Will the McRib be Back Permanently?

 "McDonald's Corp. says a key sales figure rose 4.8 percent in November, helped in the U.S. by the popularity of the limited-time McRib sandwich." 
Original Article 

The McRib was available for the month of November and just in that time, McDonald's sales went up by 4.8%. The McRib is always available in some countries, such a Germany, but only appears sometimes in the United States. Sales also grew due to caffeine drinks and value menu items. McDonald's "operates more than 32,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries."

How Safe are Energy Drinks?

 "By Monday, Four Loko, the alcohol-and-caffeine-laced energy drink, is scheduled to be removed from store shelves nationwide, following a ruling last month by the Food and Drug Administration that the safety of such beverages is unproven and that they should no longer be manufactured or sold. During the resulting media coverage, surprisingly little attention was focused on a corollary topic. What about nonalcoholic energy drinks, which will remain on sale? Are they safe? Effective? Who should be drinking them? Who shouldn’t?"
Original Article 

Now that the popular alcoholic energy drink, Four Loko, is now banned, many people are questioning how safe regular energy drinks are. research says that energy drinks contain unhealthy amounts of  
"sugar (up to a quarter cup per can), caffeine and other ingredients, like the stimulatory herb guarana and the amino acid taurine." Although energy drinks are sometimes considered "sports drinks", the truth is that very few athletes actually drink the product that they advertise. Energy drinks have sugar and also
 caffeine in them. Some athletes do say that they drink the sugar free version of Red Bull and it does improve their performance.

Man's Impact on the World's Ocean

"Carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources are causing the acidity level of the world’s oceans to rise at what is probably the fastest rate in 65 million years, threatening global fisheries that serve as an essential food source for billions of people, according to a new United Nations report."
Original Article 

As the world starts to grow, it has started to produce carbon dioxide. This gas mixes with the ocean and becomes carbonic acid. As a result, the earth's oceanic chemistry has been altered.  "The acidity of the oceans has grown 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution." The ocean's wildlife is already showing that it is being effected by the change of chemical content in the ocean. Coral Reefs are already under stress from ocean pollution and the rise in water temperature. Carbonic acid is simply speeding up the process of destroying the oceanic ecosystem.

People Support WikiLeaks?

"A small army of activist hackers orchestrated a broad campaign of cyberattacks on Wednesday in support of the beleaguered anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, which has drawn governmental criticism from around the globe for its release of classified American documents and whose founder, Julian Assange, is being held in Britain on accusations of sex offenses." 
Original Article 

A group of hackers have been attacking multiple sites that went against WikiLeaks. Some of the companies include Mastercard.com, Amazon.com and Pay Pal. The founder of the site WikiLeaks is now accused with rape. The group of hackers believe that he has done nothing wrong and that it is all politically motivated. "A PayPal representative confirmed a series of attacks, but said that while the Website had been slowed, it remained 'fully operational.' "

Why Can't Someone Donate Using the App?

 "The nonprofit world is stewing over the ban Apple has put on making donations on the iPhone via charity apps."
Original Article 

Many non-profits have made apps for the IPhone, but not even Apple knows how many different ones there are. But Apple has made it so that someone who has the app on their phone can not make a donation to the non-profit using the app. If one wants to make a donation, the app leads them to the non-profits company rather than making the donations through the IPhone app. 

Cholera from Haiti to Florida

"The first known case of cholera in the United States linked to the outbreak in Haiti was confirmed Wednesday by health officials who said a southwest Florida woman contracted the disease while visiting family in a region at the heart of Haiti’s epidemic." 
Original Article 


     On Wednesday, November 17th, heath officials confirmed that a case of cholera was linked to the outbreak in Haiti. The woman who was diagnosed with cholera had spent some time in the Artibonite region in Haiti. She has spend five days in the hospital and is expected to have a full recovery.

Obese Women and Pregnancy

"Obese women who lose weight during pregnancy may have a lower risk of certain pregnancy complications, but -- with the exception of extremely obese women -- those benefits may be outweighed by negative effects on the baby's birth size, a new study suggests."
Original Article

     Everyone knows that when women are pregnant, they do gain weight. New research shows that obese women who actually lose weight during pregnancy, may have less complications with the pregnancy. Obese women who are pregnant have a high chance of having complications with the birth and with the baby, but if they lose weight during the pregnancy, it is less likely. "Overall, those women who shed pounds generally had lower risks of emergency C-section and pre-eclampsia than obese women who gained weight during pregnancy. They were also less likely to have a larger-than-normal baby."

