stoffolla’s Blog

The year of 2008 was a chaotic year. With the presidential election, the homeland security, the Hollywood writers strike, the economy, and the problems in Georgia. The world is becoming a very hard place to live in. You either have to go with the flow or just try to fight it. In my opinion the Presidential election was the most important thing that has happened this year. Obama being president has made history. The homeland security is another interesting story too. I feel that will help change our problems with terrorists. Hollywood writers going on a strike was also important because they are the one who write movies or anything do to with writing. The economy is also very important; it is probably the second most important thing that has happened to the United States this year. Last but not least the problems in Georgia are serious; how Russia completely ran them out. As you can see this year has had some major things happen to it, and these top 5 things are not even the end of it.

Ranked 1—The Presidential Election was the most crucial this year. The heat was on between the two candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. I myself am a Republic and I felt McCain was the most qualified candidate. But Obama won, he has made history because he is the first black president.  He wants to do good things for our economy and the way we live. He is trying to change the economy by cutting the tax on hardworking middle class Americans. He is also trying to go back to the NO Child Left Behind for our education, which is a good thing because American students are scoring lower than any other country. For our energy and environment he is going to create 5 million new green jobs. He is also willing to invest in alternative fuels and renewable energy. He is trying to end the Iraq war responsibly and safely. He is also going to refocus our resource on Al Qaeda and finish the war with the terrorists. He has many new changes for our country and it is going to bring change to our nation.

Ranked 2—The United States Economy is in the worst condition it has ever been in. In all of the stocks markets there are many complaints and people do not trust our government anymore. Soon we are going to have many problems with all races of people. I feel we are getting closer to another depression. With our society and how much technology we have these days, hardly anyone would make it through. The economic crisis is not only in the United States it is a global problem. They say the global economy crisis is jeopardizing health problems and bioterrorists attacks. With the economy in such bad shape many business such as helping with natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and bioterrorist incidents have to come to an end.  

Ranked 3—The homeland security is a new technology system that will help solve many problems to our future terrorist problems. They are installing this program to all airports and it detects threats by reading your mind. It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tell invisible to the naked eye.  This is going to help out so much, because no one these days is going to bring a weapon onto a plane, but they might do something off of a plane. It is going to be easier for someone to get caught because you don’t get strapped down for careful reading. That just freaks people out so they will be nervous anyways. It wouldn’t help anyways. I feel the future our terrorist problems are going to come to an end. We are going to have such high technology everywhere we won’t have any attacks in awhile.

Ranked 4—The issue in Georgia are a big problem also. Mr. Medvedev had said that the attack was as important as the 9/11 attack was to the Americans. They say that the main problem for their attack was because of the world markets. They have had confrontation with the United States and Georgia before, but that was not their main reason for attack. He stated that they wanted to spend all of the month of August tackling corruption, strengthening the rule of law, and reforming the economy. So many people want to reform the economy, but who is really going to fix that problem? The economy has made many problems in the world and hopefully it does not lead to a great disaster.

Ranked 5—The Hollywood writers strike is something that has also happened this year, it was actually this summer. Hollywood writes went on a strike because they wanted more independence and wanted to write more what they wanted. They wanted to have free-writes and give their more opinion to more things. They went on strike because that was not happening for all writers but other people good go in with the same proposal and get approved. They just wanted to get treated fairly.

With the new technology these days almost anything can happen. Scientist these days have created the first ‘humanoid’ robot that can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of a human being. I think the robots will work at first, but once people get used to the robots they will start treating them like how humans treat each other. What would the world be like with robots doing human jobs? I think people will have to work ten times harder to be what they want to be. Especially if you are wanting to be an astronaut or nurse of some sort. Most people don’t want to work harder than they already have to, so in my opinion they are not going to be that good of an idea in the long term.

