From the Associated Press, via NPR:

A Pennsylvania police chief charged with trying to cover up the fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant by white teenagers was named in a 2006 civil suit that made a startling claim: Borough police beat to death a Hispanic teenager, then hung him from the bars of his holding cell to make it appear a suicide.

Matthew Nestor, police chief in the borough of Shenandoah, was never charged, but the allegations contained in the lawsuit, in Tuesday’s indictment and in other civil claims depict a police department with pervasive hostility to minorities and a penchant for using excessive force.

Police “acted as feudal warlords in this coal town community that people were afraid of,” said attorney John Karoly, who represents the parents of 18-year-old David Vega in their federal lawsuit against the borough. “I would not suggest they were abusive to everyone and anyone, but I would say the pattern certainly starts to appear that minorities took the thrust of their abuse.”

h/t Sasha

Again, it’s THE ONION:

MINNEAPOLIS—A study published Monday in The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry has concluded that an estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own egocentric interests and pleasures.

According to Dr. Leonard Mateo, a developmental psychologist at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the study, most adults are completely unaware that they could be living among callous monsters who would remorselessly exploit them to obtain something as insignificant as an ice cream cone or a new toy.

“The most disturbing facet of this ubiquitous childhood disorder is an utter lack of empathy,” Mateo said. “These people—if you can even call them that—deliberately violate every social norm without ever pausing to consider how their selfish behavior might affect others. It’s as if they have no concept of anyone but themselves.”

“The depths of depravity that these tiny psychopaths are capable of reaching are really quite chilling,” Mateo added.

According to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a clinical diagnostic tool, sociopaths often display superficial charm, pathological lying, manipulative behaviors, and a grandiose sense of self-importance. After observing 700 children engaged in everyday activities, Mateo and his colleagues found that 684 exhibited these behaviors at a severe or profound level.

The children studied also displayed many secondary hallmarks of antisocial personality disorder, most notably poor impulse control, an inability to plan ahead, and a proclivity for violence—often in the form of extended tantrums—when their needs were not immediately met.

“Children will use any tool at their disposal to secure gratification,” Mateo said. “And as soon as the desire is fulfilled, be it some material want or simply an insatiable and narcissistic desire for validation, they quickly become bored and lose interest in their victims, all the while thinking only of satisfying whatever their next hedonistic craving might be.”

Mateo added that even when subjects were directly confronted with the consequences of their inexplicable behavior, they had little or no capacity for expressing guilt, other than insincere utterances of “sorry” that were usually coerced.

Because children are so skilled at mimicking normal human emotions and will say anything without consideration for accuracy or truth, Mateo said that people often don’t realize that they’ve been exploited until it is too late. Though he maintained that anyone can fall victim to a child’s egocentric behavior, Mateo warned that grandmothers were especially susceptible to the self- serving machinations of tiny little sociopaths.

Despite the overwhelming evidence presented in the study, its findings have been met with heavy criticism from people who associate with children on a regular basis.

Batavia, NY resident and 38-year-old mother Mary Corcoran echoed the sentiments of many other adults who refuse to believe they are sharing their homes with merciless predators.

“Not my Jimmy. Just this morning, he told me I was the best mommy in the whole world,” Corcoran said of her son, 5. “In fact, he’s been such a sweet little boy this month that Santa just may bring him everything he asks for.”

From the AP:

OSLO – President Barack Obama, accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, says all nations must follow standards on the use of force.

The president, who last week ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan, says he reserves the right as commander in chief to act unilaterally to defend the U.S. But he also said he is convinced that sticking to standards strengthens the countries that follow them — and isolates and weakens those countries that don’t.

Even when confronted with an adversary that doesn’t follow any rules, Obama said the U.S. must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war.

Obama spoke Thursday during a ceremony at city hall in Oslo, Norway, where he formally accepted the peace prize he was awarded in October.

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him — at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; — and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man — one man — can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

If You Want It.

LONDON (Reuters) - Gone are the days of shepherds in tea towels and tinsel-clad angels. Britain’s competitive parents are forking out on luxury pashmina shawls and velour dressing gowns to make their child the star of the annual nativity play.

The rise in so-called “manger chic” has seen parents spend up to 150 pounds ($250) on arctic fur throws for children cast as sheep and ivory bridesmaid dresses for angels, according to department stores group Debenhams.

“The amount of money that some parents want to spend on their child’s nativity play appearance would enable Baby Jesus to leave the stable and check into a five star hotel,” said spokesman Ed Watson.

Intense competition for places at good schools, concern about the future state of the jobs market and a drop in handcraft skills like sewing among time-pressed parents appears to be to blame.

But Debenhams is keen not to encourage the trend.

“While we applaud parents for wanting to do their very best for their children, we feel certain that the story of The Nativity can still be told using very simple materials,” Watson said.

I was looking for something fitting as we approach the Feast Day of St Nicholas this Sunday, December 6.  This orthodox hymn popped up, as sung by the St. Nicholas Choir.   It’s part of a larger orthodox hymnody sung at Easter and is the section where the angel brings good news of the Resurrection to Mary, the Theotokos (God-bearer).  This is an interesting bookend to the angel Gabriel’s Annunication to Mary, a crucial part of St Luke’s initial unfolding of the gospel.  The complete version of this hymn section goes like this (though the choir’s version varies somewhat):

The Angel cried to the Lady Full of Grace:
Rejoice, O Pure Virgin!
Again I say: Rejoice!
Your Son is risen from His three days in the tomb.
With Himself He has raised all the dead.
Rejoice, all ye people!
Shine, shine, O New Jerusalem,
The glory of the Lord has shone on you.
Exult now and be glad, O Zion,
Be radiant, O Pure Theotokos,
In the Resurrection of your Son!

Note that we enter this group’s performance during the proclamation of the Resurrection and the subsequent proclamation, “All ye people be joyful.”  Or, “Rejoice!”  Again, there is wonderful symmetry and simile with the angel proclamations in the Christmas story.  Thanks to our Orthodox brothers and sisters for holding this up for us and for helping remind us that St. Nicholas is more than a jolly guy in a red suit.  Though as a Westerner, I admit that in my worldview, there’s plenty of room for the jolly guy too, as long as we remember the good news that makes his visit possible.  h/t: chantblog

Here’s another great version that you have to click through to YouTube to watch, but it’s worth it.

The Spoetzel Brewery in Shiner, Texas, celebrated 100 years of beer-making by combining two recreational staples of the Lone Star State lifestyle:  beer and bottle rockets.  Specifically, a 100 bottle rocket salute.  It looked like this:

h/t: adage.com and romany