World News Korner

Courtesy of MSNBC:

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama want their children to experience the virtues of hard work at minimum-wage pay.

“I think every kid needs to get a taste of what it’s like to do that real hard work,” Michelle Obama said in an interview with Parade magazine published Friday.

“We are looking for opportunities for them to feel as if going to work and getting a paycheck is not always fun, not always stimulating, not always fair,” President Obama added. “But that’s what most folks go through every single day.”

I 100% agree with this sentiment, and applaud the first family for teaching their two girls the importance of hard work and the joy of independence.

I mean with their connections they could easily put their girls on the path to easy street, with book deals, reality shows, buy them a beauty shop to work in, or simply pay them to stay out of trouble and not embarrass them.

But really what kind of crappy parent would do that?

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Courtesy of M Live:

John Balyo, the WCSG radio personality arrested Friday on a sex assault allegation involving a young boy, was taken into custody at the Big Ticket Festival, one of the nation's largest Christian music events, police confirmed.

Balyo, 35, of Caledonia, was arrested about 11:30 a.m. June 20 without incident, Battle Creek police Sgt. Jim Martens said.

Martens said Balyo was identified through investigations following the arrest of another man, Ronald Moser, of Battle Creek. Moser was arrested after police searched his residence on June 5.

The charge against Balyo involves a single incident in May, Martens said. Homeland Security Investigation agents allege he paid a man, identified as Moser, to arrange a sexual encounter with a minor. Martens declined to discuss specific details of the case against Balyo.

Earlier it was reported that Balyo had been placed on paid leave, but now the radio station is saying that he is no longer affiliated with them.

Gee, ya think?

You know just the other day I was asked by the parent of a young boy that I am working with whether or not I am gay. Of course the subtext being that people believe that gay men are more likely to also be pedophiles.

That of course is incorrect, but part of the reason that such prejudice continues is that some churches either actively push that meme, or subtly suggest it from the pulpit.

In fact you may remember that even Vladimir Putin used that argument in order to oppress homosexuals in Russia.

However from my perspective it really seems that if one were to try and link pedophilia to one demographic it would overwhelmingly be that of Christians. And more appropriately, Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians.

I'm just saying.

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Courtesy of Media Matters:

ON SCOTT: There has been Iraq fatigue among the public in this country for a long time. What about the media?

JUDITH MILLER: Not the media. Not so, because the media still loves to beat up on who was responsible for the Iraq War, and who is to blame for the current controversy, the current crisis, and that is not helpful, Jon. What we should be doing, what the media should be doing, is encouraging everyone who has a view of what to do now in Iraq to come forward and to discuss it rationally. But they're doing the opposite. They're trying to shut down people like Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, all of the, quote, "neo-conservatives," who brought us this war. It's not helpful.

You know usually I would be shocked that a so-called reporter would say something like this out loud. But this is Judith "They're using aluminum tubes to make atomic weapons in Iraq" Miller.

She was one of the "journalists" who helped the Bush Administration sell the war to America, and she has almost as muhc blood on her hands as Dick Cheney and George Bush.

Here is what Salon wrote about her in 2005:

Miller was a consistent critic of Saddam’s regime, but before 1998 she was capable of making nuanced judgments about the problem it posed for the United States. At some point after that, she apparently began to believe that she, with her prescient expertise about WMD and radical Islam, and her hawkish and neocon sources were right. This was when her fateful decline began. A minor scientist and sometime college teacher such as Khidhir Hamza became “the highest ranking scientist” to defect from Iraq. She relayed complaints from Gucci revolutionaries like Chalabi that they had been left out of the loop by the Clinton administration, and retailed Iraq National Congress tall tales to her unsuspecting audience. By the late 1990s, she had laid the ground for her subsequent path, of becoming stenographer to a motley crew of neoconservative hawks and Iraqi expatriate wheelers and dealers. The aluminum tubes story, in particular, which she co-wrote and which helped pave the way to war, will likely be taught in journalism classes for years as a textbook study of flawed reporting. In the end, Miller’s decline seems due more to professional ambition than ideological conviction — although her own beliefs clearly grew closer to the neocons’.

“While Miller might not have intended to march in lockstep with these hawks, she was caught up in an almost irresistible cycle,” Foer writes. “Because she kept printing the neocon party line, the neocons kept coming to her with huge stories and great quotes, constantly expanding her access.”

