From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer(Tuesday, October 24, 2006):

A Whidbey Island man has pleaded guilty to charges of using the Internet to entice a 14- year-old girl to travel for sex -- a plan that went awry when she flew to Washington, D.C., instead of Washington state.

Airport police at Dulles International Airport contacted the FBI in January 2005 after the girl, who lives in Chicago, showed up upset in Washington, D.C. She had decided to use her own money to fly sooner than had been agreed upon, authorities said.

John Leonard Young, 46, of Coupeville faces at least five years in prison but could serve up to 30 years after he is sentenced in January.

In a plea agreement filed Monday, Young admitted to talking with the girl over the Internet and telephone for about two weeks, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Sometimes stupidity is its own reward. This girl missed being used by a predator through her own sheer stupidity, and managed to fall into safe hands. No thanks to her parents, let's add! Where the heck were they? Maybe they didn't talk with her much, or perhaps they figured "she is such a good girl she'll never do something like this," eh? But ... missing Washington State and aiming for Washington, D.C. is evidence that the parents do not have an Einstein on their hands. This is a child that very much needed watchful eyes over her. So, where were they?

Some of their communications were later recovered and were found to contain "bold, detailed discussions about sex."

Very nice. Can you imagine speaking with a 14-year-old-girl about sex? Having "The Talk" is trauma enough for most adults of children, much less chatting about "doin' it" with a kid! And I'm not talking about your own child, or someone under your guardianship, but some cute chick at the Mall, or somebody's little sister at the Library. Is that something you could do? The creep is 46! Aside from engaging in rape, just what possible connection could he have with her? Sorry, but I can't think of many things I'd discuss with a 14-year-old stranger, and having sex with them ain't one of them!

Young urged the girl to remove the hard drive of her computer to cover their tracks and arranged for the girl to visit him Jan. 21, the statement said.

Dead giveaway! ooOOOooooh! Exciting! Adventure! I can see how all of that would lure an impressionable girl to him. To anybody else that little gem is an admission.

"Young used a business credit card to pay for a plane ticket for the girl to travel to Seattle to be with him," the statement said.

And we have a gotcha! Ahhh, evidence. So now we see that even the sickos can be terminally stupid! And Young certainly fits that bill. Sick, stupid, evil. In all ways a winner, this Young.

After the girl arrived in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 12, the FBI obtained a search warrant for the computers in Young's mother's home, where he was staying. Authorities said they recovered his communications with the girl and more than 50 images of child pornography.

I wonder how Young felt when he learned that the F.B.I. had been contacted? She goes to the wrong place, gets upset and contacts the police (maybe she was worried about him?) who get in touch with the Feds. Lord! Now that's funny! Be nice to see a picture of that moment, wouldn't it?

They don't execute child molesters, or sexual predators of children. They should, but they don't. But a nice 30-year stretch should calm his ardor for the youngsters a tad, don'cha think?

This is a problem, made more difficult to stop by the internet, and it needs to be addressed. One fantastic organization online is trying to improve our awareness of this. Absolute Zero is, in their own words, "A community of individuals pledged to fight paedophiles on the web. We are committed to the safety and emotional well-being of all children. This site will serve as a resource for those committed to our fight wherever you may be in the world." A valiant effort, and I urge you to visit and even join! But more needs be done, and quickly! We need to alert our own children to the fact that this is no game. This is not an adventure but a real-life horror in the offing. We must watch our children like hawks until they are ready to go out on their own. Any hint of impropriety by a correspondent in their online chats or emails should be scrutinized. And they should be brought before the police if they are suspicious looking in the least!

Trust me, if someone is investigated, and they are innocent, they will adjust the ways they interact with younger folks. Maybe that's the problem and it's easily solved. If the person is on the brink of stepping over the threshold into predatory activity, a knock on the door by an Investigator might scare him off forever. For the full-blown predator, this may be the first time Law Enforcement gets a look at him. This will cool his ardor fro a moment, but will not stop him. But now he's on the radar screen.

You adults out there: watch those kids! Know what they're up to! It's your responsibility! Not mine, not the government's, not the police's responsibility! It's yours! If you fail, you will have to live with that the rest of your life. So keep an eye out for changes. And don't be afraid or embarrassed to talk to the cops. Believe me, they want to know what's going on more than you. They get to deal with the victims of these criminals. That's hard for anyone, but the police see far more victims than we'll ever know. So help them stop these predators before they can do real damage!

To help, and to learn, go ahead and visit Absolute Zero. Also, take a look at The Cyber Tipline, a part of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Remember, there are plenty of resources on the Web that can help you protect your kids. So get involved. Take charge. They're your kids, for heaven's sake!

