Governor Bobby Jindal’s Rebuttal

Governor Bobby Jindal, who is the governor of Louisiana, rebutted president Obama’s speech tonight.  He is a rising star as many people say, but I think that his speech wasn’t what I thought it would be.  I didn’t like how he tried to link hurricane Katrina to the inefficiency of the United States government.  The government did not act as it should have during Katrina, but the government was still needed in aide and rebuilding the state.  One thing I found interesting was when Gov. Jindal said  the people who dealt with Katrina on their own (saving people with boats) did not need the government to intervene, people must take on more on their own without the governments help.  What I found interesting about this is that this is exactly what happened with the housing market.  People were getting sub prime loans without any government intervention and most of our current situation can be attributed to this failure.  I do think that government should stay out of our way and I am honestly terrified with a lot of these new technologies we see in shows such as a history channel series known as 2050, but I will talk more about that in another post.  When things get tough, it’s hard for things to get accomplished without the government.  In history, the government was involved in every crisis.  It is honestly who most of us turn to when there is a problem in the nation.

Gov. Jindal also criticized certain parts of Obama’s restructuring plan such as creating maglev trains.  I personally think that the infrastructure in this country is out of date.  There are nations out there who have many ways of travelling long distances.  We rely primarily on planes and cars.  I think the governor fails to realize that creating new infrastructure in this country will put a lot of men and women to work to not only construct this new infrastructure but also maintain and run it.  

I really do like Jindal, he has done a lot for the state of Louisiana.  I look forward to seeing him in the future and maybe even run for president, but I personally feel that there should be leaps in science and innovations in technology in order to move this country forward. I feel that this was hugely lacking in the last 8 years.   What I don’t like about the republican party at this point is that I feel like they are living in the past.  And as this country does get larger and larger, there is more that is required of the federal government.  I agree with Gov. Jindal that the government should be limited, but in the event of a crisis and to develop infrastructure, the government is needed in my opinion.

Filed under: Politics , Barack Obama, Bobby Jindal, Governor, Governor Bobby Jindal, Louisiana, Politics, President Obama, Rebuttal, Speech

Our country, what is happening?

Our country is between a rock and a hard place.  Everything that we are experiencing as a nation does not seem promising.  Unemployment is at an all time low.  Some cities in this country has an unemployment rate of over 15 percent.  The national average unemployment rate is at 7.6 percent.  High school graduates aren’t able to get jobs.  People are not buying American products or purchasing much of anything these days.  There is an undeniable division in Washington among democrats and republicans.   Obama seems to be going back on a number of promises that he made during his campaign.  His administration seems to be dysfunctional because every week we have someone resigning.  

My concern and question is this; what is this country coming to?!  I have just read an article about Roland Burris, apparently he did have connections with Blago before he was nominated and now he’s being asked to resign.  President Obama passed a stimulus bill that was completely opposite of being bipartisan.  Republicans seem to be completely against the Obama administration.  Democrats seem to be unwilling to work with republicans.  The amount of dysfunctionality in this country is really astounding and heartbreaking.  Even though there are many problems facing this country today, the only solutions that are being developed are from our president and no one else.  People who don’t agree with our president should stand up and come up with something else and really come to a genuine compromise.  Of course there is protocol that is followed in congress for passing legislation, but when republicans don’t want to come up with their own plan it’s hard to understand their problems.  The democrats want to spend large sums of money that will be borrowed from other nations in order to bring us out of this crisis(it may or not work but we will have borrowed another trillion dollars regardless), but when they don’t want to hear what republicans have to say it causes a huge division in this country that is not fair to the citizens of this nation.  

Obama has signed executive orders in reducing the amount of troops in Iraq and closing down Guantanamo, but he has no plan of how to do either.  

What is this country coming to?  It seems that these hard times are causing more division in this country rather than coming together and figure something out.  All of these politicians should figure something out and forget about their popularity in their districts.  People need to put aside their petty differences and figure things out in this country because I for one am really worried about our future.  Will our children be able to say that they have led better lives than we have?  The way things are going I can honestly say I don’t know.

Filed under: Politics , American, Barack Obama, bipartisanship, crisis, democratic, democrats, economic crisis, Economy, Future, independents, Politics, President, republican, stimulus plan, United States of America, USA

The Sims 3 (disappointed with EA)

Just as a Note, today was the day the sims 3 was to be released.  We all know it isn’t

and I would like to reaffirm how upset I am that it has been postponed.

