27-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Ryan Tabor has served 15 months in Iraq and apparently he picked up some less than appropriate parenting techniques while he was there:

“We had a report of [Tabor] walking around his neighborhood holding a Kevlar helmet and threatening to bust out windows,” Stancil told ABCNews.com today. “In the process of talking to Tabor’s girlfriend about what was going on, we learned that he had also been abusing his daughter.”

Stancil said that when the cops coaxed the little girl out of the bathroom they saw that she was covered in “multiple bruises pretty much all over her body.”

“She was very open with us,” Stancil said of the young girl, whose name is not being released because she is a minor. “She basically came right out and said, ‘Daddy does this to me. He uses his hands.’”

Both the girl and the father admitted to the torture, even detailing how Tabor would sit the girl on the edge of the bathroom sink and hold her head down until it was nearly submerged in water, dunking her if she refused to recite the alphabet, said Stancil.

Yes, the terrible thing this little girl did that prompted her punishment was refusing to recite the alphabet.

But at least Tabor is being upfront and honest about what he’s done:

Tabor told authorities that “his purpose was to punish her by putting her in the water because he knows she is afraid of it and he wanted her to cooperate.”

“She said her letters after that,” Tabor told the cops, admitting that he had grown frustrated with the girl after practicing the letters for “approximately three hours.”

After three hours of practice I’d refuse to say the fucking alphabet as well.

It seems Tabor felt that his daughter was not mentally up to where she should be for her age. And we all know that the best way to motivate a mentally deficient child is by repeatedly dunking their head into a sink full of hot water. Tabor’s girlfriend may also end up facing charges in the incident. She noted that Tabor has an “anger management problem” to police. Gee, ya think?

Oh, and according to investigators, the 4-year-old girl seemed quite articulate and without any developmental problems. Though after living with this asshole for the past couple of months – he has joint-custody in five months increments – she’ll probably need some therapy in the future.

It can be tough to be the son of a clergyman. You’re held to a higher standard and any transgressions on your part can reflect poorly on your father. This sometimes results in extra pressure from your Dad to put forth the best image you possibly can.

In this case it seems the Pastor may have gone a tad too far in motivating his son:

ALCOA, Tenn. (AP) – The son of a well-known Alcoa pastor has taken out an order of protection against his father, claiming he was threatened with a gun during an argument at a church over his lack of church attendance. The order of protection was filed by 32-year-old Michael Louis Colquitt against 60-year-old Joe Colquitt, pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church.

The younger man told police his father pulled out a handgun when they met at the church to discuss church attendance. He told officers his father pointed the gun at him and threatened to kill him, his wife and family.

via Pastor accused of pulling gun on son at church.

Good thing you didn’t tell him you’re an atheist and have stopped attending church altogether. He would’ve used a tactical nuke on your house.

It’s a problem all parents have faced, with the possible exception of my in-laws as their daughter (my wife) was preternaturally good at doing her schoolwork, sooner or later your kid comes home with a bad grade.

Now if you’re a good parent you try to find some way to motivate your kid to do better. If there’s something in their life that seems to be getting in the way of their schoolwork then you might limit access to it or deny it until things improve. What you don’t do is somthing like this:

WARM SRPINGS, Ga. — Police have arrested a Georgia woman who they say forced her son to kill his pet hamster with a hammer as punishment for earning a bad grade.

Meriwether County sheriff Steve Whitlock told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday night that the 12-year-old boy told his teacher about the killing. The teacher reported it to the Division of Family and Child Services, who contacted police.

The pet’s death allegedly took place at the family’s Warm Springs home.

Whitlock said 38-year-old Lynn Middlebrooks Geter faces one charge each of animal cruelty, child cruelty and battery.

Yeah, you’re probably never going to get a “World’s Greatest Mom” mug with that approach. Mental trauma really isn’t a great motivator to do well in school.

Got the following email earlier today:

From: “Mrs. Mellisa Lewis” <info@rcweb.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:00:52 -0200
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;

Hello,

My name is Mrs. Mellisa Lewis . I am 59 years old and I was diagnosed for cancer for about 2 years ago. I will be going in for an operation later today.I decided  to WILL/donate the sum of (Fourteen Millions Two Hundred Fifty Eight Thousand  United States Dollars) to you for the good work of the lord.

Contact my lawyer with this email: Name: Mr Jay Mchenry
Email:(jmchenry@rcweb.net) (+44 792 435 0212)

Tell him that I have WILLED 14.258M to you by quoting my personal reference  number JJ/MMS/953/5015/GwrI/316us/uk. As soon as you contact him with this details quoted above, he should be able to recognize you and help in claiming this amount from my Bank.Be informed also that i have paid for the state tax on this money to be transferred to you.

Meanwhile you are advised to keep this mail and it contents confidential as i really want my wish accomplish at the end of the day.Please do pray to God for my recovery.

