Grand jury indicts Arizona shooting suspect

On Wednesday, a grand jury in accused Jared Loughner on 3 counts of being involved in Tucson shooting. U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke said "This case also involves potential death-penalty charges, and Department rules require us to pursue a deliberate and thorough process." These indictments only include attempted assassination on Giffords and attempted murder on two federal employees. It only includes 3 murders instead of 5 because they are waiting to get a better case so that Loughner will get the death penalty. This indictment is just for a district court to help hold off for the bigger courts so the prosecutors have more time to get their case together.

I’m glad that the prosecution is taking their time to get things done right, instead of rushing into things just so Loughner will be punished quicker. I think that Loughner deserves the death penalty. He killed six people and I believe it should be a life for a life. Loughner may be insane, but if he is insane enough to go on a killing spree than a little therapy probably won’t help him anyways. Loughner killed a 9 year old little girl, which alone is enough for him to deserve the death penalty. We shouldn’t waste our tax dollars on keeping him alive for the rest of his life when he would just be rotting in jail.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41155912/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Report: Man accused of stalking Kennedy girl

A 41 year old man named Naeem Ahmed was accused of stalking Caroline Kennedy’s daughter, Tatiana. He was arrested on December 8th for an aggravated harassment charge and a misdemeanor stalking count. He has a $25,000 bail and has to be psychologically evaluated. Ahmed sent her expensive chocolates and flowers and said that he would have stopped sending them if they would have told him to. He told the family not to involve anyone else in the matter. Just Tatiana’s father’s office received over 40 cards, gifts, and phone calls so they cited a criminal complaint. One note said this, “Dearest Tatiana, I love you. Sincerely, Naeem,"

Ahmed acted like he was the victim when he was arrested but really he was the criminal. Tatiana obviously didn’t send anything back to him so after 100 tries he should have gotten the hint that Tatiana didn’t love him back. If he told the family not to involve the police, he already knew that he was doing something wrong and he didn’t want to get in big trouble. It’s good that he has to be evaluated because being so obsessed with someone isn’t right especially when they don’t love you back. I don’t know if he deserves to go to jail because he didn’t hurt anybody but he should have to get lots of counseling.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41072491/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

America's 25-year love affair with Glocks

In the Tucson shooting on Saturday Loughner used a Glock 19 to kill 6 people and injure 13 others. It’s a light weight gun common in law enforcement. In 2007, Seung Hui used that same gun to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech. Even Gabrielle Giffords who was injured in the Tucson shooting earlier said she had a Glock 9 millimeter. 65% of law enforcement uses a Glock, and it is very popular with private citizens. In 1986 when Gaston Glock started selling Glocks in the U.S. they held more ammunition than other guns making them more popular. The shooting on Saturday didn’t stop sales though. 60% more guns were bought the Monday after the shooting than the Monday before. Private citizens own 270 million guns.
People aren’t going to stop buying guns because of a shooting. America thinks that guns protect them so if something bad happens they are just going to buy even more to try and protect themselves. This article makes it seem like it is the Glock companies fault for the shootings in the past but really it isn’t. If the shooters didn’t use a Glock they would have just bought a different gun instead. Guns aren’t the reason people are murdered. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Gun sales shouldn’t be made illegal because of one nut job. There are 270 million people that own guns and barely any of them use them to kill people. Banning guns won’t stop murders.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41046787/ns/business-world_business/

Iraqi Christians cancel Christmas amid threats

Christians from Iraq called of the celebration of Christmas this year because they are scared they will get attacked like they were at a church in Baghdad where 68 people were killed 2 months ago. They aren’t going to decorate their houses because al-Qaida said they have bombs ready for Christian homes. Christians called of the celebration of Christmas this year because they are mourning for the people killed in the attack too. Mass is canceled and Christians are just supposed to celebrate at home without large groups. One Bishop says that there isn’t a single source of joy that makes them celebrate.

Reading this article makes me grateful that we can celebrate whatever we want without having to worry about being attacked or bombed. Christmas in America is such a happy time and it’s sad that it can’t be like that everywhere. Christians in Iraq should have the right to celebrate Christmas without being threatened. It really sucks that instead of celebrating Christmas they have to be mourning the deaths of those 68 people that were killed earlier. I think it’s unfortunate that Christians don’t have any joy to even celebrate.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40791595/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

Issue # 2

Medicare patients are going to be going to doctors that will be paid 5 to 10% less for having them as a patient. People are trying to come up with a plan to lower the cost of medicare but keep doctors doing quality work. Right now doctors get paid for how many patients they see not by how well they treat them. A pay-for-performance program was approved which lets medicare pay doctors 1.5% more if they report their treatments and if it is quality work. Administrators are going to work with medical experts to put in guidelines for what quality care is. People that support the pay-for-performance plan think that guidlines are a good way to have better communication on which treatments work the best. People that support this researched hospitals with the program and saw that they had 1300 less deaths from heart attacks. People that are against this don't think that federal officials don't know enough about medicine to decide what is the best medicine. They also say that 1.5% will not cover the wasted time and resources that have to be used to fill out the paper work for the bonus.



I don't think that there should be a pay for performance program. Doctors shouldn't have to fill out paper work to get a bonus when they should be doing their job right in the first place. Federal officials don't know enough about medicine to make requirements so they should just leave things alone. The government shouldn't have cut doctors pay in the first place because it's not their fault that not everybody can afford health care. If doctors get paid for curing people of their illness then why would they ever take a patient that smokes or is obese. Dr. Deane Waldman agress with that and thinks that pay for performance should stop. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deane-waldman/stop-pay-for-performance_b_233208.html

http://bryceholm.blogspot.com/2010/11/3-health-care-safe-to-eat.html

http://briannalynn22.blogspot.com/2010/11/issue-1-comprehensive-vs-incremental.html

Terror verdict deals blow to Obama Gitmo plan

On November 17th, Ahmed Ghailini was the first person being held at Guantanamo bay in cuba to have a trial and people have been put into this terrorist prison starting 8 years ago. He was tried for trying to blow up government buildings in 1998 and was sentenced to life in prison. This was tried in civilian courts and they had a split decision. This shows that Obama's plan to try prisoners of Guantanamo bay in civilian courts isn't for sure going to work. Representative Peter King says that "We must treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantanamo." This is not going to help Obama close Guantanamo bay like he had said he’d have closed by his first year in office.

I don’t think that the terrorists should be moved into the U.S. They should stay where they are. The people in Illinois aren’t going to be happy if all the terrorists we have contained are moved to their state. The terrorists at Guantanamo bay shouldn’t be tried by a civilian court because they are not like normal civilians. They should be tried as wartime enemies in a military court because they killed many people and they don’t deserve to be let off easy. I don’t think it’s surprising that Obama didn’t follow through with what he said. This is just another thing he hasn’t done that he promised he would.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40248961/ns/us_news-security/

Facebook says apps shared user data, promises fix

Facebook said that some of its applications violated the social networking company’s policy for sharing user information and Facebook said the problem will be fixed. They also said that the information sharing was not intentional. Farmville was one of the applications that gave id information to outside companies. The vice president of facebook wrote a letter to congressman Joe Barton and Edward Markey saying that the applications would be deleted and that the id info would be deleted too.
It annoys me that information can be given to other companies from applications. Facebook has privacy settings that shouldn’t have been violated. Facebook should be a safe website where people don’t have to worry about their information being stolen. Even though facebook said they didn’t know that applications were taking information, I still think it is there fault. They should check into applications more before they let them start up on facebook. I’m glad that Facebook is trying to stop this problem and get rid of the bad applications though.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39994197/ns/technology_and_science-security/