Bad example of web usage for Millennials

A 19 year old college student committed suicide via live video-streaming a couple days ago. This student notified people through a body building website then provided a link to a video streaming website so people could watch. While he was streaming, some members of the audience egged him on, some tried to talk him out of it, and some debated whether or not the dosage was high enough to kill someone.

The body was found several hours later when someone watching notified the body building website who then traced the IP address and notified the police. The camera was still rolling as the teen lay dead on his fathers bed. 

A professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio said "Bigg's very public suicide was not shocking; given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites like Facebook or Myspace."

That attitude towards our generation is ridiculous, of course the way he did it was shocking, why would you broadcast an attempt to kill yourself? I think this adult does not understand our generation, while we may constantly update people on our lives, it is not a logical next step that if you want to kill yourself, you put it in live feed. 

The way the Millennials are using the web is increasingly changing, but I hope it never escalates to a place where this kind of thing is common. 

Protect Our Sidewalks!

Princeton passed thier own Proposition 8 to protect their sidewalks from freshmen. After all, traditional values are important!

Number Crunching

While doing some digging around on Facebook I managed to crunch some numbers and I was quite surprised by some of the information I was able to uncover. I utilized the adervising section of Facebook to get a hold of the amount of users and millennials in the U.S and abroad. I found that around the world there are approximately 74, 057, 840 millennials who use Facebooks. Out of the approximate 120 million total users that accounts for 61.7% of the total Facebook community. This stat was slightly surprising to me. I initially was anticipating the number of millennials on Facebook to be much closer to ninety or ninety-fice million. If this were true then millennials would constitute approximately seventy-five to eighty percent of all Facebook users.

Another stat that took me by surprise while I was crunching the numbers was how many millennials from abroad are from abroad. I figured that there would be a rather significant amount of users from outside the United States, but the fact that 41% of millennials on Facebook (not including the United States) were from other countries. Despite how the U.S apparently makes up about one-third of the total millennial population on Facebook, I was truely expecting the number of U.S members to dwarf the numbers of members from abroad by a much greater amount.

One final point of interest was how many Facebook members from abroad are members of political groups in support of Barack Obama. As I was scrolling through the group titled "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" I decided to take a look at their list of members. I only looked through the first fifteen pages of their list and found members from twenty different countries that included: Japan, Sri Lanka, Poland, the Philippines, Morocco, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Singapore among many others. This really caught my attention because I found it intriguing to see how many Facebook members from abroad are taking a serious interest in American politics and how many are organizing with millennials within the U.S in support of a particular candidate.

Sign of the Economy

You can't open a newspaper, or turn on the TV, or listen to the radio, or look at a blog, without hearing about how the Economy is In A Downturn, and we Might Be Facing A Recession.  All those experts, saying the same thing.  Well, they might actually be right.  In an article in The New York Times, the shoe-shiners in Grand Central Station are saying that business is down.  And when shoe-shining business is down, you know the economy is doing badly.  It's one thing when the average, middle-class teachers and journalists and computer technicians start cutting back on their daily Starbucks runs.  But when the real-estate guys, the bankers, and the stock brokers start cutting back on shoe shines, that's when we can start worrying.  These are guys that used to get a shoe shine every day, like clockwork.  Now, they're down to only once a week, maybe twice at most.

On a plus side for the shoe-shiners (and environmentalists), their repair business is up.  Instead of buying a new pair of shoes, people are much more likely to get the shoes repaired - cheaper and good for the environment. 

Clinton as Secretary of State

An NBC report published today claims that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State after Thanksgiving. According to the report, Clinton will not reject the offer, meaning she will have to relinquish her her position as New York Senator. The report points out the underlying view of some Democrats, government insiders, as well as the general public, that Clinton is too independent and politically ambitious to work effectively with Obama as Secretary of State. They also allude to many Democrats', including Obama, admiration of Clinton's talent and experience.

Clinton may be ambitious, but so is Obama, so is every politician that seeks to become president. Aside from that, what this gives the Democrats right now is the two most influential politicians working together in the White House. If Clinton does indeed take the nomination, it forms a very formidable cabinet, at least from the image perspective. If they stay together, it will be difficult for the Republican party to mount for serious contention in the next election, if it wasn't already hard enough for them.