Filed under: Technology , Computer, Computer games, EA, entertainment arts, games, Gaming, maxis, new release date, PC, PC games, The sims, The sims 3, the sims 3 postponed, the sims new release date

Lost Season 5 Episode 6 “317″

Last week, I was very unhappy with the episode.  This week, I have made a complete 180.  I suppose it wasn’t very fair of me to say that the season is going downhill based upon one episode.  This show is a rollercoaster ride and it is a very long ride with ups and downs and plateaus.  Last week we were going down.  This week, we went up.

We saw in this weeks episode that everyone must go back to the island.  The beginning takes us to a room where scientists first discovered the island.  This episode didn’t go into much more detail than that.  We find out that the lady in the church is Faraday’s mother, but not much else as well.  What this episode basically showed us was that everyone that came back to the “real world” has now in some way or another gone back to the island.  Faraday’s mother says that they must board a plane, flight 317, to Guam.  This is the “realm” where the island will be passing through.  Everyone, Sayid, Hurley, Sun, Kate, Jack, Ben, as well as Frank Lapidus, who is the pilot of this flight, and a new character who we know nothing about.  (I am only assuming he is a new character because he has played large roles in other shows including HBO’s House of Saddam, I doubt he, as an actor, would agree to show up for 3 minutes in this show).  Sun, Kate, Ben, and Jack all arrived on the plane through the same way, Faraday’s mother told them to.  Hurley somehow  was informed to be on the plane, and it seems that Sayid, and Lapidus are on the plane by meer fate.

Kate somehow lost Aaron, and the only way that she agreed to go back tot he island was if Jack promised not to ask what happened.  I hope they do solve that, and Jack should of asked her once they were all in the air, thats what I was expecting.

This episode was very interesting, there were a lot of things happening and a lot of people coming together with no other explanation but fate.  Everyone that got off the island is going back coincidentally the same way.

One thing that stood out to me was that there was a theological subtheme in this episode.  In the beginning of the episode, Ben and Jack are in the church.  Ben tells Jack about one of Christs desciples, Tom.  Ben said that Tom questioned Christ’s ressurecction but later did believe it.  And by looking at what happens in next weeks episode (preview) we can see that John Locke somehow comes back to life or is resurrected.  I found that very interesting and I cannot wait for next weeks episode.

Share what you thought about this episode.

Filed under: Lost , 317, ABC, Ben, coming back to island, Faraday, Fate, flight 317, Frank Lupidus, Hurley, Island, Jack, Jack Shephard, Jin, John Locke, Kate, Locke, Lost, Lost episode 6, Lost season 5 episode 6, Lupidus, Prime time television, primetime television, resurrecction, Sawyer, Sayid, Sun, television, tv, Tv shows

Do you agree with Obama’s 787 Billion Dollar Stimulus Plan?

Do you agree with President Obama’s 787 Billion Dollar Stimulus Plan?

The reason I am asking this is because I am reading a lot of articles that quote republican senators and congressmen saying they are not voting for this bill because their constituents do not approve of this bill.  I want to see if what they say holds any water.  Please vote. 

Note that no personal information is asked or taken, your vote is strictly your own and anonymous.  

If you vote NO, It would be great to hear What you don’t like about this plan.  Not only for me, but for other people reading this as well.

Filed under: Politics , $787 billion, 787 billion dollars, Barack Obama, deflation, depression, Economy, energy, energy crisis, foreclosure, housing market, inflation, infrastructure, job, jobs, Obama, plan, Politics, poll, President, President Obama, recession, stimulus, Stimulus package, United States, work

Airplane Crashes in Buffalo, NY

An airplane crashed at around 10:20 on Thursday night.  The airplane, which was run by Continental airlines, was heading from Newark to Buffalo when it all of a sudden nosed dived into a home.  All 49 people on the plane died.  Two people who were on the ground were rushed into the hospital, and there might have been one fatality on the ground as well.

This is truly very tragic.  My heartfelt condolonces go out to the families of the people who were onboard this airplane.

What is bothering me is that recently there have been so many airplane crashes in my opinion, more than we usually hear about.  I feel like I hear about some airplane crash every one to two weeks.  Do other people feel the same way that I do?  I am obviously not going to stop flying, but I definately am more weary of flying.  The last plane crash that we heard about was in the Hudson river.  Thank god everyone on that flight came out doing well.

Filed under: Current Events , Airplane, Airplane crash, airport, Boeing, Bombradier, Buffalo, Continental airline, Crash, New York, NY

A virtual keyboard?

I-Tech’s Virtual Keyboard has been around for some time, but only recently have I had the honor of playing with one myself.  At first I was skeptical because there are actually no buttons that you press.  How do you input information then?  Well there is an infared sensor that detects hand motion and a laser emits a keyboard on any flat surface.  When you press on a “key” the input has been made and the device registers it.  This is the future of computer interfacing in the now!

