Current Events for New Ideas

Every one may wonder what the most important stories are for the 2008 year. This has been quite an eventful year, and it is hard to choose what stories can make the top five. However I believe that the top five stories of the year should be the economy’s recession, the 2008 Presidential election, newest technology developments on the hybrid electronec vehicles, the deaths on Black Friday’s rush, and the Obama’s new dog! These subjects have all made national new at least once, if not more than once, and they are stories that can symbolize where America is going. First is the economy’s recession.

The economy’s recession has effected all of America. From the big businesses down to the people out on the streets of the cities begging for their next meals, every one is feeling the crunch of today’s plummitting substantial finances. Well everyone except the sports people, they are the only ones that haven’t been effected by the recession! The lower classes are losing more homes and more people are loosing their jobs than ever before. The stock market is in a very low slump. Even truckdrivers, like my dad, are being cut in pay becuase orders are being shortened and less companies are using goods’ transportations services. This has been the biggest threat to our society this year. The next biggest story was the 2008 Presidential election.

 The 2008 Presidential election took up the obsetions of most every American! The race was between a well known Republican John McCain and an African American man, Barack Obama. The economy was the main subject everyone was eager to see the candidates debate about. Barack Obama won the Presidential election by a lanslide because John McCain didn’t distance his opinions from the most unpopular President in United States’ history, George W. Bush. This will be the first time in American history that the United States will have an African American president! The third biggest story consists of the updates on the modern, energy efficient electric cars that some vehicle industries are trying to create to save the economy.

The new eco-friendly vehicles are a big debate on the Congress floor. These vihicles run on electricity, and not on poluted toxic fuels or gas. However this new efficient technology is also very expensive. Some experts believe that the cars would cost too much for the average American and wouldn’t really help the economy at all. Others say that the price would go down given time, and the polution would decrease as a good thing for the envirement. Still it is very expensive to produce these vihicles and most people probably won’t buy them. Coming in fourth is the mad rush on Black Friday and the two deaths that hit national news.

 Black Friday is always a dreaded day for workers and consumers alike. That is the day when all the “best” sales come up and people come and flood stores, geting into fist fights over toys and all manner of goods! However, at a WalMart in New York, two workers were trapled over and killed by mad consumers on Black Friday morning. The families are outraged, and are filing suit against Walmart for supposedly making rediculus sales too much so that the store would deliberately over-crowd itself. What a day! No wonder grandmas to their shopping at the beginning of the year! The last most popular story is the debate on what the President-elect’s new dog will be!

 After the election was over, Barac Obama promised his two lovely daughters that, as a reward for their patience with him and his campain, he would get them a new puppy! The press emediately jumped all over the story. One of the girls is allergic to dogs. So the dog they buy will have to be one of the few hyper-allergetic breeds of dogs. There are speculations as to what the dog will be but nothing is finalized yet. I personally think that a puppy is a wonderful reward for most anything!

I’m sure everyone has heard of the proposed new, environment friendly, electronic vehicles that some automobile makers are trying to introduce into the struggling economy of today’s America. They are very optimistic about introducing a new car that doesn’t rely on expensive polluting gas to operate. President-elect Barack Obama is so intrigued by this new technology, that he wholeheartedly supports it. However, he also states that he want to be cautious about giving out government loans, just to make sure that America is making financial and economic progress. The primary problem with these vehicles, some experts say, is that the cost to manufacture such hybrid cars almost exceeds the moneys that Americans can afford to spend, and the car industries would make less money as well. In these hard economic times, it is difficult to keep technology updated without loosing everything that those technologies are supposed to help preserve.

 In my opinion technology can’t increase or prosper if our country is in a recession. I love new technology, and I agree that it is extremely important to become prosperous. However, if the costs are too great, then we need to just get our act together and fix our economy first before we attempt to improve upon, processes and discoveries that are fueled by our crumbling economy. Let’s just prioritize what we need, and then take care of those needs in an appropriate order that will benefit the majority of the wonderful democracy of America.

It seems that Barack Obama has decided to surround himself with most of the same people who aided Bill Clinton in leading America out of debt. His most recent move has been to offer the job of United States Secretary of State to his former rival Hilary Clinton. Obama must truly be quite serious about focusing on and improving our economy! The duties of the Secretary of State variously include serving as the President’s principal adviser on U.S. foreign policy; conducting negotiations relating to U.S. foreign affairs; granting and issuing passports to American citizens and  exequaturing to foreign consuls in the United States; advising the President on the appointment of U.S. ambassadors, ministers, consuls, and other diplomatic representatives; advising the President regarding the acceptance, recall, and dismissal of the representatives of foreign governments; personally participating in or directing U.S. representatives to international conferences, organizations, and agencies; negotiating, interpreting, and terminating treaties and agreements; ensuring the protection of the U.S. Government to American citizens, property, and interests in foreign countries; supervising the administration of U.S. immigration laws abroad; providing information to American citizens regarding the political, economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian conditions in foreign countries; informing the Congress and American citizens on the conduct of U.S. foreign relations; promoting beneficial economic intercourse between the United States and other countries; administering the Department of State; supervising the Foreign Service of the United States. Those are some very demanding duties, and I believe that Hillary Clinton would more than be capable of fulfilling this job for the president.