Obama's move is smart for two reasons. First, the Hillary Clinton supporters who so desperately wanted a woman president were once again disappointed when Obama decided to pass on nominating her for the Vice Presidential position. Nominating her for Secretary of State would have possibly been the next best position to nominate her for. The Clinton supporters will at least be happy to see her in such a high position. Second, this move will hopefully temporarily stunt Clinton's great ambition to become president, until Obama two terms are over. It doesn't usually happen that someone from the same party challenges the existing president in the primaries, it is not a popular move. However, if anyone could pull it off, it would certainly be Hillary Clinton especially after she made it this close to the presidency. This move might allow for her to step back on the political ambition until Obama is finished. Or she could break off regardless of how Obama does in his first term and challenge him in 2012. But it would be an all or nothing move. If she wins, she will have pulled off the first victory over an incumbent of the same party. But if she loses, it could resonate poorly within the Democratic community and greatly affect her chances if she would ever want to run again, say in 2016 which she very possibly could win.

Extension of jobless Benefits

It is obvious that America has faced one of the worst financial crises. In response, to the horrible economic climate the senate has voted to extend unemployment benefits by seven weeks in every state. The bill calls for benefits to be extended by 13 weeks in states with an unemployment rate of at least 6 percent. President Bush announced that he will sign the bill, which was approved by the House in October. In September, Bush had threatened to veto a broader stimulus bill that included the extension of jobless benefits. In most states, unemployment benefits are paid for a maximum of 26 weeks. Ironically, the Senate vote came on the same day the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the number of people filing for unemployment insurance had reached a 16-year high. U.S. job losses have been increasing. This month, the Department of Labor reported that the economy lost 240,000 jobs in October, bringing the total number of jobs shed in 2008 to nearly 1.2 million. The unemployment rate rose to 6.5 percent, a 14-year high, last month. Companies reporting layoffs in past week include Citigroup, which slashed 20 percent of its work force, or 50,000 jobs, the biggest cut by a corporation in 15 years. Financial services firm Fidelity Investments announced that it will cut 1,700 jobs and Sun Microsystems reported that it would lay off 6,000 people, or 18 percent of its work force. (To see actual article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/20/senate.jobless/index.html)
This problem is so terrible; the problem is not solved so until it is many people will continue to lose their jobs. The economy determines whether or not many families can afford to live or simply just get by in this chaos. This is the least the government could do by not fixing this problem when it wasn’t so bad. But wait until many people are unemployed to actually do something profitable. It won’t make a difference because the problem is maintaining a job where increasing the duration of benefits may not be enough for many families or anyone for that matter.

Obama Poised to Rebrand America?

Obama is confident to restore America's image internationally so now everyone is waiting to see his efforts in action. This task will not be so easy for Obama to complete; he has his work cut out for him. America's notorious image has declined in every region around the world. Obama's victory as president of the United States represents America starting over in terms of fixing America's problems. America's reputation has taken quite toil thanks to opposing factors such as the Iraq war. Dick Martin, author of Rebuilding Brand America states, “Changing America's standing in the world was going to be the work of a generation, and it would have to start with some kind of grand gesture that demonstrated that things were changing. His election in itself is that kind of grand gesture." To many people like Martin, Obama is an incarnation of change and is admired for that quality. Police estimates that more than 200,000 people came to watch Obama's victory speech. Bush's presidency was very much unpopular so for America's image to be restored by Obama is very much hopeful.
Obama’s efforts to change America’s image is a movement in its self because it was so easy for America to “mess up,” it is hard to actually rebuild. Being president is a job that is not suppose to be easy and requires so much work. Although Obama’s efforts seem too good to be true, it was also too good to be true for him to be president and he did it. It was a challenge to persuade America that the right man for the job would be African American. Obama’s approach is to include Americans with his process as well still be cautious. The faith Obama have given Americans is exactly how he works. Now all we can do now is wait to see that process that we are promised.

CNN Posts Final Results

Cnn has posted all of the results. The results include who different age groups voted for, the number of electoral votes, and who males and females voted for. Click here to view the Final Results. 

New York Times Finally Endorses Welles Position

In another example of our blog's reach, the New York Times yesterday made its support known for the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. It did so by using a line of reasoning very similar to a post I made about a month ago. While you might think that I would be angry at the New York Times's poaching, I'm just happy that they've seen the light. Now if only President-Elect Obama can be convinced...

