BBC
    I'm not sure how China's ecnomomy is crap.  Every day I see videos of their students all working about 100x harder at their school work, going to more classes and for longer periods of time than their American counter-parts.  What is holding them back?  I think the limited amount of Communist regime still installed in the country is holding it back from economic growth.  
    In a last ditch effort, the government declared banks no longer had to hold nearly as much money in their reserves in hopes that it will give a much needed boost to the economy.  The move is going to let banks free up billions of "Yuan" although I'm not quite sure how much money that is, I'd assume it has to be some substantial amount if they want to get a country with over 1 billion people in it out of a depression.  China also copied the US's idea of the North Atlantic Free Trade Zone.  Much how we attempted to get free trade with our neighbors Canada and Mexico, China is attempting a similar partnership with Japan and South Korea.  Leaving the already 3rd world North Koreans to play alone with their broken missles that can't even make it into outerspace.  
    You really got to wonder how bad the North Korean government must be because you can easily see how prosperous South Korea is and how poor North Korea is.  They are two countries of almost identical culture and location so there shouldn't really be such a gap in wealth.  In fact, North Korea borders China which is one of the best trade nations in the world so they should even have a clear cut advantage of the South Koreans, however their oppressive government that has been brainwashing their minds for decades now has thrown the country into a state of hopelessness and turmoil in which they are bound to make many irrational choices such as the failed missle launches earlier this year. 
     

BBC
    Guess who?  It is quite obvious that none other than the terrorist orginization Al-Qaeda has pulled off their next big scheme, with the succeusful assassination of the Afghanistanian peace negotiator, Arsala Rahmani.  I'm not really sure what you plan to gain by killing the symbol of non-violence and cooperation amongst groups.  This leads me to believe that the Al-Qaeda really has no motive, especially not a religious one, and instead prefers to just kill people because they have big weapons.  I mean I'm pretty sure it does not tell them in their holy texts to kill a man who has done no physical harm to anyone and is actually symbolic to the whole concept of religion.  Religion is basically about uniting people under a common greater power (generally god for like 75% of the world, although his name varies).  
    I hope however, that Mr. Rahmani's good intentions live on through those whose lives he touched in his conquest to make a brighter Afghanistan.  What is even weirder however is that Mr. Rahmani was actually at one point a senior member of the Taliban!  That would lead you to wonder why they would kill off "their own blood" unless he started going against their fundamental policies.  This will be a major set back to foreign relations between Afghanistan and the US because we do not want to get involved in their anymore because Congress knows they will lose all support if they end up in another war in the Middle East over a war that doesn't directly benefit our country.  

BBC 
        This is just such a controversial issue because everyones such babies about what is and what isn't discrimination.  To be honest it was a bold, and probably just plain stupid move to come out of the closet so to speak about your views on sexuality.  The reason he did it I believe is that he wants to get Mitt Romney critized for his opposite views on the spectrum.  I think he actually managed to achieve this however there are more people against gay marriage than for it still although the difference has become much less in recent years and the gap is closing.          
    How does this relate to the world humanities.  Well many of the countries of the world tend to follow American trends and although I don't see it happening in the upcomming years, I believe universal gay acceptance is very possible.  I myself am not completly comfortable with the idea yet, but I don't have to be either.  The one problem is however the Middle East (isn't it always?) whom have even more narrow-minded views that the majority of Americans on the topic.  I can't imagine Obama could become any less popular in the Middle East.  I have the belief (and don't judge me on this) that foreign relations in like everywhere in the world besides Europe would be easier if we didn't have some rich white guy as our president.  I guess however enthropy applies universally and that everyone will never all feel the same.      Like womens rights and African Americans, Gays will have to go through a long and tedius struggle to gain acceptance in this oh so judgemental world.

    I would like to start this post with the fact that I have nothing against community service.  In fact I believe it is one of the greatest inventions in the world, topping sliced-bread perhaps!  First off, I would like to be clear that when I say community service, I mean that it was the voluntary participation in a project for the betterment of others/society with no directly personal gain.  Sounds simple and morally honest right?  It should be but as college applications get more and more competitive, the big picture really starts to come out of focus.  Obviously a college will accept one resume over the other if they are identical except for one of them having 10000 more service hours.  Now that student got into college which seems like a pretty huge thing, and it is.  How did that student achieve this though?  Community service.  He proffited from something that should have been done just to be a good person.  That is not community service anymore if anything just a glorified job.  And to be honest, many of those top of the kids in the class who have months of service probobly didn't sign up to really help that man down on his luck.  They signed up for the mere fact that they knew it would get them into college.  They performed "Community Service" because they knew they would get rewarded.  This defeats the entire purpose of community service and I don't believe that the giving of ones time for such a wonderful thing should be used a monetary device.  There is a psychological theory that states that if you add extrinsic motivation to a behavior that you already are intrinsically motivated to perform, removal of the extrensic device will cause you to lose the intrinsic motivation you began with.  So when this "Community Service Legend" gets out of college, they might never help out at another soup kitchen or shelter again!  That completely countered the intended effect colleges had when they began recognizing community service on resumes!  I think the answer is pretty clear about what needs to be done about this situation. 

