Bp Oil Spill: End of Oil Drilling?

Gulf of Mexico

Once upon a time we had a beautiful Gulf of Mexico, the ninth biggest body of water, known worldwide as one of the greatest natural resources the US could possibly have. It provided jobs, numerous types of lifestyles, and beautiful beaches for all of us to enjoy. The marine life was prospering, and it seemed like it couldn’t get any better. But then, oil-stricken greed sparked in America’s eyes yet again, and we discovered oil deep below the ocean. Our desire for energy took hold of America yet again, and we decided to start drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This would have been fine if proper procedure was taken to avoid oil pollution. Many companies have had spills, but none as major as BPs, as I’ll explain below.

BP: The Gas Guzzler

BP, also known as British Petroleum or Beyond Petroleum, is basically a major oil drilling industry, which supplies fuel to many gas station chains across the world and mainly in the US. They started in the early 1920s’, selling fuel in Britain. Around the time they formed, the entire world started developing a drastic dependency on oil for transportation and energy of all forms. They built their name on quality fuels for the entire world at reasonable prices, and have grown to be one of the biggest oil drilling companies of today. They provide for our ever growing need for heat, light and mobility throughout the entire world. On top of all that, they promised to harvest oil while remaining environmentally safe. But we now know they weren’t true to their word.

The Operation & Failure

BP started an oil well on the Gulf of Mexico, after a long ban. The reasons for not allowing drilling in the first place is, our government and many big companies were already aware of this happening as a possibility, and they pretended to be ignorant on the subject anyways and repeal the offshore drilling ban. The fact of the matter is, with oil wells there will always be oil spills. So the US government allowed offshore drilling yet again in certain areas of the US out of their own ambition to keep the country healthy while pretending to be naive as possible to what could happen as a result of this. Most people could have told you this would have happened eventually, it's only a matter of time. The first step is to start offshore oil drilling, and then all you need is bad regulation. BP then created an oil well off the Gulf of Mexico and started harvesting oil from a big pocket reserve in the ocean. Little did they know due to bad regulations and operation in general, a major failure a cured taking 11 lives and making the oil well explode. The fail-safe mechanism to keep the oil in the tube so it wouldn't leak didn't activate, thus resulting in an enormous oil spill in our oceans that you can see in the following picture below! We can try to blame BP for this, but it was really a result of our own negligence for allowing offshore drilling in the first place, and then not even regulating it in a way to where this could have all been prevented. Little did the world know, BP has also turned down many fail-safe mechanisms that could have prevented this, showing obvious disregard on BPs' end on whatever happens. It all leads to money and stability in the long run? We spent millions stopping this oil spill, and now we are paying for it with a lot of our taxes on top of all of this. Also, we now have to address the fact that the Gulf might be ruined for years to come due to such a large spill, marine life may not return for some time. Why did this happen? The answer is greed to keep our society stable, in short keeping things running (planes, cars, etc.), the solution to stopping this? An Alternative energy source that needn't be harvested from the bowels of the Earth.

Contemplation

First of all, we need to approach the fact that before this disaster, we didn’t have strong regulations at all for oil drilling. America really just wanted the oil, without a care of what the costs were, hence our many previous wars and political fumbles in the past related to oil. Due to our carelessness and strong addiction, we gave oil drilling industries the room they needed to work fast, to get America as much oil as possible. This being the downfall, we should have instilled stronger regulations from the start, since America has dealt with oil spills on small scales before, and should have known the severity of how bad things could be if something were to go wrong, which it did and now we are paying for it. All of this was inevitable, as Americas addiction to gas just doesn’t want to die. The United States consumes more gasoline than South America, Europe, Africa and Asia combined, yet we make up only roughly five percent of the entire world. Clearly there’s an issue there that we should have addressed a long time ago.

Solutions

Well, we could approach an alternative energy source, such as Brazil using their sugar canes as a fuel source for running cars. The US clearly needs to approach a new source of energy and fast, as the world will eventually run dry of oil at some point, if not we’ll get neglected by other countries eventually and get cut off, as has happened in many wars throughout history. We rely on oil more than any other country in the world, and that is really bad that we rely on something that we have little of. The US is not very rich in oil at all, and the results of drilling where there is a vast source of oil could be extremely bad, like another BP disaster for example. So, we’ll most likely continue this cycle of oil addiction until we find some new source of fuel, but until then, expect nothing less but disaster and dependence for the US.

Power Saver Award, Could It Be So Easy?

