Should “Porn Revenge” Be Banned? You Mean It Isn’t Already?

“Porn Revenge” has been popping up in the news lately, and it deserves comment.

Porn revenge is where a vindictive person coming out of a breakup of a relationship posts videos of his or her ex having sex or nude photographs from the relationship online, in order to humiliate the ex.

The question has been asked if revenge porn should be illegal.  My question is this: it isn’t already?

People need to understand that when they make pornos, whether they’re public or private, can come back and bite them hard, especially if there’s a breakup of the relationship.  Making home porn just isn’t a good idea to begin with, but to answer the question, my answer is “YES!  Revenge porn should be illegal.”

This sounds like some kind of virtual rape, so there should probably be criminal consequences for posting porn without the consent of the other party.

UK Votes No on Syria Intervention: President Obama Should Back Off Too

The British Parliament put the kibosh on the British military joining in an attack on Syria. 

They seem to be the only country doing it right; Prime Minister Cameron called Parliament back from recess, they debated it after listening to what he had to say on live TV, and the Prime Minister told the British public that he would accept the results of  the vote.  Even though he suffered a political defeat, he still did the right thing.

President Obama doesn’t want to call back Congress for a vote and has indicated that America is willing to go it alone.  I am 100% opposed to this line of thinking.   Unless the Syrians attack the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean with their Russian-built anti-ship missiles, or attack Israel, we have no cause to break international law and attack Syria.

So far, Assad is the only one who has committed war crimes.  I hope President Obama has enough sense not to join Assad on that platform by taking us into an illegal war.  As despicable as the use of chemical weapons are, we need to know who carried it out before we even consider attacking another nation.

Absurdity: A Driver Who Looks At a Text Message While Driving Is Responsible for Any Accident That Happens, Not Anyone Else

A court in New Jersey has ruled that someone who texts a driver can be held liable if the driver gets into an accident while reading or responding to it.  Here’s why I disagree with this ruling in principle:

The driver consciously makes a decision to take his/her eyes off the road to read/respond to a text message.   He/she can easily ignore the text messages until they safely reach their destination.  Speaking from personal experience, it’s very easy to ignore a text message or hand the phone to a passenger to read it and respond for you.  I’ve done this before.

In the New Jersey case, a couple of teens were volleying text messages back and forth while one of them was driving; he crossed the center line and hit someone one a motorcycle in the other lane while he was distracted.  The people on the bike received severe injuries, survived the accident and sued both texting teens.  They settled with the driver and lost the case against the other teen.

There was an appeal, and the other teen was found liable, but not sentenced to punishment as she was unaware that her texting boyfriend was driving.

The driver is ultimately responsible.   He caused a severe accident, two people lost their legs because of it and all because he couldn’t put his phone down.  This was a stupid mistake that had life-changing consequences for his victims.

The judges were right to not sentence the other teen, though the knowledge that her text conversation had devastating results on two people will be with her the rest of her life.

No winners in this case, just sadness.

Russia and China Have a Lot of Explaining to Do: They’ve Allowed The Syrian Civil War to Continue Unabated By Blocking Every Single Security Council Measure Designed to Bring the Parties to the Bargaining Table While At the Same Time Heavily Arming Assad’s Regime

A lot of blame should go to Russia and China for their unbridled support of President Assad’s side in the Syrian civil war. 

Russia has opposed Western nations sending arms to the rebels, while quietly arming the Syrian government to the teeth with Russian heavy weapons and advanced missiles and aircraft.

The missiles are particularly troublesome.  Syria has tried to transfer the Russian weapons to Hezbollah, and Israel has gone in and blown them up at least twice.  The first time it was Russian advanced anti-aircraft weapons and the second batch of missiles were Russian anti-ship missiles.  

For all the Russian talk of trying to find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian problem, their irresponsible actions are destabilizing the region.    Israel’s already bombing Syrian territory to eliminate the Hezbollah-bound Russian weapons. 

China’s interest in Syria is financial and they’ve opposed sanctions against the Syrian government.  It is currently unclear if China’s been arming Assad.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they were.

