messages to people they actually know IRL - in real life - see, I'm plugged in, kids.  Truth is, the kids have more common sense about new tech than the adults do, and that's why they're not interested in Facebook.

This new ploy by Zuck & Co is like the cigarette ads back in the '60s, designed to get kids hooked on smoking, knowing full well they'd stay hooked until they died of lung cancer.  Sorry, but I see a strong similarity.

Remember: Facebook's product is YOU - the user.  Do you want your kids to be a product?

Stoned Mom Loses 5 Month Old Baby Off Car Roof

From FOXnews / AP and The Mail Online- To all the folks who wish to legalize Marijuana, and rationalize it as a 'victimless' crime, I offer this story as justification why this substance should remain controlled - and why it is definitely NOT victimless.

It seems a distraught 19-year-old mom was so upset that her stoned boyfriend had been arrested - hold on - for 'aggravated driving under the influence with a child in the vehicle' - she went out and got really stoned with her friends afterwards and forgot her baby was on the roof of her car, strapped into his car seat.

The infant was found in the middle of an intersection in the Phoenix area, and is now in the hands of Arizona Child Protective Services.  The irresponsible mom, Catalina Clouser, has now also been arrested on charges of aggravated DUI and child abuse.  Evidence submitted by the prosecution consists of a thankfully unhurt 5 month old baby boy and a badly damaged car seat, with paint from the roof of mom's 2000 Ford Focus.

Ironic car model - Focus - something both mom and the boyfriend lacked as they put an infant in danger twice in one evening as a result of indulging in an illegal substance.

Dad Uses Audio Bug To Uncover Abuse At Kid's School

From KHOU.com - A concerned Dad couldn't understand why his autistic son was being accused of 'acting out' in school.  Using tech from the Watergate era, he 'wired' his 10-year-old son with a recording device and uncovered abusive TEACHERS, who were doing the 'acting out'.

As a result of his sleuthing, concerned Dad Stuart Chaifetz got one teacher reassigned and another is seeking employment opportunities elsewhere.

The school district took the 5th and had 'no comment'.

Student Tweets the F-word, Gets Expelled

From The Register Online:

"An Indiana student has been expelled from school after sending a profane – if rather witty – tweet from his personal account."

It seems that in fly-over country, they haven't heard that its 'cool' to use the F-word.  Anybody remember Veep Joe Biden during the President's announcement of 'Obamacare'?  Or what about the recent fundraiser for the aforementioned President Obama, where the infamous Cee-Lo Green dropped the F-bomb to a hall full of campaign donors in Atlanta?

Many are arguing that a suspension would be more appropriate.  Even the boy's mom says suspension is fine but expulsion is harsh.  Personally, I don't think young Austin Carroll should be punished AT ALL.  School administrators have more to do than enforce non-laws by someone who was exercising his 1st Amendment right of free speech, in a forum where such expression is encouraged, and in many cases beneficial for social discourse.

And the precedent, and example for the country at large has been set by our esteemed administration, in public, and has been deemed acceptable and a form of free speech.

Personally I don't like the use of the F-word, and I'm sure that foul mouths are uttering such on the boy's high school campus right in front of the school administrators without any repercussions.

I find it interesting that its the foreign press picking this story up and syndicating it.  Looks like it broke on HuffPo on the 25th, which had this little nugget of information;

A bill that would allow schools to punish students for off-campus activities has advanced in the Indiana legislature, permitting schools to suspend or expel students for engaging in activities away from school and after hours that "may reasonably be considered to be an interference with school purposes or an educational function."

Where are you, ACLU?