SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. – A fourteen-year-old autistic boy is facing terrorist charges after a sketch he made in school.

via Autistic Boy Charged With Making Terrorist Threats Over Stick-Figure Sketch.

The reason for the arrest was a tweet I had posted on the social network Twitter, which was deemed to constitute a bomb threat against Robin Hood airport in Doncaster: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!” You may say, and I certainly realise now, it was ill-advised. But it was clearly frustration, caused by heavy snowfall grounding flights and potentially scuppering my own flight a week later. Like having a bad day at work and stating that you could murder your boss, I didn't even think about whether it would be taken seriously.

via My tweet was silly, but the police reaction was absurd | Paul Chambers | Comment is free | The Guardian.

“For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time,” Obama says in a news release.U.S. kids haven't always been obese. Only one in 20 children ages 2 to 19 was obese in the 1970s. But around 1980 child obesity began to rocket to today's stratospheric level: Nearly one in three kids is overweight or obese, and nearly one in five is frankly obese.

via Michelle Obama’s Plan to End Childhood Obesity Epidemic.

Edit: I shared Scary’s post on Reddit, which is always seems to stir up good debate.

There are many arguments in support of banning the burka that, at first blush, are convincing. The burka is not proscribed by the Koran or mainstream Islam. Many consider the garment to be symbolic of oppression; the woman within has no identity, no contact with the outside world. Some call it a “prison”, enslaving its wearer to her husband. These are an affront to the values of Western nations, Canada included.

None of these arguments, though, present a transgression of recognized human rights as long as burka fashion is voluntary. In other words, if someone wants to wear it, why shouldn’t she (or even he) be allowed to? More importantly, if someone truly feels that they have a religious duty to wear it, then we also risk trampling on another freedom, that of religion…

…Sarkozy has the right to condemn the Burka, even when speaking as the representative of the French people. I would even argue that he has the duty, since a vast majority find the practice to be repulsive. He should not, however, seek to use the powers of the state to compel women to dress a certain way in public, contrary to their religious beliefs…

…For that would be forcibly taking these women from the only prison they know, and in the process subjecting all of us to a bigger prison – that of the nanny-state.

[Scary Fundamentalist]

I would be fine with this as an option for pedestrians (especially kids), were it not for this:

…there have been no recent major pedestrian accidents in those areas, Judson said. [PennLive]

Ah. Good. So the city council and police department are busy creating solutions for problems that don’t exist.

This example makes me think of the school buses in Winnipeg. I’m not sure what they’re like wherever you are, but here they are an agglomeration of mechanized arms (that stop kids from crossing the street in front of the bus), flashing & pivoting stop signs, strobe lights (a big one on top of the bus), and so on. Does all of this have an impact on school bus related accidents? Would drilling into kids commonsense rules of behaviour do the same, and instill some sense of personal responsibility?

That’s the most insidious evil of the Nanny State – the abdication of personal responsibility in favour government hand-holding.

Kitchen knives are apparently the most commonly used murder weapon in Britain, absent firearms. Fortunately, there’s now an alternative.

Up next: blunting the “pocket terror” of stabby pens and pencils, and forest patrols to elimate pointy sticks. I’m on the “nanny state” side here: if someone wants to do grievous harm, they’ll find a way, regardless of many edges the government blunts. Violence in society is a social problem, not an access problem. [Note: I support gun control]