In the end, it seems that Miller will go down in history not so much as a true believer as a useful idiot.

I think "useful idiot" might be the kindest thing that can be said about Judith Miller.

In fact her reporting was so bad, that the New York Times had to officially apologize for it in 2004.

And of course she could not be more wrong about what a reporter's job is concerning Iraq, and what happens going forward.

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Courtesy of NBC News:

The top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted by large margins Thursday to recognize same-sex marriage as Christian in the church constitution, adding language that marriage can be the union of "two people," not just "a man and a woman."

The amendment approved by the Presbyterian General Assembly requires approval from a majority of the 172 regional presbyteries, which will vote on the change over the next year. But in a separate policy change that takes effect at the end of this week's meeting, delegates voted to allow ministers to preside at gay weddings in states where the unions are legal and local congregational leaders approve. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriage.

The votes, during a national meeting in Detroit, were a sweeping victory for Presbyterian gay-rights advocates. The denomination in 2011 eliminated barriers to ordaining clergy with same-sex partners, but ministers were still barred from celebrating gay marriages and risked church penalties for doing so. Alex McNeill, executive director of More Light Presbyterians, a gay advocacy group, said the decisions Thursday were "an answer to many prayers."

Oh man, this is going to make conservative's heads explode.

I swear it's almost a shame NOT to be gay in this day and age.

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I thought the episode was very funny, and I liked how Maher closed it out on the issue of Iraq.

Maher compared America's fixation with trying to bring democracy to rogue nations to a woman who always believes she can "fix" a man by smothering him with love.

I was really tired last night for some reason, so I may not have been thinking clearly, which might explain why during the conversations I kept finding myself agreeing with Glenn Greenwald on most of the issues.

I don't really like him, but he really did have a valid point more times than not last night.

And Maher's point that in order for America to do anything about what is going on in Iraq right now we essentially have to choose sides in a religious conflict, is also dead on.

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Courtesy of Business Insider:

Gunmaker Smith & Wesson is down big after last night saying its sales in the upcoming year will decline.

In morning trade, shares are down nearly 10%.

For its fiscal year 2015, the company said sales are expected to be between $585 million and $600 million. Analysts were expecting sales of more than $620 million.

At first I thought perhaps this was because Smith and Wesson did not make military style weapons, because you know I don't really know much about gun manufacturing.

Smith and Wesson's M&P 10

But as it turns out they do, so that cannot be the reason.

So hey maybe people are starting to recognize that owning guns rarely keeps people safe, but instead significantly contributes to accidental deaths and suicides?

That would seem to the be case laid out by a CNN report from 2012, where it was determined that there are fewer gun owners, yet they tend to own numerous guns:

A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation's guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet -- even though they account for less than 1% of the world's population, according to a CNN analysis of gun ownership data.

Which kind of makes me wonder if these recent Open Carry protests are contributing to the diminishing number of Americans interested in owning weapons since gun owners are increasingly seen as frightened, insecure, man children walking around with visible penile substitutes in a desperate attempt to seem masculine?

Well that's my theory at least.

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Just a reminder to the trolls that this is not supposed to be taken literally.

Courtesy of AP:

A year after the Supreme Court struck down a law barring federal recognition of gay marriages, the Obama administration granted an array of new benefits Friday to same-sex couples, including those who live in states where gay marriage is against the law.

The new measures range from Social Security and veterans benefits to work leave for caring for sick spouses. They are part of President Barack Obama's efforts to expand whatever protections he can offer to gays and lesbians even though more than half of the states don't recognize gay marriage. That effort has been confounded by laws that say some benefits should be conferred only to couples whose marriages are recognized by the states where they live, rather than the states where they were married.

Aiming to circumvent that issue, the Veterans Affairs Department will start letting gay people who tell the government they are married to a veteran to be buried alongside them in a national cemetery, drawing on the VA's authority to waive the usual marriage requirement.

In a similar move, the Social Security Administration will start processing some survivor and death benefits for those in same-sex relationships who live in states that don't recognize gay marriage. Nineteen states plus the District of Columbia currently recognize gay marriage, although court challenges to gay marriage bans are pending in many states.

My daughter says that some of her friends are disappointed in the President over the NSA spying and sending troops back into Iraq, but her gay friends think that he is the best thing since sliced bread.

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