Terrorist Trials and Guanatamo Bay

"The mixed verdict in the case of the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court on Wednesday quickly re-ignited a fierce debate over the Obama administration’s effort to restore the role of the traditional criminal justice system in handling terrorism prosecutions."
Original Article

     Ahmed Ghailani was tried because of his relation to the embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. His sentence is 20 years in prison.  Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, says that the Obama administration should not try any of the Guantanamo terrorists and that "we should treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantanamo.” King is going to become head of homeland security and says that he will try to influence the administration when it comes to handling terrorist trials.

Prop 19 Loses

"Fourteen years after approving marijuana for medical purposes, the state’s voters refused to make it legal for anyone 21 or older to grow, possess and use small amounts of pot."
Original Article

     On November 2nd, majority of the residents in California, and many from outside of California, were keeping a close watch on the polls because this time there was a very interesting proposition on the ballot. Prop 19 is for the legalization of the use of marijuana for anyone who is 21 years or older. There are limits though. "Possession would have been limited to less than an ounce, and cultivation to 25 square feet of private land, but marijuana would have remained illegal under federal law."
     Many people think that the legalization of marijuana would have benefited the state because of the high tax that would be put on it, but the majority of California think that the state would not benefit from it and as a result, prop 19 was not passed in California.

How True is the Crime Rate Records?

"Year in and year out, the New York Police Department proudly broadcasts its statistics for major crimes. And each year for more than a decade, its numbers have showed how reports of murder, rape, robbery, serious assault and theft have hit historic lows."
Original Article

     The rate of major crimes in New York City is at the lowest it has ever been in recorded history, but the record only accounts for major crimes. Many people who live in New York City also wonder about smaller crimes, such as misdemeanor thefts and assaults. Should the data that the police put out also involve smaller crimes in order for the people to get a more full understanding of the crime rate?

Why Did BP Continue With the Well?

"Halliburton and BP knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job, the presidential commission investigating the accident said on Thursday."
Original Article

     11 wrokers were killed in the explosion that led to the very well known BP oil spil. It is recorded as the largest oil spill in history. New news has now come out saying that the cement mixture that they planned on using did not meet the standards that they are supposed to meet. One of the test results were given to BP, but they did not respond to it and the other test result was never even given to BP. An investigator of the spill,  Fred H. Bartlit Jr. said, "that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident."

College Touition and Financial Aid Goes Up

"As their state financing dwindled, four-year public universities increased their published tuition and fees almost 8 percent this year, to an average of $7,605, according to the College Board’s annual reports."
Original Article

     Right now is the time that High School stuudents are starting to apply to college. They mainly determine where they apply to based on classes, sports and the location of the college, but now that college tuition is going up, that is starting to become a critical factor when applying to a college. The good thing is that as the touition rises, financial aid is increasing also.

How Will Prop 19 Change Mexico?

"In California, supporters of Proposition 19 say one reason to legalize pot in the state is to help reduce the violent illegal drug trade south of the border, where Mexico's drug war has claimed some 29,000 lives over the past four years."
Original Article

      Over the past four years, the war over drugs in Mexico has taken the lives of over 29,000 people. Many people in Mexico doubt that if Prop 19 is passed in California, it will have little effect on Mexican drug trade. The Mexican senator says that, "The number of victims is very high.Consumption isn't going down. Production isn't going down. Money laundering isn't going down. Violence isn't going down." Four years ago, the war between the government and drug cartels began, and so far little has changed.

Four Loko: A Deadly Drink

"Mixing alcohol and caffeine is hardly a new concept, but a rash of cases involving students and others who landed at hospitals after drinking beverages that combine the two in a single large can has alarmed college and health officials around the country." 
Original Article 

Four Loko is an alcoholic drink mixed with an energy drink. This drink is 12% alcohol. People say that it is dangerous because the energy part of the drink makes you stay up and you continue drinking more than you realize you have been drinking. This drink has sent dozens of college students to the hospital and it is now showing up and more high school parties. Some states are starting to ban the drink all together.

Medial Marijuana in Nursing Homes?

