Maddie is Missing

I got myself embroiled in an MSN message board war this morning.  Silly, I know, but it energized my sleepy Monday morning.  I’d heard a lot about the issue while listening to BBC Radio 1 on satellite last week.  A little British girl has gone missing from her holiday villa in Portugal – she turned 4 years old like 3 days after disappearing.  Her parents had left her and her younger siblings asleep in their locked room and went to dinner 100 yards away, taking turns to check on them.  During one checking in session they discovered the window on the back side of the villa forced and the oldest child missing.  You can read the story yourself – look up Madeleine McCann.  On the “Burn The Parents At The Stake” vs. “They Made A Stupid Mistake” debate, I’m on the latter team, in case you care to know, but that’s not why I posted on this message board.  I just find it extremely entertaining to read.  There was an EXCELLENT mix of idiots posting horribly spelled diatribes on both sides (though mostly they wanted to stone the parents), as well as a smattering of intelligent debate.

Judgmental parent-stoning mobs aside, the most disturbing thing I discovered during my pseudo-intellectual smackdown this morning is the number of people who posted about the dangers of South America, and how crazy someone would have to be to take a child there and leave her unattended for 3 seconds.  Yup, that’s right, Portugal, South America.

Check your maps, crazies.