Gay Stipend Part of Giant Gay Conspiracy in Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts, has the rest of the state talking. "In a move that may be the first of its kind in the country, Cambridge will soon begin making payments to same-sex married public employees to defray the cost of what local officials have called a discriminatory federal tax." While certain companies (like Google) already pay their employees this sort of stipend, Cambridge is the first level of government to do so.

Why would Cambridge be the first place for this to happen? Previous mayor, E. Denise Simmons, pointed out that "Having marriage equality yet an unequal tax burden keeps [certain] married couples on the margins, and marginalization in a lot of ways is seen as a level of discrimination."

But why should the state or even a single city have to pay this difference? Current Cambridge Mayor, David Maher, explains that the "City of Cambridge once again stepped up as a leader in civil rights and took steps to mitigate this tax inequity...This action is the right and fair thing to do until the federal government addresses this issue." He also noted that he doesn't expect to see other cities follow suit soon, because it "requires the expenditure of funds."

So, why would the Mayors of Cambridge think this was worth spending funds on before anyone else? Could it be that, they support gay right because...both mayors mentioned in this article, are gay. Yes, it's true. E. Denise Simmons was the first openly lesbian African-American mayor in the United States. David Maher came out during his term last summer. Heck, even the Mayor before Simmons was gay; Kenneth Reeves was the first openly gay African-American mayor anywhere in the United States! (source)

So, you can see Massachusetts is only spending money on gay people because their government is gay. They don't care about the greater good of society at all, only helping gay people. Heck, probably everyone in the whole state is gay! That means all the other things in Massachusetts that we thought were great are probably just gay scams too. Like Harvard, that's totally gay. And having the lowest divorce rate in the nation? That's probably gay too.


P.S. I know some of you are looking at California and thinking, but isn't that a really gay state too? How come they don't have a low divorce rate? But remember, California is not nearly as gay as Massachusetts. California revoked gay marriage in 2008 (via Prop 8) because over 50% of that state did not support gay marriage. Meanwhile, Massachusetts' state motto is; "By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty." I mean, swords and liberty, what's more gay than that?

The Bees are Back!

Remember last year, when we were worried about bees dying from cellphone radiation? Well, bee populations have continued dropping globally due to other dangers including pesticides...UNTIL NOW.

"Voice of the people" global champion Avaaz.org has collected 1,000,000+ signatures and has already got one government to read their petition on why bee-killing pesticides need to be banned. Right now, the French Agriculture Minister is looking at this petition and hopefully deciding to enact the ban requested, which might be a good idea since 200,000 of those activists who signed the petiton were French. After pushing the petition in France, Avaaz plans to take it to the European Union and then all around the globe!

Wow, can we remember the last time a petition actually changed anything? Way to go, Avaaz.

Honduras Saves Money by Cutting Education

Honduras, in the grasp of a new military power since 2009, has followed through on it's promise to cut the country's education budget.

How did it do this? Well, first take $100,000,000 from the teachers' pension fund, then lower salaries for all your teachers. If the teachers complain or protest, take away their right to unionize and strike. See? It's easy.

Even when those pesky teachers keep protesting, you can just threaten to end the entire public school system and use charter schools instead.

After all, no good government wants free-thinking, successful teachers, do they? Honduras teachers are referred to as "the only working class that ever truly developed."

Where is the Money Going?
Well, since the education cuts, salaries for both the military and the police have increased. But, that's understandable after all the extra work the Police are having to do while fighting these protestors. The Honduran teachers will not give up, even when they are being teargassed, killed and beaten by the Police.

And IMF, the organization that gave the Honduras government $200 million in exchange for their promise to cut education, says this sequence of events is "broadly in line with expectations."

Democracy in Crisis

Hearing about popular vote being overturned in Missouri yesterday is yet another blow that makes the average American voter feel powerless. This time, a 52% vote to PROTECT PUPPIES being raised for profit was shot down by state legislature. Apparently, even if people create a proposal, get it on the ballot and get a majority of voters to support their proposal, state lawmakers can vote to never let it see the light of day. This can happen even when 76% of voters support the proposal!

What are voters to do in this situation? Fox News asked us; why vote at all? Indeed, many Americans already agree with this way of thinking. Only about 50% of Americans vote in national elections, compared to 80% in other "democratic" countries. Researchers at University of Rochester tell us that more Americans talk about politics than people in comparable countries, but we don't vote because we don't trust the government. Our faith first dropped in 1974, when every democracy around the world trusted their leaders more than us, except for Italy. Since then, our faith in national government has only declined.

Why is this happening? Maybe because, "85% of Americans believe corporations have too much power in our government, and people have too little?" That's what Sandy Haski from theCorporation.com talks about in the video below. It shows an increasing corporate influence over American elections since the 1800s.



The only problem now is, how can we really pass laws to limit corporate power? If public proposals can be overturned by legislators, and all current legislators were elected by corporations, we seem to have a roadblock.

Don't Post that Video!

Don't share a copyrighted video on your site, because now you can get arrested. Brian McCarthy is a 32-year-old Texan who ran channelsurfing.net until he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week. Channelsurfing.net let users watch videos that were not supposed to be free, including sports and pay-per-view events. By embedding these videos on his site, Brian only linked to someone else's copy of the vid, he did not possess the file anywhere on his web space. He did allow users to watch pirated videos without leaving his website. Brian made $90,000+ a year from advertisers on his site.

By doing this, Brian managed to upset the UFC, WWE, NFL, NBA, and NHL who were supposed to be charging to broadcast these events. He now faces up to 5 years in prison.

Should Brian be going to jail? Copyright infringement is normally a civil offense, NOT criminal. But Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is claiming it's criminal this time because Brian profited off the distribution of illegal content. This is a stretch in the power of ICE, because no one has been arrested who didn't actually host pirated content before.

Now, what Brian did at channelsurfing.net is something like building a house with windows where you can look out and see something illegal. He then let people into this house for free and encouraged them to watch the illegal goings-on, while making a profit from advertisements in the house. He is only the secondary offender and has not created the illegal content himself. Really, Brian's crime is promoting free information while finding another way to make a profit. And now ICE says that is a criminal offense.

If Brian goes to jail, its likely more people will get arrested or fined for embedding copyrighted videos on their site. Techdirt.com writes, "it should worry almost anyone who has a website and has ever embedded videos. I have, for example, frequently embedded YouTube videos on this site -- and some of those videos might have been infringing. On top of that, I make some money from advertising on this site. Does that mean I now face criminal liability? I certainly hope not, but that seems to be the incredibly chilling message that ICE is sending. It immediately makes me question if I can ever embed another video without first getting explicit permission from the copyright holder."

While we all laugh at the fact that "ICE" is "chilling," let's think about this. The internet makes it very easy to share information. Do we want to change that by arresting people for sharing certain kinds of information? Internet censorship is already on the rise. Countries and schools can block any site deemed offensive or inappropriate. If we don't stop censorship at some point, how soon until we are all forced to "see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil?"