It’s funny, but all I could think after seeing this article was, “So this is what fun feminism looks like!”

Police have arrested two members of one of Chile’s most notorious gangs, known as the Spider Girls.

The all-girl gang of teenagers were infamous for climbing up buildings in Santiago to burgle luxury apartments.

In a spate of high-profile robberies in 2005, they made off with thousands of pounds worth of jewellery.

Lurking in the gardens of expensive parts of Santiago, the four girls hurled ropes and hooks up to balcony railings, hauled themselves up and walked through the flat windows.

They then walked out of the buildings as if they were visitors.

The gang members were arrested last year but three of them were sent to reform school rather than prison because of their age.

They vowed to change their ways but after being released, one Spider Girl, Yasna, returned to her old tricks, recruiting a new member, Marcielle.

Despite both being heavily pregnant, they still managed to climb up to the third floor of some flats.

That, and what a kickass movie it would make.

We’ll leave out the part about our anti-heroines using their spoils to buy (what else?) clothes. That one unfortunate detail just gives the story a lame Sex and the City vibe. Spider Girls should all sport the same black pleather outfits, dontchathink?

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Tagged: spider+girls girl+gangs crime chile

Presented without commentary.

Man says he has right to have sex with children

CLEVELAND - A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws.

Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs.

“I’m a pedophile. I’ve been a pedophile for 20 years,” he said in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Wednesday. “The only reason I’m charged with rape is that no one believes a child can consent to sex. The role of my ministry is to get these cases out of the courtrooms.”

Distasio said some of his congregants are among the victims in this case. Distacio, of Rocky River, is accused of molesting two disabled boys he tutored at his home and raping seven autistic boys at a Cleveland school for special-needs students where he was a teacher’s aide. All but one of the victims were under 13.

A conviction on rape counts involving any of the eight younger boys would mean an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole eligibility, prosecutors said.

Distasio tried unsuccessfully in June to fire his court-appointed lawyer because he wouldn’t pursue a religious freedom defense. Distasio could represent himself if the attorney remained as an adviser, Judge Kathleen Sutula said.

Via Religion Clause.

Finally - some good news. And it’s even outta Texas. Go figure.

Yates Found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity

A jury in Houston today found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2001 drowning of her children. It was the second time Ms. Yates had been tried for the deaths of her children, in a long-running case that has highlighted the issues of postpartum depression and the insanity defense in the Texas legal system.

Ms. Yates, whose lawyers said she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis when she drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years, will likely spend the rest of her life in a state mental institution, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine if she should be released.

Prosecutors had maintained that Ms. Yates, who is 42, failed to meet the state’s definition of insanity, because they said she was able to distinguish right from wrong.

When the verdicts were read today, Ms. Yates appeared stunned, and then her eyes misted over, while one of her lawyers, George Parnham, wiped away tears. Later, he called the verdict a “watershed event in the treatment of mental illness.”

Today, her former husband, Rusty Yates, who has sat through most of the retrial, said he was glad the jury accepted the insanity plea instead of sending Ms. Yates to prison. He talked about how the prosecution showed pictures of the couple’s five children before their deaths to the jury, hoping to convince them prison was the best resolution for Ms. Yate’s actions.

“Did they think our children want Andrea to be in prison?” he asked reporters outside the courtroom. “Did they think that we, her family on either side, want Andrea to be in prison? Is it of any public benefit for Andrea to be in prison? Is she a danger to anyone? It’s amazing to me. I’m so proud of the jury for seeing past that.”

Damn straight.

“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” [Genesis 22:2]

“And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.” [Leviticus 26:29]

“He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.” [Exodus 21:17]
 

Lawyer: 3 kids tossed in bay as sacrifice

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — A woman accused of killing her three young sons by tossing them into frigid San Francisco Bay believed God summoned her to sacrifice her children, her lawyer told a judge.

“The voice of God called upon her to sacrifice her three children,” Teresa Caffese said at the woman’s preliminary hearing in San Francisco Superior Court.

Lashaun Harris, 23, was arrested last October, shortly after authorities said she dropped her children, one by one, over a rail and into the bay.

Taronta Greeley Jr., 2, was buried. The bodies of Treyshun Harris, 6, and Joshoa Greeley, 16 months, were never recovered.

