Repubs need to take a chill pill....get with the program.

As I see it Republicans are bitter and belligerent, and soon we might not have a Republican party to speak of at all according to some historians. They are shooting down this energy bill but they don't have good enough reasons for doing so and they don't have a plan in place to say here your bill sucks but we have something better and more efficient.

Members of the Republican party that have common sense have asked their peers to come up with better ideas or shut up because criticism is always easier than actually coming up with a plan. I have heard the republicans complain and oppose the government spending that is going on saying that it won't work, yet we all know in our RIGHT minds that change does not happen overnight. As Bianca has pointed out in her article no one knows what the outcome will be at least not yet. Wouldn't that be awesome if we could know what the future held, existence would certainly be meaningless because as I see it life is all about discovery and learning from our mistakes. I certainly hope that the bill will be passed soon ,because my mother who is 50years young will be starting school this summer at ACC and her major is in one of the new degrees that will enable her to be qualified for a green job when she graduates.

I love this quote at the end of the new york times article, that Bianca links her blog to "And, if the scientists are right, we know that the costs of doing nothing will dwarf the costs of acting now." The republican party can learn a thing or two from that quote.

http://abcsand123sofgovernment.blogspot.com/2009/05/climate-debate.html

Ever heard of photoshop!!!

A couple of weeks ago there was panic in New york city where the government did a photo op shoot of the Air force one look alike around the countries monuments, that included the statue of liberty. After the 9/11 attacks seeing a low flying plane, escorted by two fighter jets in the Manhattan skyline led to a panic in the city rightfully so with buildings being evacuated because the defence team had not had the foresight to warn the citizens of New York city ,of this PR stunt. 911 was flooded by crying and terrified callers who in their minds eye saw a repeat of the events of that fateful day in 2001, only to be told by nonchalant operators that happened to be in the know this time, that the authorities where aware of the exercise. Why not warn the city in advance, this is the 21st century where if you want people to know about something in advance you get on a bull horn(maybe not so primitive) so to speak and announce it to the world. I am sure they had security reasons for not broadcasting this but this just helps me make my argument. This should never have been done at all, it was mishandled and misguided to say the least.

Apart from invoking fear in the citizens of NY on that fateful day, they also managed to spend very close to half a million dollars and yet we are in a RECESSION, I mean come on people what is wrong with that picture. Under the direction of the secretary of the army Louis Caldera, who is no longer in this position, the flight was under taken to take pictures of it with the statue of liberty in the background. The photos where to update photos of air force one with the various monuments in the background in this case the Statue of liberty. Wow I think I need to apply for the job of part time Brain for some of the people employed in our government (part time because obviously I am not qualified to deal with bigger problems that may come about). Have these high powered people ever heard of Photo shop or is it above them, had they used photo shop the most they would have had to pay for would have been the price for the software if it isn't already installed on their expensive computers. Way to waste resources and cause fear amongst the very masses they are supposed to serve and protect, I am glad we did not hear of instances of serious injuries as people where evacuated.

In these economic hard times it is certainly a slap in the face of us the hard working, tax paying citizens to have those tax dollars used for a photo op. I am not pleased by this incident and I am glad the media had the sense to make light of it for once I am on their side.

No one knows what tomorrow holds at least not yet...

The new government has not been in power for more than 100days how can we already give them a failing grade even a pregnancy is over 300 days, can a woman deliver a baby at 100 days and have the baby survive. I think that it is a little premature "no pun intended" , to say that the government has failed. After reading my class mates post "mistakes that the government is making" I am left assuming that my classmate takes the classical way of thinking as far as economics is concered which is the belief that when it seems like we are headed for a depression we should do nothing. WHAT?, what usually happens is that by taking this view we end up staying stuck in that depression with change taking up to five or more years for the country to get back to what is know as full employment. What is full employment you ask ,well that is when the country has low unemployment rates and the economy is stable. I on the other hand take on the Keynesian view that believes that the government has to increase spending and give tax cuts inorder to get a country out of the recession and to do it fast which usually takes about a year to achieve. This is what the government has beed doing to get us out of the mess that the last adiministration got us into.

