Australian Couple Leaves Their Baby with Surrogate Mother After Discovering Medical Issues

It's a beautiful baby.

Hope for Gammy page raises thousands for baby with Downs Syndrome left with surrogate mother http://t.co/RCT5I1cirM pic.twitter.com/S2Mnjik0d8

— The Independent (@Independent) August 2, 2014

The truly awful Australians who just abandoned their sick, newborn baby in Thailand because he has Down Sydrome. http://t.co/CnYAMDZwFP

— Mamamia (@Mamamia) August 1, 2014

Selfish & sad - children are not like "products" to be returned if they don't have a hipster fashion label http://t.co/Bc8TfuKUF7

— Craig Wallace (@CraigWtweets) August 1, 2014

'Hope for Gammy' takes off after Australian couple abandons surrogate twin with #DownSyndrome http://t.co/TrUCWm6I6y pic.twitter.com/8hVabrdBXW

— The Stream (@AJStream) August 1, 2014

Cooper Harris, 22-Month-Old Baby in #HotCarDeath, Had 'Scratches' on Face, 'Abrasions' to Back of Head

Well, CNN had on the whole probable cause bond hearing for Ross Harris today. The case will be going to trial. See the Marietta Daily Journal, "Judge rules there is probable cause for trial; no bond for father."

Just the fact of the alleged premeditated murder of the boy, Cooper, who died of hyperthermia, is horrible enough. But at the hearing the detective testified to as many of six graphic "sext" messages sent by the defendant, including that of an erect penis. Harris had also received images of women's breasts. So it's salacious and depraved, as all this sexting was going on as the baby was boiling to death outside in the car. Jane Velez-Mitchell was on a CNN panel earlier and she was just horrified, noting especially how the child was obviously thrashing violently in an effort to release himself from the seat-belt, scratching his face and causing lacerations to his head. I don't see video for that, but here's a live-blog transcript at HLN, "Cop: Dad sexted while child died in hot car":

2:09 p.m. ET: Stoddard said several injuries were found on the toddler’s body:
“Marks on the child’s face. It would have come from the child or a scratch being made while the child was alive and then not healing or scabbing over or anything after that, soon after he passed away.” There were also abrasions to the back of the boy’s head, according to Stoddard.

During the day, Harris was having conversations with up to six different women, according to Stoddard, who said explicit photos were being exchanged.

“We’ve only scratched the surface,” said Stoddard in regards to the searches done on Harris’ computers.

Some video of the detective's testimony, "Detective: 'We've only scratched the surface'."

And watch Nancy Grace's segment pre-hearing, laying out her theory of likely developments in the case. She pretty much nailed it:

Connecticut Teenager Stabbed to Death Over High School Prom Rejection

Now this is senseless. At NYT, "Connecticut Teenager Is Fatally Stabbed by Fellow Student, Police Say."

A 16-year-old student was stabbed to death by another student in the hallway of a Connecticut high school on Friday morning, the authorities said.

The victim, identified as Maren Sanchez, was attacked by a 16-year-old boy at about 7:15 a.m. on the first floor of the Jonathan Law High School in Milford, Chief Keith Mello of the Milford Police Department said at a news conference midmorning. Both Ms. Sanchez and the attacker, who was not identified because he is a minor, were students at the school.

School staff members tried to resuscitate Ms. Sanchez after the attack, Chief Mello said. She was pronounced dead at 7:43 a.m. at Bridgeport Hospital. The attacker was subdued by staff members and taken into police custody, Chief Mello said.

Chief Mello gave no indication of a possible motive, but said investigators were looking into reports that a dispute over the junior class prom, scheduled for Friday evening, could have prompted the attack. School officials canceled classes for the rest of the day and later announced that the prom was canceled as well.

“This is a very raw, a very fresh investigation,” Chief Mello said...

The New York Post isn't being so circumspect about the killer's motive, "Teen girl stabbed to death at school after rejecting prom invitation."