God Bless
Regards,
Mrs. Mellisa Lewis

First, one has to wonder why the recipients are undisclosed if this email was supposed to be directed to me. How many other people is she willing her money to? The second thing one notices is that this person clearly doesn’t know anything about me or she wouldn’t be hoping I’d use the money for “the good work of the Lord.” Then there’s the whole oddness of being instructed to claim this windfall before she’s actually undergone the, presumably destined to fail, operation. If she was clever enough to suss out my email then you’d think she’d just have the lawyer contact me after she’s dead. And while I must give these scam artists credit for a much more literate sounding letter than the usual bunch that show up in my inbox, there’s still some telling typos and odd phrasings that give away the game.

Well, other than the obvious cockup of suggesting I’d be doing the good work of the Lord.

The annual Darwin Awards, given out to those people who have most improved the gene pool by removing themselves from it, are back with 2009’s winners:

DOUBLE DIP (2009 runner up)
For the first time ever, a woman–yes, a member of the safer sex–made it into the year’s Top Darwin Awards! 2009 Antepenultimate Winner is the North Carolina woman who jumped into a swollen creek to rescue her drowning…moped. Read on.

DYING TO GO (2009 runner up)
We’ve all been in his shoes, taking that fateful whiz at the side of the road. After all, “You don’t buy beer, you just rent it.” Team Darwin Awards is proud to announce the 2009 Penultimate Winner. Read on.

(winner)
CRUSHING DEBT (2009 darwin award winner)
And the winner is… deceased! The city of Dinant, Belgium is the backdrop for this rare Double Darwin Award involving two bankrobbers attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal from an ATM. In hindsight, a debit card would have been safer. Read on.

Congratulations to this year’s winners! They managed to beat out a lot of other highly motivated contenders over the past year to take the top prize. And it’s already looking like it’ll be another hectic year of competition coming up.

Another in our ongoing series of people who had perhaps a tad too much faith takes us to South Carolina and 33 year-old Mr. Tillman. It seems Tillman tore his ACL back in March and when he went to the doctor’s office to get patched up they told him he’d have to pay $300 upfront before the repair could be done. Mr. Tillman couldn’t afford the appointment so he drove back home and settled his 550-pound frame, naked save for a blanket, into a recliner where he took up a Bible and stayed… for the past eight months believing all the while that God would heal him.

His wife tended to his needs as best as she could, but in the end God decided he had via better things to do than to heal Mr. Tillman:

“He read his Bible daily, he spent his full focus on God,” said Webb. “And he was literally waiting and praying for a Job miracle. If anybody knows the Bible and knows Job, he really and fully believed that God was going to heal him just like he did Job, because he said he couldn’t think of a better testimony to go out and to tell people.”

For eight months they had no visitors. Webb rarely left his side, and she tried to keep him clean.

“I couldn’t get him rolled over to use a bedpan,” said Webb.

Other than eating and reading the Bible, she says Tillmon posted sermons online and texted messages of faith through his cell phone.

“He wanted so much to get up and you know, he wanted to tell everybody what Jesus done,” said Webb.

I can only imagine the filth that must have gathered in that chair as he sat there, for eight months, relieving himself. I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with it for that long, but put up with it she did until the bitter end:

Webb says Tillmon consistently told her not to call for help. She says Wednesday morning he was in so much pain that she finally called an ambulance.

Greenwood County authorities say they found Tillmon covered with sores, and that he appeared to weigh about 800 pounds. They say he was stuck to his chair, and they had to saw the recliner apart. They cut a large hole around the front door to get him out.

He died at the hospital.

He had managed to pack on another 300 pounds in eight months? That’s an impressive feat in itself.

The wife, as you’d expect, is beside herself with grief for not getting help for her husband sooner.

Actually, that’s not true at all. She’s fine with it:

Webb says she has no regrets about leaving him in that recliner.

“If I feel anything right now, it’s envy for him because I wish he had taken me with him,” said Webb.

Officials, amazingly enough, aren’t charging her with a crime. I guess the figured they couldn’t come up with a punishment worse than what she’d spent the last eight months living with.

I get emails all the time from various True Believers&trade; with uplifting stories about how they prayed and God cured them of cancer, or gallstones, or whatever and I often write back and ask if they sought any medical treatment for their condition. Each time the answer is yes. I wonder how well they would have fared if they had the amount of faith in God that Mr. Tillman had. I wonder if their God would’ve been as happy to help had they not sought medical treatment. It’s somewhat amazing how often God’s willingness to cure you is tied to whether or not you’re getting medical attention.

The other aspect of this story that isn’t as obvious is how it shows the need for a public health care system in this country. Perhaps if Mr. Tillman didn’t need to worry about whether or not he could afford to go to the doctor he’d still be alive to spread the message of God’s love.  At the very least, his wife wouldn’t have gone through eight months of hell on earth.

Found over at Pharyngula.

Sometimes having too much faith will put you and your family at risk:

Over three months in 2006, as her five children grew more emaciated and listless by the day, Estelle Walker made no move to find a job, no effort to scrounge up a meal, her kids told a jury yesterday.

“We were supposed to wait for God to provide,” said Walker’s oldest daughter, now 21. “And that’s what we did.”

At one point, the daughter said, she and her siblings went 11 days without food. When police were at last summoned to the Sussex County cabin by neighbors, investigators found the children so malnourished they had difficulty talking.

