News Roundup

• From the "Moon Rocks - The New Scourge" Department - An elderly lady in California was arrested recently by investigators from NASA for the high crime of owning a speck of moon rock.  Her story is that an astronaut gave it to her family, while NASA maintains that no-one but NASA and those they deem worthy may own a piece of the moon.  As has sadly become the norm, the tactics used to retrieve the celestial pebble and arrest this dastardly criminal of a kindly old lady were pretty heavy handed.  I just hope that if NASA has a SWAT team, they're armed with something more exciting than shotguns.  If I'm going to pay for space explorers to be armed, I want it to be something that Marvin the Martian would approve of.
• From the "Fail!" Department - Four men in New York failed the victim selection process the other day when they tried to rob an off-duty police detective with a fake gun.  These geniuses continued their endeavor even after the officer identified himself as police.  Two of the miscreants were wounded after the good officer pulled his own real gun and showed them the difference between lead and airsoft.  I'm glad to hear that the officer is doing well and that all four were eventually arrested.    I would love to be a fly on the wall when these four bluntskulls explain to their fellow convicts why they're in prison.
• From the "Going a Bit Too Far" Department - The New York City educational system appears to be taking sex ed a little too seriously.  According to recent reporting, the new curriculum, while emphasizing that abstinence is the only way to be 100% certain of not getting pregnant or getting a disease, will also be teaching the little dears about safer ways to have sex.  OK, so far so good.   If the school system is going to teach kids about sex,* then teaching the kids how to keep from bringing unplanned children into the world and catching diseases is good information to give out.  However, it appears that some of their sources also teach about a bit more than the basics.  I run a PG blog here, so I won't go into too much detail.  Suffice it to say that the textbook and website the school board is supposedly going to use sounds more like an instruction manual for the porn industry than an instrument of higher learning. 
• From the "Doing a Good Thing" Department - The on-line hacktivist group Anonymous recently released a statement detailing how it tracked down and shut down 40 child pornography sites.  They also list the identities of 1500 individuals who logged into these sites, and invite law enforcement to investigate and prosecute them.  Bravo for them.  Apparently even nihilists and vandals have their limits.

*Personally, I would prefer that the school system leave sex ed up to the parents.  Unfortunately, a lot of parents aren't going to do their jobs in this area, so the nanny-staters can use this as an opportunity to teach school kids how they think sex should be handled.  My approach is to have discussions with the kids, over several years, that are appropriate to their intellectual and social growth, about sex, morals, self-worth, and of course, safer sex.  I just go over the basics though.  If they want the advanced course, I will suggest they learn the way their father did: on the back of a captured Soviet T-34 tank that is parked in front of the Russian school at the Defense Language Institute.