North Korea launched a long-range rocket Sunday in what U.S. and South Korean officials deemed a provocative act.

“With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement.

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“We have made it very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative, it puts enormous strains on the six-party talks and that they should stop the launch,” Obama said while on a stop in France.

Obama warned that the United States will join with its allies to take “appropriate steps” to let North Korea know it can’t violate United Nations rules and get away with it.

The missile passed Japan, but as of now, the UN does not know where the missile is headed. North Korea says it is only a rocket. We can only hope.

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Second is this:

There’s days when I think I’ve seen pretty much everything on the internet. And then something like this comes up and whacks me upside the head.

Michael Evans, 66, branded baptising children as “a form of child abuse” — and said that when he complained to the church where he was christened he was told to contact the European Court of Human Rights.

How, in any way, is sharing your faith with your children child abuse? Yes, we get it, you don’t go to church anymore, but how has this scarred you for life? Now I’m personally against child baptism, but that’s beside the point. This just trivializes actual abuse in a lame attempt to complain about what they wish hadn’t happened to them. Stuff you don’t like happens all the time. It’s called life, not abuse.

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Popcrunch posted a list of creepy TV characters, which in retrospect I agree with (at least for the shows I watched). Although at the time I watched these shows, these were the characters I liked. Except the last one. He was always creepy to me.

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And now on to things about me.

I want these. I can’t see paying $100+ for a pair of shoes, but I want them so hard it sort of hurts my heart.

I am still addicted to This Is Why You’re Fat, but I think we have a winner here.

I went to California last week, and posted some pictures to my new Flickr account. I’ll be posting some photos of the ocean within the next few days.

Also, comments make me a very happy person. A happy person indeed.

First up, a guy who stabs his teenage son for wearing a hat in church.

A 58-year-old man stabbed his teenage son who refused to take off his hat at church earlier in the day, Baltimore police said.

The father and his 19-year-old son got into an argument in the 700 block of Vine Street on Sunday afternoon.

That’s when police said the father went to a car and got a knife. He stabbed his son in the left buttock and fled, police said.

The son was taken to University of Maryland Medical Center for treatment. The father’s name was withheld pending his arrest.

I honestly can’t think of anything to add to that except that I’m grateful that it’s not just us Midwesterners who do crazy stuff like that.

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Interesting news in the wake of the Michael Phelps “incident,” 40 percent of Americans favor legalizing marijuana. I’m not sure where I stand on this spectrum, but I don’t see the huge difference between pot being legal and alchohol being legal. Only 46 percent of Americans are against the legalization of pot, and it’s been theorized that legalizing it could help California out of the financial sinkhole they are currently in.

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Of interest to nerds who like their music and movies free, the trial of The Pirate Bay continues. I (sort of) understand where the recording industry is coming from. An interesting Canadian study says that things like BitTorrent don’t stop people from buying music. I’ve found this definitely to be true in my life, not that I’ve downloaded music from BitTorrent. But I would much rather listen to a CD before I buy it, whether I borrow it from someone or whatever. And when I like a band I’m incredibly loyal, and buy every CD I can get my hands on. Really. I’m the customer they want downloading their stuff illegally.

Also, as TorrentFreak points out so nicely, it’s not just about music anymore. Gaming, along with many other factors, have also led to the decline of the music industry.

A massive selection of entertainment alternatives (home computing, console gaming, mobile devices, etc.) have appeared in the home, effectively marginalizing music as an activity. 15-20 years ago, youths would regularly visit each other just to listen to music together; today, that is virtually unthinkable without some form of activity involved, such as playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band, or dancing at a concert.

And there’s quite a lot of truth to this. I can’t think of the last time I just sat and listened to music without multitasking: driving, reading, checking email, writing. I do it once in a blue moon when I’m trying procrastinating, and that’s about it.

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And finally, a feel good story:

The awesome people at Weta gave Nadya Vessey, a double leg amputee, her own mermaid tail.

Miss Vessey, from Auckland, New Zealand, said: “I never had a fantasy to be a mermaid. I am still getting used to it because it requires you to swim in a different kind of way.

“Children sort of go ‘oh, a mermaid.’ People who like it more, I think, are adults.”

Miss Vessey approached Wellington based Weta with the ambition of making a tail that was both practical and beautiful and is delighted with the finished article.

The fires may have been started deliberately. I can’t even wrap my brain around that one.