They have robots that are automatically copying movements, which are being picked up by a video camera and mapped on the tiny electronic motors in their skin. They can speak and do most facial expressions any human can do. This was a three and a half year project and they didn’t want any complications. They are made to help elderly people at their homes and going to space on solo missions. The robot has 34 internal motors covered with flexible rubber (frubber) skin. The robots are based on human interactions. If people were to be put off by them, then it would through away all efforts achieved, such as trustworthiness, reliability, and emotional intelligence. Some people are questioning if they are friend or foe. They are afraid of the robots sometimes getting out of control and hurting others. The same goes for humans. Soon we are not going to tell who is human and who is robot. They have the robot Jules looking so human-like now, but what about the next 10 years? We won’t be able to tell the difference. I think there will be a horrible interaction between the robots and the humans leading to rebellious acts.

You only think of pirates when you are watching Peter Pan or older movies. You would never think we would have problems with pirates now. I really never fully believed in pirates, well in the way Disney movies portrays them to be. I do know they can be vicious people and do awful things to anyone who comes in their way of what they want. We do have pirates that are destroying or taking over things that help all countries survive, into custody. They are not only messing with America, but all countries around the world. If we do not get this problem fixed all the trading we do amongst each other will be ruined by piracy.

                As some know, pirates take things for bargaining. We are in that case as we speak. Pirates, form Saudi Arabia just recently took their “super tanker” towards Somalia. This ship is 300,000 metric tons and more than three times the size of a U.S. navy aircraft carrier. They say a ship of that size can hold up to 2 million barrels of oil. They also have eleven vessels currently being held for ransom.  These attacks have opened up a whole new front in the pirate wars. These pirates have had at least five successful hijackings since November 7. Piracy is an international crime that threatens global commerce. Shipping companies have to understand that the navy cannot be everywhere. People should start learning how they can fend for themselves before this gets out of hand. 

This new homeland security that can detect terrorist threats by reading your mind is good idea to a certain extent. What if you aren’t a terrorist and you are a normal person and they can read your mind. In a way they are getting into your personal business. I don’t have much against it. If it is going to help keep our country safe I am ok with it. But there are some people that are not going to like the fact that you can read their mind in a way. They should just know that it is in the good for the country. With this new device we should be able to detect anything and everything. This is a very good creation for our country and will hopefully keep us out of harm’s way.

                This new system is Malintent and makes baggage searches look so old. This Orwellian sounding machine detects the person not the device. It has a series of sensors that can read your body temperature, heart rate, and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye. These are things that signal terrorists and criminals before they display an attack. People do not get hooked up are strapped down to anything, this new device simply works like an X-Ray, only for bad intentions. How it works is very simple. When the machine realizes something is off, it sends a warning to the data analyses and then they get further questioning. It also looks for the mood and intention so, scan the face. This might be the best thing to happen because a machine is unbiased and nonjudgmental, it is not like you can accuse it because it may think you are sweating profusely; it is made to specifically read your mind not your appearance. Plus, it is only looking for things that are metal and or explosives. People should not worry if they have done nothing wrong or if they aren’t going to do anything wrong. People should appreciate the technology we have these days.

Ugh! The Presidential election was a disappointment to me. I did not think Obama was the best choice for our country. I felt McCain was a better candidate for President. It is done and over with so all you can do is think in the positive somehow. I feel there is no positive in him being president when all the people who were against him want to kill him, well not everyone, but you know there is going to be someone who wants to. The only way I can think in the positive is knowing he is going to be in office for four years and four years comes fast. People will either realize that he is a good president or a bad president and won’t re-elect him for President.

                Obama is now known as our 44^th President of the United States, I do wish him luck with this big of a job and knowing people wanted to assonate you must be hard. I hope he does do a good job. I hope he will make a change in our country just like he says he will or he would be untrustworthy and worthless. Obama single-handily stole the popular votes as well as the electoral tally. He won women votes (56 percent to 43 percent); voters under 30 (66 percent to 32 percent); African Americans (95 percent to 4 percent); Latino voters (66 percent to 32 percent); first time voters (68 percent to 31 percent); and people making $100,000.00 a year (55 percent to 43 percent). As you can tell he was the most popular vote, he basically killed McCain in everything.  Obama cannot erase the past of Bush, but he can only create a better future for us. I just hope he realizes with ever action there is a reaction and I hope he is ready for everything that is going to come his way. I also hope he is the first black President, things are going to be harder for him and that he is going to make history even if he does do a horrible job. I just wish him luck.

