There once was a blogger named Fraccy
She’s bold and she’s fun, never tacky.
She put out a dare
In the blogosphere air
If I took it, would I be her lackey? 

Popularity: 7% [?]

With spring just around the corner…. what an idea!!

And these are pretty awesome…. nice work!

Heh… this is how I feel looking at some of the comments Akismet grabs…

For more of these fun and funny photos, head over to http://ixpats.com/bestoftheweb/

Nope, it’s not another of my blogs.  Just a cool site I found. Enjoy!
Y’all come back now, y’hear?

Popularity: 16% [?]

Bernardine Wade is a 50 year old single mother. Her adopted special needs daughter was raped at age 7. Repeatedly. On a special needs school van going to school and back. For over a year.

The rapist admitted that he sodomized the 7 year old girl and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

Here’s the kicker. The Ohio Court of Appeals has ruled that a child assaulted on a school vehicle may not sue.

And it’s not just little Ne-Ne it happened to. According to the Canton Rep, this has happened to 11 families in Ohio.

Bernardine Wade, Ne-Ne’s mom has been interviewed by Fox News.  She says…

“I’m not going to stop until I’m on the ‘Oprah Winfrey Show,’ ” Wade said. “Until that happens, I’m going to keep it going. It doesn’t end with the march. It’s the beginning.”

• Read the whole horrible story in the Canton Rep
• More details at Ryan’s site (he told me about this…)
• Watch the Fox Interview at YouTube, here

Will you help?
1) I am making a poster (pdf) that you can print.  Ryan and I will both post it, along with the address to Oprah’s production department.  Would you print it and mail it to Oprah?  If we all work together, maybe we can change a very ugly law in Ohio.

2) Could you also help spread the story?  I have links (below) to pass it through the social networks.  Then, go to Ryan’s blog and click to “Digg” his story, too.

Popularity: 18% [?]

My spinning girl was just stumbledupon.  Thank you.  If I knew who it was, I’d return the favor.
And hey, if you like a post here, please do me a favor and click one of the little colored icons to add it to your social bookmarks, whether it’s stumbleupon, digg, reddit, etc. It’s appreciated. Thank you!

Popularity: 24% [?]

Two little girls… both 8 years old. Two brutal rapes.

In Louisiana…

Patrick Kennedy, 43, is on death row in Louisiana for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

In addition to severe emotional trauma, “the attack caused internal injuries and bleeding to the child, requiring extensive surgery,” Louisiana prosecutors said.

In 2003, he was sentenced to die. If he is executed, he will be the first convicted rapist in 44 years to be executed in a case in which the victim was not killed. In the 70s, the US Supreme court banned capital punishment for rape and any other crime except murder. But, Louisiana later passed a law allowing execution for sexual violation of a child under 12.

So, the battle in court is… should he die? Or shouldn’t he?

In Yemeni…

… parents can arrange marriages for children under 15. The only stipulation of the law is that the husband must wait until the girl starts puberty before he is allowed to consummate the marriage.

Little Nojud’s father and mother forced her to sign a marriage contract to a 30 year old man. She was told that she would live with her parents until she was 18, so she signed. One week later, they sent her to live with her husband.

Her father said he “married her off” because he was afraid she would be kidnapped, like her two older sisters were.

For two months, the 8 year old’s child’s 30-year-old husband beat and raped her.

“I used to run from room to room to escape from him. But he would catch up with me, beat me and then would use me,” the girl said, her tiny frame swallowed in an oversized robe and headscarf…

In early April, little Nojud sought out a judge on her own and asked for a divorce. The judge, Mohammed al-Qady, sympathized with the little girl and terminated the marriage because she had not yet reached puberty.

The girl’s family was ordered to pay $US250 as “compensation” to her ex-husband. Her ex-husband will not be charged because Yemeni law does not recognize rape as a crime in marriage. It also doesn’t provide for punishment if a marriage is consummated before a child-wife reaches puberty.

The little girl’s lawyer said she would make sure Nojud got an education. And the little girl? She has no desire to see her father and will live with a maternal uncle.

“I am happy that I am divorced now. I will be able to go back to school,”

 More reading if you’re interested….
[should Louisiana child rapist be executed? story here.]
[8 year old files for divorce afer rape. and more here ]

Where does one even start?
… Should child rapists be executed?
… Should the man in Louisiana be executed for raping his 8 year old stepdaughter?
… What about the ex-husband in Yemen who walked away with US $250 in his pocket for the same crime?
… Is it right for one man to die while another profits for the same crime?
… Are they the same crime? Why or why not?

Popularity: 29% [?]

Have you heard of Qassia? I just joined, and if you have a blog, you should, too.
What the heck is it? This is how they define it:

Qassia is sometimes confused with sites like Wikipedia, Squidoo, most recently, Google knol. Qassia is fundamentally different from these sites, because Qassia is not about asking people to upload authoritative articles. You don’t need to be an egghead at Qassia. You could upload a lengthy academic treatise if you want, by all means, but you can also get away with contributing a hastily scribbled tidbit of information about a person, a company, a place, an event, a thing, or anything you know about.

What we value is intelligence about the people, companies, and places around you. The people and places do not have to be famous, and the intelligence does not have to be earth-shattering.

Here’s what I like about it. If you join as a member, they’ll link back to your site as a thank you for contributing.

So, whether you post the best place to get hotwings in your city, or a full diatribe on an issue close to your heart matters not. You earn points.  And linkbacks. 

If they turn out to be a quarter as big as wikipedia or squidoo, that’s some powerful link juice.

I don’t join stuff easily. Not because I’m a cynic, but because there’s just too much junk out there. But this one looks promising to my yoda of the Internet eyes.

They’re in closed beta. Which means you can’t join or earn linkback without an invite. So here’s an invite.
You’re welcome…

The the invite is in the top left…

Popularity: 24% [?]