Last question: There’s another flood. You are in a rescue boat. You arrive at a rooftop to find Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. There’s only room for one in the boat. Who do you take?
Landrieu: They both get left.
Nagin: I give them the boat and get on the roof and wait for the helicopter.
Via boingboing.
Technorati Tags: nola
Condoleezza Rice has had her ten favorite songs (and comments about them) listed in the Tuesday’s edition of ‘The Independent’. The list contains Mozart, Cream, Aretha Franklin, and U2 among others. Rice is a big fan of acid rock and ‘Rocket Man’ brings back memories of her first boyfriend. We are getting to see a more personal side of many White House figures. Perhaps they are trying to prove that the government is actually run by real human beings rather than warmongering monsters.
Technorati Tags: bono, condoleezzarice, music, whitehouse
Having lived my entire life in the United States, I have been constantly bombarded with mixed messages about teenage sexuality. A recent article from the Washington Post shows that this may be unhealthy. The United States has a higher teen pregnancy and abortion rate when compared with European countries with about the same level of teenage promiscuity. Could it be all of the abstinence education? When kids are told, flat out, that sex is evil, it is not changing the fact that they will still do it. Informing teenagers and allowing them to make educated decisions would be better in my opinion. A change in the system is definitely necessary but how should the subject be approached?
I was watching the special features on “Good Night, and Good Luck” the other night when a good point came up:
Why should television news do the best it can when it is so profitable getting by with the worst it can?
Technorati Tags: goodnightandgoodluck, news, tvnews
For as long as I can remember there has been a cross on top of Mount Soledad in San Diego. And for as long as I can remember there has been a legal battle going on around the cross. On one side are the people that say it is a war memorial that should be preserved. On the other are the people that claim it is a violation of church and state to have a christian symbol on city property. I have naturally assumed that the supporters of the cross are Christians, but the Voice of San Diego has an interview with a leading imam in San Diego who also supports the cross.
As Muslims, we believe this is the freedom of the people here, because the majority of the people here are Christians, they are free to have this monument there and it shows the Christianity here.
So we are not against that thing, because it’s the majority of the people. So we don’t have any problem if we see people going to the church or those things. Because we don’t see this as fighting between religions. We support each other. We support the believers who go into the church, who go into the synagogue, who go into the mosque. Today, our fighting is with the secular, with those people who don’t believe in God. We believe in God and we support the Christians. We support the believers, the Jewish who believe in God, who believe in values.
Today we have a problem with people who don’t have values. I don’t see any problem with the Christians and with this cross in La Jolla.
Technorati Tags: christian, cross, lajolla, mountsoledad, muslim, sandiego
This was an essay I wrote in class. We were learning about Albert Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt and we were told to write a letter in the similar style. One of the names on the lists of people we could write the letter to was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I am not actually sending the letter, this was simply an assignment.
Dear President Ahmadinejad:
Recently, American news media has been in a frenzy because of your country’s nuclear ambitions. I believe that the worries created by this are misplaced. Nuclear energy would be a great asset to any country, especially yours, considering you are still finding your niche in the global economy. Besides creating power for your citizens, nuclear energy would help create jobs to increase your exports and add to your country’s credibility.
The most obvious benefit of nuclear energy, however, is the energy itself. With more energy in the hand of the Iranian people, they will be able to power their homes and places of work. This will increase the standard of living which is essential if you wish to be taken seriously by other industrialized countries. People will be less concerned about when their lights will be on and be more focused on what is really important, helping Iran. They will be able to build hospitals and schools so your population can be educated and stay healthy. The Iranian people cannot do this to their full potential without your help.
Another benefit of a nuclear program is that it will create jobs and jump-start your country’s economy. Besides the jobs created for research and development of nuclear energy, there will also be jobs made to maintain a nuclear facility. The power would always be on, allowing for people to do more involved jobs that require complex machinery or lab equipment. This will increase exports so your country will have more money to invest back in itself. Your use of precious oil will go down as well. This will be able to be sold to other countries, further increasing Iran’s economic presence.
Finally, developing and maintaining a nuclear energy program would add to Iran’s credibility in the global community. Many western countries are worried that Iran wishes to make nuclear weapons for the sake of destroying Israel. If you prove to them that your nuclear ambitions are purely for peace than they will take you more seriously. The only way to show this is to allow United Nations inspectors in your country. It is essential that you cooperate with the international community if you wish to add to your credibility.
