It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- because I love you

Seven people who worked at a Massachusetts group home were fired after administering electrical "skin shocks" to teenage residents of the home. The problem was not that they did it at all -- reportedly the practice is in common use at the facility -- but that they did it on orders of a prank caller who was a former resident.

In other words, a kid who knew all about the shock "treatments" -- which are described as a method of punishment for "destructive behavior" -- pretended to be a supervisor and ordered the overworked staff to lay into a couple of other kids. And since the story says the electrical shocks are administered "only with parental, medical, psychiatric and court approval," what you've got is kids who were apparently approved for this punishment by parents, the courts, etc. Probably they had been zapped before. WTF!!!

Another amazing bit: The staff was described as skeptical about the orders, but carried them out anyway -- 77 times on one kid and 29 on the other. They were so skeptical they zapped the kid 77 times. I wonder how many times they zap them when the orders are legit!

A man who claims he had a seizure before ramming his car into a strip mall building also says he doesn't have any memory of the crash -- so no wonder he didn't remember his 72-year-old mother was in the car. She died in the crash and was not discovered for 24 hours, by which time the car had been sitting overnight in the police impound lot.

Of course, it wasn't entirely his fault. Firefighters were on the scene of the crash for more than an hour and never noticed the passenger, who was partially hidden by a deployed air bag.

A man who lives near the Clintons in Westchester Co., New York, was arrested for murdering his wife, whom he claimed was nabbed in a carjacking. Nice detail: a former lawyer, he "had been disbarred three months earlier for refusing to return unearned funds to clients. Jurors accused him of incompetence in defending a murder suspect."

Work in high tech? Then it's vacation time. Most companies, including the one I work for, close down the week between Xmas and New Year's, either officially or practically. In this case, because New Year's falls on a Tuesday, the break definitely extends from lunch tomorrow until Jan. 2.

If you work in retail -- sorry about that. I'll see you in the stores. Because all the geeks like me never do their Xmas shopping until the weekend before.

"Religious conservatives" are so busy condemning the sex enjoyed by 16-year-old Britney's-Little-Sister that they almost can't bring themselves to praise her reluctance to abort her pregnancy.

I don't know what they're upset about. It's like their ideal world, isn't it? A pregnant 16-year-old who bears the child. It makes it less likely for her to ever get an education or a decent job -- just like some out-of-control Third World child-bride country, which is what they'd love the U.S. to become. Oh, she hasn't said she's getting married, I see. There's still a chance she'll remain independent... perhaps even become what they fear most -- a welfare mother! So, jury's still out on that one.

Lest real teenagers be misled by this incident, the Nickelodeon Channel is considering a special on teen pregnancy. In that story, by the way, is the detail that Little Sis Whose Name I Can't Be Troubled To Learn met her baby-daddy at a church youth group. And: "In interviews, she has stressed her faith in family, God and traditional virtues -- much as Britney did years ago, before the wheels came off."

technorati: celebrities, Spears