Infared-Laser Keyboard

I have to admit though, there are some limitations to this device.  For one, you can’t use it on all devices.  You can’t even use it on all computers.  There are only drivers for windows 2000 and windows xp.  I know a bit out-dated but it is still really cool.

Filed under: Technology , Computer, Desk, Future, Hardware, Infared, Input Device, Keyboard, Laser, Mouse, Peripheral, Technology, Virtual Keyboard

Satellites collide in space

Update 3: 2/16/09

There was apparently debris that is falling to Earth from the satellite collision in space about a week ago.  There were complaints by residents in Texas who reported hearing sonic booms.  One photographer photographed some of the debris that was creating this sonic boom.  The full article is here http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/15/texas.sky.debris/index.html

Update 2:  2/14/09:

As more data begins to emerge from this crash, experts are now saying that there are more than 10000 tennis ball sized pieces of debris floating around in space from this one collision.  According to a New Scientist article, people have been expecting something like this to happen for a long time.  According to the article, “less than 10% of the more than 18,000 objects monitored in low and high Earth orbits are working satellites, the rest are dead craft, spent rocket stages and debris.”

I find this truly remarkable, that in the last fifty years of the space agency, so much debris and waste has accumulated around the Earth.  Like I said earlier I don’t think the crash itself was very surprising because there are so many private satellites going into orbit these days, but I feel that things like this are going to happen in greater frequency now.  Not only because we have 10,000 new tennis size pieces of debris floating around, but because over time things will accumulate and become crowded.

I guess the next step for the space agency is to create a waste management program where they would slingshot defunct satellites and various pieces of debris toward the moon or somewhere else in space.  Maybe I should start a private company to do that and take it off of NASA’s hands.

Update:

Click here for a more detailed look into this crash

Two satellites collided in space.  They are saying that the debris generated by this collision may not hit the International Space Station, but there is a high probability of it hitting other satellites in space.

This is a potentially dangerous situation as the article itself says that this can cause a cascade effect.   The debris from one collision causes other satellites to collide and so on.

One satellite in the collision was a “defunct Russian Satellite” and the other satellite was a communication satellite owned by Iridium.  According to Iridium, their satellite was where it was supposed to be at that time.

Who knows what went wrong here, but I suppose this will become more and more problematic because more and more private satellites are going into orbit.  Read article here

Filed under: Technology , Collision, Communication satellite, Debris, Iridium, NASA, Russian Satellite, Satellites, Satellites collide in space, space, Technology

Arthur Benjamin, Mathemagician

Arthur Benjamin is a genius.  This man can square five digit number in his head within seconds.  The audience gives him various digits and numbers to compute and this man does it.  Truly spectacular

Check it out

Filed under: Technology , Arthur Benjamin, Mathematics, Mathemagician, Mathemagic, math, Genius, rainman, TED

Lost Season 5 Episode 5 “This Place is Death”

Ok, the season was getting good after last weeks episode as well as the week before.  Today…. not so much.  I thought this episode was boring and just really bad.  Friends of mine, who have been long time fans of this show, are beginning to say they are going to stop watching this show.  I don’t think I am there yet, but I can’t really blame them for giving up on this show.  

Today’s episode was down right terrible.  I don’t think we really found out anything new i except that Charlotte has been on the island before when she was a child.  I suppose we also found out that Faraday was on the island before as well and told Charlotte to never come back otherwise she will die.  They could have condensed this entire episode in two minutes and we would still know the same amount we know right now.  

At the end of the episode, Ben takes everyone to see this lady at a church in order to get back to the island.  The only thing that I am wondering about is who the hell is this lady? she looks familiar but I’m not sure.  Also, Sun has a baby, don’t you think she would want to call her people and tell them she won’t be back for a while.  Just something to think about.

On a lighter note, I think that Ben is a great guy.  Ben has probably been one of the most genuine characters in the show.  He deceives everyone around him without even lying and to them, that is impressive.  

 Today’s episode was useless.  I am so disappointed with this episode that I am formally asking ABC to give me back the hour I wasted.  I guess it’s fair to say that the writers strike last year really messed this show up.  Let’s see if next weeks episode changes my mind.

Filed under: Lost , ABC, Ben, Episode 5, Faraday, Jack, James, JJ Abrahms, John, Kate, Lost, Lost review, Lost Season 5 Episode 5, Sawyer, Season 5, This Place is Death, Tv shows