NPR has a little blurb up that Army desertion is up 80% since the start of the Iraq War in 2003. The numbers only account for less than one percent of the entire force, roughly 5,000 troops.
Yesterday, Gov. Sonny Perdue stood outside the Georgia State Capital along with several hundred other people and prayed for rain.
It would seem to me that Gov. Perdue has never heard of separation of church and state. It also indicates that Perdue does not grasp that government is not suppose to endorse a certain religion so as to avoid ostracizing those of other faiths. I don’t think there was any doubt as to which religion the Georgian government supports when Perdue said, "God, we need you. We need rain." Granted invitations were extended to other faiths, but only three Christian clergy showed up.
To make matters even spicier the Atlanta Journal-Consitution reports: “Nearby, some 20 demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society staged a protest against the holding of a religious observance at the seat of state government. Police moved them when they cordoned off the streets before the event, and none were in sight at the end of the service.”
I thought the government was supposed to be spending time figuring out what to do with our resources and improving public life, verses throwing a weather-related prayer circle.
Scientists have found the popular toy's coating contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB, or gamma-hydroxy butyrate, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Scott Wolfson told CNN.
Everyone has probably already heard about the ruling against the Westboro Baptist Church ordering the organization to pay $10.9 million to the relatives of a Marine killed in action. Now, I believe I may be the only atheist who views this as a bad idea. I don’t know all the exact facts on the subject, but do know that the jury said that the church “invaded the privacy of the dead man’s family and inflicted emotional distress.” Which, of course, they did. But, even so, the First Amendment still protects freedom of religion and the right to peacefully assemble. Granted, the organization's posters and slogans can be viewed as being "not peaceful"--but these are just words. Hideous words, but still, just words.
If we allow the government to curtail the rights of religious organizations, we begin walking down a dangerous path. Where do we draw the line for what religious organizations are allowed to do? Do we start writing laws making certain religious practices illegal on the grounds that they offend the majority? For some reason I can’t help but think of the poem “First they came…” by Pastor Martin Niemoller.
Is my thinking flawed? Am I not seeing the bigger picture?
The first of about eighty million baby boomers applied for social security yesterday... so begins the drain on the security and Medicare. With the amount of baby boomers, Social Security will be in the red (giving out more then taking in taxes) by 2017 and be empty by 2040 and Medicare will be depeleted in 2018 [1].
Without reform the system not be around to support our generation as we head for retirement. Which calls for us as students to become better educated and understand our current and future finances. And shows the importance to start preparing for our retirements early. Regardless if it's placing some of our monthly income into a 401k, working with a broker/bank to set up an IRA, or learning to invest in other funds and stocks. It is either that or rely on a broken system to support us and find out later we have to continue working in our 80's instead of enjoying suffleboard and 4 o'clock dinners.
The US Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and instead send marines to Afghanistan, senior Pentagon officials say.
The idea would in effect leave the Iraq war in the hands of the US Army while giving the marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command.
The rather rocky relationship between Iraq and Blackwater may be coming to an end.
Monday the Iraq government released a press release (good to see them back to work!) stating that the US government has to break off from Blackwater within six months and pay each family who lost a relative $8 million ($136 mililion in all). BBC Story
Also on similar note, the news feeds are reporting that two women were killed in Iraq by a currently unknown private security firm. NY Times Story
A couple days ago during the trail of Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas (being sued for sharing 26 songs on Kaza), the head of litigation for Sony BMG stated that any ripping of songs is "stealing". So by Sony's standards burning a copy of your CD is stealing, downloading a song you already own is stealing, copying a CD to your itunes is stealing.
After this weeks brutal clash of Myanmar troops and pro democracy protesters, images began to stream into media outlets showing the horrors of an oppressive regime on it's people. With the onset of the digital age it has become increasingly difficult for countries to suppress the outlet of reports. So far Myanmar has turned off phones and internet effectively halting the flow of images and videos. Groups working within Myanmar remain hopeful that more images of these crimes will arrive via cellphones.
I was clicking around CNN when I stumbled upon a story. This little tale told a story of how more blacks are in prison then in college dorms, almost a 3 to 1 ratio. This is compared to the Hispanic community, which is at 2.7 for prison to college.
