image via http://www.nbclosangeles.com/

On Thursday the voting members of the executive counsel of the Boy Scouts of America voted to lift its ban on gay scouts, but not on gay scout leaders.  61 percent of the voting members voted to lift the ban on gay members but not on gay leaders siting issues of safety.  This ban doesn’t only apply to homosexual males, it applies to homosexual females as well. So, it doesn’t seem to me to be just to be about safety.  To quote BSA’s Chief Executive, ”This has been a challenging chapter in our history,” Wayne Brock, said after the vote. “While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they’re in Scouting.”  While some church groups and very conservative leaders are upset by this decision I think it is a step in the right direction.  Scouting may not be the most popular institution anymore, but maybe making this organization more inclusive will help.  We are a nation that says “bring me your tired, your poor and your hungry,” and yet an organization, that does receive government subsidies, that bans members based on sexual orientation doesn’t teach this to children.  Children should be taught to love one another.  Hopefully this lift on gay members, but ban on gay leaders doesn’t cause issues and threats within the ranks of BSA.  I hope that once the BSA sees that gay members don’t ruin the organizations, that these gay scouts will fight to become gay scout leaders and this ban will completely be lifted within the next few years.

What is it with the Democrats and getting themselves in these political scandals.  I know that some of it is an outgrowth of the 24 hour news media, the “CNN Effect,” as it is now called.  Imagine if CNN existed during the Kennedy administration.  There would have been Marilyn watch, or maybe it would have been called something funny like “Some like it Hot in the Lincoln Bedroom.”  The first president who was, I don’t know the right word for this, subjected to this real scrutiny from the 24 hour media would be Clinton.  From day one there was Whitewater, I don’t know how many “gates” they gave him, and then there was Monica, the sweetheart of the news media for a good long while.  Now don’t get me wrong, Bush got it just as bad as Clinton did.  He did way less stupid things in his personal life.  News shows literally had countdowns of stupid things that Bush said or mispronounced.  Now we have and all the right wants to do is find something that can cause a scandal in the Obama administration.  There have been a few as well, birthers, umbrella bitchers, and church fixators.

I am only commenting on the way the 24 hour news media focuses on the private lives of political officials, or about the parts of their lives that have nothing to do with the way that he runs the country.  There are plenty of political controversies that have to do with the way that a president runs his administration. I am only using him because there hasn’t been a her yet.  I feel as though policy discourse is a good thing.  I feel as though allowing the news to be a circus of “oh my god Obama let a marine hold an umbrella, and it was the same thing when Bush was photographed doing the same, then we are missing the point.  The point of the news is to allow the will of the people to be known and to check the power of politicians, by not allowing him or her to do whatever he or she wants in secret.  If all the news does is focus of personal scandal and political substance than the news isn’t doing its job.

A topic that seems a little less Washington political but still political none the less is aging.  In this day in age with Botox and collagen, and the ability to look like a Barbie doll, is aging beautiful and acceptable, or does a person wake up one day is “over the hill” so to speak.   I was looking at my Facebook news feed and saw this article 4 Sisters Take Their Photo Every Year For 36 Years and then went to the Fraenkel Gallery website that has some of the photos of the sister at the photographer Nicholas Nixon’s page.  What these pictures asked me is this, is there a beauty in getting older?  Does age really bring beauty and wisdom?  I know that I wouldn’t want to be 22 again.  These women have allowed their aging process to be put on display for the entire world, and what does it show?  It shows, to me, the real beauty in aging.  That we are a composite of all the moments in our life.  We don’t wake up and suddenly we are old.  We are all human and we should allow ourselves the beauty of that condition.  Recently there has been a horrible loss at our company, a coworker of mine has loss his child, and I am trying to imagine the grief he is going through and I can’t.  All I can think about is the fragility of life.  And maybe that is the place this post is coming from.  I am grateful for my years, all 28 of them.  I know that I easily could not be here.  And I think we should all celebrate our years, even if we are a little ashamed to admit them.