Using a new program dubbed as PC Power Management, the program centrally controls power settings on Windows laptops and desktop computers to cut down on electricity waste. Power profiles are used on every computer of the company so that the usage patterns are screened and it can be decided when to switch off the computers.
The program has the capacity to turn off computer systems that are not being used --or those that are left overnight or on weekends-- to save electricity. Users that are away do not have to worry about unsaved files as the system automatically saves open documents before shutting down.

Ford's newly installed program also includes the ability to make sure that all computers linked to the Ford intranet will be able to get software installed at off hours so that networks will not be as congested during work hours.

The new system will be implemented by Ford computers users all over the United States for this month. Other Ford users across the world, on the other hand, aim to follow suit later in the year.

According to Ford information technology project supervisor Keith Forte, in the past, around 60 percent of Ford computer users have not turned their PC's off at the end of the business day, which resulted in lots of wasted energy.

Forte adds that as a result of the new program, interruptions that are caused by software updates will be lessened and PC electricity use will be managed more efficiently.

In one of the studies conducted by Software Company IE Inc., they found out that that almost half of all employees who use computers at work do not turn off their computers by the end of the day. This has resulted in wasted power from computers amounting to over $2.8 billion in the United States alone.

Ford is famous for its efforts to become a green business. Their green business endeavors included improving energy efficiency in its United States facilities by almost 35 percent starting in 2000. The green business initiative translates to saving the annual electricity use of more than 150,000 households.

In 2008, Ford improved energy efficiency again, this time by 5 percent, which resulted in savings of around percent16 million.

Ford's efforts at becoming a green business have earned the company the Energy Star Award for the fifth consecutive year, an award bestowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Energy Star is an international criterion for consumer products' energy efficiency. It was first a government program created under the Clinton Administration in 1992.

Ford produces and distributes automobiles across six continents. Ford automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Volvo.

Terrorist Kiddies Brainwashing

Terrorists

You look at this picture and you see masked men willing to die at any moment, which is respectively scary to anyone. One might ask themselves, “How could someone willingly support their cause, including suicidal support?” Well the answer is simple. When people are put into situations that are in the extremes they don’t always know what to do and often end up doing drastic things. People love guidance in these situations. Now, the extreme in this situation is a misinterpretation of Islam and all that comes with it. Just like the bible has different branches, extremist Muslims have a different view of the main branch of Islam. They have lowered their tolerance for breaking the rules tenfold as well, even going as far as to kill people who shave. Clearly they want religious dominance; they’re even willing to go as far as suicide bombing to support it. Now if you’ve been in the US the last 8 years you probably know most of this, but do you really know how it all starts? People don’t just up and become terrorist.

Key to Technique

In many countries where they have extremist movements with rebels or dictators they always seem to have an endless supply of soldiers to do their bidding. Noticeably a lot of them are in their younger years and are willing to die for the purpose, whatever that is. How do they develop this mentality? It is a very common war tactic, which is basically premature brainwashing. When Taliban attacks a settlement, even though they take no physical property or commit acts of rape or anything like that, they still take reward by taking captives to increase their forces. Even easier for Taliban, they kidnap many children from the places they raid and recruit them, willing or not.





Unlike adults who’ve developed morals and common sense, children can easily be persuaded and once they are past the point of being naive there is no saving them. Now, this isn’t anything new, as it has been seen in Africa’s many rebel groups.

How does Taliban do it?

Taliban settlements are all over the Middle East. They’re just like any small town and even go as far as to have their own government type systems. Now, the brainwashing takes place in the ‘school’ they send the war prisoners too, not that all of them are even prisoners. Some people are just dumb and willingly join at an older age, for whatever reason. But as for the children who were kidnapped, they’re basically brainwashed in what they are told is “school”, but is really a training camp for future Taliban terrorists. Some of these kids weren’t even captured, their parents sent them off with a Taliban representative who misleads the masses promising a place of education and stability, but they were really manipulating the masses and taking their children off to die, which is a cowardly and manipulative act. The US army has discovered hundreds of sites that act as these ‘schools’ for the Taliban. What is even sicker is the chance at life they deprive these children of, ranging from ages 12 to 18, and turning them into terrorists. In the classrooms these Taliban provided were images painted on the wall that the US Army believes terrorists used to persuade kids as to what they have to look forward to in heaven.





The image above is a great example. To the average person it just looks like a luscious landscape, with a lot of forest. To children from a desert that offers little to no creativity to thought, it looks almost like heaven. They want to be there, they want to play there…and the Taliban uses this to their advantage.