The United States is going to have a new President this year and I am not allowed to vote because I am underage, but if I were to vote I would vote McCain. I was raised up as a republican and still to this day am. I feel that both delegates running for President would be a good choice, so either way I feel that our country will be in good hands. McCain does have is downfalls such as: being too old and not that great of a public speaker as his opponent Obama, but his greatest thing he has done yet is having Palin as his Vice President. Here are some of the ways he will be dealing with the issues listed below.

He has many opinions on abortion, education, crime, economy, corruptions, civil rights, drugs, and the environment; but to me the most important is the economy. The main question is; is he going to do us wrong like Bush did? Many people have turned their backs on republicans because of how they run the office. I feel he will do a much better job than Bush. He has already stated that Bush has done us wrong with the economy. He has said that he will protect our savings and retirement money and he has also pleaded to have a break with Bush’s policies. The main difference between Bush and McCain are that Bush thinks taxes have been too low, while McCain feels that the spending has been too high. McCain has a comprehensive economic plan that will create millions of jobs for Americans. He is hoping his plans will bring reform, prosperity, and peace to America. McCain feels that the economic strength being so low has lowered the military strength as well. His main plan for the economic crisis is controlling the out of control spending problem. He has already made up a budget list if he is the upcoming President. So, we know what he wants to do and he is already ahead of the game. I feel John McCain and Palin would do a great job for the United States of America.

As we all ask ‘ what is going to happen with the Iraq war’ we get two answers, we are going to end the war stated by Barack Obama and ‘we need to keep America in there for another 100 years if needed’ stated by John McCain. Who has the better details about their decision? Who knows what they are talking about? We all want to know what is going to happen, but what choice are you going to vote for? I feel that if we just keep are troops in Iraq as security we will be fine, but if we keep them in there for 100 years you know another war is bound to happen. I also feel that if we just end the war and take our troops out now, than they are more liable to come over here and try to start another war. I am more comfortable with the war over there than here any day, but I feel we need to let our troops come home. They have been fighting for us for about seven years. It is time that we have a change.

                I am not necessarily completely for McCain, but I feel he will be making the better choice about the Iraqi War. He is a very patriotic man and Obama even said he would not take that from him. McCain has stated that he does not want the troops in there any longer than they what they should be. But he also has stated about the al-Qaeda grounds that are trying to recover. Obama has not once said anything about these training grounds. If he is trying to do the best for us, shouldn’t he be warning us about the consequences of taking the troops out? But Obama also said there was no al-Qaeda base until Bush and McCain decided to invade them. He does have a point, if we were never to go into war we would not have this problem of trying to bring our troops home, but if we would have never gone over there than they would have come over here and ruin our land and try to break us apart. But Obama is very confident in debating about the war with McCain or Bush because they have a lot of unanswered questions from a lot of angry people. Obama has already found ways to seek peace and he has stated how, but what is McCain doing for our peace? Nothing that we know of, because he is to busy about the al-Qaeda base, but he has a point too. Obama in March 2007 wanted to keep our troops in Iraq because he thought there would be improvement in their neighborhoods and that the leaders would want to agree with the plan he was making. Now, he has decided that the war is point-less and we need to just bring our troops home. There are two excellent qualifying leaders running for Presidency it is only a matter of time to see who has the best proposal.

