Should Alabama Vacate loses?

The Alabama football program will be forced to vacate up to 21 wins, due to a “textbook scandal,” in which over 200 student athletes received textbooks improperly. Is it right for these students to loose the fruits of their labor, because they were given textbooks to study? I say that this is not right. I understand that there must be rules and regulations for financial aid, but to take away wins for a violation is just not fair. Let the kids play football and if the school improperly distributed textbooks, then punish the school.

Bing It!

Microsoft failed again. Bing.com is a total bust, or at least i think so. Trying to steal the search engine market from Google was a foolish idea and a waste of time and money. Who does Microsoft think they are? It is tacky and in NO way better than Google. My prediction…6 months. Lets see what happens.

NYTimes.com Now Requiring UserName

NYTimes.comis now requiring users to sign up for the website. This is the first time I have been asked to do this and I have been using the site for a while. This is a bad idea for them, seeing as I can get the same news on multiple other websites. I understand that they need to find ways to make money in this economy–signing up is free, but it allows them to spam you and customize ads–, but this will just deter users. My vote is for them to not do this.

Should Bush, Bernanke Retire?

After today’s 778 point drop in the Dow Jones, I believe that it is time for someone to start pointing fingers. The two people I think we should look at are President Bush and head of the FED, Ben Bernanke.

Bush needs to go, because he simply does not have any support–either from democrats or republicans. Not only did he put us in this crisis in the first place, but he has also been unable to put together any reasonable plan to help get us out or slow it down. His latest failed attempt comes with the $700 billion dollar “bailout plan,” which was rejected this afternoon. Contrary to Fox News’s “reporting,” it was Bush and McCain–Not Obama– who were not able to receive their party’s backing. Only one-third of house republicans (65) voted for the bill, while 140 democrats voted “yes,” including Obama himself. This is despicable, seeing as it was Bush’s initial idea to write this bill. If our president, along with the republican nominee cannot get even half of all republicans to vote for a bill that they feel so strongly for, then there is something terribly wrong.

I turn my frustration now to Ben Bernanke, who took over as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006. While Bernanke has attempted some fairly radical things over the past year, he has not been cautious enough. Time after time, he has cut the borrowing rate, without any consideration of the inflation rate. If he had started these cuts when he first entered his position, then it may have helped, but instead he ignored the huge problem staring him directly in the face for an entire year.

While there are many others to be blamed for the curent situation that our economy is in, these are two extremely obvious people to hold accountable. I understand that they will not resign, but instead, I propose that we be more careful when we choose the people who run our country. Additionally, I am not trashing anything else that these two people have done–I am not endorsing them either. Rather, I am saying that we must understand that the people who we vote for really do have a great affect on our lives.

Teens Just Don’t Care Anymore

Today, I attended my first Philosophy lecture. The class deals with the ethics and values of human beings. It is taught by the infamously eccentric Lawrence Thomas Hill. The lecture today dealt with whether or not sex can be totally emotionless.

While I did not completely understand the reason for the lecture, I came across a disturbing fact. That being that only 4 students considered themselves theist. This number is out of 400 total students. This is only one percent of teens. While I did not think that most teens believed in god, I did not think that the number was this low.

I do not think that this is purely a religious problem. I believe that many teens are just not interested in things that are really important to their futures and their quality of life. Many people I know do not care about the upcoming election at all. I was forced to turn off CNN’s coverage of the DNC yesterday in order to watch a repeat of Seinfeld. My friend will not vote because he “doesn’t really care about who wins the election.” My girlfriend wants to vote for McCain, because “Bill Clinton is ugly.”

These thoughts are mind boggling. I do not understand how people can have such little concern about their future’s and their country! The work ethic of teens is almost non-existent! I do not know how this has happened.

I hope that this way of thinking changes very soon and parents are able to distill better values in their children, so that the future of this country  can be better for everyone.

My Bonnaroo wish list.

If I were attending the festival, this would be my schedule, starting Friday, June 13.

If you have not heard of some of these bands, check them out, cause their good. Those in bold, are the ones i would not miss.

Friday, June 13

Umphrey’s McGee 2:15-3:45 (Which Stage)

Les Claypool 4:15-5:45 (Which Stage)

State Radio 5:45-7:15 (The Other Tent)

Chris Rock 7:45-8:45 (What Stage)

Metallica 9:00-11:30 (What Stage)

My Morning Jacket 12:00-3:00 (Which Stage)

Saturday, June 14

Donavan Frankenreiter 1:00-2:15 (The Other Tent)

Ben Folds 6:15-7:45 (Which Stage) or Iron and Whine 6:30-8:00 (This Tent)

Jack Johnson 8:00-9:30 (What Stage)

Pearl Jam 10:15-12:15 (What Stage)

Phil Lesh and Friends 12:15-4:15 (Which Stage)

or Kanye West 2:45-4:15 (What Stage)

Sunday, June 15

O.A.R. 4:45-6:15 (Which Stage)

Robert Plant and Allison Krauss 6:15-7:45 (What Stage)

I may have missed a couple good bands, ut i think this is basically the ones that I would make a note to see. If anyone sees any of these shows, post the setlists and some comments about the shows.

Back from Israel

As the title may have given away, I have just returned from a trip to Israel. You know the country with bombs going off everywhere you step. Actually, the truth is could not be further from the truth.

First of all, I never once saw an explosion, heard a gun being fired, or even a single person fear their life. This is because the situation is not as bad as Fox News has portrayed it to be. If not for their shitty food, I would have thought that I was in New York City.

It is such a beautiful country, with some of the nicest people I have met. Sure there are soldiers on every street carrying an M16, but personally, I think that this is cool. While there is a slight language barrier, US globalization has forced every citizen to know some English. In fact, most know the language fluently.

I will post a picture or two, but it is impossible to catch the beauty of the country in just one still frame. It is not enough to see it, you must experience it in order to get the full impact. The people are more friendly than  any person in the US. They open their homes to strangers and help anyone in need. This while being surrounded by four countries that would like nothing more than to wipe them off the map.

I went to Israel on a ten day trip that was given to me for free by Oranim Birhright. I traveled the country with a tour guide, a medic, and eight Israeli soldiers. We stopped at a great number of sites, even though there were hundreds more that we could not see. We were fed and housed in hotels. All of this, for not one single penny! If you can qualify for this trip than you must take it. There is no reason not to.

I wish I could explain just how this trip has changed me, but it is impossible. I have changed my attitude towards others, towards the country itself, and towards my religion. I cannot explain why or how, all I can say is that it has changed. It was one of the best experiences of my life and I sincerely thank the people who have given me this opportunity. I hope i have changed someones mind about attending this trip and I hope it will have the same effect on them.

At the airport

Im sitting in the airport right now, waiting for my flight back home for spring break! I had a great feeling for a while, as my mind went through all im going to do this next week. However, i am watching the news on a hanging TV and they have Fox news on. As if this wasn’t bad enough, they are showing a piece about how some planes were found to be unsafe lately. I cant hear the audio, but the headlines are saying things about how the planes arent being checked well enough and security isnt what it should be. Well, just thought that this was a kind of funny and maybe a bit ironic story that someone may want to hear. Well, my next post should be on spring break….maybe about the upcoming Phillies game im going to see on thursday. Well that is if i even make it home!