Pajamas

So Michael Jackson showed up at court in his pajamas and Judge Rodney agreed not to throw him in jail because he fell over while getting dressed and hurt his back!? Does that sound suspicious to anyone else? And hasn't Jackson heard of the telephone? Can't he call and explain where he is? From the footage I saw it appeared that even his own lawyer was unable to determine his whereabouts.

The news appears to be full of paedophiles today. On the BBC news website alone, in addition to the MJ case, there is the story of a 30 year old nurse who turned herself into the authorities and was jailed for 5 months when it became apparent that she had had sex with a 14 year old boy, a scout leader from Somerset who has been jailed after more than a thousand images were found on his computer, and a 53 year old man has been jailed in Nottingham for raping a 12 year old boy.

I take a dim view of people that abuse children, but I am of the opinion that this is becomming something of a witch hunt and the penalties appear to be both inconsistant and disproportionate. The scout leader mentioned above has been jailed for 8 months but has apparently never touched a child. The 30 year old nurse who had sex with a 14 year boy was jailed for only 5 months. Are we saying that the crime of viewing naked children is more heinous than the act of intercourse with a child? Perhaps the nurse committed a less heinous crime because the adult in this case was a female and the child male. Is the guy that viewed the child pornography more of a danger to children because he has a penis?

It seems to me that people can accept that young boys having sex, while undisirable, is largely understandable. Young girls having sex on the other hand would seem to be something far more anti social. It would also seem to me that sex crimes are far more socially acceptable when committed by a woman. In the case of the nurse above, the judge told her that the relationship was "inappropriate". On the other hand, the scout leader was told, "The more people like you who behave like you behaved means that there are more children that are abused". So the woman made a mistake and the the man perpetuates child abuse. Double standards? Have I missed something?

Nurse, 30, had sex with boy of 14
Jail for child porn scout leader

I'm glad to see that parliament is having great difficulty witht the new anti-terror legislation. I'm stilla t a loss as to why this is even being attempted. No-one supoprts it and it's a bit close to an election to be making enemies of the electorate isn't it? Going back to what my father says, it may be that the governement don't really care whether the bill gets passed or not, since they can claim that the opposition is weak on terrorism anyway. Very risky stategy I would have thought since the legislation is so unpopular. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but thank god for the house of lords.

My boss just sent me this and I liked it so much I played it twice.

I think we are all going for a beer tonight on the way home from work. This is a good thing. It makes me glad I don't live in Utah.