I am totally against the war because of all the loss of life that has been happening ,but I do believe that it was a necessary evil and I do not want to argue that point. Yes Barack said that he wanted to pull out of Iraq and that they should do but just like the pregnancy analogy I gave it wont happen overnight. In this case I will use the pregnancy of an elephant to show my point since that is a bigger issue. If the elephant gave birth after only a year the fetus would not be viable outside of the womb, for that to happen it would have to carry the pregnancy to full term a whopping two years. They can not again just pull out of Iraq prematurely, there has to be strategy in getting the troops out of there. They have to make sure that they play a part in instilling order to avoid further terror attacks on the US. They can not just do to those citizens the equivalent of baby dumping by walking out of there before finishing the job that they have started there. I recently met and spoke to a Marine that had stopped by my job and I thanked him for all that they had done for us to keep us safe. I asked what the troops over there think about what is going on and the general morale. The young man(24 years old) told me, that they are all for staying to help rebuild the country and help the police and army to restore order before they come back home.

Universal healthcare a MUST DO!!

I am with President Obama and his VP on universal healthcare for all. I am from a third world country and when I was growing up I was fortunate enough to have healthcare through my fathers job. When I was 20 years old I moved to the united states and the message I got when I got here was not to get sick because the hospital bills would be ludacris and I would not be able to see a doctor without medical insurance. I left the US to go to England to attend University and much to my surprise getting sick there would not amount to me self medicating and self diagnosing myself and hoping I got it right in the process. In the UK healthcare is free even to visiting immigrants, so all I had to do was find a doctor and sign up with them and utilize the services they provided. I believe that the same type of healthcare should be afforded to american citizens and "legal" immigrants as well as visitors who may fall sick when they come to the US legally. I happened to find a lump in my breast on one of my visits to the US and even though, this was a worrisome situation I had to wait to go back home to be seen by my doctor meanwhile keeping my fingers crossed that it was not cancerous. It was an agonizing 6 week vacation not knowing wether the lump was cancerous or not, since on my mothers side there is family history of all kinds of cancer. I had to wait till I got home, at which point I was able to see our family physician and have it taken care off. When I was in the UK I had biopsies done and regular checkups to make sure that the tumors where really benign and not growing and I did all that without fear of crazy medical bills at the end of it.

The Republicans do not want to see the healthcare plan that President Obama is proposing coming to fruition because they claim that the Government will have too much power. So be it because the private sector seems to have failed at providing healthcare to the average American and if the government says they will do a better job at it why stand in their way. Republican Zach Wamp from Tennessee says that we are marching toward socialism, and he also goes on to say that Healthcare is a priviledge, WHAT!!! and when asked by the reporter to explain he says that he means for those who are offered healthcare by their employers and reject it vs those that really need it. Is he serious most people do not get offered healthcare, goes to show what he knows , when was the last time he was in a 9 to 5 job where healthcare insurance was not an option. Most people do not agree to insurance at work because the costs are too high for them with what they take home after all the deductions on their paychecks. Now for someone like me who gets it for free from my employer, it is great except for when I have to actually go and use it like I did, recently and my deductibles cover a qaurter of what my costs are. Now I am recieving bills in the mail but I can not afford to pay them because I make minimum wage, so something has to be done to make it easier for the regular hard working tax paying people of this nation inorder for all of us to get healthcare that is affordable. If my job did not offer free healthcare and it had to be deducted from my paycheck monthly I probably would have declined the healthcare because I already barely make enough to make ends meet and with a monthly deduction of $200 or more that would really put me in a ditch of sorts.

Universal healthcare is a must do as I said before there have been too many stories of people dying because they were not able to get the care that they needed especially cancer treatment and I would hate to see that keep happening.

An Unfortunate Coincidence or is it.

Gingi Edmonds is a 23year old abortion rights activist, she is pro life and she is so passionate about it so much so that she has recently made some shocking implications about a plane crash that killed 14 people including 7 children. I personally think that Gingi is a good story teller but she is inexperienced her celebrity or notoriety of sorts has come from this controversial article that she wrote on her blog before this she was unknown to the world. My research has shown that she has worked for an organization that believes that people born after 1972 are 2/3 of what should be the actual population because abortion was legalized in 1973 and this organization says 1/3 of the population where victims of abortion. I think that this is a very sensitive issue and even more so because of what happened to the family of Mr Feldkemp a man who now owns a chain of abortion clinics that apparently has carried out more abortions than all the other clinics put together. The article to me is highly insensitive looking at it from the view of someone who has lost a loved one in a horrific accident unceremoniously. Mr Feldkemps story is so sad tenfold because he lost not one but 9 of his family member 2 generations and some family friends. Gingi was so quick and apt to point out the newspapers had omitted to tell us that the victims of the fatal plane crash that happened at or very close to the tomb of the unborn . The tomb of the unborn was created at this particular catholic church to honor the souls of the aborted babies. Gingi does not come out and say it directly but she does say it she implies that what happened to Mr Feldkemps family was karma because of where the crash happened and because he makes a profit of the unborn, the aborted. How inappropriate can this 23 year old be, I am appalled at this article and not surprised that it was a link on Ann Coulters page the queen of controversy. I can only hope that she sees the error of her ways because she had not right to write the article that she did. I can only hope and pray that the family that is left behind does not read this anytime soon. I hope that it is pulled down because nobody deserves to go through what that family is going through. 9 deaths that is 9 funerals I would never wish that on my worst enemy , and to show how callus and inexperienced Gingi is she could not even wait for a month to go by no no she had to tell us this breaking news that the media failed to portray. The difference between you and the media Gingi Edmonds is that they have been doing this for a while and so they know when something is appropriate to be put out there. Gingi is a 23 year old airhead who needs to learn to be sensitive and a lot more caring before she puts finger to keyboard.

