Lately, I’ve been displeased with the way the blog looks, so, I’m redesigning it. You can catch a preview here, it will be constantly updated, so check back once in a while to see the progress!

President Obama may issue an executive order to oversee the indefinite detention of suspected Al Qaeda members. According to the Washington Post/ProPublica, three anonymous government officials confirmed that the aforementioned order is being drafted. This is reminiscent of Bush-era policies, which ignored due process using the Supreme Court rulings on the Insular Cases as justification. These orders seem to contradict the President’s order to close Guantanamo Bay, which has been heavily opposed by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. This raises the question, is Obama overstepping his boundaries as president? Although the President has stated that, “We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded, they simply can’t be based on what I or the executive branch decide alone,” an executive order would bypass legislation. Now, the President, instead of refuting the 43rd President’s policies, seems to be embracing them. Time can only tell whether Obama will or will not support his promise to give detainees a fair and speedy trial.

Sources:
Politico
New York Times

Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) was recently exposed having an affair in Argentina. His staff told the press that Sanford was in the Appalachian Mountains hiking, but that turned out not to be the case. The governor, a 2012 presidential hopeful, has declared that after his term as governor ends, he will discontinue his political career. Although much can be written about Mr. Sanford, the more potent question is this; Who will be the GOP’s candidate for 2012? Although Sarah Palin (R-AK), 2008’s Republican vice-presidential candidate, may potentially run for president, it is unlikely. After the 2008 election, the GOP seemed to be attempting to isolate itself from Mrs. Palin, as suggests this article in the New York Times. Without Palin or Sanford, who will be the one on the ticket in 2012? Many people say Ron Paul (R/Lib-TX) will be the one to lead the Republican party into the presidential race, but he has already expressed that he is not interested in running, saying: “I don’t think so, I’m not planning on that. It’s a long way off.” There are also a few more notable nominees. For instance, there is Bobby Jindal (R-LA), a young, staunch neoconservative, with many pro-GOP policies, such as his opposition to same-sex marriage and his support of intelligent design. But the most prominent of the bunch, is current Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R), who has expressed that he is very interested in running in 2012. Although the Republican party is sure to have a candidate in 2012, I am very convinced that the Republicans, as in 2008, will lose. Why? Because the party is so radical, so intertwined with particular interests, such as the Church, that it will not win because it is too selective. Its support base is too narrow, and the whole point of a political party, is to be the most inclusive, and that is the antithesis of modern Republicanism.

The new strain of influenza called H1N1, commonly referred to as the “swine flu”, has caused global panic. In Egypt, more than 3,000 pigs have been slaughtered, although the WHO (World Health Organization), has told these countries that slaughtering pigs will not prevent the spread of the flu. The question most people are asking is, “How bad is this disease?” and, “Does it really merit all this panic?” From a broad perspective, the answer would most obviously be “yes”, but this may not necessarily be the case. In the United States alone, about 36,000 people die per year from the “regular”, or seasonal, strain of influenza, known as the H3N2 subtype. The swine flu, on the other hand, has only killed about twenty-one people, still a high number for a strain that has only been here for a couple of weeks, but it still does not parallel the amount of lives the seasonal flu claims. Recently, the New York Times published an article stating that the outbreak in Mexico may be “smaller than feared”, saying that the spread of the flu has been more contained than previously thought. Moreover, doctors have been saying that this is just another flu virus, and that there is no human immunity to the flu. So why all the fear? The simple truth is: the media. The media, notably local media like ABC, Fox, and CBS, have been using this virus as a tool. More and more people are tuning in to the six o’clock news to see the latest on the “Swine flu epidemic”, thus boosting ratings for these news stations. The media have over-hyped this virus to the point of global panic, not to undermine the seriousness of the situation, but the simple fact of the matter is that media companies have just been playing up this H1N1 strain to increase their popularity. Nothing we didn’t expect, but this time, people are believing the hype. Masks have sold out on Amazon and Tamiflu is being swept off the shelves of local pharmacies. Although the swine flu is no laughing matter, it has been used as a media tool to boost ratings, so the moral of the story is, don’t believe everything you hear, and, above all, just use common sense, it can come in handy sometimes.

