Anyone doubting the war on women and children needs to have his or her head examined:

From the New York Times, an Op-Ed piece decrying the recent court trend to deny the use of certain evidence (911 tapes of calls made by victims during the commission of domestic violence) in efforts to bring the perp to Caeser's Justice.

The piece is in addition to several mainstream news sources reporting...

Reporting such items as the denial of a regular, weekly day off to domestic staff in the Philippines on the grounds that some of them provide care for infirm or elderly employers who apparently require 24/7 assistance. Guess the 'family' can't figure out that overworked carers have a tendency to abuse their charges-sometimes to the point of murdering the patient in the carer's exhaustion-or maybe that is the family's hope?

Reporting on such outrages as the Italian judges who considered an older man raping a 14 year old non-virgin to have been guilty of a much lesser crime based on the 14 year old's non-virgin status; the recent decisions of American judges: to sentence a 27 count convicted child molester to sixty days; another freed one who turned right around and raped several more children; and of course one would have to be living in a damn cave on another planet to have missed the fine 47 year old fellow who upon his release from prison (after being convicted in his thirties of having violently raped a 12 year old, and who had "lived quietly for several years" yet all of a sudden??!) kidnaps and sexually tortures two teen-aged girls for several days in his under-the-house bunker. Hmmm, video provided by the local police indicate that if the guy was "quiet" it is because he was rather busy excavating the elaborate torture chamber in preparation for recidivsm...

And of course, the litany of Bush White House cutbacks to social programs.

This morning seems to be a morning of Op-Ed pieces; I read a piece on the Telegraph wherein the author vented his frustration with the way British lives are being increasing legislated by some really silly laws engendered by increasing mob willingness to be rather inconsiderate on the neighbours, while 'real' criminals are set free by an increasingly willy-nilly legal system.

I thought about emailing him to let him know that the same thing is happening all over, but decided against it. I decided the guy is probably either smart enough to figure it out on his own if he is being published in the Telegraph, or that he is (typical of Englishmen) overly invested in believing his country is the only one worth thinking about.

BTW-there really is a DIFFERENCE between Englishmen and the rest of Britain. Rather a big one, if one is of Irish, Scots, or Welsh extraction...My father used to say that he wanted me to marry anyone but an Englishman. I confess to you, my brothers and sisters, to teaching my son from an early age to answer the question "What is the lowest form of life on the earth?" with "An Englishman." Half joking, full in earnest:) One has to humour the English, because they really do think they are the only ones...but they are sometimes cute, and we put up with them for the sake of the commonweal-i.e. don't mess with our cousins, eh? They're stupid gits, but they are our stupid gits.

But there are worse things; I used to be a big fan of Nicholas Kristoff until I figured out that his well-written moral outrage seems restricted to other countries-he misses the need to connect the dots, and has it down to a fine art, that.

I think moral outrage should begin at home, as should "mote and log-jammed eye" examinations...