I would also like to express my complete surprise that children are used to make incompetent adults feel better about myself.

and so my lifelong dream of being the Weeners in a FARK thread is complete.

strathmeyer: I would also like to express my complete surprise that children are used to make incompetent adults feel better about myself.

If these children are getting kidnapped they're probably incompetent too.

I was filing up at a gas station the other day and on the monitor there was a "have you seen this child?" ad. I looked at the pic and thought, "yeah, I've seen a kid like that every week for the last 15 years." Now picture seeing a kid that looks just like her and approaching her or her parent(s). "Is that your child or did you kidnap her?" Should I take the jail time or the ass kicking? Or just not bother?

LOLFAIL

No, really, you're getting a motivator made.

Donald_McRonald:If these children are getting kidnapped they're probably incompetent too.

They're small, dude, just punch 'em in the stomach.

proflux: and so my lifelong dream of being the Weeners in a FARK thread is complete.

Doublpwned.

I'm not so sure about this... it gets the word out to long-haul truckers, who are a HUGE resource in locating these kids.

Hey! A missing child is EVERYONE's child! Because no one knows how to keep track of their children!

Amber alert has worked at least twice as advertised in Kern county.

So theres that

proflux: and so my lifelong dream of being the Weeners in a FARK thread is complete.

*gigglesnort*

proflux: and so my lifelong dream of being the Weeners in a FARK thread is complete.

Amber alert! A childs post is missing!

"If a mom is told by a court she can't see her kid, doesn't trust her husband, and abducts the child, it's stretching reason to say we need an Amber Alert to save the kid's life," Griffin argues.

BAH!

CHILD HATER!!!!

BURN HIM!!!!

When I saw this:



I immediately thought of this:

"If an Amber Alert saves any child, don't you think it was worth it?" says Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

The science is settled, give the Massachusetts police more money.

meshman: proflux: and so my lifelong dream of being the Weeners in a FARK thread is complete.

Doublpwned.

triplepwned, once you get to his boobies.

interesting.
We just had an Amber alert in my crappy hometown.
The one year old was found just a few hours later.

To me they're annoying. I mean, I know there's a good reason for it, but why do I need to keep an eye out in the mountains of NC for some kid lost over by the coast? On that topic, in a little state like Vermont, would they ask for New Hampshire, Maine, etc. to broadcast one?

It's unfortunate that the need for a system like this exists at all, but it does. I've gotten the impression all along that it ended up being more drama than results. Case in point, recently a New Hampshire girl didn't come home on Friday night.

AMBER ALERT! AMBER ALERT! Locals dashing from their homes with dogs and guns and combing the entire county. Ready to beat, tar and feather anyone who wasn't from the area or who seemed shady. Fretting and worried parents interviewed and re-interviewed by the media with camera truck on the scene. Comments from the police chief, the volunteer fire captain, the church pastor, and the locals...

Ten hours later: oops, never mind! The girl stayed over a school friends house -- as she did fairly often -- and though she'd mentioned this to the folks earlier in the week. The folks didn't recall, but never once thought of calling a few of her friends parents before hitting the Amber Alert button.

It takes little stretch of the imagination to picture bored locals with the unofficial Amber Alert set-up ready to go: flashlight, shotgun, CB radio, hip boots, florescent vest, thermos... And how long will it be before some poor bastard stopping to ask directions is dragged from his car and lynched?
This is a dangerous situation to open to the general public because it really does create a circus-like atmosphere with little control or oversight over the renegade factions and the lunatic fringe.

But, hey, it was the most exciting thing to happen there since Henry's cows blocked the road ten years back...

This just gets more infuriating

"It doesn't cost anybody anything," argues Tyler Cox, operations manager for radio station WBAP, chairman of the Dallas/Fort Worth Amber Plan Task Force, and one of the people who helped create the original Amber Alert. "There's no expense to operating an Amber Alert system if you're doing it the right way."

Odd that the person whose job depends on the system getting funding says that it "doesn't cost anybody anything" And if he truly believes that then there's some financial shenanigans going on.

