And the story ends just about how you’d think it would:

The mother of a 3-year-old girl was charged Tuesday after police said the toddler was found wandering around a Caseyville motel in a T-shirt and underwear while the woman was at work in a strip club.

Police were searching Tuesday night for the woman, identified as Patrice A. Johnson, 28.

Johnson’s last known address is unclear, but police said she stays in metro-east motels when she works at the Soft Touch club in Washington Park.

Johnson was charged Tuesday with felony unlawful possession of a controlled substance and endangering the life or health of a child. Bond was set at $25,000.

Employees at a Days Inn, 8950 Tucker Drive in Caseyville, called police about 5:40 a.m. Feb. 20 to report that a young child was seen wandering around the motel hallways in just a T-shirt and panties for about 45 minutes. Motel staff were unable to contact guests in the child’s room, which was registered to Johnson.

Officers responded, and one of them stayed with the child while the others went to the room. Police reported that the child seemed unusually hyperactive.

The officers heard noise coming from the room, but no one answered. When motel workers opened the room, police did not find anyone inside but saw what looked like cocaine, prescription drugs and other drug paraphernalia in the room.

“We don’t have anything to confirm that the child got into the drugs other than possibly suspecting that because of the child’s behavior,” Caseyville Police Chief J.D. Roth said. “Maybe it was anxiety or shock because the child was left alone.

Don’t worry they finally picked her up. What was she doing while police were building a case against her for possibly allowing her toddler to get high on coke? Planning a threesome with her gun toting, heroin addict baby-daddy of course. The third person was someone she identified to police as the child’s aunt, otherwise known as her sister or the sister of the father:

About an hour after police arrived, two women walked into the motel lobby and identified themselves as the child’s mother and aunt.

Johnson, the mother, told police that she and the other woman just left work at Soft Touch. She said the child was supposed to be in the care of the father while the women were at work, but she didn’t know where the father was.

Officers then went with the women and child to their motel room to get clothes for the child. Police saw the mother take more than $2,000 in cash from a metal box from under a nightstand and put the money in her coat pocket.

Police took the women in for questioning and notified the Department of Children and Family Services of the incident. Johnson and the other woman told police they planned to have sex with the child’s father in another, separate room they rented at the motel. The women said the child’s father is a heroin addict, and has kept a gun in the room.

Police were attempting Wednesday to locate the father for questioning.

“We’d like to talk to him to get his side of the story,” Roth said.

His side of the story being that he gets high and bangs two strippers at a time, one of whom is either his old lady’s sister or his sister. I guess the whole “aunt” thing could be metaphorical, as in she’s so close to this other stripper they consider themselves family which still makes the threesome creepy, just not nauseating.

But hey, they’re only hurting themselves, right Libertarians? I mean if you ignore the toddler being left in the care of an armed heroin addict who abandons her in a room full of drugs.

Libertarians are constantly claiming that people who get high are “only hurting themselves” so drug laws are unfair. As my Victimless Crime File category shows even people who are using drugs that aren’t addictive like marijuana (though pot is habit forming) often end up intruding on others’ lives in some fashion, sometimes criminally. When the argument is extended to other drugs the Libertarian theory on drug use becomes laughable as the case of Kristen Diane Parker illustrates:

DENVER — A surgery technician who infected about three dozen people with hepatitis C after she injected herself with painkiller-filled syringes and replaced them with ones filled with saline was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison.

Kristen Diane Parker received the sentence in federal court in Denver after pleading guilty to some of the charges in the case. Prosecutors had previously recommended that Parker get 20 years in prison but a judge rejected the plea agreement. Some of the victims said it was not enough time.

She was also ordered to pay $506,935 in restitution to the hospitals and $1,000 to the court-sponsored victims’ fund.

“This sentence is appropriate, and reflects the seriousness of Ms. Parker’s criminal conduct,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement after the sentencing. “Today’s sentence should truly send a message that there are very serious consequences for these types of actions.”

Parker, 27, had worked at the Rose Medical Center in Denver and the Audubon Surgery Center in Colorado Springs.

Parker, who said she got hepatitis C from using heroin, acknowledged that she took syringes filled with the painkiller Fentanyl from operating carts at the hospitals. She said she injected herself and replaced the stolen syringes with ones filled with saline. Parker said she meant to use clean replacement needles but got careless.

About 6,000 patients at the two hospitals may have been exposed to hepatitis C. About three dozen were infected.