Palin and Obama had a debate on abortion recently. In one of her rallies she announced that Obama has provided medical care for certain newborn babies that later died. She also suggested that Obama supported a form of infanticide. I myself do not support abortion. Well, I take that back if a women or a young lady were raped or the newborn child would be an incest I support abortion, because that is not fair for the child or the mother. On the other hand if the teenage girl or woman puts her-self out there and knows her consequences she should have to go through with them. If you didn’t want to have a kid, don’t have unprotected sex, or just don’t do it at all. That is my feelings and thoughts about abortion.

                I fell that Palin does have the right to say something about abortion, because of her daughter. Palin’s daughter, having a teenage pregnancy, could have had an abortion but she didn’t because she made the wrong choice. She also stated that a vote for Obama would give ultimate power over the issue of life. He is the voice that has never stood up for the protection of the unborn. Obama seems to put the birth defects of a child only in the doctor’s hands. If the doctor doesn’t think it will live than it shall die, only because the mother doesn’t want it. Any other child with a birth defect gets help from doctors so, it can live. Obviously Obama doesn’t know that or he would help the innocent.

                Sarah Palin and Barrack Obama have very different thoughts about a young teenage women getting pregnant. Sarah has planned to help her daughter and show her daughter how to love the child. But, Obama thinks of all children who want abortions but are force to keep their child as a punishment or a mistake. That is not how it should be. I think Obama should not allow abortions or even think of the child as a mistake. I understand that the teenager made a mistake, but that is not the newborns fault. I feel they both have strong opinions about abortion, but I agree with Sarah Palin’s idea about abortion.

                Our country is trying to find a way out of this debt, but in my opinion there is no end to it. We will always be in debt. We might not be in great debt, but honestly I see no hope or increase in our huge debt. We have too many people that our alliances but don’t want to help us because we already owe them money. For us to get out of debt we are going to have to use or own resources and stop trading with everyone. This would take time and patience, but in the long run it would help us with all of our money, school, and job problems.

                The Treasury Department has sought a way to implement the $700 billion financial plan. They have appointed Neel Kashkari to oversee the troubled people in this world. He will manage the centerpiece of all time for the country. He will be managing one of the most-far reaching government interventions in the economy. During this financial plan they leave out the banks that will not be making it through this upheaval. This $700 billion plan of buying us out of bad debts is likely to save to institution but it is most likely not going to be a major shakeout. Some people are suggesting we hide money under our mattresses other than a bank. That is bad to say, but look at what or world has come to.  As the economic crisis is picking up speed they are just now telling us what they are going to do. They should have started a plan when President Reagan was president when the financial problems were going up. The problem was not them facing that we had a financial problems it was the fact that they were not willing to fix them a long time ago.

Today a Calvert woman was arrested without bond. She was arrested because she announced that she had beaten one of her three-adopted little girls, with a hard-heeled shoe. The other two little girls were found in a freezer. I feel that this woman should never have the right to get out of jail. For one, she admitted to freezing the two little girls and beating the other. The second reason, if she could do this to her own children, she could do it to anyone’s. She would not nor should be trusted ever again.

The little girl, only 7 years-old, was found down the street. She was locked in her bedroom and she jumped out of the window. The two other little girls were found in the freezer, sort of encased in a block of ice. Bowman the mother said they have been in the freezer for about seven months. The bodies are not known yet. They have wait for them to freeze so they can do autopsies. Their bodies seem to be encapsulated says one of the investigators. It is only a matter of time to see what happens to the mother.

They at first didn’t know the injured little girl was hers. Once they found out that she was beaten, they went and did a full investigation in the house. Where they came to find the two other little girls in the freezer. They did some investigating with the neighbors to see how the family life seemed to be. They said that the 7 year-old hardly ever left the house, because she simply was not allowed to. The two other little girls were 9 and 11 years-old, from what they are told. They are still waiting for their bodies to defrost for autopsies. So, far she has only been charged for first-degree child abuse, even though the little girl was found drenched in blood. They are trying to get her charged for murder, but they can’t prove she killed them without the autopsies. I hope this woman gets charged with the worst.