It seems that in 2005 Mrs. Walker had told her church that she and her kids needed to get away from her alcoholic husband so the church put her up in a cabin it normally uses for retreats. It’s not explicitly stated in the article, but there’s a suggestion that the church supported Walker and her kids during their stay in the cabin. The trouble started when the church decided it was time for them to move on:

Walker was due to leave the cabin in May 2006 but refused, saying God had told her to stay, church members have said. The church then cut off her support and began eviction proceedings.

It wasn’t long before the money was gone and along with it the food. Yet Mrs. Walker refused to find work or ask for assistance:

Under questioning by Sussex County Assistant Prosecutor Frances Koch, they said Walker never tried to get any assistance for her family, either from her estranged husband or from other relatives. She likewise avoided seeking help from two churches near the Hopatcong cabin where they had been staying, the children said.

Though she had previously worked as a teacher, Walker made no effort to earn money, her children said.

“She never tried to get money or food or get a job,” the 16-year-old daughter said.

Now, several years later at the age of 50, Mrs. Walker is facing four counts of second-degree child endangerment which could land her in prison for 10 years for each count. None of this has shaken her faith in the least. In fact she has so much faith that she’s refusing to help in her own defense:

The invocation of God has been a theme throughout the trial’s first three days. Before the jury entered the courtroom yesterday, public defender Ronald Nicola told Judge N. Peter Conforti that Walker had been refusing to take an active role in her defense.

“She says, “God is my defense,’ Nicola told the judge.

Nicola asked that Walker be permitted to undergo psychiatric testing.

Asked by Conforti why she is not participating in her trial, Walker told him she saw no point in it.

“I don’t feel the need to continue to go over the documents that we’ve been going over for three years,” she said. “God will defend me.”

She’s already been found competent to stand trial so the request for psychiatric testing was denied. This woman’s faith almost killed her and her kids and now it’s going to put her behind bars.

The kids, by the way, have been living with their father since their mother was arrested and are reportedly doing well. Or at least as well as you can do when called upon to testify against your own mother for being a crazy bitch.

We’ve had an ongoing thread here on SEB wherein a Christian asks why he is perceived as the bad guy. It’s a thread I’ve mostly stayed out of because the regulars are already doing a pretty excellent job of making the argument. Besides, I’m always posting examples of why Christians are often perceived as the bad guys anyway.

Here’s a really good one. It’s a video clip from a Christian who is upset with the recent expansion of the Federal Hate Crimes bill:

I can feel the love of Jesus now! It makes me all warm and toasty!

So, yeah, that’s a pretty good example of why Christians are often seen as the bad guys. With loving acceptance like that, who needs enemies?

Found via Attempts at Rational Behavior.

Let’s say you have a 9-year-old daughter and she gets into a fight with a female classmate at school. What would be an appropriate response to that situation? Talk with the school’s principal? Contact the other girl’s parents about the fight? Or post the other girl’s name and phone number in a sex ad on Craig’s List?

The listing was allegedly posted after Tannenbaum’s fourth grade daughter claimed to have an argument with a 9-year-old classmate from her Smithtown elementary school.

Prosecutors say Tannenbaum, 40, then plotted revenge by listing the provocative e-mail address “lacethong23@yahoo.com,” and then giving out the girl’s first name and phone number when she received several responses.

According to court documents, the mother of the 9-year-old girl received a call from a man who, upon her answering, asked, “Hey baby, is this [girl’s first name]?”

When the woman told the man she was her mother, the caller responded: “Oh, hot lady lives with foxy momma!”

Said the girl’s mother: “I told him the hot lady you are referring to is 9-years-old.”

The caller then hung up, she said.

Here’s the kicker: Tannenbaum is a social worker.

So far, the Suffolk County district attorney is asking the state to review Tannenbaum’s social work license. She could be asked to undergo counseling and will be back in court next month, maintaining her innocence.

Tannenbaum was the classroom mother last year for the fourth grade, which included her daughter and the alleged victim. This year she was replaced.

You may have lost your spot as Classroom Mother, but you’ve earned a shot at the SEB Dumb Ass Mother of the Year Award! Congratulations!

I’ve never been on trial so maybe I’m just ignorant of proper legal defense, but somehow this just seems like a bad move:

A Halifax Crown attorney filed a complaint with police after a man she is trying to have declared a dangerous offender lost his cool and shouted at her in a courtroom Tuesday morning.

“I hate your (expletive) guts,” Christopher Edward Newhook yelled at prosecutor Catherine Cogswell during a profanity-filled outburst in Halifax provincial court.

“I wish I could cut your (expletive) head off with a rusty hacksaw blade.”

But wait! There’s more:

Mr. Newhook, who is being sentenced for stabbing a man in the head two years ago in Halifax, also called Ms. Cogswell a maggot, parasite and goof and said her mother was a goof for having her.

A goof? Really? Is that the best you could come up with for an ending? You started off so promising in the Bat-Shit Insane Competition, but that dismount is going to cost you points with the judges.