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Yesterday was another day in which politics dominated the most active topics. In fact, eight of the top ten most active threads were political. One of the two exceptions, however, was actually the most active thread of the day. That thread, titled, "Dad leaves toddler to die in hot car while he plays games on Play Station", was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to an article about an Arizona man who was charged with murder after leaving his 2-year-old daughter in the car. After several hours in the hot Arizona sun, the child died. The father apparently had a habit of leaving his kids — he has three including the child that passed away — in the car. While he would leave the air conditioning running, it would stop after 30 minutes and he routinely got distracted and forgot about them. In this instance he is alleged to have been playing video games and putting away groceries. The original poster is critical of the father due to his irresponsibility, but also blames his wife who was aware that he frequently left the kids in the car but still allowed him to care for them. The original poster believes the mother had a duty to make alternative arrangements due to her husband's negligence. I'm a bit surprised that this thread — which is currently 22 pages long — has received so much engagement. Of course everyone is appalled by the father's behavior. Several posters say that they are generally sympathetic towards parents whose children die after being inadvertently left in the car. But they consider this instance to be different because the father purposely left the child behind and neglected her for so many hours. There is some difference of opinion about the mother's culpability. Many posters agree with the original poster that she should also be charged. A number of posters say that women like the mother in this incident who have irresponsible husbands are in a no-win situation. If the couple divorced, the father would likely have at least part time custody and the kids would be in even more danger of his neglect. Staying together allowed her to have more responsibility for the children, but she appears to be the family bread winner and, therefore, needs to work. As such, the mother was left with no good choices. However, because the mother has strongly defended her husband in court, several posters are unsympathetic to her and more willing to see her punished. A lot of the discussion in this thread approaches the story as if it were a soap opera. Posters dig into court documents to learn that the father has children with a previous wife and has apparently stopped paying child support. They speculate that he is a "stay at home dad" only for purposes of avoiding child support payments. Posters explore the couple's lifestyle, determining that they appear to have plenty of money. Other posters discuss how technology might help to prevent children from being left in cars. But others argue that since in this case the child was left intentionally, such systems would have been overriden.