Illegal Immigration... pros and cons(if any at all)

What is the real solution to this problem, the author of the article that I looked at is himself a legal immigrant and as grateful for that as I am. He is focusing his article on the proposal that the former President Bush had put forth to allow illegal immigrants to become legalized and travel back end forth between their home country and the US. The author sites that in the late 90's a bill was going to be put into place that would close up access to America at the boarder and thereby reduce the number of immigrants coming in. I feel that this would only work but for a short while. I agree with the author that when people are desperate they will do whatever they can to get out of their situation. In the article he sites that 1 out of 3 immigrants is caught trying to cross into the US, that to me shows a flaw in the system. The result in the late 90's an influx of 2million illegal immigrants make it to the US.

It is believed that a lot of us immigrants will do the job that Americans choose not to do, so employers will continue to hire illegal immigrants and even pay them under the table. What the author fails to do in this article is shine the light on those that hire these illegal immigrants knowingly or otherwise. That is where the problem lies and this is why illegal immigration is thriving in the US. Many employers find ways to get around the verification of illegal to legal immigrants.

The Bush administration wanted to do the guest worker programme, they proposed that illegals already hear had to pay a fine and then get a work visa for two years and go home to renew that and then come back and work. I agree with the authors views on this that this idea is great because it would cut down on immigrants using deadly and sometimes even fatal methods to cross the boarder and come here. This plan is also though to be disguised as the amnesty plan of the late 80's. I disagree with the author because he feels that the fine the illegal immigrants would have to pay should be reduced to $2000 instead of the $5000 discussed by the Bush administration. The high amount I believe would help deter further illegal citizens and cover some of the back taxes that the illegal immigrants fail to pay when they get paid cash or under the table.

I think that the guest worker programme would have been successful had it been implemented with a few amendments like reducing the amount of time that the immigrants have to be gone. I, as an immigrant know what it is like to come here and make a batter life for me and my family, i have never been illegal in this country fortunately, but I know what a strain illegal immigrants are on the economy. Solutions have to be reached because immigrants play a big role in raising the GDP of the US, but they can only do that if they are documented. I feel that me and the author of this article in the Times magazine are on the same page on much of the issues at hand, because we both see the value of immigrants.

I think that the authors intended audience is people in government and politics, and to the public because we all play a part in what role illegal immigrants play in our societies. Sandy Huffaker / Getty is a photo journalist who has an impressive Bio, his work has appeared in many of the major newspapers. He focuses a lot on immigration even in his photography work.

www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1623140,00.html

The Rich might stop getting richer and get down to business...

I love the stimulus plan provided it will work out. I am especially excited that deep in the bill, is a stipulation buried, that prevents crazy ridiculous pay rises and compensation for those executives on Wallstreet and at other big banks.

I think that I am not alone in rejoicing at the fact that someone some where has finally dicided to put a stop to all this ludacrisness. Do not get me wrong I am not "player hating" because I am sure the people at the top of many of the top companies are probably highly educated and deserve to be compensated. But do the really deserve all those millions that they recieve when majority of their employees probably don't even get a tenth of this pay.

The provision, written by Senator Christopher J Dodd Democrat of Connecticut, highlighted the growing annoyance from lawmakers at the high compensations that these executives give themselves. This article also mentions that those crazy allowances they afford themselves are at the expense of poor old me a taxpayer who is working real hard for the pittance that i recieve to fed my family.

Its laughable that some of President Obama's top advisors are opposed to this bill and say that enforcing such strict rules would cause a brain drain in the financial industry. I say let there be a brain drain, there are so many fresh young people that are coming out of college now, that I am sure would be glad at a chance to be on Wall street and earn a reasonable amounts of money that will not be a slap in the face to America's hard working honest Taxpayers.

I honestly hope that the stimulus package will allow us to see some positive changes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/business/economy/14pay.html?_r=1&hp