15 -Year-Old Terrorist Pleads Guilty.

On Monday October 25th, 2010, a former child soldier pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges that consisted of tossing a hand grenade during a firefight, killing a U.S. Army Sergeant, Christopher Speer in 2002. He also admitted to planting a total of 10 roadside bombs in assistance for Al Qaeda. Mr. Khadr (the child terrorist) was 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan and was later held in a military prison located in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Once he pleaded guilty, this meant that he would be the first person to stand trial before a military commission under the Obama administration. He stated that he was "coerced" by older relatives and family into fighting for Al Qaeda and was not at fault. Having said that, Mr. Khadr has been given immunity to a life sentence but a group of seven military officers will be deciding the length of his prison sentence. The United States and Canada negotiated and came to the conclusion that allowed Mr. Khadr, after a year, to apply for a transfer to Canadian custody to serve the remainder of his sentence instead of staying in the horrible prison in Guantanamo Bay.  This goes to show that Al Qaeda is so horrible that they're willing to force their children into fighting in dangerous environments, risking the lives of innocent people.

Mental Break: Atta Girl Whitman...

Hiccup Girl Makes National News Once Again.

On October 25th, 2010, a 19-year-old woman referred to as "The Hiccup Girl" confessed to killing a 22-year-old man named Shannon Griffin during "a robbery gone wrong". In 2007, a 15-year-old girl named Jennifer Mee (The Hiccup Girl) from Florida, got media attention when she hiccupped for about 5 weeks. At one point, she was hiccuping up to 50 times a minute. A neurologist suggested that she could have Tourette Syndrom and this could be a tic but once it ended this theory was disputed. On Saturday, October 23rd, 2010, Jennifer Mee lured a man (Shannon Griffin) to a house in St. Petersburg, Florida where a 20-year-old man Laron Raiford and another man Lamont Newton who is 22 robbed Shannon Griffin at gun point with a .38 Caliber Revolver. At first it was supposed to be a simple robbery but once Griffin began to struggle, the men open fired and shot Griffin multiple times in the upper body, unfortunately ending his life. All three suspects have admitted to their actions and have all been charged with first-degree murder which can result with capital punishment in the state of Florida.

Legalize It

On November 2, 2010, California will be voting on many things for the California statewide ballot with one of these things being proposition 19. If proposition 19 is passed, then it will make marijuana legal for persons of 21 years of age or older. This mean that the government would be able to regulate, control, and tax marijuana as they please, meaning people will no longer help fund the violent Mexican drug cartels and they  will be completely taken out of the marijuana business. This will be a huge blow to the cartels and will hopefully weaken the cartels if not eliminate them. If legalized, the government could put high taxes on this herb. Having said that, marijuana is California's number one cash crop which would dramatically help the economy in a time of need. If proposition 19 passes, the government will also be able to control what goes into the marijuana, eliminating all the bad stuff that dilutes it as well as any other drugs that may be laced with the marijuana from random drug dealers. Police forces are even for proposition 19 due to the fact that pot smokers are simply no threat to society. They could either be arresting a few teenagers smoking pot or they could be using their time more efficiently by arresting a thug that's robbing an old lady or even crack dealers. Marijuana and marijuana user simply have no harm to society and if Alcohol is legal, marijuana should definitely be legal as well.

Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing is bad?

    On Tuesday, Saddam Hussein's former top aide, Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court for committing crimes against members of Shiite political parties (Saddam's rival party). I believe that no matter how bad of a crime the person commits, he/she should not be punished with Capital Punishment which is commonly referred to as the "death penalty". This form of punishment is wrong because the pre-meditated taking of one's life is too harsh of a punishment. Not only is killing wrong, but if the government kills people to show everyone that crime is bad, wouldn't that make the government criminals? Like Amnesty International said, "The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life..." Taking one's life changes nothing besides creating more criminals. Studies also show that most families of murder victims don't feel any better once the assailant is killed by capital punishment. Ronald Carlson's sister was murdered by a man and said he “would have killed those responsible with my own hands if given the opportunity.” When he watched the execution of his sister's assailant he later stated, "Watching the execution left me with horror and emptiness, confirming what I had already come to realize: Capital punishment only continues the violence that has a powerful, corrosive effect on society.” California alone has been spending approximately $90 million per year just on capital punishment meaning not only is it very wrong, but it's also extremely costly. The death penalty is very immoral and proves nothing besides the fact that the government needs some adjustments.

Political Philosophy Quiz

The Quiz

The following are your scores. They are based on a gradual range of 0 to 12. For instance, a Conservative/Progressive score of 3 and 0 will both yield a result of social conservative, yet 0 would be an extreme conservative and 3 a moderate conservative

Conservative/Progressive score: 9
You are a social progressive. You generally consider yourself a humanist first. You probably think that religion and patriotism go too far in society. You probably consider yourself to be a citizen of Earth first rather than a citizen of your country.

Capitalist Purist/Social Capitalist score: 9
You're a Social Capitalist, you think that, left to its own, Capitalism leaves a lot of people behind. You think that Health Care should be free to all, that the minimum wage should be raised, and that the government should provide jobs to all that are capable of having them. You likely hated the Bush tax cuts, and believe that the middle class has gotten poorer, and the rich have gotten richer over the past several years. The far extreme of social capitalism is socialism.

