Hobby Lobby Still Covers Vasectomies And Viagra

Hobby Lobby -- now free to drop emergency "morning after" pills and intrauterine devices from its workers' health insurance plans -- has given no indication that it plans to stop helping its male employees obtain erectile dysfunction treatments.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the craft store chain, owned by evangelical Christians, doesn't have to pay for health care coverage of contraceptives prohibited by its owners' religion.

But pills and pumps that help a man stiffen his penis in preparation for sex are perfectly acceptable.

Hobby Lobby covers men's Viagra, just on the slim chance you were wondering exactly how fucked up today is.

-- Andi Zeisler (@andizeisler) June 30, 2014

RT if you believe the male justices would have ruled differently if #HobbyLobby case was about Viagra or Cialis.

-- Mark Takano (@RepMarkTakano) June 30, 2014

thank goodness the Hobby Lobby's god covers vasectomies. And viagra.

-- Lauren Dane (@laurendane) June 30, 2014

Can someone tell me which part of the Bible says vasectomies and Viagra are a-okay with the big guy? #HobbyLobby

-- Victoria Aveyard (@VictoriaAveyard) June 30, 2014

Last year, a federal court granted Catholic groups the right to opt out of providing coverage for contraceptives that they equated with abortion or sterilization, such as IUDs and vasectomies. But the groups were happy to foot the bill for treatments that could lead to procreation.

Julie Rovner, a reporter at NPR, wrote a blog post in February 2012 explaining where Catholic groups drew the line on sexual health coverage:

The answer on Viagra coverage is usually yes, Catholic leaders say. And they argue that's neither hypocritical nor sexist. Procreation is something the Catholic church encourages. And Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs can be of help.

A provision in the Affordable Care Act requires corporations to offer insurance plans that meet minimum coverage standards if those corporations take advantage of tax benefits for compensating employees in health insurance, rather than wages.

But the owners of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Store, a Pennsylvania wood manufacturer, challenged this provision, arguing that it violated their religious freedom.

Evangelical Christians have long argued that life begins at conception, and therefore that medical procedures that disrupt the first stages of pregnancy amount to murder. In the case of Hobby Lobby, this extends to a woman taking pills such as Plan B, Next Choice or Ella, any of which would prevent her ovaries from releasing an egg that could be fertilized after unprotected sex.

Perhaps taking a note from Catholic Church's opposition to sterilization, Hobby Lobby also objected to long-term birth control methods such as IUDs, which can cost women up to $1,000.

But that does not explain why Hobby Lobby doesn't object to covering the cost of its male employees' vasectomies.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

First Quarter GDP Is The Result Of Lower Health Care Spending | New Republic

The economy contracted at an annualized rate of negative 2.9 percent in the first quarter of this year. In other words, the economy in the first three months of the year actually shrank.

Read the whole story at www.newrepublic.com

GM Tells Dealers To Stop Selling Chevrolet Cruzes Because Of Airbag Problem

DETROIT, June 25 (Reuters) - General Motors Co on Wednesday said that it has told its North American dealers to stop selling new and used Chevrolet Cruze sedans from model years 2013 and 2014 because of a potential problem with the airbags.

The biggest U.S. automaker has not at this point recalled the cars in consumer hands, and is investigating how many vehicles have a faulty part for the airbags in the sedans, said a GM spokesman.

GM said it does not yet know whether there have been any crashes, injuries or deaths related to this issue.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Chris Reese)

Sting Just Cut Off His Kids, But They'll Be Fine

Sting may not plan on leaving very much of his wealth to his offspring, but don't mistake him for some kind of equalizing role model out of Thomas Piketty's dreams.

Gordon Sumner, a/k/a Sting, the 62-year-old former frontman for The Police and alleged marathon sex-haver (not really), told the UK's Daily Mail that his children are not going to see very much of his fortune, which amounts to a little more than $300 million.

"I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses round their necks," he reportedly said of his six kids, all of whom are now adults. "They have to work. All my kids know that and they rarely ask me for anything, which I really respect and appreciate."

