It's not legal for kids under 16 to have sex in most states, but penalties are less if all people involved are under 16, or if one of the people is also a teenager, not more than four years older, not taking advantage of someone, and so on and so on. In Kansas, a 17-year-old having sex with a 14-year-old can earn the 17-year-old a year in jail if prosecuted. Except if both are the same sex: in that case, it earns the 17-year-old 17 years in jail. Yes, that's right: sixteen more years in jail for two gay people doing something than two straight people doing the same thing. The ACLU is filing a friend-of-the-court brief to argue that whatever the penalty is, it should be the same for all people. Try convincing a gay teenager how not getting sixteen more years in jail than his straight friends is a "special right."

A Kennedy family member is alleged to have killed a girl when he was 15 years old, in 1975. Despite allegations back and forth for 25 years, he is not actually charged with the murder until 2001. Because he was 15 at the time of the crime, he was originally charged in juvenile court. The family court judge transferred the case to adult court because, quite frankly, the guy is 41 years old now. As an adult, he can be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. If convicted as a juvenile, he would be limited to four years in prison because that's the maximum sentence he could have faced at the time.

As dumb as this sounds, this is a very bad precedent. Since there's no statute of limitations on crimes involving death, any prosecutor could decide to delay filing charges against a 14-year old or 12-year old or even 6-year old until the kid reaches majority and then lock him up for life instead of punishing him at the time so he learns responsibility for his actions and gets whatever help he needs.

There are plenty of people in the US who think any crime means you should be locked up forever, period. The majority of people do not believe this way. Either there is a juvenile justice system in this country or there is not, and if there is, we should stop throwing it out the window because the crimes horrify us. There can't be one level of justice for kids who get in the newspaper and another level for those who don't.

All that talk about the Red Cross having a "breakdown in communications" over what it intended to do with the $543 million collected for September 11 disaster relief is increasingly documented as complete fiction. The Washington Post shows that the American Red Cross has a history of collecting millions of dollars for local disaster relief and then, wherever possible, spending as little as 25% of the money on actual local disaster relief. $13 million collected after the Murrah building bombing in 1995, $3 million spent in Oklahoma City. $55 million collected after the Loma Prieta earthquake that hurt San Francisco in 1989; $12 million spent (SF's then-mayor Art Agnos asked for $7 million to help build homeless shelters, and the Red Cross refused, even though it had collected $41 million more for the SF disaster than what it spent; after public hearings, the RC finally gave back $5.4 million to help SF's homeless).

In San Diego, the situation is even worse: after collecting over $400,000 for victims of a January 2001 wildfire in that area, the Red Cross distributed less than $10,000 to victims, mostly in the form of small clothes vouchers to people who lost everything. Counting disaster relief not going directly to victims, the local Red Cross spent $123,000 of the $400,000 for the reason donors had suggested. They tried to spend $112,000 of it -- almost as much as spent on real disaster relief -- on "vehicle use and a telephone system upgrade" (what is it with the Red Cross and spending disaster relief on phones?). An internal Red Cross audit found lots of problems, but when the audit was provided to the local news media, the local chapter had edited out the most critical passages! Someone leaked the unedited audit and the effluvium has hit the air circulation device. The local chapter even had the gall to ask the owner of the San Diego Padres, who donated $100,000 to the fund, if they could move it out of the fund because they'd "met all the victims' needs" (by giving people with no homes $400 or so each). He refused -- good for him.

What's most annoying here is not that the Red Cross wants to use major disasters as a fund-raising effort to build its relief fund for future disasters. Not every disaster is heart-tugging, not every community can contribute enough to help its own needy. What's most annoying is not that the Red Cross doesn't do a good job of telling people that their donations will be used for general relief if they don't earmark them for specific purposes.

It is that even when funds are earmarked for specific disaster relief that the Red Cross continually and almost certainly deliberately refuses to release more than a small percentage -- usually around 25% -- for their intended purpose. It is that when such deception is discovered, the charity always implies it's some "disconnect" or "communication breakdown" when today's story shows that it's in fact normal operating procedure at the Red Cross. It's that it takes public hearings and threats of regulation to get the Red Cross to do what it says it will do with donated money -- not in NYC, or in OKC, or in San Francisco or in San Diego, but everyplace it gets big local disaster relief donations. It's that the Red Cross thinks its beyond examination or criticism because it's the Red Cross.

This from an organization whose executive staff collectively gets over $2 million per year in salaries. You'd think for that money they could find people who want to make sure all the victims have homes and more than week's worth of food before worrying about new SUVs for the chapter president and new PBX systems.

I still say there's more here than has been revealed. If your faith in an american icon is already shaken, brace yourself, because I'll bet it gets worse.

Jerry Falwell said that liberals and gays were "partly" responsible for the September 11 attacks, then two days later apologized, then a month later sent out a fund-raising letter (from his son) seeking money to fight the "attacks" on him over "telling the truth." According to Falwell, as quoted in the Sunday Washington Post, the most hate mail he's gotten is from people who are mad that he apologized in the first place. Wonder how Falwell has the authority to make such judgements? "I think a Christian person has the right to define something as wrong or good." Of course, Mormons, gay people, etc., aren't really Christian, so that's that. Falwell even brags about how he stole his wife from the man she was engaged to -- his college roommate, and how he invited gay Christians to his school to talk to them but not to listen to them. (found via MetaFilter)