All five permanent members of the UN Security Council need to be more flexible in finding a solution to the Syrian problem that they can agree to support and enforce.  If they can’t, or won’t, then shame on all of them!

We Don’t Like the Syrian Government, and We Don’t Like the Syrian Rebels and Their al-Qaeda Friends Either: So Why Are We Getting Involved in Syria?

We’re getting into a no-win situation with Syria and we need to stop. 

I don’t think we should be helping the al-Qaeda-backed rebels at all.  I think they’ve also used chemical weapons for their own advantage against the Assad regime.  We should be really concerned about these rebels AND Syrian regime soldiers picking up experience in using chemical weapons in or on heavily populated areas.   We can’t afford to trust either side.

There’s no doubt that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons too.  He’s used every weapon in his arsenal so far.  So far, he’s had no reason not to.  Consider: 

The ICC has no authority in Syria as it’s a non-signatory to the treaty, and Assad’s Russian and Chinese supporters won’t allow the UN Security Council to pass any kind of punitive measures.  The only thing that can be done against Assad is if his own people bring him to trial. I can’t see that happening at this stage.

We should NEVER ally ourselves to an al-Qaeda backed rebel group.   EVER.  They’ll turn on us.  So will Assad, for his own survival.   We should not support either side, arm either side or fight for either side.   

No more invasions, missile bombardments or drone strikes unless we’re attacked first.  It’s high time to return to traditional thinking about when to launch a military attack on another country.  Regime change?  Out the window.  Intervening on humanitarian grounds?  Out the window.  Imminent threat?  Possibly.  Defending a country we have a treaty with?  YES!  Supporting our allies, like Israel?  YES!

France, the UK, and the US need to back down from military action in Syria.  It’s a fight that the Syrians need to sort out themselves.   The West needs to stay out of there.

UTTER HYPOCRISY: If Missouri Clown Wore a George W. Bush Mask Instead of an Obama One, The People Griping and Complaining Right Now Would Have NOTHING TO SAY!

People really need to shut up about the Missouri clown who was banned for life for daring to wear a President Obama mask.

If he had been wearing a GW Bush mask while W was still in office, the complainers who are currently dominating the news cycles would be silent.  This is sheer hypocrisy that is playing out in front of our eyes.

Do us all a favor, complaining politicians and hypocrites, and GROW UP!

This is the biggest non-story of the year. Surely there are more worthy news stories rather than a clown in Missouri.

Media Reports on CBS “Big Brother” Series Ignore Fact That Companies Who Terminate Their Employees Because of Their Actions on the Show May Be Violating Labor Laws: Is CBS Also Vulnerable to Legal Action?

Season 15 of CBS’s “Big Brother” series is underway, and it’s got more issues this season than any of the prior seasons.   Racial comments seem to be in abundance, and it doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.

According to published reports, two contestants have been fired from their jobs because of the stupid things they’ve said on the show.  Here’s the catch: the contestants don’t know they are unemployed and won’t until the end of the season because CBS isolates the participants from contact with the outside world until their work for the show is finished.

Last season, one of the participant’s houses burned down and CBS didn’t tell her until she was released from the show.   That was horrifying.  I’d be ready to throttle someone if my house burned down and I didn’t know about it until weeks or months later, or a family member died, or whatever happened and I didn’t know about it for weeks or months.

In the case of these two participants whose jobs were terminated by their companies, their companies have labor laws to contend with, with regards to final paychecks, etc.  For instance, when is the day of termination?  The day the company announced it publicly (also a possible legal problem for the company), or the day that the employee is formally notified that their employment has been terminated?   There will be a legal challenge there.

It would have been better for the companies to announce that they were conducting a review of the employee conduct on the show, and then leave it at that until the employee returned to work, instead of making a political statement and violating who knows how many state and company employee termination procedures.

Now, is CBS vulnerable to lawsuits claiming damages from their contestants for not notifying them of issues regarding home, family, work, etc?  I’m sure CBS requires all contestants to sign waivers up the wazoo, for everything and anything.

Interesting story.