So, a beautiful young life cut short, and a family shattered, and you know the progressive "criminal justice" authorities will do everything possible to keep the killer from doing hard time. And don't even think about the death penalty. Not only are minors exempt, but Connecticut banned capital punishment in 2012.

How long will until another beautiful young life cut down? There's simply no deterrent, and victims' families get no justice. But we'll see. We'll see.

Put the Sex Back in Sex Ed

From Camille Paglia, at Time:

When public schools refuse to acknowledge gender differences, we betray boys and girls alike.

Fertility is the missing chapter in sex education. Sobering facts about women’s declining fertility after their 20s are being withheld from ambitious young women, who are propelled along a career track devised for men.

The refusal by public schools’ sex-education programs to acknowledge gender differences is betraying both boys and girls. The genders should be separated for sex counseling. It is absurd to avoid the harsh reality that boys have less to lose from casual serial sex than do girls, who risk pregnancy and whose future fertility can be compromised by disease. Boys need lessons in basic ethics and moral reasoning about sex (for example, not taking advantage of intoxicated dates), while girls must learn to distinguish sexual compliance from popularity.

Above all, girls need life-planning advice. Too often, sex education defines pregnancy as a pathology, for which the cure is abortion. Adolescent girls must think deeply about their ultimate aims and desires. If they want both children and a career, they should decide whether to have children early or late. There are pros, cons and trade-offs for each choice.

Unfortunately, sex education in the U.S. is a crazy quilt of haphazard programs. A national conversation is urgently needed for curricular standardization and public transparency. The present system is too vulnerable to political pressures from both the left and the right–and students are trapped in the middle....

Sex education has triggered recurrent controversy, partly because it is seen by religious conservatives as an instrument of secular cultural imperialism, undermining moral values. It’s time for liberals to admit that there is some truth to this and that public schools should not promulgate any ideology. The liberal response to conservatives’ demand for abstinence-only sex education has been to condemn the imposition of “fear and shame” on young people. But perhaps a bit more self-preserving fear and shame might be helpful in today’s hedonistic, media-saturated environment...

More.

The best sex educators are parents. I took my youngest son to his school's "guy's night out" when he was in fifth grade last year. They had one of the parents, who I think works with law enforcement, present a brief lecture on male puberty, with just a little about male reproductive organs. My kid had the part about erections on the brain for days. My wife and I were thinking our son could have easily held off on that lecture or another year or two. We of course talk about that stuff at home, but every child is different and consideration of your child's emotional and developmental maturity is important when considering having these discussions. My older son seemed to handle the "guy's night out" quite differently, and the school's presentation that year was much less explicit on male anatomy, and so forth. (And my wife and I don't have girls, so that's a whole 'nother bundle of issues to deal with.)

Is Sweden Raising a Generation of Brats?

Well, no doubt it's not just Sweden, but still.

At WSJ, "Scandinavian Country's Child-Centric Ways Stir Backlash":

Is Sweden raising a generation of brats?

The country has built a child-friendly reputation on its mandates for long parental leave and provision for state-funded day care from age 1. But a new book paints an ugly underbelly to Scandinavia's child-centric ways. Youngsters here—deemed "competent individuals" by the state and legally protected from spanking—are becoming the chief decision makers in homes at very young ages in what some Swedes think is an alarming trend.

At the center of the discussion is David Eberhard, a Swedish psychiatrist and father of six who published a book titled "How Children Took Power" last year that sparked fierce debate.

Dr. Eberhard says Sweden's child-centric model has "gone too far" and his book suggests the over-sensitivity to children and a reluctance to discipline has bred a nation of ouppfostrade, which loosely translates to "badly raised children." "All this kowtowing to the kids actually causes kids and society more harm than good," Dr. Eberhard said in an interview. He suggests the trend could contribute to higher anxiety levels or depression at a later stage in life for these children.