By the way, Hepatitis C is pretty much a death sentence. Huffington Post has a longer piece about the woman that gives you a glimpse into the mind of the addict. Self-entitled, selfish, and completely unwilling to consider the consequences of her actions on others:

During a police interview videotaped June 30 that was played in court Thursday, the 26-year-old Parker told a detective that she kept dirty saline-filled syringes in her pocket and watched for opportunities when doctors and nurses left the room. She then allegedly stole syringes filled with Fentanyl from operating carts and replaced them with the used syringes.

“I didn’t want to make it obvious to everyone that I was using,” the 26-year-old Parker told the detective in the interview, saying she stole between 15 and 20 syringes of Fentanyl. “I knew my limit.”

[…]

Parker said she used between 100 to 250 micrograms of the drug each time, roughly enough medication for a 500-pound person, according to medical malpractice attorney Dr. Eric Steiner, a former cardiac anesthesiologist.

But like all users she had reasons for “needing” to get high:

Parker gave several reasons for using Fentanyl, which is a narcotic 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine: to deal with a custody battle with her ex-husband over her 2-year-old son; six-hour stretches of being on her feet; and back pain from the physical requirements of moving patients around the operating rooms.

She also said she had a problem with painkillers in the past and she may have gotten hepatitis C when she used heroin last summer while living in New Jersey.

Some of you pot smokers who come here claiming you “need to relax” probably sympathize with her. I say you shouldn’t need any substance to “relax” and that just thinking you require drug or alcohol to get by is an unhealthy relationship with drugs and alcohol.

And of course she has excuses as to why this is everyone else’s fault:

She tested positive for the disease before starting her job at Rose in October, but she didn’t follow up when told about it because she didn’t have health insurance or money for a doctor and she got distracted with her new job.

She also said hospital officials didn’t make it clear she tested positive. A federal magistrate judge disagreed and declared her a danger to the community and ordered her held without bond, saying her actions showed significant disregard for the safety of others.

Which she was because using was more important to her than whether or not she killed people. Since she was gainfully employed, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the reason she had no money was because she spent it on drugs.

The idea that drug use is a personal matter that will never affect others is a myth. Using it to promote policy is foolish. I am neither for or against decriminalization. What I am for is honesty about drug use. The Kristen Parkers of the world will burden society if we let them and the solution isn’t to pretend that changing the law will change how users behave.

h/t Crime Scene KC

Brothers shall battle and slay one another.

Blood ties od sisters’ sons shall be sundered.

Harsh is the world. Fornication is rife,

Luring to faithlessness, spouses of other.

Axe time, sword time, shields shall be cloven;

Wind time, wolf time, ere the world wanes.

Din on the fields, trolls in full flight;

No man shall then spare another.

– Voluspa – The Sybil’s prophecy translated by Elsa-Brita Titchenell in The Masks of Odin

About two years ago I blogged about narco-terror gangs possibly being involved in human sacrifices though the Santa Muerte cult. In that piece I point out that some aspects of the worship of “Saint Death” bore some admittedly superficial resemblance to the coven of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo who murdered an unknown number of people in Mexico as part of magical rituals. While I have not since blogged extensively on it, these cases piqued my curiosity and I have since kept track of what we would call, for lack of a better term, ritual or occult crimes especially those involving “reconquista” religion, or Aztec Reconstructionism. I have  also, out of personal interest, kept track of other religious conflicts, the rise of violent cults and other phenomenon that some may interpret as meaningful. I endorse no theory involving these more recent interesting factoids, but am providing them to my fellow watchers and ask that they judge for themselves what, if any, metaphysical meaning they may have:

In Mexico troops are being dispatched to destroy shrines to Saint Death as part of attempts to control the escalating violence of the cartels. Perhaps ironically, the areas of Mexico where the worship of Santa Muerta is widespread are literally dying.

The head of a Voodoo circle has “declared war” on evangelicals after his followers were driven off by an angry mob during what is described as a funeral ceremony. The always credulous main stream media is claiming that Max Beauvoir is the “supreme leader” of Voodoo which is an odd way for a Mambo to describe himself. There is no central authority in Voodoo. It should also be noted that there have been no reports of other rituals being attacked. Here’s raw video courtesy Breitbart that shows what looks like authorities taking part in the attack:

There’s nothing overtly evangelical about the mob in the video. Was something else going on? The Wild Hunt has more on this story though unsurprisingly TWH accepts the evil evangelicals vs poor Vodouns narrative unquestioningly even though they are as skeptical as I am of Max Beauvoir.

Hindu turned Christian Ria Ramkissoon starved her baby to death at the behest of a woman named “Queen Antionette” who claimed the child was possessed. Ramkissoon claims to have witnessed her Hindu parents “giving the child to the devil” in a ritual. Another cult member was involuntarily committed by the cult when she tried to tell authorities about them. The cult used simple mind control techniques involving fasting, drug use (marijuana), and regimentation.

