Advancement or Not?

While I was on my home page today, I saw an interesting article titled, No email soon for web- savvy Obama? Interested in why he will not have an email, I clicked on the link. The article went into depth about how Obama will most likely have to lose his beloved blackberry once he takes office. Once I got a couple paragraphs into the article, I realized how much it related to the discussion we had in class on Wednesday. As the article progresses, it talks about how Obama is inseparable from his blackberry because it lets him stay connected with his acquaintances via email. And because of security measures, Obama will have to lose the cell phone once he takes office. This made me think back to our discussion on whether technology advancements that spurred in the last decade are good or bad. I thought that this article showed a little bit of both sides of the argument. Many people believe the advances are great because of the ability to communicate easily through email. But the internet also causes many security risks. Identify theft has sky rocketed since the internet has became popular. The article addressed a form of this risk, people hacking into Obama’s email and sending emails that could cause controversy. The Presidential Records Act would make this very harmful because it makes emails that the president sends available to the media. This would create a huge controversy if a hacker was able to hack into Obama’s personal email on his phone and send suspicious emails. Any false information about the stock market that would scare the buyers into selling is the last thing this country needs right now. I believe with every advancement comes a setback. The internet and email show the great progress this world has made, but it is impossible for it to come without a negative aspect, and this just happens to be it.

Just a Speculation?

While talking to my dad a couple days ago, he brought up how much the stock market has dropped from Tuesday (when Obama was elected president) to Thursday. My dad thought it could have possibly been because Obama’s economic plans don’t favor big businesses. Investors know this, and if they think the businesses will falter because of this, they will sell their stocks. I wondered if this was the real reason why the stock market’s 1,000 point crash, the worst in a two day period since 1987, happened. I found a very interesting article that discussed speculations of the stock market’s crash linked to Obama. The article gives quotes and video clippings of people discussing their beliefs that the stock market crash is directly linked to Obama. One quote, from Fred Barnes, summarized my dad’s feeling exactly, “We have seen the stock market go down over 800 points the last two days. There is great uncertainty out there about [Obama’s] policies.” The validity of this statement was exactly what I was wondering. But the last paragraph of the article answered my question. It said that “the recent market plunge has absolutely nothing to do with Obama”. It used New York Times as support, “There were no clear catalysts that spurred the sell-off”. I was pleased to read this, because I was excited and happy to see Obama elected president. I thought it was interesting how Obama is already being the scapegoat for issues in our nation, though he isn’t even the president yet. This event made me wonder if it is foreshadowing how critics and news reporters will treat Obama in the four years to come.

True Promises?

Tonight at the dinner table, the topic of discussion was appropriately the election, seeing how America voted for a new president today. I was asking who my parents voted for and why they chose that candidate, which led to the topic of candidates positions on certain issues. After talking about Obama’s and McCain’s position on certain issues, I asked my parents how realistic they thought these plans were. My dad made a very interesting point about how he thinks that many of the tax and economic plans will get “watered down” because of the checks and balances that take place in our government. He thought that any plan would be leveled out because of the fairly even split in Congress. I thought it was interesting how closely related this comment was to what we have been discussing in class the past week. Last week we went over the Constitution of the United States, and discussed the checks and balances in the United States. For a bill to pass, it must receive 2/3 the vote in both houses. If a bill favors one party’s ideas more than another, it would be hard for the bill to get passed. This is why the bills would have to get “watered down” in order to be put in effect. Both my parents thought that their economic and tax plans were very idealistic because the bill they proposed would be modified and redrafted in order to get passed through congress. The chance that the final bill will be similar to what they propose is very slim. Overall, I thought it was interesting how much my dinner conversation related to what we’ve been discussing in class.