All I Want For Christmas is NOT The TSA

When read my classmate, Anival Valdez , entitled The Search Allure goes into the topic of the TSA. Oh that word has most defenantly been in the news all too many. With Valdez's lovely written post about it, it is something to chat about.

Now that the holidays are in full force and the airports are with flyers wanting to make a safe trip to thier destination for the winter holiday. However there is one minor setback to this, now a person is required to have a TSA scan, or even better (not) if you choose to opt out of it, there is always the handsy pat down. For me this seems to cross the line just a tad when it comes to invading "personal space". I understand the government is doing this to the terrorist attack that happened back in 2001 and that high sequrity measures must be taken in order to prevent anything further from happening. I believe the government has taken it too far. I for one, even though I rarely travel, personally don't want any adult to be touching me. period.

Having a full portrait taken of your body or have your personal space being invaded in a hands down pat down? Is there a choice 'C'? There really isn't much more to say about the TSA, except those who voice thier opinions on You Tube which these people have made a very clear statement and voiced thier opinion. The two that I know of are Phillip De Franco who adds in his daily show that dry humor ( is that correct? ) which is slightly humorous..coming from him. ( see here ).

Getting Your Green On!

My blog response is dealing with my classmate, Samantha Johnson on her blog post entitled "Going Green" . I must first point out that her statement has been very well written, and on a good subject at that, concerning the topic of "Going Green" which has seem to be the new catchphrase for quite sometime. In her blog she mentions that the US Cabinet is actually planning a multi million dollar package that will go towards finding re newable resources. The state of Ohio has already started to jump on this bandwagon by requiring over 12% of thier energy from solar or from wind ( I give two "green" thumbs up for this).

With that being mentioned, I am fully agreeing with Samantha on this one, Going Green should be pushed further into our country. Even have other states follow something similar to what Ohio is already doing. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree about being green for our mother earth, as it can help save our planet and make it better. Its actually being done as we speak, there are alot of people spreading the word about making our planet a better place, using re newable resources for something else. Alot of people are already recycling which is a big help in eliminating waste and polution from the air that we breathe. We save trees that allow us to have air in the first place. Not only recycling is helping us, but also by carpooling we eliminate gas from the air as well, thus preventing further polution in our ecosystem. There are even now in the makes (or already are) cars that we can simply plug into an outlet and have it recharge, reducing oil consumption that may one day be completly gone. Where would we go from there? rechargable cars of course. This is the new future that could one day make a very noticable impact on our ecosystem.

Going from that, there is a program called Ecomagination that has actually teamed up with "celebrities" on Youtube, to spread the word about being eco friendly to our world. By doing so viewers, or subscribers actually suggested ideas to them to do to help. From there the Youtubers picked thier favorite ones, or by the viewers popular vote, and went out to film thier assignment. For an example, iJustine, who is one of the well known Youtubers who participated with Ecomagination, went with carpooling. Though the kind of carpooling you wouldn't expect ( click here ) I must say its pretty inventive, and of course humorous. With Ecomagination branching out to social media sites, maybe more people will participate and " Get Your Green On".

Walk Out On the View?

Ohhh The View. The television show that comes on right after Ellen. Of course everyone knows who the cast of the View is, ranging from Whoopi to Barbara Walters, where in fact the gaggle of women talk about current stances in the news and what happening in the world. From there they entitle themselves and discuss and spew out thier honest opinions.
Now from time to time they will have special guests come onto thier show to sit down with them on thier couch and join in on the current topic. Now guess who was in the hot seat? Thats right Bill O' Reilly. From what I have seen searching through YouTube that this isn't his first time sitting down with the ladies at thier half circle. Obviously this his is second or third time.

Apparently this has sparked up alot of blog entries on certain political blogs showing the actual clip in which shortly into the two minute mark the ladies, and with Bill right smack down in the middle, go at a heated cat fight trying to outvoice the other over the muslim church that is said to be possibly built near ground zero. Before you know it, and minus a few profanities muted out from the ABC company, Whoopi stands up along with one of the other co-hosts and promptly storms out of the set- the crowd cheering.

