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

Don't Pay Him Pay Me!

One of congressman Dan Brady's main points was that there is a problem with the Illinois current budget for the year. One line that really caught my attention was "if a budget is not passed many government workers will not receive checks." The question I wanted to ask, but I eventually decided not to was, "Why not just cut your salary until a budget is passed?" So at what point do the congressman get blocks on their pay?

Let Me Talk at You

During the week we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the political tool of the Filibuster was used. A Filibuster is when a senator uses is right to free speech to try and block a legislation. This tool has its pros and cons. On the good side it gives every senator his/her chance to express their ideas on a legislation. The con is that it can waste time that could be used on more important things. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with the tool, but their must be a point to the argument.

Can we learn something

The up and coming economic giant China has made its way into the news, but this time not because of the Olympics. China was once a very poor country, but some how managed to have a extensive public health system. Now that the economy is booming at extraordinary rates and the wealth boomed, but only in concentrated forms. The rural people who relied on the health care system set in place now lie dying why? Because of the small percentage of people who can afford the care do not have to share the same facilities as the poor. Why does your income level have to determine if you are able to live and participate in society or die?

Cha ching

Does making a profit excuse exploiting young people? The British American Tobacco, the parent company of KOOL, has been cough marketing its products to young children in Africa in order to widen its consumer base. Normally in my book exploiting young people to unhealthy things is frowned upon, but that must be be true as long as you don't do it any where near your investors. This kinda makes you think if some other companies will abuse young people to widen their consumer base. Anyone want a BigMac?

Mickey Mouse for mayor

During my week of collecting articles and ideas to talk about I came across this from the BBC. What fascinated me about this dead mayor being elected was not only did the villagers of this Romanian village not only know they were electing a dead guy, they gave a reason. In a further investigation of weird elections I found this on Snopes stating a foot powder won a mayoral election in Ecuador. Apparently the day before a commercial had a election theme and many people wrote it in for a name.

Draw Two

The American Party System is a process where there are two major political parties the Democrats and the Republicans. There are other smaller groups such as the green party, independent party and many others. In actual practice this means only the Democratic and Republican parties are the only two that gain enough votes. Most of the time the two major parties will run completely opposite of each other, unless that idea does not go over well with their polls then they will agree. If one of the smaller parties wanted to run they have to curve their ideas to work with a major parties agenda. So what would happen if there were more then two major parties?

Who gets your vote?

While roaming around the Onion's web site I came across this for a definition for the electoral college: "electoral college: A process by which the number of states in the Union is narrowed down to the most important seven or eight". Yes, the Onion is a comedic news network, but is their some truth in this statement? If not how else would elections like the 2000 election work? In American politics the whole strategy to winning is to please the states with the most electoral votes, not for getting more of the American people to agree with your campaign. Since the founding of the constitution technology has advanced enough to allow all the votes to be counted. If all of the votes had a fair share, then the candidates would be forced to touch all of the voters not some. Would that make things more fair.

Democracy or Not To Be

Today the question of what countries are democracies was purposed in class. Normally when one thinks of a example of democracy the United States is the the strongest example. Is this because the United States is seen as the first modern democracy, or is it nationalistic pride? So when I followed the link given by Professor Gelbman on her blog. I found it necessary that I needed to scroll down just about a page lengths down from the top of the list to find the United States ranking in at seventeen. With a short investigation to why Sweden to here is first I found that Sweden like England is run by King Carl XVI Gustaf. This means that instead of following the United States model another model had to have been followed. Also to my surprise according to the ranking chart out of all the Full Democratic states the United States has the lowest civil liberty value. While on the idea of I was reminded of this article from the BBC about bloggers being arrested. To end here is a quote from the BBC article.
"The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US."



For those who do not like clicking on hyperlinked items links are given in the order they appear:
http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf
http://pol106.blogspot.com/
http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/2853/a/21785
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7456357.stm

Introduction to the class

Well, today was the first day of Pol 106 as for how that went, I really didn't expect to talk about dictators so soon. To help connect a face to the name with this blog. I am Jacob Barham a sophomore physics major with a interest in different types of alternative energy. I am not politically savvy so thats where pol 106 comes in, to help me understant the workings of the American government.