I have a question for all Americans, what do you think the founding fathers REALLY meant by the second amendment?  The truth is we know that these men had not long before fought a war against what they felt was a tyrannical government, and wanted to give the citizens of the United States the ability to protect themselves and the country as a well armed militia.  So does that mean that Thomas Jefferson believed that ordinary citizens should have the right to own predator drones and aircraft carriers?  We cannot look at the second amendment and assume we know what the founding fathers were thinking because, the didn’t have a clue how technology would change.  I seriously do not believe that Thomas Jefferson or James Madison could have even dreamed of semi automatic weapons or predator drones.  Alright, lets take the founders out of this.  Why should the ordinary American have the right to a weapon?  To protect his home and property.   Makes since.  Should there be restrictions on this, I already made one.  I said “ordinary.”  The definition of ordinary implies there are people who aren’t ordinary, an other.  Who would I personally place in this “other” category, convicted violent felons, the mentally handicapped, those who have not taken a gun safety class, ANYONE under the age of 18 shouldn’t be able to own a gun, and you shouldn’t be able to use a gun without taking a gun safety class, and maybe adult supervision.  Do I think the American people would be OK without having the right to own an automatic weapon AT ALL, yes.  Politicians and news agents make you think that your “fundamental liberties are being taken away, but I feel more of my liberties being snatched going through airport security then the idea of not owning an assault weapon, or having to have a background check before owning a gun.  Where were these politicians when the rules came in saying that we had to take off our shoes?  It’s the same idea, a short inconvenience, in order to do something that you want to do. F*ck it, maybe I’ll just move to Australia.  Gun control has worked there.  The big difference between them and us, that isn’t discussed, they are an island, without a southern border connected to the black market, but maybe, just maybe politicians can learn something from a country that enacted gun control laws that worked.

I am from a generation that has been labeled Generation Y, and as I have spoken about before I want that why to mean “Why not?” instead of  ”Why me?”  I feel as though we are in a new world, where the rules of, go to school, get good grades, go to university, get a good job, married, kids, etcetera we all know that line of thinking.  None of it applies anymore.  I am not saying that we are in an era of bums and hobos, or hippies and free love, I think we are in an era of choice.  But not just choice, but too many choices and that scares the crap out of people.  Let me explain this.  I graduated from university in 2003, yes I am aging myself, but I don’t care, and at that time the old model was still applicable, and if you got a job, RIGHT AWAY, you were safe, but if you waited even six months, the economy began to crash around you.  The safe money-making jobs that your parents wanted you to get weren’t there anymore to rescue you.  You couldn’t just fall into a 9-5 job.  So what were to you to do.  In reality, anything I wanted.  But anything is scarier than nothing.  Anything is traveling to world, teaching and writing a book and a blog.  Nothing is sitting at home on Facebook waiting for my real life to begin.  It took me a few years to figure it out. But what I want to say to people my age, living with their parents waiting for their “real life” to begin, count this as your real life, grab it, and go for it, without fear.

We over here at Petdal have finished up the long awaited delivery of The Sexy Politco website.  We gave the site it’s own scheme of purple and orange and made it 100% interactive with the users.  It’s not just a blog, it’s a place for real knowledge developed by great political commentators.

We would like to thank The Sexy Politico for trusting our team with their website, and we hope that they enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!  Too all of you viewers checking the site out right now, tell us what you think on this comment board.  We promise we’ll get back to you…

Finally, we would like to congratulate The Sexy Politico for being the first online commentating website to officially join the Petdal family!  Expect to know what that means very shortly, but all I can say is that this team is way out ahead compared to the others.

Enjoy and cheers!

Last night I was having dinner with a bunch of Americans, and at this dinner were four teachers from Boston.  We were trying to discuss everything other than this event.  This one scary event that all in all just pissed them off.    The truth is we don’t know why this happened.  Everyday all over the world bombs explode at large events, and we as Americans take pity, maybe even feel sorry for these people, but we feel happy to be in the comfort of America, where things like this don’t happen.  Or do we have a short memory.  Acts of terror happen all the time in America, but we don’t want to admit it, or maybe the media doesn’t just so they can sell news time and magazines.  I don’t like to speculate, and I won’t do it.  I hope that whomever is responsible is found out.  I hope that this act of terror doesn’t require me to touch my nose and say the hokey pokey whenever I go on an airplane.  I hope that rather than having a blame storming session that the Massachusetts government and the federal government can look into what happened and learn from it.  I just hope this isn’t another incident that will take more of my liberties as an American.

That is literally a sentence that a friend of mine said to me while I was walking to work today.  Why would she say this to me, because North Korea has been threatening to blow up, fire, shoot nuclear weapons at Japan, South Korea, Guam, Austin TX today.  Well it’s the 15th of April, almost midnight here, and nope, not dead yet.

