The Onion: Keeping Us Up To Date On The Pressing Issues Of The Day

"GLENS FALLS, NY—An esteemed high council of elders gathered in the hushed chambers of the Hillside Assisted Living Center this week to determine the fate of Wanda Drexler, a 43-year-old day nurse suspected of stealing loose change from atop various dressers and nightstands....."

The Obama Tracker

NPR's interesting interactive new way to keep tabs on what the Obama administration has been getting done lately.

Health Care: A BFD

Today Joe Biden gave his own editorial remarks alluding to his enthusiasm over the passing of the long awaited health care bill, somewhat forgetting that his mike was on as he told his running mate that

"this is a big fucking deal."

Biden has always been outspoken in his thoughts throughout his job, but this is an interesting comment, considering he is the vice president now. Yes, he is just a human like every one of us, but one would hope that the vice president of the United States has a bit more class than what he has shown. That being said, passing the health care bill is a pretty big fucking deal.

The UK's Solution to Poverty

This week in the United Kingdom a new bill is up for voting in the parliament, the Child Poverty Act. Great Britain's bill that may pass into national legislation today ambitiously promises to end child poverty by 2020. A previous promise to halve child poverty by 2010 failed miserably, so the government has decided to step up its programs and taxes to ensure that it reaches its goal by 2020.

Programs and laws such as this are happening in the United Kingdom, and they need to be happening here. Now that health care has gone through, Obama needs to concentrate on his big 'Jobs Bill' that he talked about in the state of the union address. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later so we can, in this case, do things like the UK.

No Viagra for Offenders?

As Obama's Health Care bill has finally passed in the house, and now it has moved into the Senate for reconciliation, where the Republicans can do little to slow the bill down from its process of being passed other than proposing new amendments to the bill. One of these amendments is one that will omit the purchase of Viagra or other such male enhancement medications from the health care plan, at least for registered sex offenders.

This is an interesting tactic on the republicans part, because small and seemingly meaningless amendments to the bill will take time to be voted on, and will stall the process a great deal. This really is the only option the Republicans have, because this bill is basically going to pass no matter what happens in the Senate debates during the reconciliation period.

Mental Health Break

Mexico Seeks Help with Drug Wars

Although Mexican drug wars have been a problem for a long time along the U.S.-Mexican border, now Americans in particular are being targeted by the gangs and mafia style organizations that fuel the drug industry in both Mexico and the United States. After the recent murder of a pregnant woman and her husband for no apparent reason other than them being American, the Obama administration is coming under questioning as to what policy it is going to take to protect American citizens.

But so far the only real response to the tragedies this past weekend have been that the area along the border is just a dangerous place that shouldn't be taken lightly:

"The tragedy of this weekend just underscores how severe and significant a danger this represents to Mexico, to the United States, to the hemisphere."

Dem's Going for Reconciliation

With Obama's health care plan getting bogged down in the two different houses of congress, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are grasping at straws and might go for a desperation measure: reconciliation.

Reconciliation, a tactic that has been used before by the Republicans in the Bush administration, requires the House to pass the Senate bill and reconciliation. The Senate then can pass the health care bill with only a simple majority. This tactic can be considered something of 'cheating,' usually by the opposing party, but at this point it may be the dem's only option.

Poverty Seems bad here...

A graphic put up by NPR shows how much it really costs to make our pants, take a look at the costs of labor:

ONN: Keeping Everyone in the Know

Quake in Haiti Could Actually Bring Good Change?

Now with the focus on Haiti after the massive earthquake, Haitians are looking to use this new influx of help and money into their country and use it towards not only rebuilding the country from the earthquake, but also focusing on some of the country's previous issues, such as poverty and unemployment.

Previously Haiti had a 70% unemployment rate so, grim as it is, the deaths of so many Haitians has opened up the job market for many others who were previously out of work. These new workers are now doing whatever they can do to restart the economy by working in textiles to create clothes to sell to the United States.

The Haiti business elite, still a very corrupt bunch, is doing what it can to turn around this viewpoint along with the country as Haiti rebuilds.

Poorism

For years now tourists have been paid guided tours through the ghettos and shantytowns of South Africa, Brazil, and other poor countries to see how 'the other side lives.' Although this may be interesting for some to see, it seems as though it would leave the poverty tourists, or 'poorists,' with something of a bad taste in their mouth. But this hasn't stopped a Los Angeles Gang Tour from opening up, where people pay to be bussed through the ghettos and famous gang violence hot spots in L.A. Not only is this potentially dangerous, it creates the feeling of putting on a show.

But this 'show' is not some performance, it is real people out living their lives, and real violence happening for tour busses to see. This poorism creates the feeling of people going to a wild animal preserve and driving through to see the animals, something that is just plain wrong. Yes, gang violence and poverty is something that needs to be recognized and acted on, but this is the wrong way of going about it.

Will Amazon Have to Include Sales Tax?

One of the great things about buying items online is the fact that there is never any sales tax. Granted, the shipping and handling price usually is the equivalent of the tax on an item that one would find in a store, but no tax also has always been a plus. But with California in such a massive budget crisis, state legislators are looking for anything they can do to get money.

Online websites like Amazon have been able to evade state taxes by having their shipping locations outside of the state, but California, like New York and Colorado have already done, is attempting to make online shopping taxed. Although a passing of this legislation would get a lot of grumbling from the thousands of online shoppers in California, the fact of the matter is that our state is in great need of a money in any way possible, and if this is the solution to getting us out of the statewide recession, then its just something that we're going to have to accept.