Things That Make Me Go Hurm...

I apologize if some of these are a little old, but if they seem to be, good for you for reading the news!

• Apparently scientists are on their way to creating a robot with a thinking brain. What good can come of this? I don't want to exhibit paranoia based solely on science-fiction, but come on!
• This seems to have received a little more press than when I first found it, but a city in California shut down a little girl's lemonade stand because she didn't have the proper permits. I'm not sure if this is just an isolated incident, but even so, really? Let the kids sell lemonade. Everything will be fine.
• There's a huge plastic patch in the ocean. It seems to be made up of little pieces of plastic from trash and debris, but it's hundreds of miles long. I'd really like for the planet to get to be saved, but sometimes it seems like we've already done too much damage.
• Two things about youth and sex: 1. The magazine Christian Today, has published an article about how since its tough to be abstinent until marriage, they should just marry younger. Cause that won't cause anymore problems. 2. Candie's has been doing this since I was in high school, but the whole "I'm sexy and don't need to have sex" thing, seems a little contradictory. Let's all think back to 'virgin' Britney and what a great influence she was. Just let girls be girls and stop telling them they need to be sexy. Geez.
• Palin won't shut up about the Death Panels. What really worries me is she may be gaining somewhat of a following. People seem to like her. Not a lot, not yet, but if this country's relationship with our president doesn't improve over the next few years, maybe she has a shot. That's scary.
• Surprise, surprise. Texting may be making kids stupid.
• Also in tech news, there was recently a Twitter blackout. And if you didn't notice, everyone freaked out. Here's the thing, I'm on Twitter (@Samicorn), I get it. I'm not super into it, but I understand the appeal and often usefulness of it. But the thing is, it's really new, and it frightens me how reliant we've become on this and other technologies that are also really really new. We jump on anything that's new and cool whether or not we figure out if it's good or resilient or whatever. It's all so new, we don't know all the pitfalls. What if the Internet were to just go down for a day? Wouldn't it be epic?
• The number of Americans on antidepressants has doubled in 10 years. This isn't so worrisome on its own, because I know there are people who really need these types of medications and they can really do a world of help. I worry that it's not the people who need help who are causing the rise. In all likelihood, it would seem that people either just don't want to deal or function so they take the easy way out. And ultimately this boils down to me comparing us to Orwell's 1984.
• Hey guess what!? We're running out of oil! Huzzah!
• There's a study that basically says if we really want to save the planet, we need to have less children. That's kind of a 'duh' statement in my opinion, but it bothers me because people aren't going to do that on their own. They'll keep living and doing without thinking, so the only way to change that would be to put a law or regulation in place, and I know in this country, that would not go over well at all.
  

I know I'm a bit of a pessimist. However I keep myself sane by surrounding myself with shiny things and cute creatures. So if I've depressed you at all, watch this! It fixes everything!