If you want tools to track H1N1 cases in your area, check out some of these links:

Google Flu Trends
NY Times Swine Flu Tracker
WHO Daily Reports
CDC Cases

The Grand Old Party has been around for a little over three hundred years, once a strong proponent of civil rights, Progressivist ideals, and women’s rights, the Republican party has now taken steps backwards in its social policies. This, in turn, has pushed many former self-identifying moderate Republicans to the Democratic party. This has injured the GOP almost to a state of disrepair, simply put, if the Republican party is to survive the next fifty years, it must modernize its policies and support base. As the country progresses more and more in the aspects of social issues, the GOP has attempted to resist this change by stubbornly adhering to policies from the 1980s, when the Regan Revolution was ripe and the Evangelical Christian movement started. For years, the GOP’s basis has been firmly secured by staunch social policies and an obvious Christian bias, most notably anti-homosexuality, a strong drug policy, and, starting in 2001, a powerful opposition to immigrants and foreigners. Continually, more self-identifying Republicans have been leaving the Party, exemplified by Arlen Specter’s (R-PA) move to the Democratic Party, because of the GOP’s radical social stances. Its “my way or the highway” stance on abortion, homosexuality, and other social issues have polarized the party and the country, eventually pushing out moderate Republicans (Who make up the majority of the Party) on their own accord. The GOP has left no middle ground, attacking the Left simply for the sake of attacking the Left. Additionally, the debate concerning Marijuana laws has also heated, this time, with the majority calling for the legalization and taxation of Marijuana, with states like California, Massachusetts, and Colorado pleading the Federal government for legalization, which could end up with a $1.4 billion increase in sales tax for California, and even more so with a Time Magazine article promoting the legalization of the drug. The GOP, however, still adheres to a powerful and outdated anti-drug policy started by the Reagan Administration. Additionally, the issue of abortion has spurred the resignation of a considerable portion of the Republican Party, with more Americans identifying the abortion topic as a question of women’s rights, and not morality. This is not to say, however, that the Democrats have not had their fair share of polarizing issues. The staunch Liberal lean of the Democratic Party has pushed more Democrats to the center of the political spectrum, but this is considerably less than on the side of the GOP. The Republican party has played an important part of American history, and I hope to see it survive and reform its ways, cleansing itself of religiously-motivated leaders and reestablishing its former policy of separation of church and state, I also hope to see it progress in social issues. In short, what I want is the old Republican party, because I fear that if it continues on the path it’s on, we will be forced to omit the “O” out of “GOP”, and that’s just not right.

In a recent New York Times article, the Obama administration revealed four formerly top secret CIA memos that were sent by the Bush administration, which Bush himself denied in 2007, according to the BBC. In the memos, it outlines specific torture methods including: Waterboarding, putting detainees into small boxes, keeping them awake for eleven days straight, submitting them to their worst phobias, among other things. According to the NY Times article, these methods were implemented until as recently as 2005. The thing that gets me most about these memos, is not the fact that they tortured people, it’s that the Bush administration deliberately lied to our faces, instead of just keeping their mouths shut. Although torture is sick and subhuman, it is a neccesarry evil during wartime (But I guess it wasn’t really “wartime”). Well, I guess this is just another reason to forget about the Bush administration and move on with the new one, hopefully it will be better than the previous.

The book series entitled Twilight by Stephanie Meyer has spread at an alarming rate in the tweenage and teenage worlds. Read by glittery-eyed thirteen to sixteen year old girls, the book has sold like hotcakes in the past months. The publication tells the tale of two seemingly “ordinary” (If you call vampires “ordinary”) teenagers and their venture of love and passion. Some call it cute, some call it stupid, some call it plain annoying; I agree with the latter, but that is of no importance. Continually, more and more fanfare and marketing have been building up around the book, a film adaptation of the book was released in 2008 starring British actor Robert Pattinson as the vampiric protagonist of the story named “Edward Cullen”. From a scholarly point of view, the book is horrendous. Purple prose is smeared across the pages, and at some point or another the reader has to put it down, sit back, and facepalm at the over-doings of the author. The story is uninteresting and the characters are rough, pathetic, and adolescent. What’s more is that our future generation of women are reading this malady of the literary world. But even more alarming is the sense of faux reality that this novel is instilling into the minds of teenage girls around the world, most notably, the United States. Meyer creates a fantasy world where the “perfect partner” is one of unattainable and unrealistic standards. Continually, teenagers are falling into the trap that are serious relationships at a pre-college level. In the ninth, tenth, and even eighth grade levels teens are falling into dangerous and serious relationships because of this hype around “romance” and “perfection”. If you are naive enough to believe that Twilight is not enabling this kind of unhealthy behavior in teens, then I suggest that you take a serious reality check. Everywhere teens and tweens alike fall into abusive relationships both physically and psychologically due to the delusion of the books and movies that promote fantastic relationships, promising true love and happiness, polar to what the world has to offer. More often do we see abusive relationships that result in only phobias and mistrust between genders, not love. Twilight is enabling these harmful relationships by painting a perfect scene on a perfect canvas, but reality tells a different tale. With the effect that it has on girls, it will also have on boys. When members of the male gender think of Twilight, they think of weak high school girls and a gay protagonist. Although that might not be what Meyer intended, it has evolved to that stage. Twilight has given men “proof” that women are inferior in the sense that they cannot sustain themselves, but alternately must have a man to protect them. Realistically speaking, this is all untrue, but this is the image that Twilight has etched into the minds of sexually starved teenage males who are just aching to get one chance to go “all the way”, something that is dangerous and something that Twilight is enabling by giving boys a means to convince girls to become sexually active. Twilight is both poorly written and dangerous, it has almost brainwashed or poisoned the teenage mind into believing that there is true love at thirteen, whereas it is quite the contrary. The world is a cruel place, and Twilight is another example of sticking our heads in the sand and not facing reality. Period.