Libertarian/Authoritarian score: 3
You are libertarian. You think that the government is making way too many unnecessary laws that are taking away our innate rights. You believe that the government's job is primarily to protect people from harming other people, but after that they should mind their own business, and if we give the government too much power in controlling our lives, it can lead to fascism.

Pacifist/Militarist score: 7
You're a Moderate. You think that in very rare occasions, the United States should invade a country in order to make the world better by spreading democracy or ending a tyrants rule. You also think that defense is very important, and we shouldn't lower the defense budget. You think that, while the Iraq War probably was a mistake, that we can make the world a better place by sticking with it and spreading democracy in the middle east.

Overall, you would most likely fit into the category of Democrat

Earth's Resources Coming to an End?

Studies show, that two thirds of the planets resources have already been used up and if the planet's resources continue to get used up at the rate it's at right now, humans will be forced to colonize two planets in approximately 50 years. By 2050, Earth will "expire" because of a shortage of resources. Experts say that the oceans will be fishless, forests will be completely demolished, and freshwater supplies will become polluted. Not only will our seas, forests, and fresh water disappear, but scientists have noticed that many species have either become extinct or have been more than halved such as the tigers. Over the past century, the population of tigers has decreased by 95%. With the population growth, the population will jump from 6.5 billion to 9 billion people within the next 50 years and with the resources rapidly decreasing, it looks like colonization on other planets is our best bet.

After 69 Long Days, All 33 Miners Are Finally Rescued.

On August 5th, 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped in a mine in Copiapo, Chile after it had collapsed on top of them. They were stuck in a small room about 625 meters underground (almost half a mile) and survived by eating two spoonfuls of tuna, half a cookie and half of a glass of milk every 48 hours. Once they were discovered, officials sent lights down so when they were rescued the light wouldn't be such a dramatic change. They were also supplied with hydration gels, medication, and food supplies. After 69 longs days, each of the 33 miners were slowly pulled out one by one through a capsule called Phoenix 2 that's about 2 feet wide and could take up to an hour to pull out each individual. Individuals were required to wear sweaters while being pulled up due to the dramatic temperature changes of 90 degrees to nearly freezing. They were also required to sunglasses so they could adjust to sudden bursts of light. Each miner that was freed was greeted by their family, journalists, photographers, and the Chilean president Sebastian Pinera. Once all the trapped miners were freed, President Sebastian Pinera placed a metal cap on top of the rescue hole one Thursday morning to mark the end of a risky rescue operation.

U.S. Companies Exploiting Their Workers

Many American companies have been exploiting their workers for the past few years. Since the American work force standards are so high, companies have found it much cheaper to have their products made in many different countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam, China, etc. It's cheaper to do this because the companies don't have to have as many safety hazards since the working standards in many foreign countries are much lower than the standards in America. For example, if a company uses a certain glue to assemble their product and America outlaws a glue that causes birth defects but is much cheaper than the standard glue then the company will build factories in foreign countries that allow the workers to use the cheaper glue. Another reason it's cheaper in some countries is because the minimum wage in most countries is a lot less than the minimum wage in America. Some people see this as a way to open up job opportunities for less fortunate people but this also takes away jobs from many Americans while exploiting many workers in foreign countries.

The Human Cage.

In 1991, there was a $200 million dollar experiment that consisted of eight people living inside a glass-enclosed/sealed 3.15 acre room in Oracle, Arizona for two years. The inventor was Margret Augustine and was built by the Space Biosphere Ventures. The point of this experiment was to explore the interactions between all the life organisms and how nature reacted with humans, farming, and technology. As a result of these humans living in this sealed bubble, air quality plummeted, carbon dioxide levels rose, and oxygen had to be pumped into the biosphere from the outside world in order for the people to remain healthy. Vines also "choked" out crops and trees. Their water supply also became polluted with nutrients so much that the people had to filter it by hand before it was safe to drink it. Also, 19 out of the 25 animal species became extinct within 2 years. $200 million dollars couldn't maintain the ecosystem for eight people over a 17 month time period. Having said that, us humans add eight people to our planet every 3 seconds. In conclusion, it would be extremely expensive for humans to live in closed biospheres in space colonization and even if we had the money to do this, it'd be nearly impossible to maintain these biospheres after a year or so.

America, home of the waste?

Like it says in Paul Hawken's Natural Capitalism, "the United States became the most wastefull society on the planet." This statement is very true for many reasons. One being, that studies by the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that Americans waste about one fourth of all their food. Having said that, it takes 1.4 billion barrels of oil to grow, harvest, preserve, package and transport the United States' annual food supply which means about 350 million barrels of oil go to waste every year just in the United States alone. How can we help put our resources to more efficient use? Small things such as using reusable cups for coffee etc. rather than paper cups or using silver ware instead of plastic forks will help. In 2008, a man went looking for food in dumpsters to donate to the homeless shelter for thanksgiving and found about $2,000 dollars of perfectly good food. It's surprising how small things like throwing out food can hurt our planet so dramatically.