Weston, Wis. - The mother of an 11-year-old girl who died of untreated diabetes said Wednesday that she did not know her daughter was terminally ill as she prayed for her to get better. Madeline Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed and treatable form of diabetes. Her mother, Leilani Neumann, told The Associated Press she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die. The family believes in the Bible, and it says healing comes from God, but they are not crazy, religious people and they have nothing against doctors, she said. The girl’s father, Dale Neumann, a former police officer, said he has friends who are doctors. He started CPR “as soon as the breath of life left” his daughter’s body, he said. Other family members called 911 to seek emergency help, Leilani Neumann said. “We are remaining strong for our children,” she said. “Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time.”

More Bush-league dancin’ fool:

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A woman accused of killing her month-old daughter by burning her in a microwave confessed to the crime, saying the baby “fit right in” the oven, a prosecutor said Thursday.

If she hadn’t, would she still be alive? Or would she have just put her in a larger appliance?

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The mother of two Sioux City girls that police said were killed by their stepfather said her husband described himself as a pagan and routinely practiced spells to keep those around him healthy and happy.

Marla Harris told The Des Moines Register that her husband, Lawrence Harris Sr., told her at the police department that he was trying to help the girls. Harris is accused of stabbing and strangling his stepdaughters on Sunday, then setting their house on fire to cover up the crime.

Kendra Suing, 10, and her sister Alysha, 8, were found dead in their bedroom on Sunday.

Police said it was part of an unexplained ritual linked to his unconventional religious beliefs.

Source

I can’t even read about that guy who threw his kids off a bridge because it’s too upsetting. Happy F’ing New Year!

… of trees, that is. I live near North Hollywood High School and they have been chopping down trees since the morning of December 26th, starting promptly at 8:30 am. This has been going on all day. Every day. Finally today I called the police station, somewhat apologetically, but the Officer on desk duty told me that he was sorry, tree trimming is not illegal, unless it was on Sundays.

Three chainsaws have been revving up for the fourth day in a row and all I can do is picture how I’d use those chainsaws on the tree trimmers.

Last night, we had a brownout. All of the lights dimmed and stayed that way for a few hours. Too many christmas lawn displays perhaps?

(CNN) — The government asked a federal court Tuesday to order former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick to keep on hand assets valued at more than $900,000 — the amount earmarked for the care of 54 pit bulls. The animals were found on his property when a dogfighting operation was busted last April.

Vick turned himself in to authorities Monday to get a jump start on serving his sentence for running the ring.

In a motion filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson noted that Vick, in his plea agreement, agreed to pay “restitution for the full amount of the costs associated with the disposition of all dogs” in the case.

Vick agreed that those costs could include “the long-term care and/or the humane euthanasia of some or all of those animals,” which were seized from the “Bad Newz Kennels” on his property in Surry County, Virginia.

is going on in Laguna Beach?
From the LAT:

Laguna Beach lifeguards found another headless bird on a city beach, the seventh beheaded animal discovered since last week.

The animal, a dove or pigeon, was found at the north end of Main Beach, said Laguna Beach police Sgt. Jason Kravetz. Two goats, three chickens and a rooster have also been found since Nov. 8.

“It appears to be related to the other ones. It was a headless animal and we’ve had a spate over seven days,” Kravetz said.

Rude Pundit catches a whiff of the story:

. . . former Secretary of Defense and bespectacled herald of doom and destruction Donald Rumsfeld had to make a break for it when a coalition of the way-more-than willing human rights groups filed a complaint with the French courts over his authorization of torture at Gitmo and elsewhere. Just the thought that, even for a moment or two, after his attendance at a breakfast in Paris sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine, Rumsfeld feared he might be jailed and told to answer for his crimes is enough to sustain this blogger for a while. It’s orgasm-inducing, isn’t it? The notion that Rumsfeld was sweating, wondering if at any moment French officials might actually have les couilles to do it?

Sounds too good to be true. Can you imagine Rummy giving his typical byzantine answers in a court of law?

More on the complaint from the IHT:

A group of U.S. and European human rights organizations is pursuing a legal complaint against Donald Rumsfeld in a Paris court that accuses the former defense secretary of being responsible for torture.

The group, which includes the International Federation for Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and the Nork York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, filed the complaint late Thursday and unsuccessfully sought to confront Rumsfeld as he left a breakfast meeting in central Paris on Friday.

Jeanne Sulzer, a lawyer for the group, said the complaint was filed with a state prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, who has the power to pursue the case because of Rumsfeld’s presence in France.

I’m right there with you, Dame Helen. The same thing happened to me.

“There is a close-up of a woman having a baby, a close up straight up her vagina, and that’s all you see, and these are thirteen year old boys and girls, and its bloody and disgusting. Within thirty seconds two boys had fainted and the lights went on and they were carried out. I put my hands over my face because I realised I couldn’t watch this.”

The actress, who is married to American director Taylor Hackford, said she was deeply affected by the film: “I swear it traumatised me, I haven’t had children and I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth, it absolutely disgusts me.”

Is she disgusted by gallbladders? This is straight out of Dr. Moreau … or Hannibal Lecter.

MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) — French surgeons report removing a gallbladder through a woman’s vagina, joining a handful of surgeons around the world who have tried the novel technique because it eliminates visible scarring and minimizes postoperative pain. In March, surgeons at Columbia University in New York City performed a similar operation, and, last week, so did surgeons at the University of California, San Diego. The procedure has also been used for removing the appendix.

What next? Your Costco groceries? Even kids, for the most part, are “optional,” as is everything else that goes in/out … but not through. Seriously. That is just plain wrong. What sick bastard came up with the “let’s try this exit” approach? I’d rather have a scar on my side then a gallbladder in my - oh, I can barely even write about this. Dame Helen, where are you?

Thank the Virgin Mary that there is someone on our side:

“As a woman, I find it distasteful and invasive to have the vagina used as a midtown tunnel for the traffic of surgery, simply because there are a few surgeons who are looking to find something new to do,” said Dr. Christine Ren, an assistant professor of surgery at New York University School of Medicine.

Think of it this way: knowing that a gallbladder had taken the tunnel would you stop at that rest stop for a bite? I think not.

Dana Johnson, who had her gallbladder removed through her vagina at the University of California at San Diego on Sept. 11, applauded the technique. “I think it would be more gross to have it taken out of my mouth, but that’s just me,” said Johnson, 42.

From the Times piece on Bush’s approval of torture:

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

The arrogance of these people is just staggering. Told by no less an authority than the Supreme Court of the United States that what they are doing is illegal, the Bush administration publicly discontinues the illegal practice — then reinitiates the same illegality in secret.

The significance of this cannot be understated. Legal Positivist H.L.A. Hart, in The Concept of Law, described the complex interplay between what he called primary and secondary rules of law — the first being laws of command, the second being the laws which determine how primary rules are created, modified, interpreted, or abolished.

What the Bush administration has done has gone far beyond simply breaking the law; his brazen acts erode the very means by which America has, for centuries, formulated and administered its system of laws. This administration no longer recognizes Marbury v. Madison, which posited that the Supreme Court was the ultimate arbiter of what is and what isn’t law, as legitimate. He has arrogated that to the executive branch, and his contempt for our system of laws, and the notion that we are a nation of laws and not men, is manifest.