New Term: Obama Drama

Oh, how I despise awful catchphrases. "Yes we can", the slogan that drove Obama through the election is coming back to wreck havoc for the not obviously stellar start of our new young President who could use a little bit of time adjusting. T-shirts and trinkets labelled with "No he can't" and "Audacity of Hype" have been selling like hotcakes according to the Financial Times.
Strange how the sentiments of Americans change after just a few months. The undying love and faith for the new President has transformed into the cynicism of the new President who is not instantly fixing all the problems that America has. Maybe, we, as Americans, should treat Obama a little less as the golden boy and more like the young inexperienced President that he is and adjust our expectations accordingly.
However, as the President, the world is expected of Obama and maybe these attacks from the cheap seats will act as a reality check that America desperately needed after assuming that all we had to do was elect young Obama to make America all better with a wave of the 'change wand'. I just hope America is a little better at the end of these four years than when we started off.

Incoming Text: ur arestd, booya

While deciphering the inner working of my fellow classmate's blog, bluntly titled American Government, I found a much needed regulation on the texting-while-driving fiasco. Senators are attempting to pass a bill to ban texting while driving. OMFG!!!

I personally have started enforcing this law on my own time by slapping any of my friends foolish enough to text while driving my precious cargo around town. However, sometimes this just results in a fist fight while driving which can potentially be more dangerous than texting while driving, so I understand the need for the bill.

I remember late one night while driving home from a certain nocturnal escapade I found a car in front of me lazily listing about the road. Assuming that they were far drunker than I, I kept my distance and cursed the low tolerance of foolish high schoolers. However, when I pulled alongside said worthless person I found a highschooler- expected, texting with both hands on his phone perched atop his steering wheel- disgusted surprise. I wanted to get out of my car and beat him with his own phone, but he drove away and I drove home to eat an entire family size bag of Doritos, angrily.

Ban texting while driving and beat whoever gets caught doing it, or at least give them a fine. Not only is it dangerous, but it is annoying.

Immigration Shimmigratoion

They're taking all our minimum wage jobs! We're all going to have to learn Spanish! They clog up all the hospitals!

Someone call the whambulance. Jeez, quit complaining. I don't see immigrants coming in and taking over our country I see a bunch of lazy people calling for Poppa Gov'ment to make life's problems go away. We natural born citizens are just descendents of older immigrants. In fact the Indians were here first and from the way that turned out I think it would be best if we still consider ourselves immigrants in a land of freedom. It must be understood that America is a place where anyone should be able to feel at home, that is the basis of our ever-mentioned melting pot and in my opinion it could use a little spicing up.

I believe that anyone willing to run, jump, or swim their way across the border to live in a foreign land deserves to live here, because they are the ones who recognize what great opportunity lies in the damn sexy nation of America. I can remember the family stories of the McBurnett clan (my peeps) who came from Scotland to Georgia back when it was still a debtor colony. Those McBurnetts probably rich, they were sent to a debtors colony, and they probably didn't have very many capital investments or business ventures that that America desperately needed and they very likely smelled of potatoes and had funny accents but here we are generations later living in a country far better than anywhere else I've ever been where you can go into a restaurant order a large cold dring and get a gallon sized cup brimming with ice (Europeans don't put enough ice in my cup).

America should let more of these hopeful citizens, except for the terrorists, if not all of them into America. If they are willing to leave everything they grew up knowing back in their home country I would be honored to let them be a part of mine. As for the hospital business, make them all citizens and start collecting taxes on their eager to work backs. I think it's just plain foolish that we wouldn't let them participate in every part of American culture. If you weren't born here wouldn't you want to live here unless you were born in the Bahamas, that place is heaven. The water is too blue.

They want to frown but they can't

While skimming through the Drudge Report I came across a gem from the Congress Daily describing how the Senate Finance Committee is discussing the possibility of imposing a 10 percent excise tax on certain plastic surgeries. The tax would be limited to plastic surgeries done exclusively for personal improvement i.e teeth whitening, botox, nose jobs, and lipo. Other procedures done out of necessity such as cleft-palate or facial reconstruction caused by injury would remain untaxed.

Initially, while chuckling at the protests from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, I thought 'good riddance to bad facial rubbish'. Then I pondered a more legitimate reason for the imposition of this tax, other than me not liking the idea of cyborgs.