His book is currently being translated into English and seeking an American publisher.

"I'm not advocating going back to slapping kids," he said. "Swedish parents have lost control [when] kids take center stage in family life."

Like I said, it's not just Sweden. I used to routinely tell my oldest son that my dad would've never let me get away with the way that my son would often speak to me, because things just weren't the same back when I was a kid. (My boy's 18 now and obviously we no longer have the same kind of discipline issues as when he was, say, 12.) But not only that, even the thought of disciplining children the way our parents used to raises questions of child abuse.

More here.

Portsmouth Middle School Warns Parents About Schoolkids Snorting 'Smarties'

Oh god this is gross --- and I love "Smarties"!

At London's Daily Mail, "Parents warned of alarming new trend of students snorting Smarties that can lead to NASAL maggots."

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.

Now I've seen it all: Kids are snorting Smarties candies..and attracting nasal maggots => http://t.co/TmaxU35WE5

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) January 20, 2014

MTV's '16 and Pregnant' Cited as Cause in Reduction of Teen Pregnancy

It's a kinda "scared straight" effect, apparently.

At the New York Times, "MTV’s ‘16 and Pregnant,’ Derided by Some, May Resonate as a Cautionary Tale":

WASHINGTON — Kailyn Lowry, at age 17, decided to let MTV film her pregnancy and the birth of her first child in the hope of persuading other young men and women to wait to start a family.

“I did get two awesome blessings,” said Ms. Lowry, now 21 and married with a second child. “But I still haven’t gotten my bachelor’s degree, because, one, day care is so expensive and, two, how do you balance studying and having little ones at home?”

Ms. Lowry’s cautionary tale seems to have made an impression on at least some viewers. A new economic study of Nielsen television ratings and birth records suggests that the show she appeared in, “16 and Pregnant,” and its spinoffs may have prevented more than 20,000 births to teenage mothers in 2010.

The paper, to be released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, makes the case that the controversial but popular programs reduced the teenage birthrate by nearly 6 percent, contributing to a long-term decline that accelerated during the recession.

“It’s thrilling,” said Sarah S. Brown, the chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit group in Washington. “People just don’t understand how influential media is in the lives of young people.”

Keep reading.

Notice that the study doesn't "prove" that "16 and Pregnant" caused a drop in teen pregnancy, only that there's a strong correlation between viewership and the decline of teenagers becoming pregnant.

Interesting, though, at the video above, Brian Stelter, CNN's new media analyst, cites Hot Air as a source of commentary on the New York Times piece. Talk about blogs becoming part of the mainstream media discussion these days. See, "Newest way to reduce teen pregnancies: Watching MTV?"

Texas Whooping Cough Outbreak

This story makes me sad, especially the infant coughing.

At CBS News, "Texas battling whooping cough epidemic."

.@MelissaTweets Seeing that little coughing infant at the clip makes me cry.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 12, 2013

Bill O'Reilly on Internet Addiction

I just watched this. The 8:00 o'clock O'Reilly is on right now.

An interesting discussion at the clip. I took my youngest son to the doctor today and I was on mobile Twitter on my iPhone while waiting for the nurse to come into the examination room. After she came in and started updating my son's information, asking me some questions, my wife texted me with a reminder about the doctor appointment. I was holding my phone and started to reply to my wife. I'm in the doctor's room and my wife telling me the appointment's not until later. Huh? I start writing my wife back and then stopped. The nurse was still asking me questions. I apologized and put my phone away and concentrated on what was going on in real time.

Now, I don't use the phone very much so that was strange. On the other hand I'm on the laptop all day, while I'm having coffee in the morning, while I'm watching the afternoon news shows on CNN and Fox News, and later in the evening if I'm watching a game. I'll usually be blogging and tweeting through all these things. I'm just connected all the time. It's some kind of addiction. I wouldn't be happy if I couldn't go online and do all the things I do. And I wouldn't be able to work and teach effectively. It's just part of what I do.