This is an admirable position for jillionaire rock royalty to take. If all millionaires and billionaires were more like Sting, then maybe we wouldn't have to worry about the dystopian hellscape of yawning inequality foretold by French economist Piketty in his book Capital In The Twenty-First Century. In Piketty's telling, wealth inequality will widen forever because the rich always get richer at a faster rate than the economy grows, and then they keep leaving their ever-expanding wealth to their ne'er-do-well young.

But Sting's screw-em approach to estate planning is not quite the noble child sacrifice it might seem.

For one thing, Sting's children are forever going to have the very substantial benefit of being Sting's children. They have been raised by millionaires in nurturing environments and attended the very best, most expensive schools. And the connections they have are priceless. For the rest of their lives, if they ever get into trouble, Sting's kids can just ring up, say, Paul McCartney or some other jillionaire rock royalty, or maybe just plain old royalty, and say, "Hi, Sting's kid here. Can you spare a few pounds and/or a job?"

And Sting has not promised to give all of this money to charity, as billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have done. Instead, Sting claims that he just plans to spend most of his loot. (Though he does do a lot of charity work.)

Which is fine, it's Sting's money, he can do what he wants with it. And this is certainly wealth redistribution of a different sort. Because boy, can Sting spend the hell out of some money. For example, he apparently has "more than 100 people on his payroll," according to the Daily Mail.

‘I keep a community of people going," he reportedly said. "My crew, my band, my staff... it’s a corporation!’"

I guess the rich really are job creators, just like they're always telling us. Still, this 100-person payroll raises nearly 100 questions:

What is Sting doing that requires the assistance of 100 people? Are they helping him sign autographs? Curate his Twitter feed? Do these 100 people do search-engine optimization for Sting.com? Do they make the olive oil, wine and honey for his Palagio brand of foodstuffs? Are they running the Tuscan estate where said foodstuffs are made? Is that Tuscan estate hiring? Would the ability to type left-wing diatribes at 100 words per minute be suitable experience? Do they act out songs from the Broadway musical he wrote? Does Sting sign the paychecks? Are those checks worth more than their face value because they have been signed by Sting? What are the benefits? What music plays in the break room? Good Police stuff or Sting's sketchier solo work?

Anyway, good on Sting for hiring all of these people and making his kids get jobs, but I'm not sure having everybody emulate Sting would be the best fix for wealth inequality.

Honda, Mazda, Nissan Recall Vehicles Over Potentially Explosive Air Bags

* Honda, Nissan, Mazda recall vehicles for potential Takata air bag issue

* Air bags may explode, shoot shrapnel inside cars

* Seven automakers also set regional recalls in U.S. (Adds NHTSA comments, paragraphs 11-12)

By Yoko Kubota and Ben Klayman

TOKYO/DETROIT, June 23 (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co and other Japanese automakers on Monday recalled almost 3 million cars with potentially explosive air bags supplied by Takata Corp, bringing the total recall so far to about 10.5 million vehicles over the past five years.

The series of recalls cover both passenger-side and driver-side air bags, which the world's second-biggest automotive safety parts maker manufactured in 2000-02. The total ranks it among the five biggest recalls in the industry's history.

And the tally is expanding further as Honda and six other automakers also said on Monday they were recalling more vehicles in some high humidity regions in the United States, in what they called a "field action", at the request of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to replace Takata air bag inflators.

In the wider action, Honda said it was recalling about 2.03 million vehicles globally over potentially flawed Takata air bag inflators made in 2000-02 with a risk of exploding and shooting out shrapnel at drivers and passengers, expanding a recall from April 2013. It cited how explosive material used to inflate Takata passenger-side air bags had been handled and processed in 2000-02 at plants in the United States and Mexico.

Nissan Motor Co said it would recall 755,000 vehicles worldwide, while Mazda Motor Corp said it would call back 159,807 vehicles, both also expanding April 2013 recalls.

Takata Chief Executive Officer Shigehisa Takada and Chief Operating Officer Stefan Stocker said the company was working with safety regulators and car makers. "We will aim to further strengthen our quality control system and work united as a company to prevent problems from happening again," they said in a statement.

A Takata spokeswoman said it was unclear what the financial impact of the recalls would be, but last year's recalls cost the supplier $300 million. The 2013 recalls were intended to close the book on a problem that emerged as early as 2007 and has been linked to two deaths.

