Education vs Judgement

I will start this blog by stating I am not saying I am for the Obamacare or against it, my issue is the knowledge known about the new mandatory health insurance law. The Obamacarefacts.com has interesting facts that a large percent of Americans don’t have enough knowledge about the healthcare plan to stat weather they approve or disapprove.  

Which of the following best describes your thoughts on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)?
Approve: 852 (30.23%)
Disapprove: 909 (32.25%)
Indifferent: 293 (10.39%)
Unsure: 756 (26.82%)

I know for fact that some people “disapprove” the plan simply because they heard they aren’t supposed to, but when asked why they disapprove they cannot give a knowledge based answer. Most American don’t like being told what to do, so little knowledge and a mandatory requirement by government will always leave a sour-taste in Americans. 

I believe President Obama and his team has done a decent amount of advertising the Obamacare plan and where to learn information about it, but it is the people who need to take initiative and learn about the plan before passing a judgment(for or against). The law is already in effect so is wise for people to learn how it will affect them. Getting the people to actually listen to the news or read up on the subject is hard to do since most people feel as if they do not have time to do research or they simply do not care about government. Ignorance toward this issue is just stupid. The obamacarefacts website concluded that “the more people know about Obamacare the higher they poll and the more popular the law is.” I don’t think the approval rate will skyrocket but I do believe it would increase and would be more accurate.

Respond to colleague's work

I agree with Claire that the educational system needs reformed. We have become too traditional in the ways we teach. In the military we have mandatory classes we must attend and majority of them are boring PowerPoints reading slide after slide that will put you to sleep thus getting the nickname “death by PowerPoint”. At first I thought it was just a military teaching style but however I have recently discovered some civilian teachers also use this ineffective method. PowerPoints are a great teaching AID but are not meant to do the teachers job, so I agree 100% when Claire states “adding incentives for those teachers who are getting inventive with the way they communicate with their students”. Getting students involved and interested in their education is key to learning and developing critical thinking skills.

$17 Trillion and Counting

The United States is currently 17,546,283,915 TRILLON dollars in debt and counties to go deeper and deeper each day by an average of 2.75 Billion a day! But yet every day we hear about a new project being build, a new study beginning done, or we see with our own eyes new roads beginning built, and the most common  the United States sending aid and resources to another country. I can go on for quite some time on how the government wastes money on projects and seemly unless junk, But I am going to focus on one of the many fractions of our budget and that is sending our resources and money to other countries.

 Now I have no problem with the United States helping a country that has just been devastated by a natural disaster, or even helping a poorer country with starving people, but I do have issues with United States aiding countries that really don’t give a damn about us and wouldn’t even lift a finger to help United States if we are in need.

Wasteful spending in the United States is a huge issue and in 2012, $37,680,000,000 dollars were sent to other countries for foreign aid, according to Finance Degree Center. I know that 38 billion doesn’t seem like much compared to the 2.75 billion we go in the hole per day, but I feel as if this is wasteful and can be trimmed down tremendously. The top 5 recipients of financial aid were all Middle Eastern countries and were not poor countries that needed money but the US “investing” in their country. I believe United States should save more money by trimming down the foreign spending and “give away” money so we can keep that money for more pressing interior issues.

Substantial commentary #2

On March 6, 2014, Gov. Deval Patrick posted on theHuffington posted a blog title “Why Being My Brother's Keeper Matters”. This blog is about the issues young African-Americans are facing today and how the government can help motivate young urban students to have a different outlook on life to become successful.  I agree with this blog by Gov. Patrick, Americans need to become more involved with the disadvantaged students and then there will be a change in the community and society.

The intended audience for this blog is positive African-Americans who are able to be considered role models. Gov. Patrick wants to encourage those people to reach out and help other disadvantage youth and guide them on how to be successful.

Gov. Deval Patrick(D)  is the Governor of Massachusetts and says he got his motivation to act upon his troubled youth by the “my brother’s keeper “initiative from President Obama. In this initiative President Obama encourages Americans to begin a task force that is charged to consider the whole picture.

In this blog Gov. Patrick tells the readers how he has initiated his plan to help his community. He mentions his schools are supported by mentoring and after school opportunities, along with knowledge on high demands careers. In results Gov. Patrick reported” For the first time in decades, achievement gaps in our schools are shrinking. The dropout rate has been cut in half. In our targeted cities, overall crime victimization is down significantly, with a 25 percent drop in homicide and a 19 percent drop in aggravated assaults.”

Overall, enjoyed this blog it shows that public figures still care about the youth and hopefully will motivate others to do the same with their communities.

Substantial commentary #1

 On February 20, 2014, the LA Times published and article title "why 9/11 can happen again" by Gary Hart and Norman Augustine. This article talks about the National Homeland Security flaws and disorganization that has the potential to let another massive attack happen on US soil.  I agree that their are flaws among the homeland security flaws that need to be addressed but do not agree with how this article was written.

 The author Gary Hart is a lawyer and former senator from Colorado and the other author Norman Augustine is a retired aerospace executive and was undersecretary of the Army from 1975 to 1977 both of the authors worked within the government and they must have a good understanding of how things work, with this being known they have good creditably from the little background we are provided.

The intended audience for this article is the American people, more specifically the average middle class American. The authors give several scare tactics to catch the readers attention. including statements like " substances that could kill before we become aware that they are in our air or water, hasn't been prioritized" these statements are meant to raddled the average citizen and get the people thinking of how things must change.

Hart and Augustine claim that Congressional oversight has made the Homeland Security even more confusing and do not focus on the safety of USA. They support their claim with minimum statistics, the article does include the outstanding number of committees and subcommittees (108) which does seem like too much for the department as Homeland Security. Secretary Michael Chertoff  said, "When many voices speak, it's like no voice speaks." Hart stats that the president and congress have to listen to others and the Hart-Rudman report in order to fix this problem. I would like to know more information about the Hart- Rudman report and the other reports credentials  and what kind of solution they are reporting. Overall i think the article is lacking statistical evidence and supporting information.

On Wednesday Feb 5, 2014, CNN published an article title " Will 'black widows,' other terrorist stalk the Sochi Games." This article explain the threat of terrorist attack by the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus and how real of an issue this can become.

This article goes into brief detail of Russian and Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus past encounters that is not know by many and why they are upset that the Winter Games are being held in Sochi. In the 1990s the Chechens people wanted separation after the Soviet union collapsed. nearly 80,000 Chechen were killed in the struggle. Sochi is located in the territory were many of these civilains were killed. Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Caucasus, Doku Umarov said the Olympics were to be held "over the bones of thousands of Muslims who were killed and buried on the territory along the Black Sea," and fighters must not allow that "by any means." And this terriost ogranzition has the perfect soldiers to carry out thier plans, "black widows" wifes whos hubands were killed by Russian forces.

US and Russian government are working together to prevent any terrorist attacks against the Winter Olympics, utilizing top equipment and technology, but are still concerned about the surrounding areas of Sochi.

 This article is worth reading because it gives a good background history of the terrorist group and how the government plans on counteracting against a highly motivated organization.