But there's a time and place for it. And especially for young people, children, teenagers, and college students, people who grew up on the technology and is not a part of their lives but is their lives, I think it's creating a dangerous rewiring of human consciousness. As I mentioned the other day, I rarely see young people readings books. When I was young I always had a book. I never went somewhere without a book. If someone saw me and I wasn't holding a novel or something they'd say, "Hey, where's you book?" Nowadays, what students have read --- at least what I find from my students when I ask what they're reading --- is what they've been required to read in school, often some great literature. But I come across few students who are independently rich in reading skills, who read widely unprompted. The culture has changed, and this problem with Internet addiction, along with the larger issue of entire lives built around this social media, has led to a deterioration of social skills, literacy, and who knows what else. The Daily Mail reports today that young boys sext girls because their personal development has been completely arrested --- they don't know how to talk to girls even if they wanted to.

As people aways say, with all things, moderation is key.

What Neocon Revival?

Here's a key passage from David Brooks at the New York Time, "The Neocon Revival":

Neocons put values at the center of their governing philosophy, but their social policy was neither morally laissez-faire like the libertarians nor explicitly religious like some social conservatives. Neocons mostly sought policies that would encourage self-discipline. “In almost every area of public concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers, or voters and public officials,” James Q. Wilson wrote.

How would they know if programs induced virtue? Empirically. “Neoconservatives, accordingly, place a lot of stock in applied social science research, especially the sort that evaluates old programs and tests new ones,” Wilson added.

Nobody would call George F. Will a neocon, but, in 1983, he published a superb book called “Statecraft as Soulcraft.” It championed the sort of governing conservatism that was common then and is impermissible now. “It is generally considered obvious that government should not, indeed cannot, legislate morality. But, in fact, it does so, frequently; it should do so more often,” Will wrote.

He was not calling for a theocracy. He was calling for “strong government conservatism,” for a limited but energetic government that could cultivate the best in persons by educating the passions. “American conservatives are caught in the web of their careless antigovernment rhetoric,” he concluded.

Brooks reiterates a key point about neoconservatism: that its essence is a domestic policy movement, despite the rise of the foreign policy Vulcans during the George W. Bush administration.

But what Brooks doesn't do is examine how the so-called neocon support for "strong government" in fact erodes the values of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency that are central to a conservative creed. Also neglected is the notion that some Republicans thought of as neocons, John McCain comes to mind, have become the biggest enablers of dependency-state Democrats in recent years, and have thus tarnished the brand nearly beyond redemption. Indeed, McCain's now saying he'd more likely back Hillary Clinton over Rand Paul in 2016, which raises the question: When will McRINO be switching parties? (See IBD, "Why Does John McCain Keep Running as a Republican?")

The problem for neoconservatism is not to surrender to laissez-faire libertarianism, it's simply to stand up for the very values that it purports to champion. Pushing for a "strong government" conservatism at this point simply empowers Democrat big government. Neocons need to reconnect with the mediating institutions that help families free themselves from government dependency. This doesn't mean becoming a 100 percent small-g conservative. It means standing up for values by reining in out-of-control Democrat-collectivist entitlement statism. Without that, there is no "neocon revival."

RELATED: From Reihan Salam, at National Review, "Searching for Irving Kristol" (via Memeorandum).

#TheyFeelPain: New York Times Attacks 'Theory of Pain-Based Abortion Limits'

The New York Times is obviously still smarting from the pro-aborts' debacle in Texas.

See, "Theory on Pain Is Driving Rules for Abortions":

It challenges four decades of constitutional doctrine and is based on disputed scientific theories.

Yet a push to ban abortion at 20 weeks after conception, on the theory that the fetus can feel pain at that point, has emerged as a potent new tactic of the anti-abortion movement. Advocates saw the potential of such a measure because it taps into public concern about late-stage abortions, appears to alter the rules only incrementally, and claims to be rooted in science.