By offering such claims from the Taliban, any child with that naive childish love and creativity would want to join, to see this beautiful land and all its wonderful events it has to offer, or so they are told. The images vary from many things; exotic animals, kids playing in a river near green fruitful land, a big house.
Now the images may seem simple to you, but to a child from this 3rd world country and terrain, it seems like something they can’t live without, which is why they are convinced to die for this cause Taliban instills into their heads. They tell the children that their lives are worthless, that if they serve the holy prophet and fight for the cause, endless things will be given to them after they die. That the real life will only begin after they have died for the cause, the prophet, the extremist Muslim ways. Basically, they offer them a fast option to paradise, which for kids in America is Chucky Cheese. If you ask many of those kids, “would you be willing to die for Chucky Cheese?” the majority would naively say yes. They simply don’t know any better, that’s what parents are for, hint the Taliban kidnapping them.

Possible Solution

Once someone is brainwashed there is usually no saving them, notice the name. But for the kids in these areas that aren’t brainwashed or kidnapped yet, we might be able to do something for them. The Middle East is extremely poor and therefore can’t afford public schools, which is why they sent them with the Taliban who offered such things in the first place. Now, if there were public schools provided, we might be able to cut out some of the brainwashing. They would no longer need to send their kids with Taliban in hopes of free food and education, it could already be provided, like Americas school system for example. Since education is already a necessity for countries to expand greatly and achieve good success, this would further limit the amount of terrorists as well. People would develop real inhibitions, start thinking for themselves, and possibly even master water to achieve the holy green land they so desire. Now it might sound crazy to throw this country into this spin, but it is better than the alternative. Children should be taught how to read and write among other things, not how to prepare suicide vests or quickly put together a gun. Children are taken from Afghanistan, the Middle East, Central Asia, and even Pakistan. Now we might not be able to cover it all at once, but if we approach this one by one we might be able to help these countries grow out of this. With school, people would develop new perspectives entirely. They could all change for the better. Almost 80% of suicide bombers are between the ages of 12 to 18. Had these kids been taught proper reasoning, they would have realized just how much nonsense the Taliban is feeding its components. It isn’t even all just education too, they need help with their poverty, but with proper education they might be able to achieve that wealth. In order to be successful you have to be educated, the same applies to a country. This is where to start.

Related Material

12 year old Taliban beheads American spy: http://32ea6dec.thatsprime.com


Drone strike kills Taliban Chief with 5$ mill bounty: http://840318c9.qvvo.com


British sharpshooter kills 7 Taliban in a day: http://97f8f601.seriousurls.com

2010 Legalize Marijuana?

Obama’s View on Legalization

In January 2004, when Obama was running for the Senate, he told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use or possession. "I think the war on drugs has been a failure, and I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws," he was quoted saying at a debate at a university.

While at a recent online town hall event he was submitted with a high number of questions from online viewers asking Obama what he will do about our disastrous national marijuana policy. "I don't know what this says about the online audience," Obama joked. "This was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is no, I don't think that's a good strategy to grow our economy. More than 2,100,000 people submitted a question asking in relation to marijuana policy. His denial to discuss it and not supporting his online audience which believes he should overhaul the war on drugs got him a lot of resentment from his network audience. He is frequently pressed about marijuana.

The arrests are at an all time high of 48% for just marijuana itself. In 2007 they noted 775,000 people entering criminal justice system for marijuana related offenses. Obama has been noted many times saying that’s nonsense and that something should be done about it.
65 to 70% of the drug cartels fuel for their market comes from Marijuana; the Senate committee has brought into question how to take out the profit of marijuana. One of the senators also bravely noted that it is only fueled because our country has a very high supply and demand for marijuana.

Although this is a bad time for Obama and he has many issues to concern, he still needs to address our public policy on marijuana as it has obviously failed. We’re arresting the wrong people and spending billions of tax dollars on a democracy that has a majority supporting decriminalization. The fact that Obama has openly talked about the policy many times crushes the myth of America’s prohibition on marijuana. Though his views are on both sides and have changed from time to time we’re sure to see more. California has even approached adding total decriminalization to the ballots.

Why legalize?

The majority says to have tried it or at one time knew someone who smoked. Often people consider it less severe than alcohol on all levels. The statistics show that people who die from alcohol related incidents are way higher than any marijuana fatalities, which aren't even listed because the number is so small. Alcohol deaths average roughly 40,000 a year. Aids takes roughly 18,000 life’s a year. In comparison it’s clear that alcohol is worse yet we’re still allowed to purchase it.

The war on drugs has been an issue and for marijuana it’s virtually endless. The time spent prosecuting, the cash spent jailing citizens for petty possession charges, and fighting drug cartels is costing the country countless dollars for something that’s no less harmful than our legal products of tobacco and alcohol. If we also controlled it we could tax it and cut out the cartels efforts and bring them to their fall on the marijuana level. This in turn would help out Mexico among other poor countries that import this product with high death rates because of cartels. Our economy could recover at a better rate without having to prosecute so many people because marijuana use is at its peak.

