Parents Let Kids Walk Around Neighborhood Unsupervised, Are Terrible Parents Obviously

• There are terrible parents who do terrible things to their children, and they probably shouldn't be parents and should not have children. Like parents who beat the ever-lovin' crap out of their kids (yes, even if they are sportsball stars ). Or make baby pose with a gun because LOL, it's not loaded, what could go wrong? And they deserve to have jackbooted thugs take their children away from them. And then there is idiotic stuff like this:  

  It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently.

  Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children. [...]

  Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them.

  Police on Wednesday did not immediately have information on the case. But a spokeswoman said that when concerns are reported, “we have a responsibility as part of our duty to check on people’s welfare.”

  Now Child Protective Services is on the case, just to make sure the parents who let their children stroll around in their own neighborhood -- unsupervised! -- are not actually neglecting or endangering their children by letting them stroll around in their own neighborhood:

  The Meitivs say that on Dec. 20, a CPS worker required Alexander to sign a safety plan pledging he would not leave his children unsupervised until the following Monday, when CPS would follow up. At first he refused, saying he needed to talk to a lawyer, his wife said, but changed his mind when he was told his children would be removed if he did not comply.

  Yes, we are glad there is such a thing as Child Protective Services, and yes, we understand that there are procedures, and CPS is obligated to investigate reports of child neglect or abuse. And that's a good thing. But is allowing a 10-year-old boy to take his little sister for a walk in the neighborhood really supposed to be neglect and/or abuse?Really? Come ON, obnoxious neighbor who sees kids walking in their neighborhood and thinks, "Oh no, danger! I must call the police!" Perhaps in our millennial era of every child getting a trophy for being a beautiful unique snowflake, we've completely forgotten that it really is OK for kids to just be, you know, kids. Including the kind who don't need to be supervised until they are, say, 25 and not ready for the big bad world just yet.

•  Nixon plus Elvis plus the Beatles. Whose side areyouon?

  But beneath the sideburns, there lies a darker truth about the time Elvis and Nixon met: the King wanted to take down the Beatles. [...]

  First, Elvis said, "The Beatles had been a real force for anti-American spirit." He then claimed that "the Beatles came to this country, made their money, and then returned to England where they promoted an anti-American theme."

  Those comments put Richard Nixon in the atypical position of being the less-paranoid person in the conversation.

• You shouldn't let social media should stress you out. It's science, sort of:

  Heavy users of the Internet and social media do not have higher levels of stress, and women who use Twitter, email and photo sharing show less stress than women who do not use them, a survey released on Thursday showed. [...]

  "There is no evidence in our data that social media users feel more stress than people who use digital technologies less or not at all," Keith Hampton, a Rutgers University professor who led the report, said in a statement.

• Our friends at Happy Nice Time People are just wondering if anyone cares that Rupert Murdoch is an ultra-racist:  

  TV network and news mogul Rupert Murdoch had some ridiculously racist stuff to say on Twitter.

  Says Murdoch: “Maybe most negroes peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing violent thug cancer, they must be held responsible.”

  Holy fuck, right? Oh, wait, sorry, Murdoch actually said it about Muslims [...]

  Yeah, everyone knows Rupert is an evil, ancient fear-monger, but why isn’t this getting more play?

• It's Religious Freedom Day, so go ahead and enjoy some. Here's a reminder of what that means from President Obama's obligatory proclamation this year:

  On January 16, 1786, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was adopted. It was one of the first laws in our Nation to codify the right of every person to profess their opinions in matters of faith, and it declares that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any" religion. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson and guided through the Virginia legislature by James Madison, this historic legislation served as a model for the religious liberty protections enshrined in our Constitution.

  The First Amendment prohibits the Government from establishing religion. It protects the right of every person to practice their faith how they choose, to change their faith, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free from persecution and fear.

• Sure, it's satire. But is it really?

   New Climate Change Study Just 400 Pages Of Scientists Telling Americans To Read Previous Climate Change Studies