The Presbyterian Church of the United States is now claiming that Israel has no “historical, covenantal or theological” right to exist. It claims Israel has no legitimate history before the Holocaust. This claim obviously runs counter to 75 percent of The Old Testament which is the theological underpinning of Christianity itself. Understand that the PCUSA is in essence claiming that the Bible they like thumping so much is false.

Libyan Leader Moamer Kadhafi has called for a Jihad on Switzerland.

Say Uncle points out two unrelated sword attacks in close proximity to each other.

Twilight Language has a post regarding unrelated “suicides” of children (and two attempted murders) from all over the world that have one very strange common denominator.

An Icelandic Asatru group claims that a “hex” they put on England and other “enemies” of Iceland is working, citing the collapse of the Dutch government and Gordon Brown’s troubles as examples.

Number of the Beast?

Wolf age? Wind age? What do you think?

Update: An admittedly mentally unstable, drug using “atheist” was live tweeting her abortion. For this unseemly attention seeking behavior she has been lauded a hero of feminism.

In their defense it’s hard to watch a child when you’re getting baked while blasting Dark Side of the Moon. From WXII 12:

ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — The parents of an Alamance County 2-year-old have been charged with child abuse after the child used a lighter to ignite his clothing.

Alamance County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Maj. Randy Jones said the incident happened last Saturday at home on Bass Mountain Road.

When deputies arrived at about 12:30 a.m., they discovered the child suffering from third-degree burns on the upper portion of his body, Jones said.

The child was taken via helicopter to the UNC Hospital Burn Center in Chapel Hill where he is still being treated.

Jones said deputies who were investigating the incident discovered marijuana and other drug paraphernalia on a night stand in plain view.

The child’s parents, Wesley Kieth Faucette, 30, and Shannon Gaddy Faucette, 28, were charged with negligent child abuse and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

As usuaual people who like to toke up (but don’t like to admit sitting around getting high isn’t good for you) have come up with all sorts of other villians in this story aside from to slvenly stoners who were otherwise occupied when their 2-year-old used a lighter to set himself on fire. Here’s a comment from ScenrioNow! that is typical of the stupidity of stoners:

I blame capitalist and the expensive prices of vaporizers. I do think the 2 year old is advanced for his age to get around the child safety features, unless its a cheaper model then once again its the capitalist fault. The parents are to blame for shopping at a store that carries shirts printed with a highly flammable lead base paint.

Feb. 25, 2010 5:24pm EST | from scenarionow

Wow. But the fact that the parents were impaired isn’t at all to blame. Yeah.

h/t Dreamin’ Demon

Surprise! 30+ years of research indicate that chronic or heavy cannabis intake mimics mental illness symptoms in healthy users and exacerbates pre-existing mental illness. Now researchers have found out that it doesn’t cure a disease that attacks the brain. Who could have predicted that?

The benefits of marijuana in tempering or reversing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease have been challenged in a new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.

The findings, published in the current issue of the journal Current Alzheimer Research, could lower expectations about the benefits of medical marijuana in combating various cognitive diseases and help redirect future research to more promising therapeutics.

Previous studies using animal models showed that HU210, a synthetic form of the compounds found in marijuana, reduced the toxicity of plaques and promoted the growth of new neurons. Those studies used rats carrying amyloid protein, the toxin that forms plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s victims.

The new study, led by Dr. Weihong Song, Canada Research Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease and a professor of psychiatry in the UBC Faculty of Medicine, was the first to test those findings using mice carrying human genetic mutations that cause Alzheimer’s disease &’ widely considered to be a more accurate model for the disease in humans.

“As scientists, we begin every study hoping to be able to confirm beneficial effects of potential therapies, and we hoped to confirm this for the use of medical marijuana in treating Alzheimer’s disease,” says Song, a member of the Brain Research Centre at UBC and VCH Research Institute and Director of Townsend Family Laboratories at UBC.

“But we didn’t see any benefit at all. Instead, our study pointed to some detrimental effects.”

Sorry stoners, but pot isn’t medicine. But wait, there’s more:

The mice treated with HU210 did no better than untreated mice, with those given low doses of HU210 performing the worst. The researchers also found that HU210-treated mice had just as much plaque formation and the same density of neurons as the control group. The group given higher doses actually had fewer brain cells.

Research money well spent, because there’s no way someone could have predicted that getting high kills brain cells.

My theory: Alzheimer’s is caused by a history of drug and alcohol abuse. We’ll know for sure when we see how many elderly hippies have the disease.