D.C. Voting Rights

http://www.msnbc.com/id/29362689

http://www.time.com/politics/article/0,8599,1881791,00.html

This week in Washington, the senate passed a vote 62-34 to allow talks to increase the house to 437 members, and in doing so giving a seat in the house to the democratic District of Columbia. The other seat would be given to Republican Utah giving it it's 4th seat until 2012 when the next redistribution of seats would occur. D.C. has had a non-voting delegate (currently Eleanor Holmes Norton) in the House since 1971 in which allows the delegate to vote on committees but not on bills. The major argument against D.C. the idea is that D.C. is just that, a district, and the constitution clearly states that representatives are chosen by people of states, not districts. However, D.C. in most all other aspects behaves as a state. It's citizens can be drafted for war, it's commerce is controlled by the government and it pays federal taxes. In protest of the last issue the people of D.C. even have put "Taxation without Representation" on the license plate to show that they are not represented in congress. 

D.C. has been fighting for voting rights since 1801 when they were no longer allowed to vote in the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia. The 23rd amendment which was ratified in 1963 gave the district of nearly 600,000 people the right to vote in presidential elections. 

If passed in the Senate, the bill will go to the House for ratification and then to President Obama who is said to support the bill. However, it will probably go through several revisions before that happens and it will probably face a large republican opposition in both the House and the Senate. 

Facebook Terms of Use Agreement

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7896309.stm?lss

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/18/facebook.reversal/index.html

The social networking website, Facebook, is under scrutiny for its recent changes in its Terms Of Use agreement. The changes include a line which says that Facebook has the right to archive all information sent on the site, including pictures, wall posts, and messages, and keep it even after a user terminates their account. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg says that the change was made to prevent information from disappearing once the poster discontinued the account. But many members have terminated their accounts with face book, or created/joined groups associated with restoring the old facebook terms of service. For now the old terms of use have been reinstated, and it is said that facebook is rewriting its terms of use in simple language to be updated soon.

This news was important to me because I, as well as many others my age, use Facebook regularly and I was surprised to learn that my rights were not what I precieved them to be in reguards to images and text posted on the website.

Question 1: Out of the class, how many have facebook accounts? How many people knew that their rights as outlined in the terms of use agreement had changed? Why do you think people did/did not know?

Question 2: Do you have rights when you are part of an Internet group or social networking site? Do the things you post to the Internet become public domain or are they still personal property?

Clinton Warns North Korea

Sources:            

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/washington/17diplo.html?scp=1&sq=Clinton%20warns%20against%20N.%20Korean%20missile%20launch&st=cse

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/17/north.korea.clinton/index.html

 

Summary:       

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned North Korea not to undertake a test of a long-range missileTaepodong-2 missile . “The possible missile launch that North Korea is talking about would be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward,” Mrs. Clinton said. This is her first stop on her tour of Asia in which she will visit China, South Korea and Indonesia. In these visit she will discuss economic recovery, trade, the prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation and reversing global warming.   Japan’s economy is deteriorating as of Monday they reached an economic low not seen in Japan since 1974.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wishes to strengthen the alliance between the U.S. and Japan.

Explanation of Value:

            I believe this is important because we should care about our relation with other countries especially in times of economic recession. North Korea has been a threat to the United States ever since they pulled out of the Nuclear Weapon Proliferation Treaty.  Their decision to build nuclear arms and test them in their long-range missiles only weakens their. This presents a clear and present danger to our national security.

 

Will diplomatic talks be enough for North Korea to stop there nuclear arms build up?

What should the U.S. do to prevent them from using their missiles? 

Numb or Number: is trillion the new billion?

The URL for my story is-  http://www.cnn.com/2009/living/02/04/trillion.dollars/

The national debt has been slowly rising over the years since George Bush was elected president.  Recently however, it has sky rocketed to over 10 trillion dollars.  If you spent 1 million dollars a day since Jesus was born, that would only be around three quarters of a trillion dollars.  The question is how are we going to pay off this debt?  The gross domestic product of America is 14 trillion dollars, so we are still ahead of the debt, but the debt is still going to fall on the tax payers of our generation.

My two questions are:  What should Barack Obama do about the issue?  What are the people of America going to have to do?

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6714423&page=1

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123268485825709415.html

In recent news embryonic stem cell trials have gotten approval. This trial will allow for stem cell trials to be tested on humans who have paralysis to possibly reverse the effect. Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Cali., a biotechnology company has gotten the okay to start testing 10 patients with spinal cord injuries. This has been a debatable subject because the tests include using human embryos. Bush signed off saying that studying this will not include killing human lives, even though the embryos would be thrown out anyway for not being used. Obama has the power to override Bush's restrictions or atleast relax them. The scientists believe that an embryonic stem cell can develop and chnage to any human body. In animal research the cells literally repair the damage cells.

The procedure will be affordable, but can only be done within two weeks of the paralysis. The tests will show if this will even have an effect, such as movement or even feeling in the lower body. The results will not be shown over night but will possibly be seen over a period of weeks or months with physical therapy.

Why have there been political debacles over this issue for years especially with Bush?

What does this news show us about scientific pregression?