Separately, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Chrysler and BMW said they are conducting regional recalls in the United States to replace Takata air bag inflators in certain vehicles in high humidity regions of Puerto Rico, Florida, Hawaii and the Virgin Islands. Most of the companies said NHTSA had determined the regions affected, when asked why other humid areas were not covered.

However, Honda is also recalling affected vehicles in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.

Most of the automakers have not determined the number of vehicles affected, but NHTSA previously estimated in documents that did not list Ford and BMW that more than 1 million vehicles could be covered by the issue.

"Based on the limited data available at this time, NHTSA supports efforts by automakers to address the immediate risk in areas that have consistently hot, humid conditions over extended periods of time," NHTSA said in a statement.

The safety agency, which said the recalls were influenced by a probe into six reports of air bag ruptures in Florida and Puerto Rico, added it is gathering additional information and will take action based on its findings.


TURNING OFF AIR BAGS

The recalls come as General Motors is under scrutiny over why it took more than a decade to discover a faulty ignition switch linked to at least 13 deaths.

Monday's global recalls by Honda, Mazda and Nissan follow Toyota's recall last week. Prior to Monday, the four Japanese car makers and BMW had recalled 7.6 million vehicles equipped with potentially defective air bags.

Short of Takata replacement parts, the automakers said they would turn off air bags in Japan as customers bring recalled vehicles into dealerships - judging that an inoperable passenger side air bag is safer than a potentially defective one.

In the United States, NHTSA opened a probe earlier this month on whether Takata inflators made after 2002 are prone to fail, and whether driving in high humidity contributes to the risk of air bag explosions.

In a June 11 letter to the NHTSA, Takata said it would support "regional campaigns" to replace certain driver-side air bag inflators made between January 2004 and June 2007, as well as certain passenger-side inflators made between June 2000 and July 2004. But Takata did not admit that there is any "safety defect" in the air bags.

(Additional reporting by Chang-ran Kim and Ritsuko Ando in Tokyo, Bernie Woodall in Detroit; Editing by Ian Geoghegan, Louise Heavens and Tom Brown)

Olive Garden Is Evidence Of A Huge Problem In The Economy

One restaurant operator has just given us a small window into a huge problem with the American economy.

Darden Restaurants, the Orlando-based purveyor of sit-down food chains, announced its fourth-quarter earnings on Friday, revealing that some of its restaurants have done much better than others in the past few months.

What was the major difference between success and failure at its restaurants? The diners. Restaurants that serve the well-off are thriving, while those that serve the rest of us are struggling, in a microcosm of the broader economy.

Struggling are Olive Garden and Red Lobster, which are largely geared toward middle-class customers, who have been squeezed during the recession and slow recovery. Families with young children cut back on restaurant spending during the downturn, and they haven’t come back, according to a recent survey by restaurant research firm NPD Group.

Same-store sales, a measure of performance at restaurants open a year or more, dropped 3.5 percent at Olive Garden and 5.6 percent at Red Lobster over the quarter. At Long Horn Steak House, Darden’s middle-of-the-road steak chain, same-store sales rose 2.4 percent, but traffic -- the measure of how many people are actually coming through the door -- dropped over the quarter.

On the other hand, at Darden’s Capital Grille, where most dinner entrees fetch more than $40 each, same-store sales increased 4 percent over the quarter. That makes sense, too: Over the past few years, the kinds of people who can afford a fancy dinner have seen their incomes grow, even as everybody else's incomes have stayed flat.

Still, Darden is hoping it can convince pinched diners to spend again at Olive Garden by re-making the chain in the image of other trendy restaurants. They’re offering convenience through online and tablet ordering, more choice and customization options for their various combo meals, faster lunch service and even tapas -- all while still emphasizing the value of a meal that comes with unlimited salad, soup and breadsticks.

The hope is that they’ll attract the all-important “millennials” and “multi-cultural households” who are doing all their eating at Chipotle and Panera right now, Darden chief operating officer Eugene Lee said on the company’s earnings call.

Seafood chain Red Lobster has struggled for years, thanks to a suffering middle-class, along with changing dining habits and fluctuating seafood prices.

Darden plans on selling Red Lobster to boost performance. “We don’t believe that Red Lobster is as well-positioned as our other brands for the future that we see,” Darden’s CEO Clarence Otis Jr. said on the company’s earnings call.

