Bluemerle

Via Patterico

Keeping quiet.

Dan Collins asked me lately "why are you not posting" and I have to say that it is work, and I have a terrible case of floaters which requires me to suffer the indignity of proof-reading or the shame of the resulting equivalent of Charles Bonnet syndrome in my writings. Plus blogspot hates my browser. Also, I have my moods.
Yet, I think there may be another reason which I did not fully comprehend, until it was pointed out by the local MSM. They didn't like a pic my husband snapped and complained my image "doesn't really say blogger." I must need some convincing props, like a cabana boy or something , though I swear I was blogging like 30 seconds before DH snagged it with the Iphone.

So now I'm FORCING myself to post, and DH is handing me a cool drink to build my confidence. Adding links all afternoon:
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Light and cool for a humid Sunday -


The auto crash that would not end, yes it goes on and on..

Echidna! That's what she said.

Monotreme fore-play?
You do the math.

A milky supernova in the sky. Warning: do not even think of famous misheard lyrics and Jimi Hendrix.


An Ambiguous animation painted on public walls: "MUTO" Link goes to a brilliant but weird video made with stop motion.


I'm always trying to figure out the transformation art of another artist, M.C. Escher.
The best weird anecdote I ever heard about Escher was how he preferred cheese sandwiches as a child and would be so particular about tiling the cheese slices on the bread. He would peel them off and reassemble for perfection, annoying the friend who related this tale. later on, his descendents would go on to write letters to sandwich shops.


A gallery of Escher's works may be found here.

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Via Neatorama:

Yo! Transforming Citroën C4 car! Well, you have been SERVED by Chevy Aveo. As in, they drove away from your dancing car bootie. Link goes to Youtube.


Here's the original dancing Citroen viral ad (you tube) on which the mocking is based.

ANTS ANTS ANTS! Wacky foreign dadaist Ants! Now is the time on electrical sockets when we dance!

crossposted at Protein Wisdom Pub

If it weren't for the meddling with *MYSPACE*.

Although Missouri authorities declined to file charges against Drew for her participation/ approbation of a scheme to fool a child into revealing confidences to a Trojan Boy (a false internet persona created exclusively to reel her in and gain her confidence), Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have charged her with illegal misuse of the protected computers of the California-based Myspace company.

Despite protestations of Lori Drew's (latest) attorney, Los Angeles-based federal prosecutors do have jurisdictional standing to bring charges, because the crimes charged are actually crimes against the Beverly Hills-based Myspace, and through it one of its clients.

Scott Glover, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer reports:

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles today indicted a woman of fraudulently using a MySpace.com account to "cyber-bully" a Missouri teenager who later hanged herself because she believed she was being rejected by a 16-year-old boy she met on the social networking website.

Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., faces three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl and one count of conspiracy. ..

Drew's attorney, H. Dean Steward, said he plans to wage a vigorous defense, suggesting that prosecutors in Los Angeles were overstepping their jurisdiction.

"There are a lot of issues we are going to need to raise, including why it's happening in Los Angeles," Steward said. "It seems like a Missouri case no matter how you cut it."

From ABC news:

"This adult woman allegedly used the Internet to target a young teenage girl, with horrendous ramifications," said U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien in a written statement.
"After a thorough investigation, we have charged Ms. Drew with criminally accessing MySpace and violating rules established to protect young, vulnerable people."

Labels: indictment, Lori Drew, Los Angeles, Megan Meier, Myspace

A correction for the record:

"A Deadly Web of Deceit" in the Washington Post dated January 10,
2008 article states "Wells posted the Drews' names and address on her blog".

I published only Lori Drew's common name.
I did not myself reveal her address, or publish it on any post, or comment authored by me, on my blog, or ever in fact provide it, myself, to any other person.

I also published a screen capture of a police report from CNN, which named Drew as well, but did not contain her address.

Comments not authored by me did appear in my then unmoderated comments section, containing her publicly available contact information. These were widely distributed on other weblogs and sites. They appeared on other, more widely-read blogs, before any appeared on Bluemerle blog.

I will keep this post bumped pending correction of the article.

I update at Protein Wisdom Pub.

Dan Collins supports our precious snowflakes. Won't you please ?

Read the whole thing. Color me unsurprised.

A quick note or two now, this is immediate reaction. I'll update later with more detailed reaction to this statement by the prosecutor.

Here is one place where I part company with Jack Banas, the St. Charles prosecuting attorney, who justified his decision not to charge Drew with a criminal offense related to the internet harrassment of Megan Meier:

He stated

"The actions of the Drews and Grills are not criminal under existing state law, Banas said, because their intent was never to harm, stalk, endanger or harass.

"They did it so they could find out what Megan was saying about Mrs. Drew’s daughter," Banas said. "That is undisputed.

"The only purpose was to find out what one little girl was saying about another little girl" .

That is rather an understatement of Drew's participation, and Drews self-serving description is contradicted by other persons whom the police have interviewed, still unnamed, who report Drew boasted of "messing" with Megan.

She was aware enough of what occurred to contact at least one participant minor before the ambulance had left the Meier home, with Megan's body in it, to tell this child her to keep her mouth shut, and she certainly confessed to knowlege of "arguments" breaking out over the period of the afternoon, and to immediately begin covering her tracks by deleting the fraudulent "josh Evans" myspace account. I have more to say on that, but I'll address it later this evening.

Bottom line for the moment - A civil remedy should still be attempted, in my view, because at bottom, Drew used an employee of hers and granted her persmisson and access to the account to set up a specific situation, a fraud that must inevitably result in loss, pain and/or disapointment on Megan's part, and Drew did so deliberately, with reckless disreguard for Megan's mental health issues, including at minimum an awareness of her reactive personality.

She has admitted being aware of the nature of discussions between the "Josh" persona and Megan, but perhaps she was not as involved as she told police. Either way, the account existed at her instigation, with her persmission and using her own employee to carry out the scheme, with her permission and approbation; and probably at her direction.

And in the light most favorable to Drew, it was a malicious trick designed to fool Megan into believing she had a friend, when she did not, in order to use the information self-serving reasons. And if Drew only learned of Megan being jerked around after the fact, she was heavily complicit in covering up Ashley Grills acts.

Drew also actively encouraged other minors to participate in the fraud, according to at least one minor child, and her mother, and in addition attempted to persuade the minor to keep silent about the account.

If I have anything else to add at this time, regarding my own opinon of Drew, its that for me, it was always enough that Drew instigated this account and allowed and/or actively encouraged minors to participate in it. In the light most favorable to her, her actions were not merely selfish and reckless but vile enough to deserve all the scorn and ingnominy a half-dormant invisible fluff blog can heap on her head. Anonymity should not protect a person who would do such a thing, for such a petty, ridiculous reason as the ordinary upheaval of a middle-school teenaged friendship. That's what 13 year-olds do. 13. year. olds.

A 48 year old woman who sets up a fake boyfriend and lets teens and tweens play around with it for the specific purpose of punking a 13 year old? That's just evil.