Sat Feb 5/05
Topics for an overcast Saturday afternoon

Dany Heatley and the powers of speech
Sixteen months is how long it took for Dany Heatley to receive his sentence of five months' probation and 150 "public speeches about the dangers of speeding." As I've said before, the idea of anyone wanting Heatley to do jail time for this just blows my mind. Apparently the opposite idea blew the judge's mind: in response to the Snyders' plea for leniency, judge Rowland Barnes opined, "I don't know that I could do this if I were you." Really? Heatley made a couple of stupid decisions and got into a car accident, in which one of his best friends died. Are there actually that many people who would rather see him go to jail than pick up the pieces and move on? What kind of person could put himself in the Snyders' shoes and imagine himself arguing for jail time? Would there even have been a trial if Heatley had been driving an Accord, and, if not, why not?

Stick your neck out
This fun little story — "Ski helmets may increase neck injuries" — sounds at first like more fuel for Andrew Coyne's fire, but it writes itself out of existence with this: "The study also found skiers and snowboarders can reduce the risk of head injury in an accident by almost a third by wearing a helmet." I think most people, upon reflection, would trade their necks for their heads any day of the week. It is remarkable, though, that in just ten years we've gone from approximately zero people wearing helmets while skiing/snowboarding recreationally to approximately 100 percent of children and a solid 50 percent of adults. It's especially remarkable in light of the fact that "little research had been done before on the use of ski helmets." Certainly it's safe to say that their proliferation has little to do with their efficacy, and everything to do with keeping up appearances.

An idea whose time came ten years ago
The police and the media in this case are acting like they just invented cold fusion, but for the life of me I cannot understand why this hasn't been the strategy for tackling child pornography from day one. "There aren't many crimes where people take photos and put them out there for people to say," author Julian Sher told the Star. "The very act of the crime provides the police with clues." Well of course it does! So what took so long? I'm sure these are most unpleasant investigations to conduct, but I really have to wonder at the intelligence of police forces if Toronto's is indeed the first ever to think of this.

I'm also not sure whether this makes any sense:

…police are considering releasing non-pornographic pictures of the victim to help with identification. But that move could be risky. There are fears the abuser might kill the victim if they think police are getting close to tracking them.

That's a hugely important consideration, absolutely, but at the risk of being presumptuous, I'm pretty sure this guy already knows he's the one everybody's talking about. Moreover, while you can't predict what anyone will do in a fit of panic, killing his victim is not going to help him. It's not like the police need her testimony — presumably the photographic documentation of his crimes will suffice. I think they should do whatever they can to find this girl, and the quicker the better.

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