Schwarzenegger Pushes State Climate Bill

With people asking to suspend California's plans to cut emissions, the governor insisted on sticking to it saying, "No single issue threatens the health and prosperity of our nation (more) than climate change". It is important that we stay on a track to meet the goal of the climate bill, but reaching it could cost quite a bit of money. One issue brought up in the article is that the climate bill puts California at an economic disadvantage when compared to surrounding states. Is it possible to reach our emissions goal while leaving the economy unaffected?

No Nukes?

The U.N. security council endorsed a strategy that would focus on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and the eventual elimination of them altogether to bring a world with "undiminished security for all". It is important that we control the spread of nuclear weapons if we want to maintain a lasting peace in the future. It is difficult to deal with countries such as Iran and North Korea that have obtained nuclear weapons and are trying to build their own nuclear weapons program. This is an important step if we wish to have a world that resolves issues peacefully instead of resorting to violence and threats.

Future of Guantanamo Bay Seems Uncertain

"...The Obama administration has decided against establishing a new system of preventative detention for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." One of the biggest issues with closing down Guantanamo Bay is where they will relocate the detainees that are there right now. According to the article, there are currently over 200 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. As you can imagine, people do not like the idea of moving them into the U.S. for detainment as it makes them feel unsafe.

An AIDS Vaccine?

The news that an experimental AIDS vaccine tested on 16,000 heterosexual volunteers in Thailand had been shown to be safe and modestly effective surprised researchers, who had become used to failure in the decades-long effort to find a vaccine to protect against HIV infection.

It is good to see that we are making progress in something that we have seen very little success in in the past, especially for a problem that is so large and serious. According to the article, although the Vaccine is not a cure, it seems to help lower one's chances of getting infected. Hopefully we will see researchers and scientists make further progress on this vaccine and bring a solution for a problem that is effecting an ever increasing group of our population.

Terror at our Doorstep

This should serve as a reminder that the threat of terrorism is still very real. In the last couple years, there has a lot of news about stopped terrorist plots, but most of those always seemed to me to be in other countries. Especially since 9/11, it seems as though you do not hear about terrorist plots in the US being foiled. It also reminds us that we are still fighting a war and that there is still a lot of conflict going on in the world.

Surge in Oil Discoveries

The oil industry has made over 200 discoveries so far this year due to new technologies allowing them to drill deeper and search for oil in places previously unreachable. Among these many discoveries is "...A giant deepwater field that might turn out to be the biggest oil discovery ever in the Gulf of Mexico". This is obviously good news, but we cannot sustain this rate of oil deposit discovery because eventually we will find all the oil there is to be found. Thinking in short term, this is great news and a relief that we have been able to tap into oil that we could not previously get to, but in the long run we are just buying more time for us to find a solution to our world's oil addiction.

Fuel Economy in Stasis

This is interesting...out of Tom Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded", "...In America, the average car and truck sold at the end of the [1990s] went about a mile less on each gallon of gas than it did 10 years earlier". Its surprising that the auto industry made little to no progress in improving fuel economy over a period of ten years. This goes to show that without a push or reason for automakers to increase their vehicle's fuel economy, nothing will happen. This can also be attributed to Americans and their desire for larger and more powerful cars.

Energy and Global Warming

Thomas Friedman is right. We need to find alternative, green, sources of energy if we want to have a bright future because our current path that we are following is not sustainable. America has to lead the world into this new era of clean and green energy. Countries like China and India have no chance of changing unless we do so first.

Schools Still Facing Cuts

Even after government aid designed to stabilize the schools in this nation, there are some that are still facing cuts and layoffs. In states that have large budget deficits, the federal money has done little to nothing in preventing large numbers of layoffs. These reductions is staff can be felt throughout many schools and have caused increases in class sizes.

Obama's School Speech Released

In order to address the large controversy over his speech to schoolchildren this Tuesday, President Barack Obama has released the speech which covers what he is going to say in hopes of dismissing fears that he is "trying to indoctrinate their children with a 'socialist' political agenda". The speech will be televised from a Virgina high school and will focus on the importance of staying in school.

The full text of the speech can be found here

President Obama's approval ratings at lowest so far

It surprising to see how President Obama's handling of the economy and health care has resulted in a large drop in approval ratings since he has taken office.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released yesterday show his overall approval number at 53 percent, down from 76 percent in early February, just after he took office.

The increasingly bitter partisanship appears to be taking a toll on the president.

While his approval number among fellow Democrats rose slightly to 90 percent from July, it fell to 43 percent from 53 percent among independents and to 15 percent from 23 percent among Republicans. It is the first time in a CNN poll that independents gave a thumbs down to Obama’s performance as president.