Going Solar

In Illinois a solar plant is being built. Next year this plant will be able to power over 1500 hundred homes. Other plants are also being built in Illinois. This state is seizing the head start that is available to every state by requiring 1/4 of it's energy to be from renewable resources by 2025. To me that seems a long ways away. If Illinois began building power plants continuously and promoted it enough, I believe this goal could be achieved by 2020, or even 2015. The cost of these solar panels is mentioned and said to be very high, but if a person were to purchase solar panels for their home, the panels would pay for themselves over time because of how cheap the electric bills would become. If every state, or the country, set a goal like Illinois did, we would be well on our way to completely clean energy.

Obama Confronts North Korea

Obama with the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak

On president Obama's recent visit to Asia, he stopped in North Korea, and had this to say regarding the nation

"If North Korea is prepared to take concrete and irreversible steps to fulfill its obligations and eliminate its nuclear weapons program, the United States will support economic assistance and help promote its full integration into the community of nations," Obama said. "That opportunity and respect will not come with threats. North Korea must live up to its obligations."

I think it is great that Obama is actually taking steps to encourage North Korea to be involved in the "community of nations", or at least be willing to negotiate. Also, I agree that if North Korea said they'd get rid of their nukes, then they should. But if other nations aren't, and we aren't, then why should they have to? While I don't think that nukes should be used ever, if one nation has them, shouldn't everyone be allowed to?

DC Sniper Put to Death

The issue of this sniper who killed 10 people in 2008 is a confusing one. It is confusing to me because many said he was insane, but he was still put to death.

Lawyer Jonathan Sheldon told the BBC's World Today: "A psychiatrist examined him and said he's paranoid and psychotic and delusional and gave many examples."

Mr Sheldon also said brain scans of Muhammad had revealed malformations linked to schizophrenia.

The fact that he maintained innocence seems crazy in itself.
I can understand why they would want to put someone who killed 10 innocent people to death, but it is my belief that if someone is mentally ill, they should go to a mental hospital.
In any event, I can only hope that those affected by the sniper killing have been able to achieve some sort of peace.

Tweet your weight?

Ahh, as if technology wasn't ridiculous enough: meet the twitter-equipped scale. That's right. This scale automatically updates your weight on twitter, it's supposed to "motivate" you?

What's next for Withings? An app to let the Twitterverse know how much debt you're carrying? How about a public questionnaire to rate how far you are from achieving your life dreams?

Good call. It just goes to show you how completely open the world is. It seems like nothing is private anymore, and people are doing whatever they can to make sure it stays that way.

Cell Phone VS. Your Brain

not only is it increasing your risk of brain tumors, it's in your pocket!

We've all heard that the use of cell phones causes brain cancer, or some form of that rumor... but how strong is the evidence? Well, many recent studies have been conducted and seem to support the theory that long-term cell phone use increases your risk of cancer, for whatever reason. A batch of people were interviewed, some with brain tumors and some without. They were asked questions regarding the use of cellular devices, such as how many years they've had one. There seems to be a correlation between those with brain tumors, and those who have used cell phones for many years. I am always skeptical, so I was glad to see the experiments were reliable:

The eight strongest studies made sure the investigators did not know which participants had tumors when they conducted the interviews about cell phone use, and they did not receive funding from industry groups.

However whether the people remember accurately how long they've been using their cell phone is uncertain. Unfortunately, since it isn't know exactly how cell phones cause brain tumors, the evidence isn't very useful. Just in case, I would say one should keep their child from getting a cell phone as long as they can, and use a land line as much as possible. The suggested method is to just reduce your overall exposure to the phone on your head.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell... Even if it Costs Us 2 Million...

CNN published a story about a man who was discharged under the policy of "don't ask, don't tell". I think, and have always thought, that this policy is absolutely degrading to gays in the military, forced to keep one of the biggest part of their lives a total secret from their friends.
In this story, Darren Manzella had served two tours in Iraq before he began receiving threatening emails and phone calls, saying he was going to be discharged. He went to his supervisor for advice. His supervisor reported him, but he still served another term in Iraq with fellow soldiers knowing he was gay. It wasn't until he went on television and did an interview about being a gay man in the military that he was officially discharged. His discharge papers read "homosexual conduct admission". But he didn't display any homosexual conduct whatsoever. He had a partner at home, not in the military. But here is the most ridiculous statistic:

Since don't ask, don't tell was introduced, the military has discharged more than 13,000 lesbians, gays and bisexuals, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. A 2005 government report found that about 800 of them had skills deemed "critical," such as engineering and linguistics, and that it cost the military about $200 million to recruit and train their replacements.

So, the military wants openly gay people out of the service so bad that they are willing to pay 2 million dollars to do it? This is absolutely heinous.
Obama said he would end "don't ask, don't tell". Okay Obama... I'm waiting...