“Any time we talk about developmental landmarks of the unborn child, anything showing that the unborn child is a member of the human family — that gets the public to take a closer look at abortion,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, the state policy director of the National Right to Life Committee, who is widely seen as the architect of 20-week legislation.

The 20-week ban was first adopted in 2010 in Nebraska, where conservatives aimed to rein in one well-known abortion doctor. A pain-based abortion limit has now been enacted in a dozen states, most recently in Texas, and a bill to impose one nationally passed the Republican-controlled House in June. One recent poll, while affirming public support for legal abortion over all, suggested that a majority of people would draw the line at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion rights advocates call the pain argument duplicitous and say the laws will be declared unconstitutional, arguing that they are a reflection of Republican gains in state legislatures and not a shift in public opinion. But they have also been forced to mobilize against 20-week bills in state after state, and they credit their opponents with effective marketing.

“These laws are cloaked in the language of two-week increments, rather than banning abortion at conception or other more radical measures,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University. “They are cutting back on women’s constitutional rights, but less dramatically, so they trigger less alarm across society.”

In the three states where the bans have been legally challenged, the courts blocked them. In the standard laid out by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and elaborated on in later decisions, women have a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, around 24 weeks into pregnancy.

But proponents of 20-week bans hope that one of the cases will be accepted by the Supreme Court. Reading into opinions by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the likely swing voter, they are hoping for a legal upheaval.

With these bills, the anti-abortion movement is tapping into a powerful strand in the complex tangle of public opinion on abortion. Support for legal abortion drops when people are asked about the later stages of pregnancy.

In a Gallup poll last December, 61 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, but 27 percent said it should be legal in the second three months, and 14 percent in the final three.

Since then, other pollsters have started asking about a 20-week limit — evidence that opponents of abortion have injected the proposed cutoff into the public discourse, said Michael Dimock, the director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

By any measure, the practical impact of a 20-week ban is small compared with the potential legal and symbolic effects. In all cases but one, in Arizona, the laws ban abortions at the 20th week after fertilization, which is the 22nd week after the last menstrual period, the most common way of describing pregnancy. The estimate of fetal viability at around 24 weeks is also timed from the last menstrual period, so the actual gap between the two approaches is about two weeks, involving several thousand abortions, at most, out of an estimated 1.2 million performed every year.

Only "several thousand abortions" out of over a million each year in the left's genocide of the unborn.

Regressive leftists are evil baby killers. They're despicable people. Just disgusting.

There's still more at that top link, but again notice how the baby killers are "abortion rights activists" while the protectors of the unborn are "anti-abortion," to make it seem as if that's something shameful.

Killing the unborn is the ultimate shame. That's why I can never ever condone the ideology of the left. The have a romance with death. Leftism is an ideology of death and destruction of human decency. I never support these people. Never.

Daddy Back From Afghanistan Surprises Family in Scuba Gear

Via Theo Spark, "Scuba Soldier - Back From Afghanistan Early - Surprises Family."



Also at N.Y. Daily News, "Dad back from Afghan duty stages scuba surprise."

Toddler Sorella Stoute Buys Austin Healey on eBay Using Dad's Smartphone

They sure start young with all the technology these days.

At the Independent UK, "Toddler buys Austin Healey vintage car on eBay using dad's smartphone."

So X's Exene Cervenka Has an Advice Column — Who Knew?

And she had to leave Los Angeles, it turns out, as she now resides in suburban Orange County.

See the O.C. Weekly, "[Exene Says...] Why Are Parents Too Scared to Be Parents?":

Jason Patrick's Sperm Donor Child-Custody Dispute

Oh, modern scientific progress, the problems it creates.

At LAT, "Jason Patric custody case inspires sperm-donor-rights legislation":

SACRAMENTO — A child-custody dispute involving actor Jason Patric has evolved from Hollywood tabloid fodder into a policy battle in the state Legislature that could affect thousands of California parents.