Why would North Korea pick what seems to be a random monday?  Is it because of tax day?  Nope, it’s because it would have been the 101st birthday of North Korea’s first leader.  It would be a birthday present for Grandpa?  TO START A NUCLEAR WAR.  I am sorry, I am just finding this insane.  Well, we all are.

Basically this new leader in North Korea is trying to show his might.  He is trying to show that he is as brave and as strong as his predecessors, by showing his guns, literally.  And the US and the rest of the world, in political spheres aren’t buying it, especially since China isn’t backing them up.  Isn’t it funny how a country that is trying to show how powerful it is, only has power when one of its neighbors decides to help it?

Related articles

• North Korea Tells Foreigners To Get Out Of South Korea (wccbcharlotte.com)
• US Threatens North Korea with Justin Bieber Tour Dates Amid Rising Tensions (thecodependent.com)
• North Korea to launch nuclear missile ‘within hours’ (endoriot.wordpress.com)
• US open to negotiations with North Korea (bigpondnews.com)
• North Korean Pyongyang Fight World Has No Choice But To Wait (stirringtrouble.wordpress.com)
• Calm in Guam as islanders doubt North Korean missile aim (csmonitor.com)

Mozilla Korea, Firefox 3.0 launch 9804 (Photo credit: Gen Kanai)

I know, as a political commentator I should have commented on this a long time ago, but I haven’t.  Why you may ask me.  One, I find this story interesting, but I have found other things more interesting.  What is going on in North Korea, to me, seems like a kid having a tantrum in public, waiting for someone in the international community to give him what he wants.  Although I don’t see a unified Korea anytime soon.  Each time there is a new leader in North Korea something like this happens, or whenever there seems to be any sort of political uneasiness.  What we all have to remember is this isn’t new.  This isn’t the first time that North Korea has threatened to start a major war with South Korea.  And in recent times North Korea looks to China for back-up, and China has said no, and North Korea has backed down because they know that if they attack South Korea that the United States will attack them back with more firepower than they could dream of.  North Korea has nuclear weapons but the confirmed ones couldn’t reach the US mainland, but that doesn’t matter because if North Korea used nuclear weapons, we would, and I do think that China would get involved at that point.  Of corse this is pure speculation, but this is taking history and political ties and treaties into consideration.  I can’t tell you what will happen next.  All I know is we have a nuclear power acting like Dennis the Mennis with his hand itching over the red button.

Related articles

• Crisis In North Korea Is A Farce (stirringtrouble.wordpress.com)
• North Korea – Funny Quotes, Pictures and Videos (manner-of-happiness.com)
• South Koreans leave joint factory park as North warns embassies on safety (foxnews.com)
• UN issues warning as North Korea readies two missiles (theweek.co.uk)
• View from space: North Korea and South Korea (earthsky.org)
• How Far Can North Korea’s Missiles Actually Reach? (gizmodo.com)
• This Is How Far North Korea’s Missiles Can Reach (mashable.com)
• Could North Korea hit its neighbors with nukes? (stripes.com)
• South Korea Prepared to Pull Workers From Industrial Park in North Korea (voanews.com)
• North Korea crisis: How did it come to this? (newsinfo.inquirer.net)

I don’t know if you have read about this or not, but there is this amazing new technology called 3D printing.  To be honest, I don’t understand how it works, and I was introduced to it via a cracked.com article a couple of weeks ago The 4 Worst Things People are Making with 3D Printers. So I didn’t really think about it too hard.  But in this article the number two item is, weapons.  That idea scares the crap out of me.  After what has been going on in the US over the last few years the idea that you can copy and print a weapon scares me.  It is completely legal to create your own weapon with a 3D printer, just not distribute them.  So any criminal organization doesn’t need to steal a gun, they just can print out a new one, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a good gun or bad, just as long as it does the job, because eh, you can just print out another one.  And from what I am reading many people are planning to make the software freeware.  Am I the only one nervous about this idea?

See more-

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/download-this-gun-3d-printed-semi-automatic-fires-over-600-rounds/

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/3-d-printed-gun-fires-6-shots-then-falls-apart-1C7404226

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/28/now-theres-a-shore-documentary-going-inside-3d-printed-gun-operation-wiki-weapons/

http://www.dezeen.com/2013/03/13/defcad-3d-printing-pirate-bay-launched-defense-distributed-cody-wilson-sxsw/