How About a Wi-Creep-edia?

The horrific tale around the resurfacing of a girl kidnapped 18 years ago who had been kept prisoner in outside sheds with the two children she had by her captor highlights how ineffective our criminal justice system often is. The ungodly creep - one Philip Garrido - had previously been convicted of kidnapping and rape! He was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 1977, but was paroled in 1988. Yes, he was on the sex-offenders list, but how polluted is that list with marginal cases like 23-year old guys having sex with 16-year old girls or cases of date rape (I'm not excusing those acts, but they're not creepy behavior in the "sexual predator" vein)?

A WiCreepedia would allow for tracking of anyone convicted of serious sexual acts. It could be abused to slander people and of course the predators themselves could quickly update their own info to cleanse or throw people off track. But at a minimum anyone who has abducted a stranger is almost certainly a continuing danger to society. There is no excusing an act like that - it is quite simply pathological, and its perpetrator almost certainly irredeemable. The existing list allows you to find a specific offender or find offenders within a specific jurisdiction. But we need one that allows searches by type of offense, age of victim, parole status, etc. If the citizenry could have such a tool, we might be able to flush out more of these unsolved atrocities.

Some of that "Frank" Discussion

Residential segregation underlies virtually every racial disparity in America, from education to jobs to the delivery of health care.

That was from an article in the New York Times on a Westchester County desegregation agreement, quoting the head of the group that filed the suit.

It's quite a bold statement - "every racial disparity" - and no rebuttal is provided. Indeed, what rebuttal could there be? How would you rebut such a statement - publicly? You could try, but unless you're willing to wear the mantle of Demonic Racist, your best outcome would be in the end hanging your head and humbly admitting that "yes, I suppose, ultimately, it all does get back to discrimination..." I'm sure that something like that underlies the calls for a "frank discussion on race" - that it would end with derision and laughter for the Yahoos* and humiliation and confessions from the more thoughtful dissenters.

* This usually is enough - witness what's happening now with the townhall fracases. The "respectable" conservatives just can't withstand the mortifying guilt-by-association.

On Vacation

I'm on vacation this week without a computer so there won't be any new posts until at least Sunday (I'm posting this from my smartphone). I'll try dome twittering in the meantime ("yourlyingeyes").