Patric, a star of films including "The Lost Boys," donated sperm in 2009 as part of a fertility treatment that resulted in pregnancy for a former girlfriend, Danielle Schreiber.

The actor decided he wanted to help raise the child, Gus, who is now 3, but has been stymied in his attempts to gain partial custody in court. A bill unanimously passed by the state Senate, now pending in the Assembly, would change the law to make such efforts easier.

Under state law, someone who donates sperm through a doctor or sperm bank and who is not married to the woman who conceives is not recognized as the child's natural father. The only exception is if the couple agreed in writing before conception that the donor was to be considered a parent.

Patric had donated the sperm in a doctor-supervised procedure, but he and Schreiber had no such agreement, and the two are no longer together, according to Fred D. Heather, Schreiber's attorney. As a result, a judge denied Patric's claim.

A bill by state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) would allow courts to grant parental rights to sperm donors under broader conditions — for example, if a donor showed that he openly acknowledged the child as his own and received the child into his home.

"In circumstances where you have a sperm donor creating a parenting relationship with a child, someone should not be allowed to take that away from the child," said Hill, who has written other parental-rights laws.

Hill said it is appropriate that the bill is being considered in California, which has more fertility clinics than any state. Parental roles are shifting with family dynamics and technological advances, he noted.

Frankly, I'm not that sympathetic here. If you're going to "donate" your sperm to create a child the best recipient would be a wife, no?

#TheyFeelPain - Shocking New #Inhuman Video Out Today From Live Action

This is the trick, just keep exposing the real-time death program of the pro-abortion left, via Lila Rose on Twitter.

"The six-year old 'transgender girl' is actually a boy and the couple's 'daughter' is actually their son, but since this confused child thinks he is actually a girl, he now is a girl in the eyes of the media, and the son is now a daughter..."

A great piece from Michael Brown, at Town Hall, "This Battle is For Your Children's Future."

And at Pat Dollard, "Transgender First-Grader Wins Civil Rights Suit After Girls’ Bathroom Ban."

Deaf Three-Year-Old Grayson Clamp Hears for First Time

I love this story.

I tweeted it here, here, and here.

Saw it this morning at CBS News, "Deaf boy with auditory brain stem implant stunned after hearing dad for first time."

UPDATE: At NBC News, "Deaf boy, 3, hears father's voice for the first time":

Grayson was born without cochlear nerves, the “bridge” that carries auditory information from the inner ear to the brain. He’s now the among the first children in the U.S. to receive an auditory brainstem implant in a surgery done at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., led by UNC head and neck surgeon Dr. Craig Buchman.

The device is already being used in adults, but is now being tested in children at UNC as part of an FDA-approved trial. It’s similar to a cochlear implant, but instead of sending electrical stimulation to the cochlea, the electrodes are placed on the brainstem itself. Brain surgery is required to implant the device.

"Our hope is, because we're putting it into a young child, that their brain is plastic enough that they'll be able to take the information and run with it," Buchman told NBCNews.com.

Buchman says Grayson was a great candidate for the implant because other than his hearing, he's a healthy kid. Plus, Buchman adds, "he has great parents who were completely committed to the process -- the entire surgical process, the educational process. We really wanted to provide it to a child who had all the potential to do great."

And so far, Grayson really is doing great, his father says.

“Never one time did he show any fear about that new sensation,” says Clamp. He and his wife, Nicole, adopted Grayson in 2010; the couple also has a biological son, Ethan, who is 2. “It was a lot more excitement. And he’s really curious to begin with.” And he’s discovered a new love: music.

“He claps his hands, he bobs his head. At his daycare, they have a stereo, and he loves to run over and turn it on,” Clamp says.

Grayson is now working with a speech therapist, and has started babbling. He also tries to mimic the mouth movements of people when they’re talking to him. But he still has a "massive amount" of work ahead of him, Buchman cautions. "He needs intensive speech therapy -- in his mind, he has to convert this new signal into something he current knows as, basically, signs," Buchman says.

