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Monday, February 21, 2011

Auburn poisoning affects fans everywhere

The news lately has been flooded with news of the poisoning of Auburn's historic Toomer's Corner. The trees located there are over 100 years old and the site of infamous student celebrations. The poisoning was so severe that the trees are likely to die, and the complete surrounding area is contaminated.



Now I am not an Auburn fan. My fiancee is an Alabama fan and so that's where my allegiances tend to lie. Perosnally, I don't even really like football. However, this heinous action absolutely disgusts me. First of all, it gives not just Alabama fans but all fans a bad name. Namely because the accused was not even a student. He was just a stupid, irresponsible fan, and it's fans like these that give all fans a bad name. These idiots have no direct link to the school yet vandalize opposing schools all in the name of pride. This is not pride! One man does not speak for all. The fans at Alabama should not be penalized for this man, and no retaliation should come to the school or students. The true fans, the ones that attend the school and support friendly competition DO NOT condone these actions.

Secondly, this action is not just vandfalizing the school, it's vandalizing the people whose hearts and souls are in that school. Those trees are a symbol of pride and history. If someone were to harm my lions or damage the historic fountain at UNA, I would be heartbroken. These things represent my pride in my school and the time I have spent at UNA.

The man that commited this crime deserves to truly pay for it. He has damaged not only the school, but the name of competition as a whole. Rivalries should be friendly and about the game. It's about bragging rights and talent, not petty crimes. Alabama is not responsible for his crimes just as Jesus is not responsible for the idiot Baptists that sully the funerals of our soldiers. One man's actions do not reflect a whole.

http://photos.al.com/birmingham-news/2011/02/toomers_corner_poisoned_oak_tr_28.html

Monday, February 14, 2011

US Debt to surpass economy

The US debt which is a topic of heated debate no matter who you talk to, is about to reach and surpass the total economy of the United States. That means if the US makes 10 trillion dollars, it owes 11 trillion.

Debt is higher now then EVER. President Obama who promised spending cuts and more jobs and a boosted economy has just announces that the debt for next near will be the BIGGEST JUMP IN US HISTORY! His proposed figure??? 2 TRILLION DOLLARS!! Which would bring the US debt to almost 16 trillion, which has never been this high and has not come even close to that since WWII, even when Carter was in office. That's saying something since this was a man that pushed taxes to almost 60%

If you ask me, Obama is doing a pretty sorry job in "stabilizing" the economy. If you ask me, he's destroying the economy and refuses to see that the more spending he allows, the more this country takes a big ol' swirl in the crapper. This 2 years can not go by fast enough.

Read more here http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/14/debt-now-equals-total-us-economy/

Monday, February 7, 2011

Slate Podcast

I recently listened to the Slate podcast "Reality is Statham" in which they discussed a number of things including the new Jason Statham movie The Mechanic. The main speaker of the podcast gushed, if gushed is enough, over Jason Statham. How he's the best action hero ever etc, etc. I'm sorry, but what has Statham been in that actually made anyone's radar??? Certainly not Crank, not really The Mechanic, and for sure not The Expendables. And if the last did make anyone's radars it wasn't for him. Sorry, Lady, The Mechanic won't be making my list anytime soon.

Next they talked about Tho Onion News Network from IFC. Tehy claim it is "everything you need to know in America" and they claim their host Brooke has more stalkers than anyone anywhere. However, the host is a character not a real person. All the news is satirical bits that do have elements of news in them. I'm sorry, but can you say Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart? You're act has been done already.

Lastly they talked about how video games are pretty much taking over the world, which is a fair claim. They go on to say that video games better us. Video games apparently are portable devices of happiness. However, as one of the cohosts accurtley pointed out, you feel good when you're playing it and you're happy when you win but then you stop and realize you've just wasted four hours playing some stupid game. Jane Mcgonogal the person behind the study goes on to say that this is true of people who only play for short amounts of time, but I have never ever met a person who got on a video game and only played for five minutes. There's a reason that video games are so addicting.

This podcast was a wild waste of time.
Waste your time here http://www.slate.com/id/2282599/

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Technology Takes Over, So Do Headaches

In this day and age, being tech savvy is a must. Employers look for it, friends expect it, and nowadays most relationships are built around it. But with all the new technology out today, it seems like the hi-tech world is trying to overload us.

Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and Google are just a few of the many online sources that people use on a daily basis. Most people, though aren’t just using one, they’re using all of them and often at the same time. With so many of them linked for easy access, it makes your head spin. Yu find something on Google, you post it on Facebook, you like it to Twitter, a follower quotes it back to Facebook. It’s an endless cycle of technological pain. On top of those social elements are the business musts: email, phone calls, and text messaging.

USA Today posted on their online site “People are drowning in a deluge of data. Corporate users received about 110 messages a day in 2010, says market researcher Radicati Group. There are 110 million tweets a day, Twitter says. Researcher Basex has pegged business productivity losses due to the "cost of unnecessary interruptions" at $650 billion in 2007.”

So is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Do people need eighteen different mobile accounts in order to stay in the loop? Probably not. Most of them are linked to each other anyway so even if you don’t have Twitter, you can read someone’s Tweets on their blog or personal site. If someone doesn’t have Facebook or instant messaging, chances are they have text messaging.

This overload of technology is so unnecessary when most are just replicas of sources that have been around for years. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Dogpile: they’re all the same!

While many sites are trying to simplify, they’re failing to acknowledge the bigger picture: there are just too many, and they don’t seem to be going away any time soon.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2011-02-01-tech-overload_N.htm