Bath Salt ingredient banned

There is a drug that has only really been discovered quite recently. This drug is known as bath salts. A few months back, Rudy Eugene had taken this drug and eventually started biting and eating a mans face off in Miami. This was the first big incident with the drug 'bath salts'. This article talks about how the key ingredient in the drug (commonly known as MDPV) is now banned in Canada. The drug has become more common lately and Canada has decided to step up and take immediate action. Effective immediately, this law bans any dealings with MDPV, owning, selling, buying, anything. This drug is able to cause hallucinations, paranoia      and occasionally violent behavior.

So, I totally agree with Canada's decision of banning MDPV. Here is another article talking about the incident in Miami: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/bath-salts-health-cannibal-rudy-eugene_n_1555493.html

This can be a very dangerous drug when taken in big enough doses and banning it I think was the right decision. It has been spreading from the US into Canada and now police have warnings against it. As I said earlier, any dealings with the white, powdery substance is now illegal. So, yes, I think this is a good thing.

The original article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/25/bath-salts-ingredient-mdpv-banned.html

Bounty for Anti-Islam filmmaker's life

A few weeks ago a man made a film that supposedly mocked Islam, and more specifically the prophet Muhammad. This film caused outrage in Islam countries and the filmmaker went into to hiding. A Pakistani minister, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, has just stated that he is offering a bounty of $100,000 American to kill the filmmaker. He even openly invited the Taliban and members of al Qaeda to join in and find this man. Bilour has stated that he is a Muslim first, and a government official second. It has also been stated that this bounty is not the governments official stance, but its still active.

This is absolutely ridiculous to me. I am of course slightly biased because of my feelings towards religion. There is a thing known as separation of church and state. It basically implies that you should not make political decisions because of religious feelings. This didn`t happen here and its causing an already huge issue into an even larger one. Bilour placing a bounty one someone`s head because he insulted his own religion is stupid. And declaring that religion is more important to him than his country's' government is ludicrous. All in all, Bilour just made a bad situation much, much worse.

No More Protests for Westboro Baptist Church

This article was written by Melissa Jeltsen.
The article talks about how there is a new law in California stopping people from protesting funerals. This bill was targeted at the group known as the Westboro Baptist Church. I won`t talk about them much right now, I`ll get to them later. This new law takes effect on January 1st. So while still inactive, it still has a positive feeling to go with it right now. The Westboro Baptist Church is a religious organization which breeds hate and for years has protested the funerals of dead soldiers claiming that it was God's will because he hates homosexuals. The Westboro Baptist Church has stated that this legislation won`t stop their message, it will however stint their message, unless they find a more extreme way of communication. Gov. Jerry Brown signed this legislation, one year after vetoing another bill that was quite similar, due to issue's regarding free speech. The original bill was proposed by Sen. Ted Lieu but was not passed by the Supreme Court.

Now, lets get this out there right away, the Westboro Baptist Church is an evil, hate-breeding organization that are full of ignorance. As I said earlier, they have been protesting the funerals of soldiers stating that God killed them because America likes homosexuals. They don`t even have modesty of saying "homosexual". Their website is called "godhatesfags". They are famous for their infamous signs that they make and carry stating their God's hatred of homosexuals. The irony of it is that they actually say that they love gay people more than anybody else. They say they love them so much they are able to tell them to repent or else. A great documentary to watch is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOrz5k0jWdU
At times you can laugh at these people, at times you just cry. They are such an ironic bunch as well. After this rant of mine, I guess I can boil it down to this: The Westboro Baptist Church is evil, and this law is good...

Original Article:
http://wwrn.org/articles/38104/?&place=north-america

Nuclear Threat in Iran?

The original headline of his article is "White House: Obama talks with Netanyahu on Iran, no meeting sought", and written by staff at CNN. This article describes the sensitive situation between Iran and America with regards to Iran's nuclear power. Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly requested a personal meeting with Obama to discuss the Iran situation, but the White House declined, it was then said by the White House that no request was ever put forward. Obama has a set of "red lines", a set of guidelines essentially for Iran regarding their nuclear tests, and Iran has claimed to not know these guidelines. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CNN that America has their eyes on Iran and they have good "intelligence"  on Iran.

I think that this is a delicate situation, partly because of the lack of good communication. Reading this article, it is clear that Iran, Israel, and America are all confused by each other`s wants and opinions. The US is playing a dangerous game here, unless they are pretty certain that there is a threat to Homeland Security, they should keep out of Iran`s nuclear progress. Although it wasn`t just America who started this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was worried and contacted Obama, or at least allegedly contacted Obama. But he was clearly worried about the situation with Iran. I believe that America and Israel should relax slightly about Iran, but still keep them under quiet surveillance...

The original article:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/11/politics/obama-netanyahu-iran/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

U.N. and Syria

This article was published by the CNN Wire Staff and published on Monday September 10th, 2012. The article is titled "U.N.: Time to stop waiting for Syria to end war", and is obviously about the U.N.`s thoughts about the situation in Syria now and plans to end it. This article starts with talking about what has become of Syria through these last months of fighting, the 'norm' of society has become rape and murder. Listed in this article are many separate reports detailing the violent crimes taking place in Syria. These include bombings, hundreds of death`s, non stop violence. The article also posts video`s within it, which are news reports about the violence, even one video where Senator John McCain criticizes Barack Obama over the Syria situation. Syria has also even attacked people outside their country. They launched an attack on Iraq, killing dozens.

The situation in Syria is a deeply troubling one. This conflict has been going on since March 2011, and sprouted from the Arab Spring, which was a wave of protests throughout Arab countries. The U.N. has not stepped in and done enough work to end the Syrian conflict, in my opinion. This has been a brutal civil war that has caused the death of thousands of people, and the U.N. has not stopped it. I`m not saying that they can just walk into Syria and end it, the article talks about how hard their job is, but they need to do a better job. I agree with this article, and am happy that the U.N. has decided to step up their effort.

The original article:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/10/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html?hpt=wo_c2