as I live a few more questions

If You're Going to Go to Hell, You May As Well Go Express...

Surfing the Web on my lunch hour, and came across this news story on an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia.  If Britney Spears' recent behaviour was a cry for help, then this guy's life is a 130-decibel horror movie scream for help:

I mean, you know someone's in serious trouble when the fact that he's a crystal meth dealer lands up in the secondary headline....

"It's not my fault! the priest made me do it/I was drunk/I'm gay!"

I am so angry, and I have so much to say about the Mark Foley scandal down in the U.S., that I hardly know where to begin.

Lawyers acting for Mark Foley, the Republican congressman who resigned after it was revealed he had sent sexually charged emails to teenage boys, said yesterday that the politician had been abused by a member of the clergy as a teenager.

No details of the alleged abuse were given, other than that Mr Foley, who is a Roman Catholic, was between 13 and 15 years old at the time of the abuse. One lawyer, David Roth, acknowledged for the first time that the congressman, 52, is gay. "Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man," Mr Roth told a news conference in Florida, adding that the admission was part of a "recovery" programme. He also insisted that Mr Foley was "absolutely, positively not a paedophile". Mr Foley said in a statement on Monday that he was an alcoholic and that he was entering a recovery programme to treat his condition. (Glaister, Dan. "Republican who sent indecent emails was abused ", The Guardian, October   4, 2006)

Oh, so now he finally decides to come out of the closet, several years after he was already outed by The Advocate newsmagazine for hypocritcally voting in favour of the "Defence of Marriage" act. 

And of course, now he checks himself into rehab, whimpering: "I did because I was drunk.";  "I did it because of that priest." 

Entering a "recovery" program?  Recovery from what?  Being gay?  Being drunk?  Getting caught??

I find it beyond pathetic that Foley finally plays the gay card, only when he thinks it will help him.  How can it help him, you ask?  By not-so-subtly using the "I'm gay so I molest children" charge which the Religious Right likes to keep throwing at us God-damned sodomites.  That way, perhaps he can cast his sexual orientation as more of a "sin" that needs "recovery".   This man is a disgrace to honest queer people everywhere, and I comfort myself with the thought that he's gonna be one helluva popular bitch at whatever prison he lands up in.

Oh, and he says he's not a paedophile?!?  Well, I guess that depends on the law, but really.  As more word leaks out about the content of those IM messages between him and one or more teenagers, one has to ask just how Mark Foel defines the term. 

Apparently he is now saying (via his lawyer) that since no physical (i.e. face-to-face) acts took place, he is not a paedophile.  This defence falls intro the category of "I never has sex with that woman!"   Clinton learned a blow job is sex.  Foley is going to soon learn that cybersex is sex.

And to make matters even worse, until his resignation he was a co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and a backer of new legislation, the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which he may well now be charged under.  HE WAS IN A POSITION OF TRUST.  (I wonder what Joe Walsh, Adam's father and host of America's Most Wanted, is thinking now.)

I got news for Mr. Foley: Being gay does NOT excuse what you did.  Being a drunk does NOT excuse what you did.  Being a victim of child sex abuse does NOT excuse what you did.  Being ANY COMBINATION OF a diddled-with, drunken faggot does NOT excuse what you did, in any way, shape or form.  That you even TRY to use these as excuses or defenses makes you even viler, if that is possible.

I hope Foley gets the book thrown at him.  His grasping, gawping response by checking into rehab and blaming booze/sexual abuse/being gay is absolutely, utterly, completely vile and reprehensible. Thankfully, most people can already see through that "rehab" act pretty easily; it's getting old. 

And ANYBODY in the U.S. federal or state govenments who is found to have kept his secrets hidden deserves to be tossed out on his ass and go down in flames along with Foley. 
  

UPDATE: Now Newt Gingrich has said that one reason why the Republicans in power didn't act on Mark Foley sooner was that they were afraid of being accused of "gaybashing".  What the...?!  As John Stewart said in response on The Today Show, assuming that all homosexuals are child sex offenders IS gaybashing.

A Sociologist's View on Kimveer Gill

This is one of the more intelligent paragraphs I've encountered in the wake of the Dawson College shootings in Montreal:

The U.S. Secret Service is in the business of profiling rare events and has concluded that we will never be able to predict who will become a school shooter.  We cannot create a profile that will the capture the variations of these individuals' backgrounds.  What we can do is encourage kids to back off on the bullying and harassment that sends school shooters over the edge.  And we can think again about the images of manhood that promote violence or convince a teenage boy that if he isn't the captain of the football team, he is a worthless misfit.  (Newman, Katherine.  "The Roots of Rampage", The Globe and Mail, Sept. 15, 2006, p. A17)

Dr. Katharine Newman is a sociologist at Princeton University who has conducted research into school shootings in the U.S. and has written a book, Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (2004)

The only discordant note in all this is that Kimveer Gill was well out of high school.  He was 25 years old by the time he walked into Dawson College with his three guns and ammunition.  However, it is clear from reading his blog on VampireFreaks.com that he had the mindset of a teenager.  Some people just never grow up until it is too late.

Montreal shooter Kimveer Gill's profile page on VampireFreaks

Thanks to Google cache (so look at it while you still can), you can view the online profile of Kimveer Gill, the goth gunman who opened fire on students at Dawson College in Montreal yesterday.  Some chilling stuff here, including a picture of a gravestone with his name on it, and the results of the following "personality tests" (click image for larger size):

read more | digg story

The Pilot's Tale

This is must reading: a Delta airline pilot, whose plane was suspected of being hijacked on 9/11, tells his story. 

Stephen Marshall on Angelfire: Likes "Militant Civilians"

Stephen Marshall, the Nova Scotia man who hunted down and killed two child sex offenders in Maine before committing suicide (see left), had a personal website on Angelfire (not a "blog" as The Globe and Mail reports today ).  It's been taken down already, but you can still access all the pages via Google's cache. Another fascinating opportunity to look into the mind of a murderer.  Among his likes and dislikes (see screen capture right), Steve includes "militant civilians".

But what's really chilling is that Steve's website is so... normal. 

Sure, looking back now, after it happened, you can see some clues, as the Globe points out for its readers.  But really now.  Before this incident, would you have marked this as the personal website of a potential killer?   What the hell happened here?  Why did he decide to become a vigilante? 

I bet a lot of American registered sex offenders whose name and address are public property via the Internet are looking rather nervously over their shoulders today. 

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