Teen Cave 'Kid Zones'

I love it!

At WSJ, "The New Luxury Kids' Rooms":

A DJ mixing station in the sleepover room. Secret passageways inspired by "Harry Potter." A fully tricked-out videogame arcade. You've entered the teen wing of the house.

As parents look for creative ways to keep older kids hanging out at home, some are turning to an unexpected source: architects and designers. The result is a new category of spaces now showing up in family homes: teen lounges, hangout areas, sleepover spaces and "offices" for doing homework.

Chris Pollack recently finished renovating a Manhattan townhouse that includes a 1,000-square-foot teen suite with ping-pong and billiards tables, a recording studio, kitchen and a theater for movies and videogames. The estimated cost: roughly $750,000. "Our clients with kids going into the teenage years are thinking about this more and more," he says. Mr. Pollack, of New York-based design-and-construction adviser Pollack + Partners, says he has also accommodated several requests for homework rooms equipped with security cameras, so parents can keep an eye on computer usage.

Twelve-year-old Jake Robinson lives in a recently remodeled Cape Cod-style house in Santa Monica, Calif., with a dedicated kids' room off the kitchen. "It's kind of fun if you have a long day of school to sit down on the couch and play videogames or watch TV," he says. The space has charcoal-and-white wallpaper, a magnetic wall, a custom sectional and a long desk with computers for Jake and his 8-year-old sister. The space includes large computer screens, so the parents can monitor the kids' screen time from afar.

Christine Markatos Lowe, who designed Jake's room as part of the home's gut remodel, says a growing number of her clients are looking for spaces where they can casually keep an eye on their kids' computer activities. "With all the screen time kids have these days...I'm finding this is something more and more people are requesting," she says.

I'm definitely down with spying on kids' computer use. We've been really monitoring my youngest son's web surfing, since he was busted with naked nasty stuff some time back. He's still learning about all that and it's right there at your fingertips online. You gotta stay ahead of your kids!

I'll say though, all those teen zones sound pretty expensive. My oldest kid has his room to himself, with a bunk bed, desk, MP3 sound system, television, and Apple laptop, and who knows what else?. I'd say he's pretty well set up, if not at the "luxe" level of some of those mentioned at WSJ.

MSNBC: A Televised Blog for Really Dumb People

Well said, from AoSHQ, "MSNBC, Kindergarten for Bored, Angry Unemployed People":

The MSNBC Messaging Machine finds new ways to be stupid just about every day.

MSNBC is a televised blog. I keep saying this because it's true: part of blogs' charm, at least initially, was that they gleefully ignored any standards of professionalism. The honesty about the slapdash nature of them was bracing. And the honesty about agenda -- to wit, we have one -- was liberating.

But that upside of blogs also comes with a downside. Blogs speak relentlessly to one side of the aisle (are there any actual centrist blogs out there? It's a business model I don't think can actually work). We look for new ways to provoke -- because it's fun and profitable. And I don't mean that in the cliched joke way; I mean, it's literally both fun and profitable (at least in the sense of hit-whoring) to find exciting new manners of juvenile tweaking of one's political enemies.

The medium tends towards two things: emotional hotness and intellectual dumbness. Those aren't cast-iron rules, of course. (Present company excepted!)

MSNBC has fully embraced the blogger ethos of hit-whoring provocation first, second, last, and always. As well as exploring all the new and inventive ways to call people you don't like Nazis.

There simply is no professionalism at MSNBC, no aspiration to any kind of standards at all. It's Dumb By Design (TM), because Dumb is Easy and Easy is Holy.

Dumb, and morally bankrupt.

PREVIOUSLY: "Call Child Protective Services: MSNBC's Krystal Ball Pimps Out Daughter in Depraved Homosexual Marriage Segment."