Change, but at what cost?

Today I found one of the Social Justice Club's literature sheets, normally I toss out their sheets because they are usually tainted with communistic ideology. However, what came to interest was that they were criticizing some of the statements that were made by Obama. According to their literature sheet, he has stated that he wants to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan and initiate mandatory national service. While we could use more troops in Afghanistan, starting a draft is not the way to do it, and this also begs the question of who will be drafted, males or both males and females? After Obama won the election, the Russians began deploying short range missiles next to our Czech and Polish NATO allies. I just wonder how he will address this problem, because the Russians are not intimidated by him? Universal healthcare is expensive and taxing citizens that make over 200K a year would not be enough to cover this venture, I just wonder how much more my taxes will go up? I also hope that these changes that he speaks of do not furthur impede on our constitutional rights. What good is change if it strips you of your rights? We will have to wait and see.

Media: Does it shape or reflect reality?

Last semester when I was completing my minor in communications, two of my communication classes brought up an interesting topic ; does the media shape or reflect reality. At first, I thought it was a what came first chicken or the egg situation where it was nearly impossible to say it could happen one way or the other. However, as I watch the news coverage of the presidential campaigns, I have have realized that the media has lost its objectivity and instead of reflecting what happens in the campaigns and the debates, they openly try to shape reality to make their favorite candidate seem favorable despite what anyone else or his records have to say. Even worse, some networks such as MSNBC have reached the point where they are dealing in absolutes; if you are not for our candidate then you must be a racist. Choosing candidates by these emotional appeals is no way to choose candidates.

Fiscal responsibility

Since the housing issue has made its way to the debates, I thought that the is topic would be worth discussing. People are demanding that the government bail them out of their housing loans because they cannot make their payments. My question is why? Obviously these people bought houses that they had no business buying in the first place and now they want my tax dollars to cover their greedy ambitions. People need to learn fiscal responsibility and buy housing they could actually afford and take out reasonable loans. I agree that the prices of housing is ridiculous (we have the dual income family to thank for that), but people must realize that most of us are not destined to live in million houses, its just a fact of life. I once heard a story about a couple who made 90k a year between the two of them and they complained they could not buy a million dollar home. Talk about a news flash! What is really bugging me is that certain candidates are promising people to not only reduce the interest rates on their monthly payments, but to somehow lower the principal as well. Yes, lets encourage people to buy housing that is beyond an amount they afford, no wonder we are in this predicament! This is one of the most backwards government proposals I have ever heard. Lets reward the irresponsible and screw over the responsible by making the responsible pay for their mistakes. They made their beds, now they should deal with it. I have no allusions of grandeur , when I am ready to get my own place, I will probably not have the luxury of having a dual income , so I will buy a used home in the 200k price range. It would be good enough as a stater home, would not take as long to pay off, and would be affordable(one must also save for retirement and other miscellaneous expenses).

VP candidate gets Hacked

Vice President nominee, Sarah Palin's yahoo e-mail was hacked last week . The FBI used forensics techniques to trace the Hacker's IP address to David Kernell's(the Son of the Democrat Tennessee State Representative, Mike Kernell) computer at his apartment, who was using an Internet anonymity service. The FBI searched the log files of the service and found Kernell visiting Yahoo's mail service, resetting Palin's password via a brute force attack ,and announcing results of the break-in on a Web site where the hacking was first revealed.

I found this article most approporiate for the research I am conducting on discovering the identities of attackers who intrude into computer networks. This article does raise a few quetions, such as how does one discover the identity of an attacker, who uses an anonymity service and will this be treated as a digital Watergate?














