A boy had sex with the 14-year old daughter of a San Jose, California police officer. So the police officer drove to the boy's home, handcuffed him, and lectured him for several minutes:

The officer said: "It does not bode well for you. Do you know what that means? No? Not a good thing that the person you had sex with is a cop's daughter. The district attorney will probably file charges.

"A cop's daughter is not somebody you mess around with. You're stupid."

One of the boy's parents videoed the incident and complained to police.

Link | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Elvert Barnes used under Creative Commons license

Jim of Jim's Pancakes makes creatively shaped and arranged pancakes in order to entertain his young daughter, Allison. Recently, after touring a natural history museum, he made this 3D arrangement of pancakes in the shape of a dinosaur.

Link via Great White Snark

Previously:
Jim's Pancakes
Tetris Pancakes

Abbott, the manufacturer of Similac baby formula, is holding a huge recall of its products due to contamination by beetle larvae. At the link, you can search to see if your baby's formula is effected. The site is currently experiencing very heavy traffic, so you can also download a .pdf list of all recalled items if you are unable to search.

Recall List and News Article -- Thanks, Wifey! | Photo via Flickr user The Consumerist used under Creative Commons license

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Singer Katy Perry appeared on a Sesame Street YouTube video. She sang a version of her song "Hot 'N' Cold" with Elmo. The video has since been pulled down after numerous complaints by parents that Perry was baring too much skin for children's programming.

Link via Geekosystem

At Foreign Policy's blog Passport, Joshua Keating notes an academic paper that found that the dictatorial a leader is, in general, the more children he has. From the paper:

We provide a theory whereby non-benevolent, non-democratic leaders increase their expected family size to raise the likelihood that a child will be a match at continuing the regime’s survival. As a consequence, having a larger family size raises the non-democratic leader’s expected rents that they can exploit from the citizenry. In contrast, democratic leaders have a lower desire to appropriate rents from the citizenry, and therefore have a diminished desire to have additional children for these purposes. We construct a data set of the number of children of country leaders as of August 31, 2005. We find that in a sample of 221 country leaders, fully non-democratic leaders have approximately 1.5–2.5 more actual children as compared to if they are fully democratic.

Link via io9 | Photo: AP

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Those of you who haven't lived in Alabama may struggle to grasp the magnitude of the rivalry between the respective football fans of the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Suffice it to say that Alabamians take their football very seriously.

That's why the ultimate threat against a 4-year old Crimson Tide fan is to take him to the Auburn Store.

via reddit

A study in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology suggests that very young children can understand ironic language. From the abstract:

Children's responses to others' ironic utterances were coded for their understanding of meaning and conversational function. Mothers were especially likely to ask rhetorical questions and to use ironic language in conflictual contexts. In contrast, fathers used hyperbole and understatement as frequently as rhetorical questions, and employed ironic language in both positive and conflictual contexts. Children also showed evidence of a nascent ability to use ironic language, especially hyperbole and rhetorical questions. Family members used rhetorical questions and understatement proportionately more often in a negative interaction context.

Link | Journal Article (payment required) | Photo by Flickr user adpk used under Creative Commons license

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Humorist Ryan Iverson puts on his best fake German accent and, speaking as filmmaker Werner Herzog, offers dark interpretations of children's books. He's already tackled Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Madeline, and -- best of all -- Curious George. Most recently, Iverson has read about the haunted, hunted central character in the Where's Waldo? series.

via MomLogic

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Comedian Danielle Uhlarik and Second City Network are gradually releasing a series of videos lampooning the values that the Disney princess movies teach. The one above is for Belle from Beauty and the Beast. You can also watch one for Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

via Ace of Spades HQ

Das Chupa, an artist, will soon be a daddy. He scorns the honor roll bumper stickers that some parents put on their cars, so he's created a set for parents of video game players:

My son Dean is going to be out of beta in just over 3 months and I've got some preparing to do. I've never understood why parent stick the crap bumper stickers about their six year olds making the honor list in a grade where bladder control is part of the curriculum.

Pictured above is one bumper sticker referencing one of Mega Man's foes.

Link via Geekosystem

20th Century psychologist Abraham Maslow famously categorized human needs in a pyramid, from physical survival to self-actualization. Now a team of evolutionary psychologists proposes that the top slot should belong to parenting:

The new pyramid is based on the premise that our strongest and most fundamental impulse, which shapes our day-to-day desires on an unconscious level, is to survive long enough to pass our genes to the next generation. According to this school of thought, backed by considerable — though not irrefutable — evidence, all our achievements are linked in one way or another to the urge to reproduce.

In other words, aside from our powerful brains, we’re pretty much like every other living creature.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/maslows-pyramid-gets-a-makeover-20682 via Glenn Reynolds | Image: Georgia Perimeter College

Previously: Maslow's Hierarchy of Robot Needs

A woman in Queensland, Australia went into early labor yesterday. Authorities dispatched a rescue helicopter to take her from a remote area to a hospital. Fourteen minutes before they landed, the onboard paramedic delivered the baby girl:

A spokesman for the RACQ CareFlight said paramedic Mel Bernas delivered the baby girl 14 minutes before landing. ''The baby and mother were in good spirits and transported to Mackay Base Hospital,'' the spokesman said yesterday.

''It is believed the Wollongong couple were married yesterday on Hamilton Island - so a very memorable wedding anniversary.''

Link via Stuff | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user 111 Emergency Used under Creative Commons license

A Canadian safety organization spent $15,000 making an optical illusion in a West Vancouver street. When a driver is about 30 meters away, it looks like a young child running into the street, chasing a ball. The BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation hopes that it will encourage drivers to slow down and be watchful of children. Spokesman David Drunne said:

The back-to-school season was chosen because September and October are the months that see the most child fatalities, Mr. Dunne said. Plus, parents are often the worst offenders, speeding, pulling u-turns and talking on cellphones, he said.

You can view a larger image at the link.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo: Globe & Mail

It can be hard to travel with children, which is why Singapore's Changi Airport was designed to be a family entertainment venue. Among its amenities is a 40-foot tall slide. It's the tallest slide in Singapore and the tallest slide in any airport anywhere:

For every $22 spent in the airport, adrenaline junkies (or really brave little kids) get tokens for two rides on the slide. Visitors who don’t want to travel at the speed of 19 feet a second, can take a ride down the shorter, one-and-a-half-story tall slide located at Terminal 3 Basement 2, which is free.

Video at the link.

Link via J-Walk Blog | Photo: New York Times

It's time for the R&D engineers at the NeatoShop to get busy, because Paul Starke has twelve great ideas for products that would be helpful for dads -- and probably moms, too:

4) Diaper Genie -- Yes, I know they already make this soiled-diaper storage unit, but what if it also granted you three wishes and had the voice of Robin Williams?

5) Snoozies -- Basically a onesie with a built-in snooze button. Is the baby crying in the middle of the night? Just tap the snooze button on his belly and get nine more minutes of sleep.[...]

7) Ambien-Coated Pacifiers -- Controversial? Probably. Effective? Definitely. I know for a FACT that my parents used to load me up with cough syrup before a long drive

What baby-care product would you like to see invented?

Link | Photo by Flickr user medigerati used under Creative Commons license