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.

Poverty = Shorter Life

Just something to think about.

1967 to Present, Nothing has Changed

A little over 40 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. had planned on making a second march on capitol hill, but this time it was to be not about civil rights in America, but about the ridiculously high amount of Americans in poverty. The number of Americans living in poverty in 1967: 40 million. The number of Americans living in poverty now: 40 million. Although the country has become more populated, this is still a ridiculous amount of people.

Dr. King saw that poverty was not a civil rights campaign, it was something that had the ability to oppress everyone, and therefore should be much easier to unite a nation under the cause of eliminating poverty once and for all. Unfortunately, under this aspect of life, we really have failed the great Martin Luther King Jr. Poverty is rising, and it needs to be stopped. With all these new government reforms, Obama is doing an okay job of keeping his attentions focused on Main Street as opposed to Wall Street, but doing this alone is not going to get the job done. The knowledge of our nation's poverty needs to get out and reach the nation so we can do something about this nationwide problem.

Mental Health Break: Vampire Protection