"When states began embracing medical marijuana, few anticipated this inevitable scenario: patients using it would grow older, and many would need to enter assisted living and nursing homes."
Original Article 

     Nursing and medical homes get a lot of their funding from the government depending on Medicare and Medicaid. Now that the legalization on marijuana is on the ballot, many nursing homes wonder how the funding from the government will work because originally it was illegal for anyone in the nursing home to be using medical marijuana. If their patients are using medical marijuana to relieve pain, the home may receive less money from the government.

It Has Already Been 4 Years?

"The Crosses of Lafayette project was started almost four years ago by Jeff Heaton, a local building contractor, to recognize American service members who were killed in Iraq. The white markers of the antiwar site dot the hillside and are easily viewed from Highway 24."

Original Article 

If you were to ask anyone who lives in Lafayette about these crosses, they will know exactly what you are talking about, but majority of the people do not know the real meaning of them. They do know that it is a symbol for all of the people lost in the war. Many people do not know that there are also little crosses mixed in with the big ones that represent children that were lost. Some of them also have different symbols for different religions of people that were lost. The hill of crosses has been vandalized many times. At first the crosses only represented people who were lost in the Iraq war, but later 600 crosses were added to the hill to represent the people who were also lost in the war in Afghanistan. 

What is Parkour?

Cholera Outbreak in Haiti

"Anxiety has been growing fiercely that the cholera epidemic, which began last week in the northwest of Haiti, will soon strike the earthquake-ravaged Port-Au-Prince metropolitan area." 
Original Article 

     As of October 24th, 2010, there have been more than 250 deaths and over 3,100 cases of Cholera in Haiti. In areas around where the outbreak is, people are handing out soap and water purifiers and are stressing the importance of hygiene. Even though the death rate has gone down, that does not mean the disease is going to be gone quickly. 

Republicans are in the Lead for the Midterm Election

"American voters would give the edge to Republicans over Democrats by a 9-percentage point margin if the Congressional election were held today, according to a Fox News poll."
Original Article 



The upcoming election is predicted to be a very interesting one, and the results of it will be effecting everyone. A vote says that, "Three of four voters -- 75 percent -- are extremely or very worried about the future of the country, and 61 percent think life will be worse for their kids. Just 27 percent think life for the next generation of Americans will be better than life today."
Many people are worried about the economy, and people are questioning whether Obama should have handled things better when it came to the economy and health care. People are also questioning the congress and some  
say that, "an 'everyday American' could do a better job than most current members of Congress."

How can Another Spill be Prevented?

"Aid to victims of a toxic mud spill that killed nine people in Hungary last week came from all directions Thursday, as the plant behind the disaster prepared to resume production."
Original Article 

On October 4th, 2010, a horrible accident happened in Hungary, with results that are devastating. The toxic spill killed 9 people, and destroyed the possessions of many people. The cities that were effected by the spill were evacuated (almost 800 people), but are able to return to their homes on Friday October 15th, the same day that the factory will start up again. It is said that the spill will take over 12 months to clean up, and the area will, most likely, never return its condition.

Poverty Rate is Growing: How do We Fix it?

"The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, the Census Bureau reported Thursday, and interviews with poverty experts and aid groups said the increase appeared to be continuing this year."
Original Article 

Right now, the economy in America is the worse that it has been since the Great Depression. Researchers say that one in seven Americans are now living in poverty. Researchers also say that the poverty rate would be higher, but many people are "getting by" by living in homes of relatives and even non-relatives.
"For a single adult in 2009, the poverty line was $10,830 in pretax cash income; for a family of four, $22,050."
Food banks and soup kitchens have seen a giant growth in the amount of people they serve, simply in the past few years and it is suspected that the number will keep growing. 

Mysterious Mammal Found

"A new species of carnivorous mammal has been discovered in Madagascar."
Original Article 

Durrell's vontsira was first seen in 2004, but it was not captured for the first time until 2005. It was named after conservationist Gerald Durrell. After taking many samples from the animal, such as blood and tissue samples, the mammal was then declared to be a relative of the brown-tailed vontsira, but scientist are not positive. Scientist know very little about the mammal, but they do know that it lives in the wetlands of Lake Alaotra in Madagascar. They suspect that it eats small mammals and fish that live in the lake. The animal is very mysterious and there is still a lot for scientists to learn.

What is my Party?