Dog Racing Banned

I was for keeping the dog tracks open. I wasn’t against the dogs because I knew that there had never been one charge of abuse brought forward in all the years they had been opened. I certainly wasn’t worried about owner George Carney because he has plenty of other businesses from owning hotels, restaurants, the Brockton Fair to name a few. I was worried about the fact that voters could put a business out of business, and that still bothers me. I was also worried about all the people who would loss their jobs and would be unable to get another one. I was also worried about the town of Raynham and all the surrounding towns. Shutting down the track was going to have a profound affect on these communities. I was not alone in this fear because all of the surrounding towns voted to keep the tracks open. The people of those towns felt that the vote should not have been state wide but rather it should have stayed in the communities affected. They have a point since the voters who aren’t affected voted to close them down. But now that the votes have been counted, I’m not so sure it was the worst thing that could have happened. The tracks won’t close until 2010 so at least that gives the workers and towns a little bit of time to works things out. More importantly, Carney has been trying to get slot machines into the track for years but has been shut down. Now this ideas has been brought back up again and maybe it will be passed so people will keep their jobs and the towns won’t be so hurt. Slot machines will bring even more money to the towns and even millions to the whole state. Governor Deval Patrick has been trying to bring gambling to Massachusetts so wouldn’t this be the perfect solution. The site is already there and the surrounding communities would welcome it and the rest of the state would benefit. It is a win-win situation, especially for the dogs.

A Regional Party No More: Republicans on the Run

Upon seeing this chart on the New York Times website this morning, I am curious to see Obama feels about it. The truth is that one of the major parties is essentially reduced to regional-party status, and it is the Republican Party. One of the easiest ways to gauge Obama's performance this year is in individual states this year - and get a sense of trends evolving in that state - thus compare his improvement over Kerry since the last election cycle in 2004. For example, Obama outperformed Kerry in both South Carolina and Montana among other states.

It seems the West loves Obama, especially in the most populous areas. Obama won Colorado by 8 points, Nevada by 12 points, and New Mexico by 12 points. Obviously, those are dramatically better numbers than Gore or Kerry put up in their races in 2000 and 2004 respectfully, and Bill Clinton had only one performance in these states that more or less matched these, an 8-point 1992 victory in a three-person race in New Mexico. He won nailbiters in Nevada both elections, and lost Colorado in 1996. Obama did slightly worse than Clinton in much of the rural West, oddly enough but again, far better than either Gore or Kerry. The improvement in the West is amazing and if it keeps up, experts believe that Arizona, Montana and maybe the Dakotas will be swing states in 2012, while Nevada and New Mexico will be blue states well past the next cycle.

What about moderately blue states? They liked the ticket and Obama won all of them by double digit margins. For those who forget what these states are, they are the following: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. Unfortunately Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York showed the least improvement but that is perhaps of their high margins when Kerry ran in 2004.

However Obama did lose ground from what I can determine from the chart in every single Southern state except for Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. You know what these states have in common? They all have fairly large black populations (and in Texas' case, a large Hispanic population), and they also have experienced great population growth in the last decade, and have a generally better educated, more affluent, more urban and suburban white population than seen in other Southern states. Arkansas is the state where Obama performed the worst this entire year losing it by 20 points. Even Kerry did better, but still lost it by 9 points.

Apparently, the areas which showed the least improvement for Obama - or showed improvement for Republicans - are in Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, West Virginia, rural Missouri and Kansas, much of the rural South, and McCain and Palin's home states. Without speculating on why those areas are the most resistant to Obama's candidacy relative to those of less successful Democrats, it seems that those are the areas Democrats have to focus on going forward, and experts and myself would concur with that point. It's clear, though, that whatever the reason, the white rural South - and demographically and culturally similar areas in the lower Midwest and Appalachia - are regions where we should be focusing on building the party. The Republicans are now reduced to being essentially a regional party; the South is the only region where McCain won by less than 10 points. It's now our job to find a way to sell a Democratic message in their Southern stronghold.

I would recommend anyone who is interested in this subject to read Zell Miller's book, 'A National Party No More.'

Rallies

Proposition Eight is easily the most controversial law passed by voters in a long time. Not only does it draw in the religious side, but the civil rights argument as well. The ban on same sex marriage was passed in Fl, Ar, and Cali. The response to these results have been great in number, and not just in those states, but across the country. 

I know there was a protest held in Providence advertised by the school that students could attend. I myself did not go, but I imagine there was a fair number of students that participated. This site was no isolated incident, they are happening in many cities.

The protesters were of course met with counter-protests. The protestors against the passage of the ban had signs with sayings like "All you need is love", "Love and Unity not Hate". Those protesting the protest had counter sayings such as "Theres nothing civil about a man marrying another man". 

This issue is very heated, and only expected to become more split as time goes on. The site that planned the rallies in California, Join The Impact, says they will be holding future rallies in increasingly larger numbers.