I like the idea of most of Clinton’s old cabinent returning to the White House! Clinton was the one that got America out of debt and into the black side of the charts. Hillary knows how her husband lifted us out of debt, so she is a great ally in this business. This job administration would also help to heal some of the frictions within the Democratic party. All in all, I believe that Barach Obama made a good descision in his choice for Secretary of State!

George W. Bush is considered to be one of the worst presidents in the United States’ history. He started his presidency with a $236 billion surplus and a balanced budget plan that was left behind by the previous president. Within less then six months after coming into office, Bush had spent the entire surplus on tax breaks for big companies. Then 911 happened, and Bush eventually took us into two wars; while still taking tax moneys for other reasons. Today we are in the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Now we are many trillion dollars into debt, and George W. Bush is the reason.

Personally, I was in controversy as to what to think when George W. Bush ran against Al Gore. All that changed when he came into office. He has nothing in mind except to give the money of the poor to rich, put simply. In his last term, he seems to have completely ignored the American people and their needs. I don’t know if the next president will do any better, but I certainly don’t ever want George W. Bush to be the president ever again!!

I’m sure most people have heard of the government’s bailout plan for major companies in the United States, including in Colorado. The budget for this plan is $700 billion. The money for this government bailout will come from the tax payers of America. Experts for the bailout plan agree that the people of America that keep good money balances are now being asked to “bailout” the big businesses that created bad money plans for themselves. However they argue that the bailout may not cost $700 billion. They say that the budget is just a high estimated number of what this may cost American tax payers. Then, to finish it off, Congress really has nothing to comment on the fact that they seem to have no money for bridge repairs and tunnels, but they think they can come up with $700 billion to bailout America’s big companies. Personally, I didn’t agree with the bailout to begin with!

I am from Colorado; however I won’t get even a portion of the money that Colorado may receive bailout compensation because I don’t make enough money or have enough influence on the government to make the cut! Our financial system is down because of the big businesses of the United States, and now the government thinks that just because we have a “generous” amount of patriotism, that we will agree to let them take more than half our incomes to bailout the ones who started this whole mess! I say that the government will take more than half of our incomes to do this because they already take over half our incomes in the taxes we already have. I’m patriotic; I love my country and most of what it was founded upon. I just don’t agree with cleaning up after greedy companies who don’t ever give us any breaks from taxes and debts. All in all, this bailout is a “recipe for disaster,” I’d vote that companies should have to take care of themselves and not make the average American be their mother (if I could vote).

Wouldn’t it be great if you could read a person’s mind; knowing how, when, and why a suspect would do something against our country? Since 911, Homeland Security has gone overboard in trying to develop new technologies that will prevent another 911. Now they believe that they have a system that will solve the luggage check and “long wait” problems at today’s airports, which is called MALINTENT. Malintent has a combined meaning of malicious-intent. Consequently, this new system measures many bodily actions in order to detect if a person has “bad intentions”. These actions consist of non-verbal clues that are unconsciously given, like body temperature, heart rate, and respiration. Those, whom this scanner system detects, are pulled aside and questioned. Nice system but every system like this has one simple flaw.

Any electronic “mind reading” test can be beat. It’s been proven on a lie detector, and there is probably a way to make this system inconclusive as well. All of this comes down to the simple fact that you can’t read someone’s mind. You can make an educated assumption as to what their intentions are based upon data that tells you about their present physical state, but you ultimately can’t “read a mind” entirely. The mind is just too complex to completely understand it. Conclusively, this technology is good, but like everything else that is electronic, it will always have quirks!

Well reports are in, and Barack Obama has won the election of 2008. This means that for the first time in United States’ history, there will be an African American President. It seems that many people are in favor of this great step in the civil rights movement. However let’s not forget that John McCain, instead of dragging us all throughout the end of the election like two elections previous, honorably conceded when he saw that he wasn’t going to win the election. Even Oprah publicly announced that she was very grateful to John McCain for his grace in conceding at an appropriate time to help unite our country instead of dividing it further (and Oprah was one of Obama’s main supporters and well publicized media sources). This was one of the faster and more sportsman-like elections that I have seen in a long time!

