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According to a recent survey American workers spend more than $20 a week on coffee ($5 a day). That adds up to $1,092 a year! In comparison, commuting costs for the average worker come out to around $1,476 a year. Consumerist.com, who shared the information, puts it this way: “when you consider the volume of your typical coffee  drink versus a gallon of gasoline, it looks like we place a higher value on our java jolt than we do on the 87 octane in our gas tanks.”

Another huge expense we typically choose to ignore is lunch. 66 percent of the American workforce buys their lunch rather than pack one, costing around $37 a week. The daily mid-day meal is quite a bit more expensive than commuting or coffee.

Younger workers (aged 18-34) usually spend more money on coffee and lunch than their older counterparts. They spend $24.74 a week on coffee while older workers (45 and older), who are more likely to visit locally owned coffee shops rather than the major franchise Starbucks, spend $14.15 a week. For lunch, younger workers spend $44.78 a week, compared to $31.80 for older workers.

With gas prices so high, it’s surprising that American workers typically spend more on lunch than filling up their vehicle. In fact, Consumerist added: “Worth mentioning here is that, when asked what they thought their biggest work week expense was in the last year, 42% of respondents thought it would be commuting costs, and only 11% chose lunch expenses.”

The Department of Homeland Security has approved collecting of public personal information from television anchors, news reporters, bloggers, and anyone else who uses social media. DHS spokesman Matt Chandler claims the agency uses social media monitoring “for situational awareness purposes only, within the clearly defined parameters articulated in our Privacy Impact Assessment to ensure that critical information reaches appropriate decision makers.”

A government official explained in an example: after the earthquake in Haiti, monitoring of social media allegedly allowed DHS folks to guide rescue crews to someone who was tweeting while trapped under rubble. The program would apparently be used only in times of crisis, and is required by Congress. ”Situational awareness” basically means knowing what’s going on so you can make quick decisions.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a lawsuit against the DHS. The issue? The DHS’ plans to create fake accounts on social networking sites, against those sites’ terms of service, to monitor the networks for certain key words - such as “drill,” “infection,” “strain,” “virus,” “trojan,” and others.

The government, in the past, has created a bill to team up with ISPs to internet stalk everything citizens do for an entire year without any court oversight. Here’s that story.

Documents from the Virginia Department of Agriculture show that the government is trying to reclassify People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as an “euthanasia clinic” due to their high number of killings of healthy, adoptable animals compared to animal shelters in the area. The organization doesn’t own or operate a single rescue shelter in the world, nor do they provide services which greatly benefit animals in communities.

Since 1998, PETA has killed more than 25,840 animals, while adopting only 3,135, or 85.9%. Within the past few years, they have been known to murder 90-98% of animals in their care.

The organization has also been criticized for their funding. The organization spends less than one percent of it’s multi-million dollar budget on efforts that help animals, but rather:

• $50,000,000 to terrorist group ELF in 2003 for a firebombing that, according to a San Diego Fire Captain, “could have killed someone.”
• $2000 to ALF’s David Wilson “to support their program activities”. According to the FBI, ALF is a “serious domestic terrorist group.” PETA’s president/founder Ingrid Newkirk publicly admits, “I will be the last person to condemn ALF.”
• $27,000 to Roger Troen for the burglary and arson of the University of Oregon
• $7,500 to Fran Stephanie Trutt for the attempted murder of the president of a medical laboratory.
• $5,000 to Josh Harper, an advocate of arson, for attacking Native Americans on a whale hunt by throwing smoke bombs, shooting flares, and spraying their faces with chemical fire extinguishers.
• $45,200 to Rodney Coronado for the firebombing of Michigan State University, and as evidence found by police show planned break ins and burglaries with PETA’s co-founder Alex Pacheco. After being released from jail, he taught young students of schools how to make a bomb from a milk jug. A few days later, ALF criminals tried to burn down a McDonald’s restaurant in Chico, California, using a firebomb that matched Coronado’s recipe. A month later, PETA’s founder Ingrid Newkirk referred to him as “a fine young man.” Late last year, he was caught urging terrorists to burn buildings down.
• $25,000 to Coronado’s father.
• $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) in 2001 for the legal defense of Craig Rosebraugh, an ELF spokesman.

One of the biggest criticism PETA faces is their funding of terrorist groups. The FBI even refers to PETA as “one of the most serious domestic terrorism threats in the U.S. today” because of their promotion, funding, and support of crime and terrorism.

For an entire list of reasons not to support PETA, click here.

Marijuana use has increased by 3 million people since 2007, making it the most popular drug of choice last year, with 17 million users.

Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. director of national drug control policy, believes this may be due to the growth of medical marijuana, “emerging research reveals potential links between state laws permitting access to smoked medical marijuana and higher rates of marijuana use. I urge every family - but particularly those in states targeted by pro-drug political campaigns - to redoubel their efforts to shield young people from seirous harm by educating them about the real health and safety consequences caused by illegal drug use.”

Marijuana is the only drug that has had a significant increase. Cocaine use has dropped nearly one million from 2006 to only 1.5 million, while methamphetamine use  dropped by more than half to only a 10th of 1% of the population.

The most disturbing news is how easy it is for kids to get drugs. Half of the children between the ages of 12 and 17-years-old surveyed said it would be “very easy” or “fairly easy” to get their hands on pot, while 1 in 5 said it would be easy to get cocaine, and 1 in 10 said it would be easy to get heroin!

Yeah, it’s probably a good idea to educate your kids about the effects of drugs at a young age, because their friends won’t wait until high school to start getting curious.

According to a new report, Progress of the World’s Women, “in the USA, 16 percent of women and men agree that it is sometimes justifiable for a man to beat his wife.” The article goes on to say “prevalence surveys in the USA show that 22 percent of women have experienced physical violence, and 8 percent have been targeted for sexual violence in their lifetimes.”

A few other topics were highlighted in the report:

1. Native American women are more than twice as likely as any other race of women to be raped. That’s because if a non-Native American rapes a woman on a reservation, odds are high the crime will go unpunished. Law enforcement don’t exactly know where their power lies.
2. The pay gap between men and women is huge. Men make, on average, for the same services performed 23 percent more than women in the US. Now, before judging, think this: maybe men perform the jobs better? Either way, it’s worse for Latinas and black women; they make 39 and 49 percent less than white men.
3. America is one of only a few developed countries that does not oblige employers to offer paternity leave, which is proven to help encourage a more equitable division of childcare responsibilities.

Now, there’s some good news for women:

1. Over the past nearly decade in a half, female numbers in Congress have risen from 11 percent to 17 percent.
2. The Violence Against Women Act has dramatically reduced non-fatal violence between partners-down 48 percent.

Before you go hating on America, because I know that’s the “cool” thing to do, think about this: maybe we aren’t the only part of the world like this. Is domestic violence towards women acceptable?