Alito and Obama Criticized

Both President Obama are being criticized for "alleged breeches of etiquette" last night at the State of the Union address. A shot of Justice Alito is what much of the controversy is about. A Wall Street Journal article says:

The shot caught Justice Samuel Alito wincing, shaking his head and apparently mouthing "that's not true," as the president contended that the ruling would lead to a flood of special-interest money in elections, including money from foreign corporations.

Justice Alito's reaction departed from the traditional expressionless, stone-like pose the justices take when attending politically tinged events.

The article said that the conservatives attacked Obama for making a swipe at the Supreme Court that "represents the worst of Washington politics". Liberal columnist Glenn Greenwald went so far as to say that Justice Alito's protest "was a serious and substantive breech of protocol". Both Obama and Justice Alito may have "misbehaved", but we cannot let such a tiny issue become such a big deal.

Haiti Relief Efforts Still Struggling

Food and water distribution in Haiti has been described by U.S. military commanders as being uneven. In a Voice of America article on the issue:

U.S. military commanders overseeing food and water distribution in Haiti acknowledged Thursday that the effort remains uneven and that there are places they still have not been able to reach. Food prices on the open market are surging, causing tempers to flare.

Although there is a massive relief effort going on in Haiti, there are still places that haven't received any aid at all. The article continues to say that a couple of times there have been instances of running out of food and supplies to give to citizens because they had not anticipated the demand at each distribution site. And although the country's food networks have restarted, the prices of food have increased tremendously, angering many people and obviously not helping the situation. Hopefully we can get our act together and start providing a more thorough of a relief effort that will more effectively provide the aid that Haitian citizens need right now.

Habitat for Humanity

On January 16th, I devoted my saturday to volunteering at the Habitat for Humanity East Bay site in Oakland, California. I went with my friend and classmate Grant and we worked from 8am until 4pm building houses. Our particular job for the day was setting up the walls in the second story of a house being built. I enjoyed participating in the building of these houses and everyone working at the site was very friendly and helpful.

The Habitat for Humanity site was located in a very poor neighborhood of Oakland and it will be interesting seeing what the impact of these new houses being built will have on the area. I was told by my friend that one of these homes was actually set on fire at night by a molotov cocktail that was thrown at one of the houses during construction over the summer.

Obviously affordable housing is a current problem in America and it affects many people throughout our country. Habitat for Humanity is a large organization that works to help this situation across the world by creating affordable housing for people earning low incomes. Through is organization, more and more people are given the opportunity to live in a house of their own that they can afford.

Brad L. Graham: The Blogosphere

As this is a blog, I find it appropriate to honor the man that coined the term "blogosphere". Brad L. Graham, the creator of this word, died at the age of 41 on January 4, 2010. He coined the word on September 10, 1999 as a joke, and in the years to come, the word's usage gained popularity. You can visit his site here.

Terror Suspect Radicalized in Britain

Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, a terror suspect in the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines passenger jet coming from Amsterdam and arriving in Detroit on Christmas Day was found to have been radicalized in Britain. A CNN story reports:

AbdulMutallab had been flagged by federal agents who were getting ready to meet his plane when it landed in Detroit, according to a U.S. official briefed on the investigation into the botched Christmas Day terrorist attack.

Al-Alemi emphasized at Thursday's news conference that AbdulMutallab lived in Yemen, but did not pick up his radical views there, instead saying that happen when he resided in Britain between 2005 and 2008.

This attempted terrorist attack attack shows that even though we have drastically increased our security around airports, our system is not perfect. It is impressive that this guy was able to get that far considering the security that we have to get through when traveling through airports. Hopefully we will be better able to prevent things like this from happening, although it is assured that attempts like this will happen in the future.

Shifting Spending from Bars to Books

Governer Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to reduce the spending put toward prisons and relocate the money to be spent on education. The governor also mentioned plans of saving money through the privatization of services and possibly even prisons themselves. Schwarzenegger said in a speech to lawmakers:

“The priorities have become out of whack over the years,” ... “I mean, think about it, 30 years ago, 10 percent of the general fund went to higher education, and 3 percent went to prisons. Today, almost 11 percent goes to prisons, and only 7.5 percent goes to higher education.”

“What does it say about any state that focuses more on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns?” he continued. “It simply is not healthy.”

It is interesting, but not surprising to learn that California's funding is divided up to that more money is spent on the prison systems than on education. Especially with the budget cuts that are facing schools, it is important that we find a way to keep money going into the schools.

Community Service: Habitat for Humanity

For a community service project, I am interested in volunteering for a group called Habitat for Humanity. The group works on building housing for people with low incomes across the world. The area that I am looking at volunteering for is in Oakland, California. I am currently working on contacting the organization and waiting for a response to see when I would be able to volunteer. If i end up being able to work for this organization, I am sure that this will be a great, if not eye opening experience for me as I don't see many of these problems in the community that I live in.

Same Sex Marriage Compared to Marrying Your Cousin

Admittedly, I found this while exploring comedian Daniel Tosh's Tosh.0 blog. Daniel Tosh jokingly says that:

...people are missing the most important thing this map teaches us: If I lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey or Vermont, I could marry my first cousin even if he was another dude!

This map caught my attention though, because it really helps visually depict the current situation on gay marriage and compares it to something that is equally looked down upon as gay marriage is by many people. It was shocking to discover that marriage between first cousins is legal in more states than gay marriage is, as a matter of fact, I had no idea that marriage between first cousins was still legal at all.