Stop Squandering Federal Funds

How in just a few years can the federal budget go from a surplus, to over six trillion dollars in debt? What has happened in just a few years to cause such a substantial increase in our national debt? I believe the answer is wasteful government spending. In Tax-payer money used for a research project in Argentina... Elizabeth discusses her opinion on the U.S. governments wasteful spending on programs. She provides convincing evidence from The National Institution of Health. They are spending more than $400,000 on a research project studying the sexual behavior of gay men who get drunk in bars in Buenose Aires, Argentina. I agree with Elizabeth that the U.S. Government must stop squandering federal funds on programs that have no useful purpose. Programs using tax dollars need to be evaluated on the merits of the project. In her blog she states, “the U.S. Government must stop wasting our money on useless projects, especially when we are going through an economic crisis.” The mindset of these politicians is that there is an endless amount of tax-payer dollars to spend.

Politicians have been notorious for wasting American tax dollars for many generations, right? Tom Coburn, M.D., a U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, maintains a list of wasteful spending in Washington. The pork report -- how Washington politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists are spending your tax dollars claims to have “identified more than $3,571,642,000 in wasteful Washington spending." Coburn is also known for blocking legislation that wastes federal dollars. For instance, twice he put a hold on legislation for the Clark Mount Hood Wilderness, which would have protected wilderness land in 3 states. He strongly disapproved of $10 million for surveying and mapping because it would be wasteful government spending.

NO LONGER A FAR FETCHED CONSPIRACY THEORY

We are giving up huge parts of our privacy on Facebook and we are becoming much more accepting to this lack of privacy. We share our photos, contact information, we pick our five favorite beers, movies,commercials, we list our friends, join groups, and we search for insight into ourselves by taking quizzes like “Which Disney Villain Are You?” With this much information put on this social networking site, there are bound to be risks to our privacy. If you read Facebook’s privacy statement, they are very clear about the fact that they collect data for marketing purposes. In fact, The Facebook privacy policy states: Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, and instant messaging services.

With all this information being gathered about us and being made available to third parties the relationship between Facebook and the Government no longer seems like a far fetched conspiracy theory. Data mining and surveillance programs do exist and the government could obtain a great deal of information from Facebook by data mining. According to Government Increasingly Turning to Data Mining which appeared in The Washington Post $30 million was spent by four government agencies last year on services from data mining companies. Counter terrorism can not be used as a reason to support data mining. According to a National Research Council report identifying terrorists through data mining "is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts." False positives will result in "ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" being incorrectly flagged as suspects. To protect our privacy Congress should consider how data mining programs are being used and re-examine existing laws.

Is the large amount of money being spent by the government for data mining justified by finding out that my cousin is doing laundry and yard work the rest of the day, the boy that lived next door to me in the eighth grade is watching The Departed on the DVR, another cousin can not leave the house without Försvarets hudsalva, and my sister finally got the kids and puppy to sleep? Should I be scared that the government somehow got a false positive when I took the "Which Sexy Lady Are You?" quiz and got the result Grace Kelly or when I wrote in my note 25 Random Things About Myself that I love the original Pink Panther movies and that I sing full blast in the car (much to the embarrassment of my teenage daughters)? Would I be flagged as a suspect if I talked about my grandfather moving his family to Pakistan in 1957, or that two of my brothers were born in Asmara?

I am bothered by the amount of information Facebook can obtain about me and sell. That information has the potential of violating my privacy. By using Facebook I am taking a risk that I could be flagged by the Government. But the Government is not exactly sneaking into my bedroom or that of my friends and family. We are inviting them in by voluntarily publicizing our personal lives. We have become much more open to posting intimate information online.

In conclusion, Facebook is a networking site many people use to connect with each other, post their feelings, interests, and ideas online. It does bring into question some disturbing things about how our society views privacy, personal information, and how much information big brother collects about us.