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    I find it very un-Christian to be happy that someone has died, and I am not actually happy unlike most of the crowd.  First off, Yemeni leader of Al-Qaeda was killed by a US Drone air strike.  This man was incorporated in the 2000 bombing of the american warship of the USS Cole.  Here is my reasoning that this could actually be a bad thing.  I'm not sure if anyone else remembers what happened when Osama Bin Ladin was killed but those extremists got pretty angry.  So angry in fact that they began to bomb people without care.  Up until this point the US has never actually stated that it has used attack drones in Yemen affairs.  This comes off really suspicious to me.  Like when Barrack Obama announced they had killed Osama Bind Laden right after his rating dropped to an all time low!  These can't just be coincidences can they?  I suspsect a huge terrorist retalliation is brewing, not specificially in America, but anyone given the evidence could predict the outcome of the killing of yet another one of Al-Qaedas leaders.
    I don't really know how you do stop a terrorist orginization though.  It is very odd because the easy solutions turn out to be very deep and complex.  For instance, killing them usually entails them killing millions of civillians before you can finish them off and generally you would let up if they go all out on public homicides.  Also you can't cut off their in comming supply because they already have so many people brainwashed into doing their deeds.  This will be a persistant problem for the US and many other Christian countries for years to come.   

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    Its the cold war all over again!  The US just released highly contrversial plans to set up a missle defense system in... Europe!  And Russia doesn't seem to want to let that happen (for obvious reasons).  They have responded to the situation by saying they will in fact use force to prevent a threat to their national security.  What seems to be the underlying cause of this misunderstanding seems to be a lack of communication between the two countries!  Who would have guessed?  In such a highly connected world  through resources such as the internet, cell phones, and other mobile devices you would think two of the worlds superpowers would be able to discuss plans with one another.  It seems however that the Cold War really hasn't ended and those highly violent underlying tensions seem to still be present.  I would bet that we still don't want to communicate with them because we view them different than ourselves.  This lack of empathy is very dangerous when both sides of the coin have weapons that could easily level multiple cities with the single click of a button.  The world will never get closer if superpowers like us can't work out our differences and peacefully coexist.
    The plans were apperently started under Lil' Bush.  When Obama took office in 08 he immediatly scrapped the plans saying they would never work.  However in the year 2010 he began looking more into the subject and made the executive decision to revive the plans.  What will result I assume is more tension with Russia although I would bet that neither of us have the balls to actually attack one another.

BBC
    The first thing that came to my mind when I read this was, "How the hell did a blind Chinese dude escape from anywhere?"  Reading further, it was comforting to know that it indeed a group effort that resulted in the escape of Chen Guancheng.  Now people are growing alarmed about how many friends and family of his are being detained and people are seriously questionning the legitimacy of this government.  This is turning out to be a repeat of events of the 1987 when a different escaped convict fled to the US embassy for shelter in what would turn out to be a 2 year deal.  Although he has actually never been convicted of anything, he and his family were placed under house arrest over growing suspicion and although he hides behind the safety of the American mission in China, his family remains under house arrest with many of his friends and family members detained in unknown locations.  
    I am pretty impressed that a blind dude did somehow manage to scale a wall built around his house by the Chinese government and then flee 100 miles to safety all without his eyesight.  His colleagues declared "that this escape had taken months to plan, and was carried out by a network of activists." 
    Chen announced that he doesn't want exile from China, but protection for the time being.  He was under arret for an unofficial crime, the American embassy wants to be assured however that if they protect him that his friends and family will remain safe.   

BBC
    Kenya is really famous for one thing, running.  Not just running, but specifically the insane amount of long distance prodigies it spits out each year.  However, the kids there are not really motivated to win a Gold Medal but really it is just a way of life.  They have to run to school each day, because they can't afford cars.  Each way is a hefty 40 minute run, and at the altitude Kenya is at, would have most American runners weezing in just a couple of minutes.  Most kids even end up running back for lunch each day putting a nice 2 and a half hours of RUNNING not jogging on their tiny, almost fragile legs.  They know they must become great at running because that is what will secure a good future for them and their whole village.  They know the best way to get anywhere is to get accepted into a European college with a track scholarship and that means they have to fly pretty damn fast.  Whats so touching is how motivated these kids are and how selfless their intentions really are.  The amount of good runners in Kenya is phenominal, and to say its because of good genetics (although this is very true) does not give them must credit for the insane amount of work they put into their sport, about 2.5x that of most professional athletes.  I find it very unfair that I will more likely than not, be more succeusful than most of them despite the fact that I am pretty lazy and don't put any effort into what I want to do with my life yet. 
    They know their goal.  They know however that America doesn't want them for what they want to do, but instead for their natural/aquired ability to run long distance.  The good thing is that unlike most places we have been focusing on in Africa, these kids have the ability to make something of themsel 

BBC
    It is kind of hard to believe that one simple equation can have a dramatic effect on the oh-so-stable world economy.  We would like to think that the decisions we make are based on our whim and not that of programmed thought and reactions which are out of our control.  However, the Black-Scholes equation is no ordinary equation either however and is a result of financial uncertainty over 100's of years.  
    A young man named Scholes was always interested in the stockmarket and even during his teen years begged his mom to let him open a stock-market account to trade with.  After he got a job at MIT, he was presented with a problem that would forever change his, and billions of other lives.  It was the concept of being able to establish a certain price on an item, and then you can buy that item at that stated price anytime in the next year, regardless if the actual price of the item goes up or down.  Intrigued, he dives deeper into how the variables all correlate and fit together and after a couple years comes up with the Black-Scholes forumua.  
    This formula quickly showed is prowess by eliminating all the current stock traders who were generally succeusful by relying on experience and intuition.  Now basically all the market relied on this one formula, but everyone began to become dependent on the equation and next thing you know, companies could bankrupt themselves over a mistake made in simplifications of the math.      
    The lesson to be learned is that although you can make yourself falsely believe that you have definit control over a stock market, it is really all up to chance and no formula can really change that.