Some interesting facts from the article:
Blacks made up 41 percent of the nation's 2 million prison and jail inmates in 2006. Non-Hispanic whites made up 37 percent and Hispanics made up 19 percent.
Non-Hispanic whites made up about 73 percent of the 2.3 million people living in college housing in 2006. Blacks made up about 12 percent, Asians about 7 percent and Hispanics about 6 percent.
I sat here debating if this was blog worthy, and I decided it was. Then I sat here and tried to figure out if this was the right blog for this, I decide it was. This wont be as politically charged as most posts but it will mean something to someone, I'm sure. Today has been a rough day for the mind.
Being the hard worker I am the first thing I did when arriving at work this morning was to log into my MySpace account. Upon each I see a massive amounts of RIP bulletins along with an acquaintances name. After a few quick messages and reading comments left, I find that it is true. Utah socialite Scott aka “Scott!...From Myspace!…Right?” passed away Friday night, from what I can tell it was an overdose.
This caught my eye the other day and I meant to blog about it earlier. So I figure to start my Friday morning off I'll go ahead and share.
As most college kids I've fallen in love with smoking Hookah either at home or at a hookah lounge. I've often struggled with why I love smoking hookah so much and often day dream of getting a new bowl ready, lighting up the charcoal, and inhaling some wonderful tasting smoke. As the room fills with the wonderful aroma, everyone settles in and prepares for a nice session of random chatter and hookah. Read More »
Four members of the Seminal staff decided to test out dressing professional for the Sept 15th anti-war march. Wearing suits they hit the street and found that reactions from both protesters and anti-protesters treated them better then they have thought would happen.
From their blog entry on the matter:
"We feel confident that a coordinate group of ten people, all dressed in professional attire, would present a striking visual image, and that a hundred or more would literally cause jaws to drop - and perhaps attract serious media attention as well."
You can read the whole story and see their pictures here: theSeminal.com
The Republic of Iraq annouced that Blackwater USA has been kicked out of Iraq and is no longer allowed to operate within it's borders. They stand accused of killing civilians over the weekend but due to US law the company can not be held accountable in court.
Wow Russia just can't stay out of the headlines this week. Procreation day (wonderful idea), oh and that little thing of dissolving their government. If you haven't heard about Russia's Procreation Day then you must have been living under a rock these past few days. A region in Russia is having difficulty in keeping it's population up, so officials last year came up with an awesome contest. They made September 12th a half day for Russian workers so they could go home and procreate... the best part is if you have a baby exactly 9 months later on the Russian national day (June 12th) you get PRIZES!! Awesome huh?
Oh and today's little headline... Putin dissolves government. No biggie.
With the morning starting in Salt Lake City, I hope voters are getting ready! With the pre-primary votes so close among our fair cities possible future candidates today’s votes probably mean the most. I’m not sure how mayor elections work in other states. But in Utah when there are more then two candidates running, the top two in the primaries get the next few weeks to campaign before the General Elections.
So lets sit back and see what happens to Post-Rocky Anderson Salt Lake.
As the primary elections for Salt Lake City Mayor inches closer some candidates spoke at the University of Utah (The U). Hopefully this will inspire students to get out there and vote both at the primaries and the general elections coming up in November. So far the candidates all seem to be fighting tooth and nail. The S.J. Quinney College of Law at the U posted a debate between most of the candidates, rather dry but lots of information.
The really exciting part about all this is the sheer amount of interns working on the local campaigns from The U. The Daily Utah Chronicle ran a post saying that there were nearly 40 interns in the campaigns. Slowly but surely Utah’s youth are getting involved with politics and getting our voices heard. I'm anxious to see what happens.
As most internet geeks know the iPhone was unlocked. To non-geeks this now means that the iPhone can work on other carriers not just AT&T.
I think the fun part about all this is the upcoming legal battle about to hit the courts. Apple and AT&T are now suing a few companies that have created software unlocks for consumers. So a fun question will be answered, do we have the right to do what we want with our property?
If you recall the current legal battle of the Record Industry against people who download music, you may recall seeing: DMCA. The DMCA is short for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA was passed to uphold copyright laws on the internet. For the nitty gritty of this act you can read the wiki about it.
For once the DMCA may protect end users over big corporations... I'm sure Apple and AT&T will be able to somehow fight these fairly clear words in the DMCA: 'enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network'. This should be fun...
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