Why it even came before a judge in the first place is beyond my experience or knowledge. Wouldn't the legal guardians, the foster parents, have the final say in the matter? Maybe the story is misleading, or I'm putting too much emphasis on "foster home" - that is, is the state the final arbiter in a foster child's decision-making?

As far as I know every branch of the U.S. Military has a Delayed Enlistment Program - that is, a 17 year-old can join the inactive reserves and then ship out when s/he reaches 18 years of age (though the agreement can be legally broken). Yeah, I know, no one likes recruiters - unless they're recruiters recruiting minorities, women, and children for some Fortune 2 company. Even so, even I managed to avoid those pesky varmints - which I will write a best-selling book about someday, I assure you. Fret ye not, my knowledge of such things shall not die with me.

I've never understood the 17/18 Dividing Line - especially not when someone seems to be hellbent on a certain course since, oh, age 7 - had seen, of all possible military films, Full Metal Jacket (sorry, FMJ isn't exactly a recruitment video - Sands of Iwo Jima maybe). Sure, I can see judicial admonishment to minors for certain abuses, but wanting to serve one's country? Yes, even to train to fight with the possibility of dismemberment or death or worse a constant harassment for one's country - that's something a judge should be condemning?

Extra dilemma: Also from doubleplusundead's link-a-thon: Endangered British Recipes. Spotted dick, a disappearing phenomenon in England, but not in John Kerry's canned and bottled utopia (it's even microwavable - and, yes, I've seen that in my local grocer's foreign food aisle).

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