As another side note: while doing a punishingly long workout today at the gym, I watched a daytime talk show (I think Maury Povich) talk about people with huge babies - and by huge I mean two-year olds with fat-flattened faces weighing in at nearly 80lbs, rolling arms and hips just to walk.

The funny thing is, the women who brought their incredibly fat kids on the show whined about how hard it was to keep food from their kids, because it's what they loved so much. One little boy, age three, was nearly 120lbs. At age three.

The thing is, there have been studies directly linking high fat, high sugar diets to a lack of intellectual growth, and the retardation of growth both physical and mental of the kids in the show were pretty clear.

I kept wondering why someone would allow their children to eat so much, and then the pictures of the parents - easily hundreds of pounds obese themselves - were shown as well.

The reply to the question of the talk show: "My baby is hugely fat! Help!" seems pretty simple:

Okay stop ABUSING your child. You allow your child to eat fifteen hamburgers in a sitting? That's abuse by neglect. You allow your child to drink over four thousand calories in a shake? That's abuse by neglect. So rather than ask what could be done, my question is, why aren't these parents getting CSD visits?

And the answer is usually that parents who overfeed their kids outnumber the parents who beat, humiliate, or commit various physical atrocities on their offspring by a vast amount, so CSD is probably less worried about your budding ten-year old triple bypass recipient and more worried about the three kids whose father beats them to within an inch of their lives in the name of "discipline".

The Amanda Knox post

I will say only this about Amanda Knox and her family:

The family of the victim, Kirschener will never see or hear their daughter's voice or life again.

Amanda Knox's family may have to deal with Knox being "branded a murderer" or dealing with their daughter behind bars for twenty-five years, but they are most certainly NOT the victims here.

The victim died at the hands of three people that night who committed heinous acts. Knox and the other two defendants were convicted. Whether the judge and jury made the right or the wrong call is not up to the court of public opinion around a pretty white American girl who killed Meredith Kercher after helping two men sexually assault her. It is up to the judge and jury.

For me, I applauded the decision, and while I empathize with the family of Knox, because yeah, it sucks that their daughter is convicted of a murder most heinous and foul (and yes, probably drug-fueled), they're overlooking the crucial fact that their daughter is alive.

Her victim cannot say the same thing. Meredith Kercher died terrified and in fear for her life, and Knox, her co-murderers, and her family are simply whining about how unfair the conviction might be, when the people who truly are the victims in all of this have said nothing at all.

Meredith Kercher's family deserves more than to hear the Knox family rage against the unfairness of it all. In point of fact, Meredith Kercher herself deserves far more than that, at all.