There are many aspects of a nuclear program that could help your country, such as power, the creation of jobs and increasing credibility. If you stay on track with the plan for nuclear energy, you will be on track to creating a better country. On the other hand, if you do not, then you will face repercussions from the rest of the world.
Sincerely,
Chris Barna
Update: I have posted a further explaination of the letter.
Technorati Tags: ahmadinejad, highschool, humanities, iran, letter, mahmoudahmadinejad, nuclear, writing
ABC’s ‘Lost‘ is possibly the best show on primetime television. It is about the survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island. Besides each episode having a main storyline, there are also subtle clues hinting at what exactly is going on in the storyline.
Warning! Major spoilers from the television show ‘Lost’ in the following content. If you do not want the story ruined, leave now.
In the episode before tonight’s (something like three weeks ago), Michael stumbled back to rejoin the group after leaving to look for his son. In tonight’s episode, he gave a brief look at what actually happened to him. This will be followed up in later episodes but another event occurred that will change life on the island even more.
The man held inside the hatch attempts to kill Ana-Lucia so she is seeking revenge. After a pretty steamy scene with Sawyer, Ana-Lucia manages to steal his pistol without him realizing it. Ana-Lucia heads back to the hatch to finish off the man formerly known as Henry Gale only to find she can’t pull the trigger.
Michael comes over to see what is going on and Ana-Lucia asks him to shoot Henry. Michael asks for the combination to the locker and then shoots Ana-Lucia in the chest (killing her as far as I know). Then Libby walks in and Michael pumps a few rounds into her. He finally goes over, opens the locker and turns the gun around to shoot himself in the arm.
I am not one of the crazy hardcore lost fans who screencaps all of the ‘important’ things that everybody misses but I do have an amateur-ish (and probably very obvious) theory. Michael is attempting to frame Henry Gale. If I recall correctly, when he first opened the locker he had no idea if Henry had been tied up. When he noticed that he wasn’t he took the opportunity to frame him for the murder of two innocent people.
Technorati Tags: lost, television
With the support of both my school ASB and the California state legislature (Who took a paid holiday today), the immigration protests have certainly gained some attention in the past couple of weeks. As I headed to school this morning, I was half expecting expecting to see the school relatively empty and to be the only one attending classes today. I was wrong.
My school (with all 300 people enrolled) had a normal day, possibly because of the standardized tests going on this week. The only talk I heard of somebody actually ‘walking out’ came from two people in my grade who were simply taking an opportunity to ditch school. It seemed that the posters promoting the demonstration had been put up in vain.
When I first saw the posters around the school last week, I didn’t think much of them. My school celebrates the diverse student body that it has. I just assumed that a small group of politically motivated students had finally found their voice. Then I took a closer look at the posters and read something that shocked me. The bottom of the posters read, “If you have any questions, ask an ASB officer.”
Isn’t the ASB supposed to be a liaison between students and staff? Why would they sanction a movement that deprives the school of funding? It is sending a message from the staff to the students that it is okay to skip school, even on a week filled with testing.
My school does not really follow the rules when it comes to protests, however. Breaking the rules seems to be fine if you have a political message and have a staff member backing you.
For instance, on April 26th was the Day of Silence sponsored by the school’s Gay Straight Alliance. I was perfectly fine with the fact that some students had chosen to be silent in protest discomfort faced by many gays and lesbians about coming out about their sexuality in their own community. What bugged me, however, was that in first period, we were read a statement of beliefs of sorts (Does that break the silence?). Furthermore, many of the people protesting were allowed to break the schools dress code simply because the clothes were “given to them by a teacher.”
Back on the subject of the immigration demonstration, I decided to take the advice given on the posters and ask an ASB officer about the demonstration and, more particularly, why they had chosen to support it. I got some weird explanation of HR 4437 and how, even I, was an immigrant. I asked why the ASB would want the school to lose it’s precious money and he said it wasn’t about the money but rather that Mexican rights are more important than school.
I continued to ask about it over the next couple days and kept getting weird answers. Today there was not much talk at school about walking out. At lunch the jokes were sort of centered around “Are you going to leave?” Nobody was serious. For representing such a diverse crowd living so close to the border, nobody really took the protests seriously.
Technorati Tags: highschool, immigration, protests
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