"Tonight a friend and I went to a screening of a documentary called'Playground.' 'Playground' covers the unpleasant topic of the sexual exploitation of children. Sadly, Atlanta is a hub for teenage prostitution and features prominently in the film. You may recall other posts I and others have written on this topic during this year's Legislative session (here, here,here, here, and here.)

As you might imagine the film was not exactly warm and cuddly. However, it was extremely informative and told several heartbreaking stories of girls and their experiences in this seedy world. One girl from Atlanta told her story. Her parents were divorced and she lived with her Father. He seemed to be a good father, hard working, not on drugs, and doing the best he could as a single parent. One day, hoping to see her Mom, the girl found her Mom's address and set out to Metropolitan Ave. to find her. She got lost and was befriended by a pimp who promised to help her. Instead he took her into a hotel room, raped her, and forced her to become a prostitute. Her story was tragic but by no means the only such story."

I don't want to pile on, but the administration acted slowly on the Oil Spill.  They don't want to compare themselves to Katrina.  Funny, BP was going to be given a safety award by the department of the Interior this week for it's off shore drilling.  That ceremony has been cancelled.  We must have the debate on energy independence, using what we have and what we know and tempering it by what we hope to have.  Actual energy resources and what will come in the future. 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2765f59e-5625-11df-b835-00144feab49a.html

"However, even as the administration sought to reassure the public that it was doing everything in its power to address the environmental threat, Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, acknowledged that the US was inevitably facing a "massive restoration of the gulf coast".

"The scenario is . . . very grave," Mr Salazar said on NBC's Meet the Press. He warned that it could take up to 90 days for industry and government efforts to succeed in building a relief well 3.5 miles below the ocean floor to stop the flow of oil.

Hours before President Barack Obama arrived on the gulf coast to survey the damage, his administration was insisting that it had not made any missteps in the early days of the crisis."

Times Square Attempt:  Hooray to the NY City Police.

New York City's police commissioner says there's no evidence of a Taliban link to a failed bomb found in an SUV parked in Times Square but said he couldn't rule them out.

On Sunday, Fox 5 reported on a Reuters story that the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the bomb plot.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/nyc/pakistani-taliban-claims-responsibility-20100502-ac