/ of course I'm a child hater as I think this program isn't all that it is cracked up to be

Amber Alert has been effective in Texas. One child said the abductor released her on the side of the road because he was described so well. Also, parents do kidnap their chidren and have been known to kill them. Amber Alert helps in this as well.

captain_napalm: I'm not so sure about this... it gets the word out to long-haul truckers, who are a HUGE resource in locating these kids.

Sure, but the point of the article is that most of the kids who are going to be harmed by their kidnappers are already dead by the time the Amber Alert goes out. Most of the cases where the Amber Alert "works" are cases where the child was abducted by a parent or someone else with no intention of causing harm.

MellieMc: Amber Alert has been effective in Texas. One child said the abductor released her on the side of the road because he was described so well.

Yes. If you'd have actually read the article you'd see that was addressed too.

IMHO, Amber is about as useful and annoying as those 'reverse 911' systems. My apartment complex got one of those systems recently (they now sell such devices to companies, etc). After sucumbing to the constant begging to sign up (every time I went to the main office for anything), I now get regularly interrupted by my cell pone ringing to tell me of such dire emergencies as:

* It's hot out, so the pool's open.
* The cops will ticket you if you park by a 'no parking' sign.
* It's snowing, snow is slippery.
* We're having a party this weekend! Join your white trash neighbors!
* The street around the complex are not drag strips, we're not secretly timing you.
* JCP&L wants you to conserve energy.

Eventually, Amber is going to reduce itself to the same level of usefulness. Kid's missing? amber alert. Kid's missing for a few hours? Amber alert. Mom loses kid in the mall? Amber alert. Kid gets lost at amusement park? Amber alert.

I could care less about missing kids - if you're stupid enough to lose your kid, or if your kid's so dumb they fall for getting abducted, then maybe you shouldn't have had a kid in the first place.

GPS in the asss. Problem solved.
Remove when 18.

To judge the value of the system, simply ask whether it's saved any children, at all. If it has, then a few unnecessary notices don't seem so bad.

The Amber Alert system is more effective as theater than as a way to protect children

Just like the TSA.

HELEN! HELEN LOVEJOY! YOU MISSED YOUR CUE! Damn! Where is that woman?

lelio: Odd that the person whose job depends on the system getting funding says that it "doesn't cost anybody anything"

He's the operations manager for a radio station. His position as chair of a local task force is probably a volunteer gig.

carniemechanic: To judge the value of the system, simply ask whether it's saved any children, at all. If it has, then a few unnecessary notices don't seem so bad.

RTFA. It even states that only 10% were real. Most are family disputes or cases like a prior poster stated: abuse of the system before investigating to see if the child is "missing".

I expect it to continue to worsen over time.

I'd like to know the statistics for how many car accidents are caused by people reading the big highway signs showing the Amber Alerts... is the carnage (N.P.I.) outweighed by the usefulness of the Alerts?

"If an Amber Alert saves any child, don't you think it was worth it?" says Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

No, and anybody who asks that sort of rhetorical question ought to be prohibited from working for the government.

proflux: and so my lifelong dream of being the Weeners in a FARK thread is complete.

proflux: Boobies

Oh my...

lelio: of course I'm a child hater as I think this program isn't all that it is cracked up to be

Blasphemy! Next you'll be suggesting we stop funding D.A.R.E. and Head Start!

ZAZ: "If an Amber Alert saves any child, don't you think it was worth it?" says Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

No, and anybody who asks that sort of rhetorical question ought to be prohibited from working for the government.

I'm sure you really believe that... until it's your kid or niece or brother who is saved by it. Then you'd be grateful.

I think Amber Alert is an effective deterrent because every time I consider snatching a kid, I remember those electronic billboards between my garage and my basement.

I think Amber Alert would be a great pornstar name.

I disagree with the sentiment that anything is worth the cost if it saves even one child's life.

Children's lives aren't infinitely valuable. There is a limit.