 
 
Yup, another “Jebus those godbaggers are ca-razy” post.

Granted, Caffese is quick to point out that Harris may actually be schizophrenic, and makes a seemingly valid charge of racism (i.e., “Why is the DA prosecuting a pathetically schizophrenic, poor, black woman?”). Then again, Andrea Yates was convicted while white, and mothers who commit infanticide are a particularly loathed group - in no small part because such crimes are viewed as an affront to nature itself - so I think Harris’s status as “mother” might trump that of “black” in this case, but I digress.

This particular article doesn’t explain how the diagnosis of “schizophrenic” was reached, but the fact that Harris heard God speaking to her most likely had a little sumthin’-sumthin’ to do with it. After all, “auditory hallucinations” are one of many criteria that qualifies one for such a diagnosis.

I’ve always wondered, though, how believers reconcile the popular view of “hearing voices” as being indicative of mental problems with religion’s encouragement of, well, listening to God. For example, Mormonism preaches that every believer has the capacity to communicate with God, no middleman needed. This is perhaps one of the reasons behind Mormonism’s popularity during its early years (the practical problems with such an idea - i.e., that everyone has a direct line to God and, as such, can receive divine revelations and shape the religion to his or her liking - have since made the mainstream Mormon Church play down that particular aspect of Joe Smith’s teachings). Believers - at least of the Judeo-Christian stripe - are told to “find God,” to listen to his teachings, to follow his plan for your life.

Which begs the question: when a mortal starts conversing with God, how are we to know whether he’s a True Believer™ or a dangerous psycho? Or are they just one and the same?

Maybe Harris is schizo, but if we accept Teh Bible as Teh Truth, who are we to say that God didn’t tell her to sacrifice her toeheads?

God’s one sick fuck.
 

Now, I’m not a Cindy Sheehan groupie - in fact, I wish she’d shut her damn piehole and find a good psychotherapist already - but this is just plain wrong:
 

Police arrested peace activist Cindy Sheehan in Congress shortly before President George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech, a spokesman said.
 
“She went into the gallery and apparently had a shirt over a tee shirt that had a antiwar slogan on it,” the official said.
 
“She was asked to cover up, and she didn’t,” the official added.
 
According to congressional rules, the police official said, “you can’t demonstrate in the galleries” of the House of Representatives — including wearing clothing with political slogans.

 
Strangely enough, the wife of Republican Congressman Bill Young was also ejected from the event - for wearing a t-shirt in support of the troops (Sheehan’s shirt read “2245 Dead. How many more?,” while Young’s said “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom”).
 
 

Capitol Police dropped a charge of unlawful conduct against anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Wednesday and apologized for ejecting her and a congressman’s wife from President Bush’s State of the Union address for wearing T-shirts with war messages.
 
“The officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol,” Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said in a statement late Wednesday.
 
“The policy and procedures were too vague,” he added. “The failure to adequately prepare the officers is mine.”
 
The extraordinary statement came a day after police removed Sheehan and Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, R-Fla., from the visitors gallery Tuesday night. Sheehan was taken away in handcuffs before Bush’s arrival at the Capitol and charged with a misdemeanor, while Young left the gallery and therefore was not arrested, Gainer said.
 
“Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts,” Gainer’s statement said.

 
Are they just fucking with us now?
 
If they consider vegan Honey Baked Ham protesters and GLBT campus clubs worthy of terrorist-level surveillance, then Cindy’s t-shirt may as well have been a fucking hand grenade. 
 
 

Police halt annual ‘No Pants Subway Ride’; Eight pranksters cited for disorderly conduct

Eight pranksters who dropped their pants and showed their underwear on the subway on Sunday were taken into custody and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. All were ultimately released, said Improv Everywhere, the group that organized the stunt.

The group said more than 160 riders participated in the fifth annual No Pants Subway Ride before police halted their No. 6 train about 5 p.m.

 
 
On the bright side, 152 / 160 seems like a respectable record, no?
 

Oh, that mothafuckin’ media! I was punk’d! - by none other than CNN and the AP.
 
Yesterday morning saw a gleeful post by yours truly re: a supposed case of animal abuse, unusual in that the animal exacted some half-assed justice on the perp. 
 