I found a parallel to this proposed legislation in the' sin tax' placed upon cigarettes and alcohol. Just as some people think they desperately need their teeth whitened or nose straightened I and thousands of other college students desperately need the confidence boosting effects of a few beers. The ego-scathing similarities of these two lifestyles became a little too evident.

Maybe that's why after a few shots everyone in need of a new face starts to look a little bit better. Some call it inebriation, but perhaps the real name of that mental state is empathy. Or not.

Anyway, I being a strong supporter of taxation equity believe this is another step in leveling the playing field. The poor will take the sin tax and the rich will take the beauty tax. Both enterprises are luxuries and should be treated as such. I guess these taxes are Mother America's way of slapping the kids who drink too much and stare in the mirror too long.

Who knows, maybe some of the tax money might even make it into programs that help the rest of the Americans. Remember them? They're all the people too busy with jobs and kids to understand how the screw-ups find time to make such a fuss about taxes most people don't care about.

The Ghost in Your Machine

Just as the invention of cars led to the start of traffic laws the widespread use of the internet is presenting us with another form of traffic regulation. Unfortunately, the internet is slightly more complicated than an automobile considering that a car normally doesn't get diseases from the gas station, the stereo won't steal your identity and the windshield doesn't fill up with lame ads from every-place-you-don't-care-about... Well, maybe the last one does happen.

Metaphor almost aside, I was inspired to think about cars and computers by another 'c' word being tossed around by one Robert Wright while he analyzed clouds in Cloudy with a Chance of Totalitarianism. I followed the links on his article to The New York Times. There I learned that the expansion of storing information online in the form of emails, credit history and other personal information has led to invasion of privacy issues. Big surprise!

With everyone using the internet (everyone who matters) and leaving their personal information in the care of countless web services through common activities like checking email or online banking the threat of the misuse of personal information becomes imminent.

The consequences of information leakage can range anywhere from receiving spam to identity theft. It could be worse. At least now we don't have to hear that dial-up connection sound anymore.

Thankfully, the government does occasionally step in to demand some accountability from web services. Unfortunately, these regulations with the help of the Patriot Act allow the government privy to your information too. Without your knowledge. So The Man is able to look at our private stuff to help keep us safe from other people looking at our private stuff. That sounds.... comforting? Doesn't your personal information belong to you? What's next, the government listening, and now with the help of streaming video, watching in on you. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the fact is that the internet is a lot less under-control than we think and that fact becomes more evident as we realize how much we depend on it to keep our private information private.

So, what's the deal? I guess I trust the government not to abuse the information they could find on me through the internet. Until legislators care about my vote again there's really not much to do. In fact I take pity on whoevere's job it is to investigate me, and I really feel bad for whoever has to keep tabs on chatroulette (delivering packages to your eyes from all over the world).

As long as I can still illegally download massive amounts of music without repercussion, they can do whatever want. If you're a mark like me in this game of e-thieves don't ask yourself 'Isn't my information mine?' If you're wired-in you have to distribute your information online. The question you control is 'Do I trust the people I'm giving my information to?'

Sotomayor: Another Judge Dredd?!?!

Earlier on today I was reading an article on CNN about the next Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor. Her judging abilities were being critiqued by the NRA due to her past rulings against the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms (not to be confused with bare arms or the more interesting grizzly bear arms). Her critics were worried that as a judge in our highest court she would be carrying too much preconceived baggage about the Second Amendment. As all judges are supposed to be impartial arbiters of the Constitution in all her ink-and-parchmented-glory the concern might seem valid.

As I read this and pondered the gravity of the NRA's accusation I began to think 'Don't we need bias in the Supreme Court?'. Without dissenting opinions and biases the Constitution would remain unchanged to this day, that is if America could have survived that long with only 10 Amendments. Aside from the important task of protecting the sanctity of the Constitution the Sup. C. must also make adjustments to it in order for the document to properly reflect the views of the citizens it binds and protects. A nation, much like a business, must adjust with the change of time, technology, and society or face the consequences of stagnation. Regardless of any judge's personal bias or opinion, which as human beings all of them posess, as Americans we must maintain the faith that our government will adjust to fit the needs of the majority of our country. I would gladly take a judge who desires to "improve" the Constitution than an automated robot who refuses to change the words on a piece of old paper regardless of how it effects America. What would be next? Robot Presidents, robot police, robot taxi drivers, robot neighbors. I would rather die than suffer under the opression of the Steel Fist, but that's just my opinion. Ehhhhh...