Cyno01

Technical question: how did you photoshop the bear look like that? Nice work.

Glass Joe: Cyno01

Technical question: how did you photoshop the bear look like that? Nice work.

Not mine, i take no credit.

Moonfisher: I'm sure you really believe that... until it's your kid or niece or brother who is saved by it. Then you'd be grateful.

Considering that most kids are "kidnapped" by disgruntled spouses and not by rapists, I think he's justified in his feelings. This whole "everything to save the children" attitude has led to an insane society where you can be brandished a sex offender for life for taking a drunken piss in a dark alley and sanitized our playgrounds to the point that there is nothing hard enough to hurt our precious little snowflakes (yet the playgrounds are now highly flamible, good jorb!).

Protecting children is a good thing, but we need to be looking at the real dangers children face and trying to find responses to those dangers that actually work and don't impede on the rights of innocent people. Wasting money of expensive boondoggles is not the right way to handle things.

Ed Grubermann: Protecting children is a good thing, but we need to be looking at the real dangers children face and trying to find responses to those dangers that actually work and don't impede on the rights of innocent people. Wasting money of expensive boondoggles is not the right way to handle things.

The real dangers children face involve people in their own families, followed closely by those trusted by their parents to provide care for them.

So if we really wanted to protect kids from rapists and molesters we'd be better off taking them out of their own homes.

In order to keep the Amber Alert system effective it should not be overused. Therefore I say Amber Alerts only be issued for cute kids.

We have those alerts come in occasionally through whatever Legacy-app crapware that Comcast uses.

They interrupt whatever program I might be watching with that blaring noise used by Civil Defense back in the day when they would have their weekly tests of the 'Emergency Broadcast System'. You know the sound if you're over 30.

Anyway, you think you're about to receive news of some imminent threat like perhaps a TORNADO bearing down on your town......no, it's just about some little boy went missing over on the other side of town. As if I'm going to possibly see this kidnapper driving by while I'm watching TV. Yeah, that's really useful information....

It makes sense to put info up on freeway info boards and broadcast over radio - but on TV it's kind of arbitrary and about as useful as the pictures on milk cartons IMHO.

Oh, and Ape Shiat Nuts,
Good one! I lol'd.

Moonfisher - ZAZ: "If an Amber Alert saves any child, don't you think it was worth it?" says Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

No, and anybody who asks that sort of rhetorical question ought to be prohibited from working for the government.

I'm sure you really believe that... until it's your kid or niece or brother who is saved by it. Then you'd be grateful.


Luckily for him, the odds of that happening are on par with winning the lottery.

That's a major point here... These measures take a toll not only financially, but on our collective psyche.

This constant focus on child abductions and pedo-scare is making us paranoid and creating this absurdly disproportionate hysteria about something which is in reality unlikely to the extreme.

Imagine if a bunch of people were 'afraid' of winning the lottery... say they don't want to end up like Jack Whittaker. Now imagine they walk around in constant fear of winning. They constantly tell their kids never to go anywhere near convenience store, they refuse to handle theater tickets for fear that someone may slip a winning lottery ticket into their hand on the sly, they freak out when they see people they don't know in parks... "Ohmigod, there's a man here in a suit. He looks out of place. He seems strangely officious, and has a lottery commission look about him... I just get the strangest feeling he's here to award me $10 million dollars!!! Somebody should do something about him..."

You'd think they were insane... and not just because they didn't want to win, but because they really thought there was a realistic chance of it happening... but that's where we, as an entire country, are at right now.

And it's totally to the exclusion of more real, more likely dangers... dangers that fall into the shadows because they're not salacious enough.

We have lost our damn minds, and this shiat just helps it along.

Saulsa: In order to keep the Amber Alert system effective it should not be overused. Therefore I say Amber Alerts only be issued for cute white kids.

OK. Compromise: cute, white kids.

captain_napalm: I'm not so sure about this... it gets the word out to long-haul truckers, who are a HUGE resource in locating snatching these kids.

/fixed!