That being said, I am extremely dismayed that John McCain will not be our next president. Personally I think that he would have done an exceptional job. Furthermore, once again the candidate that spent the most money was elected into office! Even though Barack Obama refused money from the government for his campaign, he still made and spent more money than John McCain did in this election. However, I, like Oprah, am very impressed at John McCain’s grace in conceding in order to help the American people unite and be one whole country, whether they be Republican or Democrat. All in all, this election was very sportsman-like, thanks to John McCain, and now we must support our new president as he takes his well earned place (I’m sorry to say) at the head of America’s helm, “the land of the free, and the home of the brave!”.

John McCain was born on August 29, 1936. Since that day he has devoted his life to his beautiful country America. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1931. He then served in the navy through the Vietnam War and on other small missions. “On October 26, 1967, during his 23rd air mission, McCain´s plane was shot down during a bombing run over the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. He broke both arms and one leg during the ensuing crash. McCain was moved to Hoa Loa prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton,” on December 9, 1969.” His captors offered him early release, but he refused for the sake of the code of the military.  For the next five and a half years he spent his time in various prison camps, being tortured and beaten and then finally released with some fellow comrades. He knows the struggles of our troops, and, regardless if we agree with the reasons for the war, we need to support them. We also need to keep our gun rights and John McCain understands that. Barack Obama, though he hasn’t said that he would ban guns, he has been known to say that they need more restrictions, and that he believes guns to be wrong because he grew up in a big city; where street gangs use guns for harmful purposes. If we give up our gun rights, then our economy will become the least of our worries! Crime rates, killings, and assaults (especially on police officers) would skyrocket and the people of America would live in fear of any person that may come into their house with no fear (because they know you don’t have a gun, it would be illegal). John McCain wouldn’t let this happen.

John McCain would preserve our gun rights. He also has a specific plan for our economy. For our veterans we all know that he will take care of them. His plan for education makes sense, and will improve our “lowering standard” schools. He may be a Republican with his eye on riches, but he has, I believe, most of America’s main ideas in mind. This is why you should vote for the “lesser of the two evils,” John McCain!! Oh and don’t forget to have a HOWLING good Halloween.

John McCain has recently switched his views on “off shore drilling.” McCain used to be a strong opponent of off shore drilling until the gas and oil prices skyrocketed, then he changed and now supports off shore drilling. He also has a form of a plan for his support. That’s one thing I like about McCain, for no matter if he is right or wrong; he always has an explanation and practical plan that at least sounds like something other than illusive words and speeches like Barack Obama. McCain’s approach to off shore drilling is that it alone, alternative energy alone, or conservation alone will not solve our problem. He believes that a combination of all these will solve our energy and financial crisis. Again here is another clash I have with my candidate John McCain.

What John McCain means, is he is trying to slowly introduce alternative fuels into our country through the expansion of nuclear and natural power. I believe that any power even remotely in alliance with anything nuclear is a horrible idea!! Nuclear weapons, plants, and resulting deformities and diseases are bad enough without making nuclear power our main source of energy. Not only is that bad for the environment, but it puts every American in danger of the affects of coming in contact with poison nuclear energy in the air! In addition, most experts say that this plan isn’t a quick fix (for those of you that like the fast way out with the Obama campaign) because it would take five to ten years for it to work. I don’t personally believe in quick fixes! I believe that our energy crises can be solved through careful planning and precise management. Consequently, neither candidate impresses me with their ideas to solve this problem through quick and senseless ideas right off the tops of their heads!

John McCain’s plan for health care is best expressed through his voting record. He supports tobacco restrictions, which has become an increasing problem in our country over the years; causing more cancer and lung diseases from the pollution than ever before. He also supports “limiting self-employment tax deduction,” “funding the GOP version of Medicare prescription drug benefit,” “allowing patients to sue HMOs and collect punitive damages,” “allowing re-importation of RX drugs from Canada,” “negotiating bulk purchases for Medicare prescription drugs,” and “increasing Medicaid rebate for producing generics.” However he has voted against “expanding enrollment period for Medicare Part D,” paying “$40 billion per year for limited Medicare prescription drug benefit,” “including prescription drugs under Medicare,” “Medicare means-tests,” and “blocking Medicare savings accounts.” For his term in presidency, McCain has proposed a $2,500 refundable tax cut to middle class citizens to help them pay for Medicare insurance. This is a somatic overview of John McCain’s opinions and plans are for health care.

This is all appears promising, but this is one area where I don’t agree with my candidate John McCain. What he doesn’t mention is that the tax cut money would be taxed whether you use it or not. The tax would probably go to politicians or to the insurances companies who fund political campaigns. Furthermore, for McCain to support Medicare so much leads me to suspect that Medicare funds his campaign, or at least applies funds and/or support to the Republican Party. Barack Obama’s plan isn’t much better, because it solely depends on cooperation between several committees and organizations, which never has happened. Truthfully, I can say that health care will never get any better under either candidate.