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Sandra E. Graham ^(8,900) United States

Sandra E. Graham

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What Price Justice?----Father Executes Son

Posted Thursday, November 19, 2009 (1 day 4 hours ago.) Viewed 375 times.

When we hear the stories of child sexual abuse, we want the abuser to suffer and hurt the way their victims are hurt and suffer. The disgust and horror we feel as we think about these people, these strangers that we do not know, that can commit crimes of abuse against small children is magnified if we have young children ourselves.

But what of the abuser or pedophile that we do know, possibly even a family member? Are we so quick to judge harshly? Do we want a family member to suffer the same fate we would wish on a stranger, someone we haven't known all our lives? Would we require the same justice?

Apparently a father in Highland Park , Michigan feels that justice should be dealt out harshly even to family members and by family members of the abuser. The man's 15-year-old son confessed to his mother that he had had sexual contact with a 3-year-old girl. Horrified by the confession from her son, the mother calls his father and tells him what their son has just told her.

The enraged father comes home to mete out his own form of justice. Holding a gun to his son's head, the father forces the son to strip, then marches him out of the house while the boy and his mother cry and beg the father to stop. The boy is forced to kneel while his father shoots him several times in the head. An execution by any standards.

As horrible as the son's crime is, how can we justify this type of punishment? No one abhors child abuse more than I, but I would be hard pressed to justify the execution style killing of a 15-year-old boy. His crime was unconscionable, even for a 15-year-old, but he must have felt some remorse since he did go to his mother and confess. I seriously doubt that he was going to become an habitual molester as most habitual sex offenders and pedophiles don't confess until after they are caught red-handed. But, even so, what kind of father could arbitrarily shoot his son in the head while he knelt begging, "No, Daddy, No!", for his life.

I am all for punishment fitting the crime', but punishment needs to be dealt out by the law and beyond that, by God. So many criminals get away (or at least think they do) with their crimes, but I am a firm believer that those who do not receive their punishment here on earth will certainly receive judgment in the hereafter.

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More Fall-Out From 9/11----How Many Will Fall Victim to Long Term After-Effects??

Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 (7 days 20 hours ago.) Viewed 479 times.

Our country may not only be mourning the lost on that fateful day and the weeks following, but may also have a new reason to mourn. It seems that the toxic chemicals breathed in by so many involved in the rescue operations, may now be causing some very serious health problems---including the big "C". Five firefighters and police officers, all of whom were involved in the rescue and clean-up operations at the site of the collapsed Twin Towers, have died of cancer in the past three months, the oldest being 44. The fact that three died just last month within a four-day period, brings the point more frighteningly clear. These men and women worked so hard to help save so many, and survived the dangers of the moment, only to find years later that they, too, have paid the ultimate price.

These cancer deaths come on the heels of legistlation presented to Congress to provide Federal help to emergency workers who have contracted illnesses since 9/11. Proponents of the bill hope it will be put to the House of Representatives by the end of this year and will set up a $10 billion national fund for hundreds of people who now have cancer, respiratory illnesses, and other diseases that could well be linked to fall-out' from the World Trade Centre devastation.

Photograph: Graham Morrison/AP

Some 70,000 people worked on the tremendous task at Ground Zero, including police, firefighters, and other groups coming to New York from all over the U.S. And many worked for weeks and weeks amid a toxic potporri of dust and chemicals. Some of the pollutants in this great heap of debris which was once the twin towers of the World Trade Center and in the air itself were 90,000 litres of jet fuel from the two planes used to topple the towers, approximately 1,000 tons of asbestos from the buildings themselves, demolished lead from computers, mercury and the highly carcinogenic fumes from the burning of plastics and chlorinated checmicals.

So far, there is no official estimate for the number of those who have died as a result of the 9/11 clean-up. Although, 817 deaths of emergency workers have been recorded, the New York health department has not confirmed categorically just how many may have been directly linked to the work site.

Since Federal funds for the ill emergency workers ran out in 2003, the brunt of the burden has since fallen on the already cash-strapped New York City. The city is facing up to 10,000 claims for compensation through its courts. Now the families who have died feel that it is only right that the entire nation should help in shouldering the burden as well. And I agree; they have a very good argument.

The 9/11 Police Aid Foundation founded by police officers say it is helping more than 100 officers who worked at the site and who now have cancer. The group reports receiving new cases at a rate of at least one per week---many of which are extremely rare at such young ages.

It seems the struggle to put behind us the horrors of that single September day will be much harder than we ever expected. Let us keep all these brave individuals in our hearts and in our prayers. And push our Congressmen to pass this bill to give these people the Federal help they so desparately need.

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Child Porn PC Virus--And We Thought Identity Theft Was The Worst It Could Get

Posted Sunday, November 08, 2009 (11 days 18 hours ago.) Viewed 118 times.

Just when we were thinking it was safe to go back on the computer, we are informed of another PC virus threat--- Child Porn Virus! It has been discovered that pedophiles or just malicious hackers can put a virus on your computer that will open hundreds of illegal child porn web sites and load your computer down with child pornography while you go innocently, unsuspecting about your business. Suddenly the police are at your door and your world is turned inside out and upside down. And the bad thing about all this, is that true pedophiles use this as a defense when they get caught.

An investigation has shown that many innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their family, employers, or co-workers have found pornography on their infected computers. A Massachusetts man found out just how real this threat can be when, unknowingly, his computer became infected with a virus that was programmed to visit as many as 40 porn sites per minute. His bosses became suspicious when his company supplied laptop showed that he used 4-1/2 times more data space than any of his co-workers. The man was fired, arrested, and spent over $250,000 on defense lawyers. It wasn't until after all this that he was finally cleared of the charges when his computer was discovered to be severely infected.

Of the estimated one billion Internet connected PC's worldwide, about twenty million are already infected with viruses that can remotely control many different functions of the computer. Viruses can enter your computer in a number of ways---most commonly through opened emails or visiting malicious web sites.

"They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield," says Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University.

Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child pornographers were abusing their legitimate services. The first publicly known cases were discovered in the United Kingdom when two men were cleared after their computers were proven to be infected by the viruses in 2003. So, this threat is not something new, it just may not have been as well publicized as we would like to have it. It is certainly something that we should all be aware of and keep our guard up against.

Since that time, there have been many cases of child pornography viruses that have caused many innocent people to lose custody of their children, loss of jobs, loss of family and friends; not to mention the blight on their reputations. In all these cases, the central evidence was not in dispute---the porn was there. The hard part was proving how it got there.

Many prosecutors say blaming a computer virus for child porn is a new version of an old ploy.

"We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It," says James Anderson, a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.

It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto a PC.

"Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as "painfully simple" to get a computer to download something the owner doesn't want - whether it's a program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures. It's possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be discovered.

The only thing a person can really do is use the best anti-virus protection available and hope it is enough.

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What Price Justice?----Father Executes Son

More Fall-Out From 9/11----How Many Will Fall Victim to Long Term After-Effects??

Child Porn PC Virus--And We Thought Identity Theft Was The Worst It Could Get

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