http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26838582

The flood

Throughout the weekend, Northwest Indiana has been bombarded with rainstorm after rainstorm.On Friday night, the section of Calumet Ave. that lies in front of the restaurant that I manage during the third shift became saturated with about 6 to 8 inches of water. When I returned Saturday evening, the water had mostly dissipated, despite the constant rainfall. When I left the restaurant Sunday Morning around 7 , the status of the road was similar to what it was during the evening, however hell broke loose after I had returned home to get some rest. When I woke up, I heard about the Little calumet overflowing and later on found that all Northward local roads from Calumet Ave. to Cline Ave. had been closed.
My family and I went initally to the Kenndey Ave.bridgehead in hopes of finding it still open (we thought their was a possiblity that Purdue Calumet would still be open tomorrow and my father was looking for a way to get to Mittal Steel), since the Kennedy Ave. bridge was constructed to be higher off the Little Calumet than other local bridgeheads. To our surprise, Kennedy Ave. was also blocked off . We decided to see why it was blocked off and parked at a local bowling alley, when we walked to the bridgehead we saw several mounds of dirt placed directly in the middle of the road and alongside a recently constructed cement wall that protects a local subdivision from the Little Calumet. When we reached the bridgehead, I saw why the road was blocked. The water level was nearly equal to that of the bottom of the bridge and even stranger yet, the Little Calumet was flowing in the opposite direction.
After returning home, we walked over towards the Calumet Ave. bridgehead and noticed several ambulances heading toward the bridgehead. As we walked closer to the bridgehead, I noticed National Guard vehicles that were coming and going from the site, there were several towed boats parked on the side of Calumet Ave with State police stationed inside of them, several news trucks ,and I noticed the eerie glistering of the street and parking lots nearby. We continued to walk towards the bridgehead until we could go no further due to the saturation of sidewalk and street by the flood. As I looked into the parking lot of the strip mall where Target lies, one could see the unfortunate cars that were not recovered in time and were nearly engulfed completely by the flood, only their upper section could be seen.After a couple of ambulances and school buses left the Bridgehead area( carrying patients from the Hammond clinic to higher ground and to safety), the flood began to advance again engulfing the area I stood. My family and I fell back to avoid the flood water and continued to watch it advance Southward. After I had reached higher ground, I pondered what fate lies for the restaurant I work at ,which was even closer to the bridgehead than the spot I was at.

Rome vs Carthage: Battle of Cannae

While channel surfing the other day, I stumbled upon a documentary about Hannibal on History International. It covered the battle of Lake Trasismene, which I have heard of before in part to my Rome Total war game, where Hannibal pushed the Roman army into Lake Trasismene and the only way for the defeated Romans to fall back was to swim the lake. But, it also introduced a battle that I was not familiar with, Cannae, where more than 50,000 sons of Rome lost their lives fighting Carthage and its allies of Gallic and Iberian mercenaries. Hannibal used a crescent shape formation which drew the Roman army in and let the Carthaginians outflank the Roman legions by the sides and rear, which lead to the utter destruction of the Roman legions that fought there . Rome lost more soldiers in one day than America lost in the entire Vietnam war. This defeat also caused Southern Italy to break away its allegiance with Rome and support Hannibal, as well as provoke the Macedonians, who also sided with Hannibal. Despite this tragic loss, Rome later triumphed defeating all those who sides with Hannibal and eventually razed the Carthaginian capitol. " Revenge is a dish best served cold".

The West vs Russia : A new Cold War?

After invading the sovereignty of Georgia and maintaining a troop presence even after the cease fire , Russia's puppet president, Medvedev had the audacity to announce the break away regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Even though most of the International community including the United States view this move as illegal, Medvedev believes the move was justifiable and does not care if the whole situation escalates into another Cold War.

It seems that Putin and his puppet Medvedev have taken it upon themselves to return Russia back into a Soviet power and is testing the reaction of the West, which has an ever growing amount of Eastern European(former Soviet) countries entering into its organizations such as NATO and the EU. So far minimal action has been taken against Russia and this will only encourage the Russians to become bolder and take an active role in other regions that border it.

It is vital for pro-Western countries that share a border with Russia to build up its defenses and acquire the proper weapons to stop or severely damage the Russian war machine. NATO countries seem unwilling to directly commit war fighters, but could sell newer members surplus weaponry, especially weaponry with tank killing capabilities or train our Eastern European allies on how to fight Ivan . Russia sells weapons to our enemies, why can't we sell weapons to our friends?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/WireStory?id=5668342&page=2

http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireStory?id=5656010&page=2