Crazy Days in Congress





16 days of limited government, and what do we have to show for it? Maybe the best argument off all time that the USA would get along just fine with a federal government half its current size. Republicans backed down off the precipice of their desire to augment the president’s Affordable Care Act, and just enough of them voted with democrats to end the shutdown(or more appropriately the “slowdown,” as a majority of federal worker were back on the job already), and increase the debt ceiling limit. So we’re good until next year, because congress wouldn’t dare follow the people’s will and solve the problem completely. Nope, the best they could do was to fund the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt limit through Feb. 7. And just as the House of Representatives was voting, the chamber’s stenographer Dianne Reidy flipped her lid, grabbed a mic, and started shouting religious rants. She told Fox News that “For the past 2 and 1/2 weeks, the Holy Spirit has been waking me up in the middle of the night and preparing me (through my reluctance and doubt) to deliver a message in the House Chamber.” Good thing those congressional federal employees have premium gold-plated Cadillac health care plans. She was taken away for a mental check-up, and taxpayers will happily foot the bill for her treatment, and medical leave.



Social Suicide



Here’s a terrible story that suggests profound necessity to employ our younger generation with coping skills when it comes to taunting or bullying via social media. 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick climbed to the top of an abandoned cement plant in Lakeland Florida, and then jumped to her death. She had been taunted and bullied by as many as 15 other girls during the past several months via online message boards and texts over a relationship she had with a boy who later ended up dating a girl who became her main antagonist. That 14-year-old girl and another 12-year-old girl were both arrested and charges with felony aggravated stalking. After Rebecca’s death, the 14 year old posted a message that said, “Yes IK I bullied REBECCA and she killed herself but IDGAF.” To be fair, the 14-year-old’s father says his little angel never sent any such message, and would never taunt or bully anyone. There’s plenty of finger pointing about how such a tortuous scenario could play itself out for months without any substantial intervention or resolution. We teach our kids to look both ways when crossing the street, and not to play with fire. In this world or deep connectivity and instant messaging, maybe it’s time for parents to start teaching our young ones how to cope with such cyber-bullying situations rather than pretending they are not a potentially gravely damaging circumstance.


Appalling Air



Take a breath of air in some parts of the planet, and you’re sucking in two lungs full of cancer-causing carcinogens. World Health Organization has an arm called The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). That agency put together a study that found in the year 2010, 223,000 deaths from lung cancer worldwide were caused by air pollution. The assertion is as simple as it is disturbing: air itself is now considered a carcinogen in some parts of the world. Especially troubling areas include China, other areas of Asia, Mexico, Central America, North Africa, and even some areas eastern North America.