Darden's performance over the past few years, with and without Red Lobster.

Durex Urges Soccer Players To Stop Faking It

We've seen some pretty ridiculous flops during the first round of the World Cup. But a new Durex a urges us to quit the fake performances in another arena: the bedroom.

Of course the "flop" in soccer is a notorious technique in which a player overreacts to contact from opposing players in order to get a penalty called against the other team. The tongue-in-cheek ad depicts soccer players dramatizing nonexistent fouls as if they were career-ending injuries and ends with the condom maker telling viewers "#dontfakeit."

Durex clearly knows that if there are two things that truly unite the world, it's sex and soccer.

America Is Globally Shamed For Its Pathetic Minimum Wage

America is treating its low-wage workers so badly that it's starting to get shamed by the rest of the world.

The International Monetary Fund on Monday cut its forecast for U.S. economic growth this year, warned of sluggish growth for years to come, and made a bunch of suggestions for getting America's economic house in order -- including raising the abysmally low federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

"[G]iven its current low level (compared both to U.S. history and international standards), the minimum wage should be increased," the global financial-stability group wrote in its annual assessment of state of the U.S. economy. "This would help raise incomes for millions of working poor and (help) ensure a meaningful increase in after-tax earnings for the nation’s poorest households."

The IMF didn't say how much it thought the minimum wage should be, exactly. President Barack Obama has proposed an increase to $10.10 an hour. If the minimum wage had been adjusted for inflation regularly, it would be at least $10.68, according to the National Employment Law Project. Many fast-food workers would prefer $15 an hour. If wage floors had been raised to keep up with productivity, then they would be closer to $22 an hour.

However you figure it, the wage is too low, and one of the lowest among the world's developed economies.

The point is moot at the moment, because Republicans in Congress want nothing to do with a higher minimum wage. States and cities are starting to take matters into their own hands, led by Seattle, which recently raised its minimum wage to a highest-in-the-nation $15.

In fact, Republicans in Congress oppose many of the suggestions the IMF made for getting U.S. economic growth moving again, including infrastructure investment and immigration reform. Without such things, the IMF said, it expects U.S. gross domestic product growth to average 2 percent a year for "the next several years," below its historic average of more than 3 percent. The IMF also cut its forecast for growth this year to 2 percent from an earlier estimate of 2.8 percent.

Then again, the IMF also called for the U.S. to "fundamentally reform" Social Security, so there's stuff in this report for Americans on the left to hate, too.

The U.S. Government Is Investigating Why Your Netflix Is So Slow

If your "Orange is the New Black" binge marathon has been interrupted by buffering and you wondered who to blame, the Federal Communications Commission is now trying to answer your question.

In a statement Friday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he has asked his staff to obtain information about the secret deals that Web companies like Netflix make with Internet service providers to ensure their content travels smoothly across broadband networks to your computer.

Such arrangements have been the subject of growing conflict between Netflix and Verizon, which have spent the past two weeks publicly blaming each other for those frustrating moments when Netflix videos buffer or freeze.

Last week, Netflix began posting a series of error messages to its customers suggesting that congestion on Verizon's network was degrading video quality. Verizon responded by sending Netflix a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the company stop sending the notices.

When Internet service slows, it is often impossible for the public to tell which company is at fault because the details of such arrangements are kept secret.

On Friday, Wheeler said he wants "to understand whether consumers are being harmed." He said the FCC has received details of the deals between Comcast and Netflix and Verizon and Netflix, and is asking for others.

"To be clear, what we are doing right now is collecting information, not regulating," Wheeler said. "We are looking under the hood. Consumers want transparency. They want answers. And so do I."

"The bottom line is that consumers need to understand what is occurring when the Internet service they’ve paid for does not adequately deliver the content they desire, especially content they’ve also paid for. In this instance, it is about what happens where the ISP connects to the Internet. It’s important that we know -- and that consumers know," he said.

Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said in an email that "we welcome this review," but cautioned that "the broadband consumer should be the focus of this inquiry and not any particular business model.

Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden said that such deals have "worked well for the Internet ecosystem and consumers" and "we are hopeful that policymakers will recognize this fact and that the Internet will continue to be the engine of growth of the global economy."

