They're Everywhere!

As you may or may not know, I don't exactly like pop music. Yet I have nothing against pop artists as people, simply because they are pop artists. But Christian groups in South Korea (and, well, the world over) hate pop artists like Lady GaGa, because they support gay rights.

Lady GaGa is doing a show in South Korea, yet South Korean Christian groups have managed to get the government to ban anyone under 18 from seeing it. These people put forced religious conviction above freedom of speech—sound familiar? They also are willing to boycott Hyundai and its sub-companies because they sponsor the tour. Hating gays seems rather antiquated and stupid, yet these "devout Christians" still follow backward principles, given that the only reason to is because of a "great holy spiritual book." It appears that crazy religious people are everywhere.

EDIT: I am not talking about all South Koreans. Just the crazily religious ones.

"These guys don't get it!"

The interest rates on student loans are set to go up on July 1 if Congress does not act. Republicans, of course, are saying that students just need to deal with it, because the national debt needs to be lowered. Yet they won't even THINK of raising taxes on the rich. They claim that the national debt is hurting the economy, yet as President Obama pointed out, so does making it harder to get education, and less education only makes the economy even worse. Of course, there is always a political motivation, and Obama is of course attempting to gain the youth vote. The total amount of student loans in America now total $1,000,000,000,000; that is a HUGE source of debt, about 6.25% of the debt owed by the government, who has many, many more expenses. 40% of adults over 35 who took student loans still haven't payed them off, yet Republicans STILL insist that student debt is not that big of an issue.

And now that this is becoming such a huge negative issue for the Republicans, they are proposing to pay for these subsidies by taking money out of the Affordable Care Act; raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires just isn't an option. I mean, why should people who have more money than they know what to do with find a way to actually use SOME OF that money?

And here's a funny (and worrying) bit on this issue from Jimmy Fallon, President Obama, and the Roots.

Farewell to Facts

This is not something that I wrote. It is, however, quite true, and somewhat worrying.

Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012

Let's Not Actually Fix It

Tennessee uses an abstinence-only sex education program. Of course, states that use abstinence-only sex education programs have higher teen pregnancy rates than states that use a more comprehensive method. Teen pregnancy rates are, however, going down overall. "This good shift is largely the result of an increase in teenagers' use of birth control — a fact that Congressional Republicans ignore as they seek to dismantle reproductive health programs" (The New York Times). This is worrying, yet not surprising: Republicans are once again ignoring reality and making another bullshit argument. So instead of using education that involves simply saying, "look, there are these things called condoms. You use those correctly, and you've basically eliminated any chance of becoming pregnant," Tennessee Republicans are amending the law so that they teach against "gateway sexual activities." Of course, they don't take the time to even DEFINE that term in the law. For all we know, teachers may now be required to tell their students, "Don't hold hands, you might end up having sex and getting pregnant!" Instead of fixing the problem, they are creating a "solution" that, unlike tried and tested solutions that actually work, fixes nothing.


Stephen Colbert has a brilliant bit on this "new approach" to sex education.

Einstein was an Atheist

For those of you who have facebook accounts (or if this can be seen without one, I don't know):
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150730485329578&set=p.10150730485329578&type=1&theater

Anyways, it claims that Einstein was a Christian (false), that cold does not exist (because it's technically just the absence of heat), that darkness doesn't exist (because it's technically just the absence of light), that brains don't exist (because you haven't seen them, felt them, right?), and that all this somehow proves that God exists.

Every argument made to "prove" God is false (why is that not surprising?). Cold=absence of heat. Ok, congrats, which means cold does exist, as a way to express the absence of heat. By the "student's" own argument. Cause I'd rather say "it's cold outside" over "it is lacking heat in the exterior terrain." And you can go on and do basically the same thing with every other argument made.

"Guns N' Roses"

Turns out that Wal-Mart sells guns. And not just paintball guns and Airsoft guns; real rifles. You can go into to Wal-Mart and get guns and roses! There's even a pink rifle, and they sell shotguns too. I think that this might be a sign that gun laws are a little too lax.

Silence the Heretic!

That sounds like something you'd hear in a movie set in the Middle Ages. Funny thing: it's still happening.

Irish Catholic Priest Tony Flannery was silenced by the Catholic Church. Flannery was often critical of the Church, on issues like clerical sex abuse in Ireland, the Church's handeling of sex abuse in Ireland, the blocking of women from becoming priests, and censorship by the Church.

The "great" and "moral" Vatican is censoring its own priests, instead of actually fixing the problems the priests are bringing up. They're ignoring the actual problems! Why am I not surprised?

America Sues Apple

"'As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles,' Holder said." The United States government decided to sue Apple because of "price manipulation." The main argument given by the government was that Apple and publishers conspired to eat into Amazon's share of the eBook industry through price manipulation.

Last I checked, it is still legal for a company to decide at what price it will sell its products. It appears that the United States government (and no, that does NOT mean it's all Obama's fault) is having some trouble figuring out how Capitalism works.

The government also was angry about how Apple made a product, as shown here.

"'Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99,' Jobs wrote to one of the publishers, according to the Justice Department's complaint.

Apple successfully persuaded the publishers to adopt an 'agency model' that allowed publishers to set the price of e-books and in turn, Apple would take a 30 percent cut, the government said. The Apple agreements with publishers effectively barred them from allowing rival retailers to sell the same books at lower prices.

The strategy upended the 'wholesale model' in which retailers pay for the product and charge what they like."


Oddly enough, the government doesn't seem to care that Amazon set eBook prices at $9.99, yet Apple trying to get higher prices is apparently an issue. As to why Amazon setting the price is legal, and Apple setting it isn't, I don't know.

The government didn't like that Apple was making a product differently than normal. There are legal reasons for the case, but the laws make very, very, very, very little sense. Thus, as one can expect with Apple, the case is being ignored by the corporation. Which is now technically a person. I guess they can't just put Apple into the back of a cop car.

Another Supreme Mistake

If you are arrested, you can now be strip-searched before being put in jail. Doesn't matter what the offense was, or if there is any evidence, or if you've had a trial. The Supreme Court said that Supreme Court, who's primary purpose is to determine constitutionality, cannot question law enforcement officials. Of course, their primary job is indeed questioning, so it is troubling to see them take this stance. It will be interesting to see what happens because of the ruling; lawsuits? Maybe, just maybe. The Supreme Court has taken some, I'll say "odd" to put it mildly, stances recently, including Citizens United and Scalia's odd stance that women don't necessarily have rights, nor do gays; apparently, legislatures get to decide if there is gender equality or inequality.