Pol 106

With my entrance into pol 106 I was hesitant that this was going to be another back breaking summer class where all of my time will be taken up by class work. The class in turn turned out to be a very interesting one. The class was small so that innovative practices and more class participation was allowed. The class participation of the class added many varying ideas to how the government worked and some of the issues involved. The final project of creating a constitutional amendment was one of the most interesting methods I have come across so far. This allowed me to see how constitutional amendments were thought of and just how people viewed different types of information. Overall Pol 106 added to one of most memorable classes ever taken in a college setting.

Polls

At the Lincoln museum I was reminded of the time when some newspapers incorrectly reported the 1948 presidential race in favor of Dewey over the true winner Truman. The newspapers relied on exit polls that came to false conclusions that was caused by the vary nature of a poll. The poll takes a small portion of a larger group then draws conclusions based on that portion. This is a very common statistical practice, but there are often occurrences where the conclusions from the sample group are false. There is nothing that can be done about polls. Polls answer qustions to what is going on around the world and the questions will never go away. The only thing that must be kept in mind is that a poll is never 100% corect.

The Effect of Negative Spending

Recently the Illinois state Governor Rod Blagojevich cut the budget to historical sites in Illinois by half. The cut is due to a budget bill that the Illinois State Congress passed on to be signed. The problem with the budget is that it spends more money that is taken in by the state and the Illinois State government has been "in the red" for a while now. In order to fix the negative funds in the bank account the governor has taken it upon him self to remove some of the spending on things he finds unnecessary. One of the historical sites that will be affected is the Lincoln library and museum. Remembrance is a way of protecting from negative affects and historical locations bring in to the state and tourists spend money which in turn adds money to the state coffers. Because of these cut backs that will all ways follow negative spending helps make it a bad choice of government policy.

The Cost of Human Life

A while back I found a wonderful article in the Pantagraph sharing the information that the government says the price of human life has dropped. To my amazement that according the the current model human life is only worth about 5.9 million dollars. I understand that the people of the United States and any government give the government its power. Under current trends inflation seems to causing things to go up in price, but acording the the government the price of human life is going down the drain. Why is this important? Well most like many corporations if the costs are low enough a few things could be lost. So does this mean that the government will do less for its people or is it just a phase?

The Electric Hum

This week I came across the chart that states how much energy is being produced by each type. The top three are Coal, Gas, and Nuclear. Recently the supreme court declared CO2 is a pollutant, what comes out of using coal as a power source. So with coal being the number one was of producing energy in the United States, it makes one think just how much pollutants are being pumped into the air we breath. Yes, coal is the cheapest and most effective way of producing energy, but it has also been in use for centuries. Solar cells are very expensive and are not all efficient at producing energy. The question is it necessary to ignore other methods of energy production? The best way to force improvements is through use, so until then bring your sun block.

Hold on to your pocket book

Minimum wage, interest rates, and unemployment have been changing. Many people consider the United States is in a recession. With current trends the United States is going to lose its position of the superpower in the world. China has been increasing its economic position at a greater speed then the United States. How should this be fixed? How about stop outsourcing and beginning to worry about our own problems instead of forcing ideas uppon others. Expansion does not all ways bring growth.

Its just a jump to the left

Now that the primary session is over its time for the nominees begin to change their minds about their policies. There are now two main players Obama and McCain both are changing position on some very important issues, but that is how you win elections. The two major candidates are trying to gain swing voters and appeal to the majority of people. The major problem with this is that many issues that brought that person to the forfront begin to take a back seat. For some BBC coverage of this go here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7474558.stm