How to Amaze Your Friends and Family With Your Confused Judgment and Decreased Motor Skills

The blog The Panacea proposes that marijuana should be made legal. Two of the ideas presented in the blog that attempt to support the cause for legalizing marijuana are “The medical community would benefit tremendously from the use of marijuana in the treatment process of easing the negative effects of certain ailments, such as cancers,” and “Society is now accepting and embracing marijuana.”
The argument is made that marijuana should be legal because it eases the negative effects of certain ailments. This is an attempt to persuade the reader to agree with the opinion stated in The Panacea by making individuals feel sorry for cancer patients. What kind of person would want to deny people suffering from cancer medication that would ease their suffering? But feeling compassion for someone does not serve as evidence for an argument. The reader should rely on the rational reasons behind the argument as opposed to allowing emotions to motivate them to legalize marijuana. In fact, the claim that marijuana should be legalized for the welfare of patients is not supported by the evidence.
Despite the assertion the medical community would benefit tremendously from the use of marijuana, the facts are that there are better treatments available. The only benefit of legalized marijuana to the medical community would be the rise in employment in drug treatment centers used to treat the thousands of new addicts it would create. A synthetic form of THC in pill form, Marinol, relieves the nausea and vomiting linked to chemotherapy. Unlike marijuana, Marinol has been studied and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Physicians who practice 21st century medicine use Marinol, rather than act like snake oil salesmen and suggest that their patients smoke a plant.
Finally, let's look at the argument that society is now accepting and embracing marijuana. This is an attempt to use majority rule as a way to validate support for legalization of marijuana. We are suppose to believe that majority rule is all-knowing and we should follow it blindly. The argument should be rejected because suggesting that it is the majority opinion that marijuana should be legal is false.
If you take a look at polls you will see that supporters of legalizing marijuana are in the minority across the board regardless of age group or gender. According to Gallup polls the supporters for legalizing marijuana are the minority. Gallup combined the results of three surveys, conducted in August 2001, November 2003, and October 2005 and found that 44% of men aged 18 to 49 and 33% of men aged 50 and older support the legalization of marijuana. It also showed that for woman 34% of women aged 18 to 49 and 27% of women aged 50 and older support the legalization of marijuana. Another poll done by Time/CNN found that only 34% want marijuana legalized.
In conclusion, the reader should not allow themselves to be manipulated to promote the legalization of marijuana. The proven medical and scientific facts about marijuana will not be changed just by changing the laws.

Warning: We Must Save Innocent Lives

The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down. - poet Hyman Barshay

In May 2006 a Gallup Poll found that overall support of the death penalty was 65%. Punishment deters crime it follows that death should deter crime more effectively than less severe punishment will. The death penalty prevents murders from murdering again and saves innocent lives and we must choose the option that saves innocent lives. If we chose not to use executions as a deterrent to crime a loss of innocent lives would be the result. In a 1986 study done by Professor Stephen K. Layson of the University of North Carolina, he found that 18 murders were deterred by each execution is the U.S.

The argument that life in prison deters crime as well as the death penalty is false. A convicted murder sentenced to life without parole has no deterrent to stop him from committing more crimes to include continuing to murder people while in prison. We have no way to defend against them and protect the safety of correction officers. If they were to escape from prison then what is to stop them from killing people. For example on December 27, 2006, Officer Bryan Tuvera, 28, died in the line of duty after being shot by Marlon Ruff, who was being sought after escaping from a California correctional facility. There are some crimes that for which mere imprisonment seems an inadequate punishment . Society's sense of justice is deeply offended when a brutal murderer such as Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer who killed sodomized and cannibalized his victims, is allowed to live in prison. The victims of a murder will never be able to see their children grow up, enjoy a meal, laugh, while a murderer sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole still can do these things. Furthermore the loved ones of the victim are among the taxpayers that endure the cost of supporting a murder for the rest of their lives.