The following are your scores. They are based on a gradual range of 0 to 12. For instance, a Conservative/Progressive score of 3 and 0 will both yield a result of social conservative, yet 0 would be an extreme conservative and 3 a moderate conservative

Conservative/Progressive score: 8
You are a social moderate. You think the progressive movement is overall well meaning, but sometimes it goes too far. On issues like abortion and affirmative action, you see the negatives of both extremes on the issue. You probably value religion, but at the same time you think it should still stay separate from the government

Capitalist Purist/Social Capitalist score: 9
You're a Social Capitalist, you think that, left to its own, Capitalism leaves a lot of people behind. You think that Health Care should be free to all, that the minimum wage should be raised, and that the government should provide jobs to all that are capable of having them. You likely hated the Bush tax cuts, and believe that the middle class has gotten poorer, and the rich have gotten richer over the past several years. The far extreme of social capitalism is socialism.

Libertarian/Authoritarian score: 5
You're a Moderate. You think that we all have certain inalienable rights that must be protected, but that sometimes laws need to be made to protect the majority's lives or quality of lives. You might think that the 2nd amendment isn't necessary anymore because letting everyone a gun is extremely dangerous to the community. You might also be against illegal drug use or public pornography because of its possible harmful effects to society.

Pacifist/Militarist score: 2
You're a Pacifist. You are angered that the United States thinks it should dominate the world through its military force. You think that the only time war is necessary is when we are in direct danger of being attacked. You also believe the US spends way too much of its money on defense, as we can practically cut it in half and still easily defend ourselves, and use that money to fix all our economic problems.

Overall, you would most likely fit into the category of Democrat

69 Days Later: Miners are Safe

"With remarkable speed — and flawless execution — one miner after another climbed into a slender cage deep beneath the Chilean earth, was hoisted through 2,000 feet of rock and saw precious sunlight Wednesday after the longest underground entrapment in human history."    Original Article 

After being stuck under ground for 69 days, the miners have finally been rescued. For the first 17 days, no one new if they were even alive, but they all survived the 69 days they spent under thousands of feet of earth. The task of getting the miners out was no easy thing. There were many factors for people to worry about. Even though almost all workers had not been damaged physically, it is said that their psychological issues are much worse. Many of the workers have been reported as acting depressed and disconnected from the world. "Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each man has readjusted." The workers now have to adjust to an entire new way of life that was nothing like the life they were living before they were trapped.

Healthcare Law Might Be Gone?

Facebook Creator Donates Millions

"The 26-year-old tycoon is pouring $100 million of his staggering fortune into Newark's blighted school system after hitting it off with the mayor of the poverty-stricken city."

The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is donating $100 Million to the school system in Newark, New Jersey. This school system has a very low graduation rate, they have low test scores and there are numerous other things that make it a not very good school system. 


"Zuckerberg is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 35th wealthiest American, with a net worth of $6.9 billion. That makes him richer than Apple's Steve Jobs and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch. Facebook has 500 million users and is valued by Forbes at $23 billion"

Original Article 

Natural Distaters can be so Devistating

Now that the flood is over, it's really big impact is starting to show

"Experts doubt that the situation will improve in time for the fall wheat-sowing season, which if missed would trigger massive food shortages in 2011."

Click HERE for full article

        No one really knew what would happen once the Afghanistan floods were over. People knew that the result would be devastating, but they did not know to what extent. As a result, over 10,000 schools and 500 hospitals were whipped away. Millions of people are now homeless and are living off practically nothing. Due to the flood, the farming land has been completely destroyed, but if the people want things to get better, the farmers need to start farming as soon as they can. It is estimated that their next harvest will not be till August of 2011.


      

13 Months Later

       13 months ago, three UC Berkeley graduates were hiking and apparently crossed the boarder into Iran. Now, due to the end of Ramadan, Sarah Shourd, will be released.

       "Bak Sahraei, the second counselor of Iran's UN mission, sent an e-mail confirming the release of Shourd, following up an earlier text message from the Culture Ministry telling reporters them to come to a Tehran hotel on Saturday morning to witness the release.
        The site is the same one where the three were allowed the only meeting with their mothers since they were detained in July 2009."
Original Article

      There is no real way to determine if they really crossed the boarder but the three students have been held as prisoners for the past 13 months, under the suspecting of being spies. Sarah Shourd is now going to be released. She told her mother that she is sick and that they have denied her any medical help. Good thing she can get help as soon as she gets released. The fate of the other two hikers, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, is unknown. Hopefully they will be released soon as well.

