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.