Last Post of 08

I found myself perusing (National Public Radio) On the Media web page. This segment talked about medical journals and how most studies published in medical are either exaggerated or just plain wrong. There is an example in the segment that talks about a study that was done, were half of the groups found positive results and the other half found negative results. In the Medical Journal only the positive results were published. I think Medical Journals need to find away to publish only studies that have data from everyone. It may not seem like such a big deal but the repercussions can be great.
The segment talks about this thing called herding. Herding is when a study is published that says this chemical has been found to eliminate Cancer. All of the groups working on Cancer prevention spend time, man power, and most importantly money on a new chemical that is later proved to only prevent Cancer .5% of the time.

The past year

So I have been meaning to do a new post for sometime now, I have also been meaning (since I saw the "Fires in the Mirror Wodle") to make my own Wordle. It came to me when I was perusing the An American Studies Blog. I saw the top two 2 news words (by hour) link on the right hand panel of the blog and i deiced to click it. It goes back to when it was first put up on the Blog so without any further delay heres my Wordle of the top 2 news words (by Hour) for about the last 5 months. I thought it would be a good way to some up the first semesters news.



http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/386659/top_2_news_words_%28by_Hour%29

As you can see the main topic in the news has been the election and the bailout. Speeching of the election when January comes around Obama is put in office. Its time for him to set out and fulfill his promises. I think most people can agree with that but, I think that most people need to understand that its not all going to be fixed when he steps in to the office. The hole that the U.S. has dug is very deep and its not going to take one day to fix it. "Rome wasn't built in a day"

Post Election

We have done our part, by Electing Barack Obama. Now I can only hope Obama, becomes a great president. He has to do more then just a good job he has to a great job. I think if he doesn't I think people will be reluctant to elect a black President again. I also think if he doesn't do a good job the power in congress and the presidency will be shifted over to the right. But I also think Barack Obama will be a great President and he will change the course that the United States Of America for the better.

The Election is Over The Polls are closed and the votes counted

I think Obama has already won this race, and I also think that the McCain campaign knows it. I think this because McCain and Palin are trying everything to find a way to pull ahead. They accused Obama of paling around with ist, but holes were quickly found in that argument. The McCain Palin campaign has run out of accusations. My mother a few days ago received an Email from a right winged relative. This Email said things along the lines of "We will pay you $50,000 to sub The Email was sponsored by a website (supposedly unaffiliated with the Election and any political candidate) www.americastruenews.com/. I think this shows that people High up know this Election is over, and there trying everything to change the the tide. I think its too late.

On the Web site www.Americasttruenews.com it says to get your news from Fox News because it has the "fairest, positive coverage of both candidates…according to a study done by Harvard"

Where did the news go?

I have started to notice a decrease in the quality of newspapers, especially with the Chicago Tribune. For the past few days, I have noticed less news being covered. The front page still has one or two major head lines, but its when I get to the second or third page I have a problem. On the 3rd page of the October 7Th, 2008 edition, there was an article about a junior league football coach who after shoving a kid was forced to quit his coaching position. And in the October 9Th edition, on page 3 the main headline was A sober idea from Google. This article is about googles email serves adding 5 math problems, that you have to answer within 60sec before you send an email. If you answer one or more wrong the email does not send, the purpose of the math problems are to stop people from sending drunk e-mails that will come back to haunt you latter. That article was on the 3rd page of the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune has the Largest reporting team in the Midwest, but they can only fill two pages with quality news. What has happened to newspapers? I think less people then ever are getting their news from papers. Instead they get there news from the Internet and TV.

Biden VS. Palin Part 2 of 2

Last Thursday night was the VP debate between Biden and Palin. Many people and news articles are saying that both candidates exceeded expectations. In Palin case many people said that they had lower expectations for her then Biden. I think the expectations for both VP should be the same. If the president was unable to fulfill his duty then the VP steps in for him/her. In that case shouldn't the VP be as qualified as the president. I personally think that during the debate we should have had the same expectations for Biden and Palin as we did for McCain and Obama.

Largest faliure in U.S. History

To be more specific the largest bank failure in U.S. History. WaMu (Washington Mutual) one of the largest U.S. savings and loans banks has failed. On Thursday, September 25 the stock price for WaMu dropped 95%. After being forced into bankruptcy J.P. Morgan bought WaMu for $1.9 billion WaMu was estimated to have $310 billion dollars worth of assets. The reason for there failure is due to housing crises. WaMu sudden crash was not unexpected, over the last few months stock prises have dropped, and they lost 6 billion dollars. Why did we do nothing about this when the housing crises started. The government is now coming up with temporary plans to help us out of this economic slump. Why are they just starting now the government has had months to come up with a permanent solution. I think that we have not been very fiscally responsible and were paying for it.

700 Billion Bailout

President Bush has called for a plan to "bailout" financial institutions who in the past had poor fiscal responsibility. This bailout would cost tax payers 700 billion dollars and but America even further into debt (about 11 trillion$). Many Democrats disagree with Bush's initial attempt for a bailout. Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif), want to have protection on the money before they through it away. Pelosi said, "We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome." This 700 billion dollar bailout would just be a temporary relief that if goes wrong would increase our debt from 10.6trillion to 11.3trillion.
DO YOU think that the government should act now or hold off for a permanent solution.

September 11th

September 11th, 2001 I was a 9 years old getting ready school. I remember sitting on my parents bed watching the news. The news cut back to plane the first plane flying into the towers. When I saw that plane hit the towers I think I had the most overwhelming feeling of sadness come over me. I wanted to keep watching to see what would happen but I had to go school. At school everyone was talking about what they heard or seen except for the teachers. The entire day the teachers said nothing about it. When I returned home from school, I put myself in front of the TV until my parents dragged me away. When I look back on 9/11 the whole thing seems surreal. I just can’t believe that this could happen or that anyone could do such a horrific thing. Where and what were you doing when you learned about the attacks?

BIden VS Palin Part 1 of 2

Both Presidential nominees McCain and Obama chose their running mate for different reasons. Putting Obama and McCain aside, which one would be a better Vice President. Joe Biden is a textbook example of experience. Biden has been an incumbent in the Senate for the last 35 years. He was elected at the age of 30 making him one of the 5 youngest people to be elected to Senate. He has been apart of the Judiciary committee (1987-1995), and the Foreign Relations Committee (2001-2003, 2007-present). Biden ran twice for the Democratic nomination for President (1988 and in 2008). On the other had Sarah Palin at the age of 44 has been a politician for 16 years now. She was Mayor of Wasilla Alaska for 6 years (1996-2002), and is now Governor of Alaska for the last two years. Who do you think would make a better Vice president of the United States of America?