Babysitter Needed?

Here is a story out of Jackson, Ohio in the USA. Is it any wonder it is tough to find someone willing to babysit your kids?

A four-year-old boy, that is right, four-years-old, has grabbed a loaded and unsecured shotgun and shot his 18-year-old babysitter in the arm and side. Apparently, the babysitter accidentally stepped on the four-year-old's foot. This infuriated him so that he responded with a shotgun blast.

There are a couple of issues here, like what was an loaded and unsecured shotgun doing in the home in the first place and can a four-year-old have the legal or mental capacity to be responsible for his or her actions?

The four-year-old has not been charged. This suggests that the possibility of a four-year-old having the mental capacity to understand right and wrong does not exist. Nevertheless, on the bare facts available to date, the idea that the kid got a little angry when the babysitter stepped on his foot and then decided to shoot the babysitter would suggests that there is some capacity there in terms of understanding revenge, maybe.

I do not own any guns so there is not much chance of you being shot when you're babysitting for us.

Two-Faced Kitten

Deformities or abnormalities always make sensational news stories and it does not just have to be human beings. Animal deformities also peak human interest. This is the case with a very recent birth of a two-faced kitten in Western Australia. The scientific term most closely linked to this would be polycephaly or having more than one head. Not sure of what the term is for having two faces (maybe one of my readers can help out on this front).

People seem to be fascinated with differences.

The cat has survived a night on the outside and by all accounts this is a good sign. However, only one of the mouths eats food. Yet, both faces have the ability to meow and apparently meow in unison. This is not the first time a two-faced kitten has been born and it is not even the first time this year. There were reports earlier in the year of two-faced kittens being born in Texas and Ohio.

It seems that the story has been picked up by international news agencies. The story has been reported by Fox News in the US and also by The Telegraph in the UK.

Update:

The kitten has reportedly died.

Obama Wins!

Pennsylvania!

This is one of the "battleground states" and one that most pundits have been saying from day one that John McCain had to win in order to win the White House!

Mathematically, the contest is far from over and by most accounts McCain is doing better in the early counting than many expected. Dropping Pennsylvania though is a pretty big body blow and one that he and the Republicans are unlikely to recover from unless McCain is able to pull Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Maybe an update later in the day.

The photo is of Obama and his wife casting their votes.

Too Fat To Be Executed?

This is not necessarily a story I have been following closely, but it is a story that has some interesting legal implications. I have written about this particular case here.

Richard Cooey is a convicted rapist and murderer. These are charges that he has not denied. He was convicted of raping and murdering two young women in 1986. However, as he was waiting on death row in Ohio he also gained a considerable amount of weight. I guess sitting around 23 hours a day doing nothing much in one's cell could lead to a weight problem. Perhaps prisons need to work out how to give death row inmates more time for physical exercise. He weighed in at an impressive 125kgs.

Cooey had claimed that his obesity would mean that a lethal injection was tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment and as such prohibited by the provisions of the US Constitution. The other claim that Cooey's lawyers were arguing was that Cooey was taking a medication that would adversely impact on the effectiveness of the lethal injection drugs and cause him to suffer unnecessarily.

The appeal to the Supreme Court was denied by Justice Stevens. Justice Stevens is one of the more liberal justices of the current Supreme Court.

Simply, executing overweight or obese people is no less constitutional than executing death row inmates living within the "healthy" range, at least, as it relates to weight.

Your Home as Your Castle

Some interesting news out of Ohio in the US. Interesting if you are into legal, law, and legislation like I am. If you're not then you might want to skip this post.

The Ohio Legislature has passed a law which states that a home-owner who wounds or kills an intruder in their home is going to be presumed to have been acting in self-defense. This is known as the "Castle Doctrine". It interestingly also applies to motor vehicles.

If you have read my previous posts you will know that I am not a fan of guns or weapons in general. They have a purpose, but I am not sure that a society armed to the teeth is any safer than one where no or very few guns exist.