Aren't they worth it?

 

Gonna send a message, are you? Gonna teach those darned Republicans a lesson, huh? Because they aren't acting like good, conservative Republicans, right? And, after all, once those naughty Republicans see just how mad we are, they'll hunker down and do what's right, won't they?

Of course in the interim the Democrats will have taken control of the House of Representatives, or the Senate, or maybe both, and will be setting their sights on the White House. And is that really what even an angry Republican wants to see? Is that the outcome you hope for? How will that improve this nation, I ask you?

Look, the Republicans have weathered quite a few "moderates" in their ranks over the years. Pennsylvania has given us Arlen Specter, for cryin' out loud! We had Jacob Javits and Lowell Weicker! Both of them were well to the left of the conservative heart of the Party. And who could point to Lincoln Chafee with pride, eh? Was Jim Jeffords worth a single vote?

Yet, the Party continues to fight for what is right, despite the need to compromise at times. For no matter what you or I may think our representatives in government should be doing, and how they should be voting, for any man or woman to be effective, they must be able to work with others in government. And that means they cannot always stick to their principles, but must compromise. For that way leads only to marginalization.

Granted, we are healthier as a Nation when our government does little. Government does very little well. As a protector of our rights, the government is slow, often in error, and ponderous in action; truly an elephant in a china shop. But as long as conservatives can look to the government and see the two branches - Legislative and Executive - in the hands of the Republicans, we can breath a tad easier. If you doubt that, look to the decades of the 60's through the early 80's. Tell me that the Republicans would have done as badly as the Democrats. You can't.

It took a long time for the Republicans to figure out that they were actually in power. Some still govern as if the Democrats were in power. That's the saddest part of the present US government. Republicans are in control but are afraid to lead as the Democrats did from the Eisenhower administration until the Clinton administration. The Democrats ruled! They were in charge and didn't ask anybody's permission to decide what to do. Today's Republicans need to learn that. They have to decide to lead from power, and ignore the nibbling of the minority.

Want to teach the Republicans a lesson? Vote them back into office. Then email and snail-mail them often! Keep them mindful that they are there only on your sufferance. And if they continue to hem and haw, if they continue to act like they need the Democrats' permission, if they still act like the media matters in the governance of this nation, then come next election, vote for the Republican challenger. Kick the incumbent out in the primaries.

Because once the general election comes around, Folks, it is too late to punish anybody but your fellow Americans. And they don't deserve another Democrat Congress. Lord knows we cannot afford that! The World cannot afford that!

Just when the Leftists thought it was safe to sit back and relax, here comes more facts to upset the Global Warming apple cart. It would seem that far from being a settled fact, Global Warming is ever more firmly entrenched in the Land of Make Believe.

Arctic waters heating up? It ain't from the Air temperature, but from beneath the waves. Anyone who has gone through the winters in the northern climes, or in Canada, knows just how cold the winters are. And the winters grow colder each year. You can't have colder winters when the globe is warming up. In fact, the summers have been cooling at least since 1998, which is the last "record high temperature" summer. Not last summer, as Al Gore tries to convince us.

So why is the ice cover seeming to shrink in the Arctic? Even while the air remains as cold as ever?

As Phil Brennan puts it: "The answer is quite simple: Mother Earth is belching up red hot magma through the ocean floor all across the globe. It may come as a surprise to you, but two-thirds of all volcanic activity takes place under the world's seas, and currently that activity is heating the oceans to the point where they are sending huge amounts of moisture up into the atmosphere, where it comes down as heavy rain in the spring, summer and fall, and snow in the winter."

And the word around the globe is the same: glaciers are growing, inching toward the seas, getting thicker. Not the opposite, which is the disinformation the Global Warming Alarmists want you to think.

What does that mean, in terms we can all understand? It means that Global Warming is a myth. If anything, we are beginning our descent into an Ice Age. And there is not one thing we can do to stop it. We may be able to mitigate the damage somewhat, with smart actions now, but we are not going to be able to change what the Earth decides to do.

Oh, we won't be seeing Ice Sheets building up in Wisconsin, or glaciers inching through the Manhattan streets. That's in the distant future. As many of us have been saying for at least 20 years, climate is something that moves over vast areas of time, not just space.

So don't worry about the alarmists and their latest idiotic prattlings about warming trends. They're wrong. And they are nearly uniformly made by people who have a vested interest in destroying the Western economies. That's all they care about. Kyoto proves that. They sure as hell don't care about you and yours. So, read the reports by the geologists and oceanographers. Think about what it all means.

And maybe buy an extra parka or two. Your descendants will thank you!