Megan's Law and Iraq

So as I said earlier, I was going to rant about two articles I saw in the Metro.

Firstly the introduction of a trial of "Megan's Law". Basically, parents will be able to find out if a convicted sex offender lives in their street/on their school route and how many, but they won't be told their names or addressed. Well what is the point? How is it going to help the situation in any way? (I'm not suggesting we tell people who they are).

How will knowing a convicted sex offender lives in your area change your actions? Will you not let your children out ever? Well that's impractical and not good for the children and their development. Will you stop your 7 year old playing unsupervised in the street? Well I'm not sure they should be allowed to do that anyway. Will you teach your children to be streetwise, not to talk to strangers etc? Well shouldn't you be doing that anyway? All I can see it causing is panic and knee jerk reaction. And what if someone suspects they know who it is? Lynch mobbing. Plus there's all the sex offenders who haven't had a conviction of course.

The second part of today's rant. Iraq. I read today about protests in Iraq at the continued American presence 4 years after Saddam's regime ended. I won't get started on my feelings about that, the part that really got me was a military spokesperson saying that this is great, it's freedom of speech, how wonderful it is for the Iraqi people to be able to do that, they wouldn't have been able to do it under Saddam.

So self righteous, thank goodness the Americans (and the British come to that) were there to give back the Iraqi people freedom of speech, freedom to protest. Of course we will ignore completely what they are saying and want they want for their own country, but that's okay because we're letting them say it. Which is so very different from not allowing them to say it at all.