Economist Stephen T. Easton attempted to calculate how much tax revenue the Canadian government could gain by legalizing marijuana. They came to the conclusion that eventually entrepreneurs would start their own grow over a period of legalization to where the government could no longer receive a substantial tax producing themselves, but would be able to deploy a growers fee which in turn could bring about a big profit. Not to mention it would be way safer in a controlled setting because it would be grown without hormones, among other chemicals that could be harmful to a person, including steroids.

Interesting Marijuana research

Marijuana increases brain cell growth: http://b3b4d5f2.viraldatabase.com


Marijuana myths: http://476dc34d.viraldatabase.com

Sexting, a result of morons.

Well you might not have been aware but there's a problem occurring everyday with more teenagers than you'd expect. Many parents aren't even aware of the situation until it's out of hand. The problem I am talking about is teens taking texting out of hand, sending naked photographs. Not to mention that the average age of this particular crime seems to keep getting younger, it's an issue. It’s a hot topic in both high schools and middle schools. Clearly it isn't something you should do, yet people seem to keep doing it every day, regardless of the media. Not only can you get in trouble, but both sides can get felonies. If the teenager is under age they'll receive a pornography charge for taking a picture and sending it and whoever they find on the other end of the text will get a child pornography charge. This, if you ask me, is entirely fair since it shouldn’t be happening in the first place. But it's not perfect, I'm sure many people have received naked pictures that they really didn't want. It could result in harsh charges for the receiver of such texts and they can't even control the content they're receiving, so in turn they are deemed guilty as soon as the "sex text" is sent to them, regardless of if they even wanted it in the first place or if they even expected it. I'd like to think it's a result of peer pressure and not teens really wanting to send naked pictures of themselves. Then again we are living in the twenty-first century and times seem to just keep getting crazier. But I don't think that they are informing teens as to just how serious this can be, as some teens have been charged with serious felonies and received many years in prison, which is pretty harsh but you shouldn't send your pictures over anything if you're naked. What is scary is that it's such a high number of teens who participate in such acts, causing hysteria among parents; which now results in everyday lectures for many on what not to do on texts messages. A nationwide survey by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy says roughly 25% of teens admitted to participating in sexting. That is scary that a fourth of the high school population could be doing this, but I like to think statistics can be wrong. But people are going to do what they want to do, and unlike myself and many others who wouldn't send a naked picture, there's just as much who are willing too. So if you don't want your teens to do such things you need to have a talk with them and make them aware of the severity of it all! If anything, a possible option is that cell phone companies can register ages per cell phone and put an age lock of eighteen and older only on picture SMS, this way you have to be an adult in order to text pictures. But I doubt they'll do that, since those cellular companies just want cash usually. I don't think anything will be happening anytime soon though. They should try and lessen the law to a lighter sentence for people under eighteen since many of these kids now face years of jail time, which is cruel for the ones who've had a clear record and didn't really think about it. It's obvious that kids will be kids, but at the same time there should be some repercussions for doing this, a few weeks in juvie for example. They should really concentrate on the real freaks out there looking to abduct children and whatnot, the people with child pornography up the yang on their computers...not some teenagers who were stupid for just one instance. Now, the kids who spread them around to the entire school should be charged too but it's nearly impossible to find the source half the time when it has escalated to the point of some teen bringing it up. It can ruin somebody’s life and reputation and has even results in many suicides. Many companies are fortunately complying with helping to stop sexting; such as Twitter, Facebook, and even MySpace. All of which are very popular among teens, so at least they're trying to help. The main thing you should take into consideration is if your teen(s) possibly do this, and if they do, is it really with someone they trust? It can result in a permanent sex offender charge. Many of the teens convicted said they weren't aware of how bad it really was to send nude photos. You need to tell your teens that if they receive a nude photo they should delete it immediately and not inform anyone about it. If the person who sent it is a close friend or whatever, inform them of sexting and how illegal it is. If the photos keep coming even after requesting the person to stop, that is when you should approach going to tell an officer of the law. Now, with this being such a big issue, authorities may be too occupied to even concentrate on real bad sexual encounters that teens are having every day. Not to mention all of the other things that can occur in a teen’s life in this age, we really need to find a way to resolve this. But I guess we’ll have to see. Maybe it’ll be dropped because of constitutional rights, or it’ll die with time…who knows? Also, I'm curious who picked the fourth grader to decide what to call these types of messages…I mean seriously, sexting? Who pays these guys?!