I was reading on the time.com website that gray wolves in the Northern Rockies have had their endangered species protection status restored by a federal judge. This ruling has upset the plans of the three states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho which were planning to hold public wolf hunts this coming autumn.
The wolves were under protection previously, but that protection expired last March. Many farmers are upset over the decision to reinstate the protection, as wolves have been killing their livestock, which cuts into their profits. I don’t know exactly how I would feel about that situation if I lived in the area; seems to me that there are breed of dogs whose specialties are to protect herds against wolves, maybe the farmers should buy some of them!

I’ve been listening to the live coverage on CNN of the rescued Columbian hostage’s press conference. I have to say that when I heard about the dramatic rescue, I was so very happy for them and their families. Now that I’ve listened to one of them talk about how they were tortured and led around with chains around their necks I am especially happy for them. I cannot even imagine how hard it was for them to endure what they went through. Congrats to all involved in rescuing them!!

Well the talk this evening at work was about today’s Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment in convictions of child rape. This was a case brought to them from a state where a man was convicted of raping a young child repeatedly and was convicted and sentenced to death.

I have mixed emotions about the death penalty, I really do. If I had a loved one in the system who was convicted of a crime that was punishable by death I would be against the death penalty for sure. But in some cases, where torture occurred (and I believe that child rape IS a form of torture) and in the cases of pedophilia, where the experts agree that pedophilia is NOT curable that perhaps the death penalty would be appropriate. I think perhaps the Supreme Court should have left that up to the individual states to decide.