Flu Shot causes Dystonia in a rare case

A redskins cheerleader Desiree Jennings went in for her seasonal flu shot which she had received before. However, this time was different. Ten days after the shot she began to experience flu-like symptoms that only seemed to worsen. Her speech and movement was impaired greatly and she would black out for periods of time. As it turns out, Desiree became afflicted with Dystonia, a rare neurological condition.
Desiree cannot walk a single step without convulsing violently as a result of muscle spasms. Strangely enough however, when Desiree runs or walks backwards, she can talk normally and doesn't stumble at all. Doctors have no idea why this is, but it may be connected that she was an avid runner before she was diagnosed with Dystonia.
Desiree's case was literally one in a million, but I'm not sure I will go in for a flu shot, It's a scary risk to take.

No legally binding agreement, says UK

WORLD LEADERS: MAKE THE CLIMATE CALL

Isn't time we deal with the climate crisis?

Two years ago, the world's governments vowed to finalise a new treaty at next month's climate summit in Copenhagen.

Hurray! Something is finally going to happen! Right...? Well, not necessarily.
The UK government has recently said that a legally binding agreement would probably not be possible, but that they will come up with a political agreement regarding how to deal with the climate crisis. I don't even know what that would entail, but like Climate Secretary Ed Miliband says,

"...I'll be completely clear about this: I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it's a wholly inadequate agreement."

I'm with Ed on this one. Anyone can say, "I promise to not be bad anymore", which they did...

"China has published a five-year plan, India has published proposals, as has Brazil - and a few weeks ago Indonesia said it would cut the rate of growth of emissions by 40%, doing 26% of that by itself (without outside aid),"

...But that doesn't mean they will actually do it. They should be able to at least start something small. They need to set boundaries for the leading nations! They do believe that within the next 6 months something will be created, which I hope is the case.
We don't have much time.

Senate cuttin' some slack to the unemployed

Many college graduates with majors from prestigious schools are turning to minimum-wage customer service jobs as a last resort. 

Today, Senate voted to extend benefits to those unemployed up to 20 weeks. 

I completely agree with the vote which passed unanimously, 98-0. 

The bill is going to be brought to the house floor as soon as possible,

The bill would then move to the White House for the president's signature. Last week, the administration said it supports extending benefits.

This is crucial for those who are unemployed, and whose only source of income for their family is the unemployment check.

Some 7,000 unemployed Americans run out of benefits each day, according to the National Employment Law Project.

If we are going to spend money on anything, it should be this.
However if the benefits are extended to greatly, the risk is run of people depending on the check and deciding that searching for a job just isn't worth it. However, I feel this isn't likely to occur, since most people are taking any jobs available, despite their profession. Hopefully this will get unemployed americans through until the day where more and more jobs are available. 

Virginians Vote Republican

The voting in the gubernatorial election of Virginia took place today. Many people say that they are voting republican because of Obama.  

Tim Kaine (D) four years ago but switched to Republican this year to cast a ballot for McDonnell. The reason? "Obama," he said. "I came to vote against the policies going on in Washington."

I hope that this man voted based on the policies of McDonnell, not the fact that McDonnell is a republican. I don't know how much the governor of Virginia will be able to change what Obama is doing federally, but it doesn't seem as if he would make a huge impact. 

The bottom line, people are angry that Obama has not made the changes he promised, and it isn't just in Virginia, it is everywhere. I can hardly believe it has been a year, since so little has been done. Maybe the  Virginian governor will provide the change everyone is seeking.

"Free" Credit Report

You've all seen those commercials for free credit reports... they've got catchy jingles and it is clear they're trying to be "hip" and  "cool"

But are they too good to be true? They claim that it is completely free, and New York Times has uncovered that this may not be the case, unless you read the fine print. 

What happens, is that when sign up for Freecreditreport.com, you are automatically signed up for a "credit monitoring system", which is around 18 dollars a month. Most people who sign up, get their credit report, and then see strange charges on their credit cards.

So, be cautious when signing up for anything online, make sure to look very carefully.  

Abortion: Should the Government Fund It?

One of the major disputes in the health care bill debate right now is the issue of abortion. The fight is to decide whether abortion should be covered by government health care programs or not.
I believe that they should, personally. Without a doubt, it seems like it would be covered for rape victims or other serious situations, but I think it should be covered in general.
That is simply my opinion, because I am highly pro-choice. Sometimes it seems as if people against abortion think that having it covered by the government will increase the amount of abortions people get. That isn't neccesarily true, because if a girl went to planned parenthood, she could get an abortion for no charge and not have to tell anyone else about it.
This issue seems the same as gay marriage to me, because it is an issue based on personal belief or religion. I once heard someone in my English class say "people who have no morals, like people who get abortions...". This person obviously wouldn't support government coverage of abortions. Either way, a decision has to be made, and my opinion is pro-choice.