And this is why you shouldn't talk about politics nor have a discussion that could possibly lead to something that has something to deal with something like that. This is exactly why, but then again I have no idea who this Bill O'Reilly guy is. Am I out of the loop?. I took to this bloggers post because it involved the media and it was something that initially caught my eye. Seeing to this and after watching the spatting fued, I can see why Whoopi and her other Co-Host (sorry can't remember her name) stormed off. They have every right too, though i personally don't know what i would do in that situation. Though it seems that Mrs. Barbara trys to calm it down after the two walked off the show.

To put it simply, thats politics for you. But what do you think about this "fiasco"? Was it appropriate for Whoopi and the other to just walk off the show, leaving Walters and the other ladies to calm the situation? Or do you side with Bill on this? Was his repetitive line too harsh?

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/bill-oreilly-inspires-walkout-view-m

Bystandards with Guns Can Be Proved Deadly?

In a recent article in the Dallas Morning Post, has recently discussed the shooting on the University of Texas campus. Which of course this turns the question about having the right to carry concealed hand guns or having hand guns in general on a public grounds such as UT. If you have been living under a rock for the past week, on Tuesday morning around eight am a nineteen year old student (of UT) came onto campus with an AK-47 in hand. Upon arriving on campus accounts and witnesses of this event said the gunman, who was later identified as Colten Tooley, shot around 15 rounds in the sky and then ran around campus. From there he ended up in the schools library on the sixth floor, and shot himself. Thankfully no one was hurt. With this being national new, this circulated everywhere around the fifty states, and caused a commotion of opinions of weapons in general. Even the infamous Phillip De Franco discussed the topic at hand on his daily show on YouTube.

In this article written and opinionated by Arthur Markman brings this subject upfront. Being an actual proffesor at the University of Texas he believes that he doesn't think that "arming civilians is the right way to protect our campuses." Markman then continues to address two reasons why he thinks this way. One is abstraction and the other choking under pressure. Arthur then goes on in his article explaining, as being a psychologist proffesor himself, that college campuses are a very crowded place and that if you put an armed shooter into that senario which equals chaos. He then goes to add other civilians with hand guns themselves and states "what exactly are they supposed to shoot at?" and "how do they determine when its safe to shoot?". The psychologist then continues to explain a certain situation that could open up a can of worms. He then ends stating that he believes that "adding extra guns into an already chaotic situation is a recipie for tragedy".

After this being said, and his opinons open on the table to pick at and disect, I can see where he's going. However, there are always two sides to every topic concerning something like this. In my honest opinon I'm once again torn between the two sides (yes once again, don't I pick the best subjects to discuss about? *sarcastic tone*). Anyways I believe that if you do allow armed guns on campus, and per say the majority of students had one, couldn't that cause even more concern that someone could just randomly whip it out of thier backpack and cause harm to the surrounding students? Yet lets put the other side into another situation, like the Columbine shooting. What if a student that was there at the time of the shooting had a gun and had a clear shot to the two students? Would they take that heroic step and shoot the bad guys and saved a bunch of classmates? So yes, point blank I cant decide which side i'm on, there are advantages and disadvatages to the matter at hand.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-markman_30edi.State.Edition1.13af672.html

"Dont Ask, Don't Tell"

In an article that was posted in the associated press, deals with the Senate urged to repeal the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" Policy. Apparently this has been an "open wound" situation dealing with the senate and congress about whether or not to repeal this current policy. For 17 years this has been an issued law that strictly bans openly gay members of the military.


Upon further reading this current article, it is stated that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen- are "both in favor of the D.A.D.T policy". However, they perfer " that the change wait until the military completes a review of the issue".

As well as that they also want to review and conduct surveys with the troops as well as their families to get thier views on the subject at hand. Not only that but to also determine "how a change would be implimented".

To not open up any can of worms on the subject matter (as this one is a touchy one at that) I, personally, will have to stand on neutral grounds. I can see where the opposing side of this does come into the picture, but not only that see the perspective of the other side as well. Though how I came to hear about this heated debate was not World News Tonight, but from Kathy Griffin herself. Yes, on "Kathy Griffin- My life on the 'D list". With her, erm, spunky self I had a brief over view of the "D.A.D.T" policy. Not only that her views on it and her rallying support of complete strangers to sign a piece of parchment to repeal this law.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gays_in_military