Things that Irritate Me

By looking through the list of 501 (a) class "charitable organizations" with the word church in their titles, there are 491 tax-exempt churches in Philadelphia alone. [editor's note: I used my discretion to include the churches that were listed in "Philiadelphia," "Philedelphia," and "Philladelphia."] I think it's absolutely reasonable to continue extending this exemption to churches that actively provide services to the community. Still, it's also reasonable to start a nominal tax rate for those organizations simply spreading the word of gods.
[Side note: churches are not explicitly defined by the IRS, but refer to religious establishments of any creed. It does not include schools or separate business run by churches.]

I dislike the practice of those who can only fall asleep while the TV is on.

Photoshopped images of models in magazines should come with a health warning.

All Congressmen, after five years of service (at a base rate of at least $174,000 a year), receive lifetime fringe benefits, including a pension and healthcare.

Public Transportation in America is widely unailable and inefficient, though increased usage would annually decrease environmental emissions 11,450 pounds of carbon dioxide for just one standard sedan off the road. This availability would also decrease incidents of fatal alcohol-related traffic deaths, in which drunk drivers are responsible for 12.8% of all fatal crashes in the US.

It's really hard to judge how many chips constitute one serving, because the serving size is usually measured in ounces.

Allowing unlimited campaign spending for corporations is one of the scariest things that has happened in modern politics. Corporations are not people, are not allowed the same rights to free speech as citizens, and generally are not the best interest of public welfare. In the words of the great social commentator, Stephen T. Colbert, "A corporation is just like a person. They do everything people do, except breathe, die, and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River.”

Equality of Opportunity is a key component to defining the American ideal; I understand this and support the concept infinitely. However, in the aftermath of slavery and the lingering hostilities, blacks migrated into cities as the white flight was moving white business out and taking their affluence with them. This led to the decline of "inner city" [see: black] schools, which have failed to provide the same standard of education as wealthy suburban schools. While black students would still be the primary beneficiaries of a revised plan, Affirmative Action should be basd on economic disadvantage, rather than race.

GM should've been allowed to fail, and AIG shouldn't have gotten a $170 billion dollar bail out.

People who want to deny terrorists the basic American right to a fair trial. Applying those basic liberties to everyone is the foundation of the Constitution, to give every group, including those from the majority, the extemes, the dissenters, and the undesirables, equality under the law to prevent a tyrannical state.

A government body should not be allowed to determine if someone lives or dies. Capital punishment is not only wasteful in its expense, but in its gross ability for an intangible entity to determine whether someone gets to keep their life.

On that, jueveniles should never be tried as adults, the American prison system is deplorable, and the American legal system is overburdened.

Part of that burden is that the system is clogged with nonviolent drug offenders possessing "soft drugs." Marijuana should be legalized and regulated along the lines of tobacco. I realize that it would be a difficult industry to manage, because nearly anyone can grow it, but the "War on Drugs" is estimated to have cost tax payers over $19 billion dollars in 2009, not including the production cost of wasting the time of the courts that could be better spent otherwise.

Medical Marijuana also makes sense and should be legalized.

The College Board is a non-profit organization that has a $55 million dollar surplus, and their top 41 officers make over $250,000 each.

Cable companies only offer bulk packages. More appealing for consumers, and less profitable to the company, would be to allow the consumer to customize packages to include only the channels they wanted. Besides the convenience, this would create competition among the channels, prompting them to create better shows to capture more viewers to capture more advertising funding.

Professional sports and the money poured into them is absolutely astounding to me.

If a gay citizen wants to serve in the army of the country that won't allow them to marry, they should be able to do so without fear of hiding and demonizing their sexuality.

Gays should be allowed receive the full legal and economic benefits of marriage.

Zero Tolerance laws are demeaning overreactions that prevent a student from getting a quality education and haunt their behavioral transcripts forever.

If people stopped signing up for the army, there wouldn't be anymore war.