Quran Burning Cancelled

As a "compromise", the Quaran burning was called off and the mosque in New York will be moved.

"The anti-Muslim leader of a tiny Florida church backed off his threat to burn the Quran, defusing an international firestorm Thursday after he said he was promised that a planned Islamic center and mosque would be moved away from New York's ground zero. The imam planning the center, however, quickly denied such a deal."
Original Article


       If Pastor Terry Jones had continued with his decision to burn the Quaran, no one would be able to predict the outcome of his action. The agreement to not burn the Quarn also came with a result of changing the location on the mosque. On Saturday, Jones and Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, will be meeting with the imam who is making the plans to build the mosque.
      As a response to Jones' announcement:
"We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony." -Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (Leader of the Islamic center project)
      Many things are at risk with the entire situation. If the Quaran burning does end up happening, our troops could be in danger and no one knows what the rest of the world would do in response.

When Will We Wake Up?

"My friend Rob Watson, the environmental consultant, likes to say, 'You know, if you jump off the top floor of an eighty-story building, you can actually feel like you're flying for seventy-nine stories. It's the sudden stop at the end that gets you.' If we don't wake up, that is where we're heading-toward a sudden stop at the end."
-Thomas L. Friedman (Author of Hot, Flat and Crowded)

The population has grown very swiftly in the past 20 years. As of 2009, the estimated population of the world was 6.8 billion people. It is estimated that by 2050 there will be 9.4 billion people on our planet. This is what is going to destroy the planet and all of its resources. I do not think there is no real practical way to solve this problem, but I do believe that it is possible. No one has simply come up with the solution yet. It is very hard to believe that so many people in the world do not believe that we have a problem and that they do not realise that we need to figure out a way to fix the problem we have.

http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_hamblin_eds_10/12/3275/838447.cw/index.html
Population Growth:
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm

The New Generation

         "Our parents' generation had to be the Greatest Generation, 'because the threats they faced were real, overwhelming, immediate, and inescapable-the Great Depression, the Nazis, and the nuclear-armed Soviet Communists,' said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. 'That generation was ready to fight the Korean War and mobilize for the Cold War, precisely because it had been through the Depression and World War II. That generation understood how bad things could get."
-Thomas L. Friedman (Author of Hot, Flat and Crowded)

        Although the generation that experienced all of those historical events were ready for anything, it is up to my generation to either fix or completely destroy our world. My generation has such a huge effect on the world, and we do not even realised it yet. We could be the ones to solve all of the economy's problems and figure out a way for the world to not run out of resources. It is estimated that the world will run out of it's resources in my life time and it will be my generation's job to make sure that does not happen.


When will the earth run out of resources and what is causing this to happen?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jul/07/research.waste

The Gas Guzzler

       "Detroit introduced the sport-utility vehicle and successfully lobbied the government to label these as light trucks so they would not have to meet the 27.5 miles per gallon standard for cars, but only the light truck standard of 20.7. So we became even more addicted to oil. When i asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, why his company didn't make more fuel-efficient cars, he gave me the standard answer: that GM has never succeeded in telling Americans what cars they should buy. "We build what the market wants," he said. If people want SUVs and Hummers, you have to give them what they want.
       But what the Detroit executives never tell you is that one big reason the public wanted SUVs and Hummers all those years was that Detroit and the oil industry consistently lobbied the Congress against raising gasoline taxes which would have shaped public demand for something different. European governments imposed very high gasoline taxes and taxes on engine size-and kept imposing them-and guess what? Europeans demanded smaller and smaller cars. America wouldn't impose more stringent gasoline and engine taxes, so American consumers kept wanting bigger and bigger cars. Big Oil and Big Auto used their leverage in Washington to shape the market so people would ask for those cars that consumed the most oil and earned the companies the most profits-and out Congress never got in the war. It was bought off."

- Thomas L. Friedman (Author of Hot, Flat and Crowded)

         At first, the Hummer was a good idea, but the idea was very short sided. It was not a very well constructed business plan. They planned on everyone wanting one because of the look and the luxury of the car, but it seems as if they did not think of the other half of the equation. The company did not think of the fact that their car only got about 12 miles to the gallon and after a while, this would become very undesirable to many people.

Interested in Thomas L. Friedman's book?
http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Flat-Crowded-2-0-Revolution/dp/0312428928/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283486975&sr=8-1