You see, I was sitting down to CNN, snacking on a few rice cakes before my AM workout, when the scroll caught my eye. Intrigued by the mention of an abused mouse setting its torturer’s home on fire, I promptly Googled the story and found the original AP report, with all its gory details. Simultaneously disgusted and amused, of course I just had to blog about it.
 
Come to find out - by way of an article in today’s edition of Snopes.com - the story is a rumor. Well, the squeaky revenge part, at least:
 

In a news story reminiscent of the “Jeep at Half the Price” legend came the January 2006 news story of a homeowner who tried to dispose of a pesky mouse he had caught in his house by throwing it into a pile of burning leaves in his yard. According to the initial accounts, the rodent, with its fur ablaze, scampered out of the burning leaf pile and ran back towards the house, catching the exterior of the structure on fire and touching off a conflagration that destroyed the home and everything in it.
 
A few days later, however, came the report that the mouse was already dead when the homeowner threw it into the pile of burning leaves, and that the house fire was touched off by winds that blew embers from the burning leaf pile back towards the house:
 
A small-town rumor that sparked world-wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been found to be untrue.
 
The mouse story, however, has been doused by Mares.
 
“It’s really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house,” he told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves.
 
Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire.
 
The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds.
 
Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was “a little too much excitement” at the time of the fire.

 
“A little too much excitement” from whom? Hmmmm?
 
The AP story I referred to actually included supposed “quotes” from both the homeowner, Luciano Mares, as well as the Fire Captain, Jim Lyssy. The AP also paraphrased Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez.
 
I enter into evidence the following:
 

“I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house,” Mares said from a motel room Saturday.
 
“I’ve seen numerous house fires,” Fire Capt. Jim Lyssy said, “but nothing as unique as this one.”
 
Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to a spot just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.

 
Real-heal-heal-eee?
 
Now, one should only use quotation marks when one is restating, verbatim, words that came directly out of the subject’s mouth. I mean, I’m not a journalist, with fancy schooling, real-world training, and my own private jet, but…that’s how I understand it. So, either the good folks at the AP quoted the rumor mill (and attributed the statements to the wrong people) - a big no-no - and failed to confirm the story…or both Mares and Lyssy are lying after the fact. 
 
So, one has to wonder…are they just making shit up now?
 
I ’spose I should have known better - after all, how does a burning mouse generate flames large enough to set what looks like an adobe structure aflame? - but, in my defense, shouldn’t we be able to presume that objective stories such as these, complete with direct-from-the-source quotes and all, are true if printed in mainstream media outlets such as the AP? Really, is that such an unreasonable leap of faith? One wouldn’t think so, but apparently we can’t believe anything they tell us! 
 
I’d also like to point out why this example of media misconduct is especially egregious. Rather than simply mistaking their facts, the AP dreg who wrote this story straight-up fabricated quotes, from not one, but two sources! Mares and Lyssy never said what they were quoted as saying, and there’s no way that the reporter could have misunderstood a word or two - the quotes are just too far removed from reality. Nope, someone heard the rumor, believed it (or at least wanted to, since it made for an offbeat story), and pulled quotes out of the air (or, more likely, their arse) in order to make the rumor sound real. 
 
That’s called fiction, people, and there’s no room for it IN THE NEWS!
 
Goddamn liars, the whole lot of ‘em.
 
- K
 

Only this one’s out of New Mexico, not New Orleans. And this time, the perp was rewarded tenfold for his heinous actions.
 
Reports the AP:
 

FORT SUMNER, N.M. — A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves; the blazing creature ran back to the man’s house and set it on fire.
 
Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.
 
“I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house,” Mares said from a motel room Saturday.
 
Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to a spot just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.
 
No one was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it were destroyed.

 
The only way this story could get any “better” is if the fucktarded homeowner had died in the blaze. Talk about your just desserts. Oh, well. *Sigh* I bet they probably aren’t even gonna charge the prick with animal abuse, either.
 
Really, what kind of sick fuck knowingly tosses an animal into a fire - while still alive - in order to “dispose” of it?    The mouse may be a “pest,” but that doesn’t negate its ability to feel every last ounce of flesh ooze away from its skeletal system.
 
My only solace is the thought that, someday, cockroaches will once again rise to rule over the Earth. I hope they do a better job than we have.
 
- K
 
 

   Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!