The previous incarnation of the law required that a home-owner prove that they were acting in self-defense. However, the new law shifts that burden to prosecutors to prove that the home-owner was not acting in self-defense. This is going to be very much a case of shoot first and ask questions later. There may be times where a home-owner acts in legitimate self-defense and other times where they do not. There would seem to be plenty of scope for a defense attorney to use the provisions to get a defendant a free pass for a wounding or death that was not self-defense but because it occurred in a home or a car then the presumption is that it was self-defense.

I wonder whether in 12 months time there might be some regret at this new law. It certainly seems to make it easier for all people to carry concealed weapons. This is likely to make the lives of some public servants such as police officers even more dangerous than it was prior to this piece of legislation being enacted.

Some of the things that citizens can now do and the protections afforded them include, among others:

• Home-owners are presumed innocent where an intruder is wounded or killed;

• The law applies to vehicles as well;

• Home-owners who rightfully use self-defense are immune from civil lawsuits initiated by the intruders, if they survive, or their families; and

• A landlord cannot evict a permit-carrying tenant for keeping a firearm on the rented premises.

The land of the free and home of the brave just became a little scarier by my reckoning.

Devo -- Whip it!

Devo are back and playing in the Horden Pavillion in Sydney on 1 August.

I am not going to say that Devo was one of my favourite bands at the time. But I do have to say that I remember 'Whip It" and still remember some of the lyrics. Is being able to remember the lyrics after some 20 years a sign of a good song or the bizarre workings of my mind?

I am sure that I probably new more about Devo at the time. I remember being at boarding school in Glenfield (this will tell you the school if you're interested) and weekend mornings were normally watching Rage (which I still watch albeit for a much shorter time on the Australia Network here in Jakarta) and grooving to the beats.

One of the founders of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, who I might add is legally blind and who is perhaps one of the original coke glasses boys (those thicker than the bottom of a coke bottle glasses that some school kids had to wear), has put together a group called Devo 2.0. The band is a group of kids that cover Devo songs. How cool is that?

Devo sort of disappeared although Mothersbaugh continued to work in advertising putting together jingles for some big brands. Now, this is something I did not know about Mothersbaugh and it shows a bloke with either a really wicked sense of humour or someone who is just plain scary. During this advertising career he was forever inserting subliminal messages into the advertisements he was making. I am guessing without the knowledge of the client.

One instance was putting a subliminal message into an advertisement about candy that said, "sugar is bad for you". Other subliminal messages included phrases like "question authority" and "toil is stupid".

According to Mothersbaugh the reason for the Devo reunion is, "I live in a country that should be ashamed of itself. I'm really angry at our current president. Humans are a toxic presence and we've overrun the planet. I think at our best, Devo's message was anti-stupidity, pro-ideas and pro-information." This, I am lead to believe, makes the Devo message as current today as it was way back when.

Then again, maybe the idea of seeing other bands from the 70's and 80's still being on tour or re-forming for a reunion tour and pulling in the crowds might have been a consideration as well.

Teaching Christianity

It seems that an Ohio public school teacher has taken his faith to the extreme in teaching his beliefs to his students. John Freshwater, a teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School, taught a literal interpretation of creationism in his science classes and liberally displayed religious material throughout his classroom in spite of protests from other teachers and an order to remove them.

However, the most serious of the charges relate to the burning of the image of the cross onto the arms of some of his students. The images lasted three to four weeks but ultimately faded away. Despite all of the charges it seems that Freshwater has many supporters who argue that he is teaching the values of the community. His students have also come out in support and say that he is a "great guy". Freshwater has been employed by the school district for some 21 years.

This is not a question of faith but whether the behaviour is appropriate in the classroom setting? The burning of the cross onto the skin of students is somewhat extreme but the teaching of creationism does not appear to be a serious offence even if it is taught in a science class. This assumes though that it is not taught exclusively or at the expense of other legitimate topics.

The decision on Freshwater's behaviour is pending.