Netflix spokesman Corie Wright said the company also welcomed "more transparency in this area."

"Americans deserve to get the speed and quality of Internet access they pay for," Wright said in an email.

Many large tech companies -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Facebook -- have quietly brokered content deals with Internet service providers. Because its popular, data-heavy videos can create traffic jams on broadband networks, Netflix has agreed to pay Comcast and Verizon to ensure its content is streamed to customers smoothly. However, Netflix has also repeatedly complained about the arrangements.

The agreements are technically beyond the scope of the FCC's recent proposal to allow Internet providers to charge web companies more to deliver their content via a "fast lane." The FCC's proposed net neutrality rules only relate to the so-called last mile of online traffic that flows directly to customers' homes.

But Wheeler told a congressional panel recently that the FCC would start looking more closely at the deals between Web companies and Internet providers, which are known in the industry as peering arrangements.

On Friday, consumer groups applauded Wheeler's announcement. Michael Weinberg, vice president at the digital rights advocacy group Public Knowledge, said he "hopes that this effort by the FCC will begin to shine a light on this increasingly important aspect of the Internet."

New Vitaminwater Swaps Sugar For Stevia, Grosses Out Fans

Vitaminwater fans are seething over recent changes to their beloved sports drink.

Quietly last month, the company began swapping out some sugar in Vitaminwater and replacing it with artificial sweetener in an aim to make the drink seem more healthful. The reformulated beverages, which contain stevia, are labeled "naturally sweetened."

The new version of the drink, produced by Coca-Cola subsidiary Glacéau, contains slightly less sugar, but the same amount of calories.

For the past two weeks, Vitaminwater’s fans have pilloried the brand on Facebook, repeatedly complaining that the “naturally sweetened” bottles taste like “cough syrup” and “chemicals.” One even compared the flavor to that of “bug spray.”

Post by Chelsey Slenders. Post by Stephanie Landy. Post by Andrew Lamming. Post by Dotchi Latham.

The managers of Vitaminwater’s page have been playing desperate damage control. Comments, hastily-written in lower-case letters, appear under almost all the complaints, thanking them for their feedback and inviting critics to call the company hotline.

Regardless, Coca-Cola expects most vendors to completely sell off their remaining inventories and replace it for the new formula by the end of the month, a spokeswoman said.

In 2009, Coca-Cola was hit with a lawsuit over deceptive marketing of Vitaminwater filed by Center for Science in the Public Interest. The suit, which the advocacy group hopes will go to trial as a class-action suit, also claims that Vitaminwater violates the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s rules against fortifying unhealthful foods.

Since then the company has made moves to make the drink seem more healthful: In 2010 it launched Vitaminwater Zero, containing zero calories and entirely sweetened with stevia, a plant-based sweetener. Last year it introduced the reformulated original Vitaminwater in the United Kingdom.

Vitaminwater detractors aren't satisfied though. “It’s still a high-sugar soft drink,” Steve Gardner, litigation director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told HuffPost. “Now it’s just junk plus stevia.”

Soon You Won't Have To Type In Your Credit Card Number On Your iPhone

Apple plans to make online shopping a little easier this fall.

iOS8, the new iPhone operating system that's coming out later this year, will let you scan your credit card when buying something in Safari. Instead of typing in numbers, you'll be able to hold up your card and have the iPhone automatically recognize the numbers and punch them in for you.

Here's what it will look like, with photos courtesy of 9to5 Mac:

Uber Worth $18 Billion Because Sure, Why Not?

Now do you believe we're in a new tech bubble?

Uber, a controversial car-hiring app, just raised $1.2 billion in fresh investor cash, giving it a total value of either $17 billion, according to the company, or $18.2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. Really, though, what difference does a billion here or a billion there make any more, when money no longer has meaning?

Uber, the value of which has quadrupled in less than a year, is now the most expensive member of the WSJ's "Billion Dollar Startup Club," made up of companies being financed by venture capital that are worth more than $1 billion. There are now more than 30 such companies, most of them in tech, including Airbnb ($10 billion), Dropbox ($10 billion) and Pinterest ($5 billion).

Would you like some dubious comparisons to help you put these outlandish numbers in perspective? Of course you would.