Newspapers are dead. There, I said it. As much as I hate to admit it, newspapers will soon be replaced by blogs, and paper will become obsolete. The age of printed Yellow Journalism is over, and we will soon be filling our minds with mindless gossip instead of world events. As the recession looms and paper becomes more expensive, the newspapers will be retiring, yes, even the New York Times, my favorite. People have abandoned newspapers and taken up blogs, short internet articles, and those annoying TV talk-shows as their primary source of information, unfortunately. No more will people be filling their minds with the eloquence of respected and crediable authors, they will, instead, tune in to babble and rumor. Newspapers have already been cutting sections of their paper, the NY Times just got rid of their book review, now soley on the internet. The Washington Post just cut out their business section and moved it to the front page to cut paper costs. As unfortunate as it is, these newspaper companies will survive with the internet, they will continue to write the same professionally written articles, on the internet. I hate to see the physical newspaper go, but it’s all a part of nature, human nature that is. I guess the only good aspect of this is that we are finally progressing, but with growth, comes the growing pains. So, farewell to you New York Times, farewell Washington Post, I’ll always remember you Boston Globe, but it’s time to go, you will always be remembered.

According to the United States Treasury, China is our largest debt-holder, at $727 billion as of December 2008, and its probably even higher by now. This could be problematic, catastrophic even. What people don’t understand or don’t realize is that China, whether you believe it or not, hates the United States. But all petty differences aside, this could lead to the demolition of the United States’ economy. If China decides to let go of their investments in the United States, we would be left with nowhere left to go. No other country will buy up a $727 billion debt to save us, even if they wanted to. This would be suicide on China’s part as well, but the impacts on the United States would be double that of China’s. This most likely will not happen, but it’s something to think about when considering the US debt to foreign countries. So, be warned, the massive debt that we owe could turn into our downfall, and we especially do not want that.

This is a message to President Obama, stop punishing the successful and rewarding the corrupt! According to this article the President will increase taxes on the wealthy to nearly 40% and cut taxes for the middle to low class. What ever happened to the Capitalistic society of the United States? Newsweek recently published an article with the headlines reading “We are all Socialists now”. Damn straight. I might have been rooting for Obama during the election, but this is too far. Throwing billions of dollars at the economy will not help it, the heart and soul of the United States is business, leave it alone. The government needs to regulate the market and punish those who got us in this mess, the banks and financial companies who convinced Americans that they could buy houses they couldn’t afford and do everything on credit. Citibank, AIG, Charles Schwab, and virtually everyone else except for JP Morgan Chase need to be punished. Enron was tried, why aren’t these companies being treated the same? Instead we give them billions of dollars to go and commit the same crimes. Obama’s social policies might be on the right track (Except for the FOCA), but his fiscal policies aren’t, there is simply too much money flying around that could be put to better use. The economy will not heal because of nearly a trillion dollars that is being forced down its throat, it will heal with time, patience, and confidence. Obama is sending the wrong message to investors, especially foreign ones, that are concerned with the economy. The market is based on hype, not reality, so keep the hype positive. China, the United States’ largest foreign debt-holder, is concerned with the United States, and if they give up on us, then this country is royally screwed. There is no better way to say that. So this is a message to President Obama, stop fiddling with the market and focus on foreign relations and taxes.