We can not continue to support those who violate our human rights and murder our loved ones. We most show compassion for the victims of violent crime and concern for future victims. The death penalty helps prevent future crime a murder has been deterred from committing more crimes when he is executed

Doing Away With Opportunities For Quality Education

Patrick Dorinson writes in his blog Politicians Kill DC Voucher Program, Dash Students’ Hopes about the efforts of Sen. Dick Durbin to end the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides parents who wish to send their children to a parochial school with money from the government to pay for school with school vouchers. Patrick Dorinson states that a provision designed to end the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program initiated by Sen. Dick Durbin is intended to benefit teachers unions in return for campaign contributions. Patrick Dorinson also argues that refusing to give parents vouchers for parochial schools will do away with poor students opportunity for a quality education. The intended audience is parents, politicians, teachers and schools, who are knowledgeable of the debate over school vouchers.
His goal is to persuade the reader that increasing access to better schools helps increase chances for students success. He attempts to lead the reader to his point by trying to demonstrate that private schools improve student achievement and by telling of his own experience with three seniors from a charter school.
There are three major points given to support giving school vouchers to students so that they can go to parochial schools. The first being that vouchers help fight inequality in education caused by economics. The second is that vouchers help improve educational achievement. Finally, Patrick Dorinson attempts to persuade the reader that the school vouchers program was eliminated due to corruption in government because of campaign contributions.
In his blog Dorinson states, “We cannot continue to condemn America’s children to dead-end schools that produce kids who will have dead-end jobs, if any jobs at all, or worse, they just end up dead on the streets.” This argument assumes parents should not expect to see improvement from public schools and without vouchers students are stuck in schools with academic deficiencies.
Dorinson's blog is in response to Sen. Dick Durbin efforts to end the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Dorinson's goal is to convince the reader that the best way to improve opportunities for children is to improve their education and giving vouchers to families gives them away to escape failed public schools. He does this through several points. He gets his idea across very clearly. However, he ignores the fact that public schools can improve and tries to convince us that we should not have faith in the public school system. In the end, in our attempt to fix the education system we find yet another idea that sounds really good on paper, but falls apart when put into action.

Newspapers and Antitrust

Tim Rutten wrote an opinion attended to influence people that fear government control over the news and newspapers into believing that the government should allow antitrust exemptions for newspapers. His opinion appeared in the Los Angeles Times titled Newspapers Need an Antitrust Exemption.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rutten4-2009feb04,0,4486364.column
Tim Rutten makes a poor attempted at using fear of government control of the news to purpose charging for news on the Internet. He suggests that all US newspapers should be allowed to conspire together to fix the prices of online news services. He argues that the government should give the newspaper industry an antitrust exemption to allow them to be able to participate in price fixing which otherwise would be illegal. He also argues that allowing free access to news on the web will cause newspapers to go bankrupt as a result their will not be any news on the internet.
Tim Rutten supports his argument for having to pay for newspapers on the internet by comparing the internet to cable TV. He states, “ We have, in our own recent history, a striking example of a free information medium that moved easily into the pay category: Thirty years ago, if you wanted to watch television, you went to the store, bought a TV set, came home, plugged it in and that was it.”
If a newspaper puts out a bad news content on the web people would simply stop read that newspaper online. The newspaper would have to improve its quality or it would go out of business. However, if the government gave the newspaper industry an antitrust exemption it would cause online readers of news to pay higher prices for inferior articles.

Obama's Plans for Health Care Reform

Obama Backs Health Care Reform by Karen Pallarito is an article about President Obama's promises for health care reform in the United States. The article discusses the current economic situation and how it relates to Obama's plans for health care reform.
Most Americans say they support a government role in moving to a system of universal health that would guarantee coverage for all Americans. But how does Obama plan to reform health care? Pallarito states “Under Obama's plan, medium and large employers that don't offer employee health benefits would pay a tax to help fund coverage -- a so-called "play-or-pay" mandate. He also pledged to expand eligibility under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). And he would create a plan much like the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to help individuals who don't have job-based coverage or don't quality for other public programs.”
Everyone should read this article because health care reform impacts every American. It is a national outrage that in the United States health care is only available to those who can afford it as opposed to all other industrialized countries that have some form of universal health care. To understated that reform is needed all you have to do is look at the rising cost of health care, the substantial increase in the number of uninsured Americans, and the media reports showing all the uninsured Americans that have to choose between medical treatment and putting food on the table for their families.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012001310.html