Legalizing weed and taxing it

“Assuming a tax of $.50 or $1 per joint, we can venture a rough estimate of the revenues that could be raised from legalized cannabis. According to the 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, some 19.5 million Americans used marijuana at least once a year, of whom 5.3 million used at least once a week and 3.1 million daily. About one-half of the latter are thought to be multiple daily users, who can be expected to make up the bulk of total consumption.”(Dale Gieringer) Our nation is in tremendous debt and growing at an estimated 3.82 billion dollars each day. Now legalizing and taxing weed won’t fix the problem but it will help by an estimated 26.7 billion dollars of new tax money each year.

http://norml.org/library/item/revenues-from-legalization

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

 

E85 ethanol vs. gasoline

E85 ethanol is a blend of 85% ethanol made from corn and 15% regular gasoline. E85 is easier on the environment producing less green house gasses. The price right now is around $3.10 compared to gas around $3.50. So why haven’t we already changed to E85? We there are some down sides to E85. The gas mileage is estimated to be 20-25% lower with E85. Also it takes around 26 pounds of corn to make one gallon. We would have to grow much more corn to keep up with demand. With that being said I don’t see E85 taking place of gasoline anytime soon.

http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/e85-vs-gasoline-comparison-test.html

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/question707.htm

The Real World: College Life

With graduation approaching and everyone getting ready to pack up and venture out into what life has to offer, it’s interesting to see what’s going to happen once all the madness of that is over. It’s going to be that time to turn one’s tassel from the right side of the cap to the left and should be a really prideful moment. The real world may be ready for us to enter into in it, but are we actually ready for the real world?

Going from the college life to the work life is getting to be tougher nowadays for most people with the unemployment rate for recent college graduates at 8.9% due to the limited amount of jobs out there. For me, with a liberal arts degree in communication studies, it has been said that it pretty much is a waste of a degree when trying to find work. It’s to the point where the government is trying to dictate which degrees we should choose by introducing a plan in which state institutions charge less for STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering, and math) than liberal arts degrees.

“We’re spending a lot of money on education, and when you look at the results, it’s not great,” Scott told a crowd in Tallahassee in 2011. “Do you want to use your tax money to educate more people who can’t get jobs in anthropology? I don’t.”

I don’t think that’s actually the case. Nowadays it’s hard to find jobs anywhere for any degree really. For a STEM degree you really only learn one skill, the logistics of things, whereas with a liberal arts degree you are learning a wide range of skills like logistics, communications, and creativity. You are using both sides of your brain with liberal arts, whereas you use basically just use the left side. That is mainly my own opinion and I know not everyone is like that, but I do feel that a liberal arts degree isn’t as easy or a waste of time and/or money like people think.

People and Their Fracking Opinions

There is a major fracking debate happening in Argentina involving their government and oil and gas companies. The oil and gas companies have found what is believed to be an excellent location to pursue their fracking. Though, this leads us to a problem. As we know, fracking is an act of fracturing the earth in order to extract shale gas. In doing this, major damage can be done to the surrounding environment.

So let’s get into the problem. The fracking is being done in the indigenous communities. The residents and other local environmentalists are concerned with the amount of damage that will be caused to the environment if this is continued. This drilling has been done close to the fruit tree orchards in the area as well as a major aquifer that spans to three different countries. This is a reserve for freshwater for a number of locations in that region.

There was “an ordinance passed to ban fracking, but this was vetoed a short time later by the municipal government.” It was then upheld by the legislative assembly which allows the oil and gas companies to continue the fracking process.

The way I see it, fracking is needed; but there ought to be a better location for it. These companies are fracking in these locations because it is a good source of shale gas, but there are other places that it can be gathered. The reason why these companies do not want to go to the other locations is because the job would be more expensive. While this is a great business move, it is done without any ethics. Spending a bit more money on equipment, and saving natural resources from natives is a far trade for an ethical company, and I believe this is what needs to be done.

 

 

Article: http://www.globalissues.org/news/2013/04/30/16438

Religious Differences Cause Conflict

During class discussion on the location of western countries there was one comment that kept resurfacing.  This comment was the civil conflicts within these countries and how some differences in religious views led to these conflicts.  These religious differences can be seen in the related article, Christians Feel the Heat of Religious Intolerance, which shows what can be a result of differences among people.

This article states facts about a family that was a victim of religious differences.  The family was left homeless after a group of Muslims burnt there house down simply because they lived within a Christian neighbourhood.  Simply because the Christians within Pakistan are the minority, other religions feel as if they can bully those with a different religion.  It goes on to mention how some of the allegations are often made up in order to entice mobs to attack minorities.  Those who are victims of religious differences are wary of reporting the incidents for fear of retaliation by religious extremist.  Thus religious differences will continue to cause forms of conflict around the world.

Climate Change and Fossil Fuels

From discussions in class and readings I recall talk about fossil fuels as well as talks about their effect on society.  We discussed the effects of refining fossil fuels and there effect on the climate.  The discussion led to not only the detrimental effects of these emissions, but why we continue to invest in fossil fuels every year even with the known effects on the climate and society.  This recollection led to an article pertaining to the discussion on climate change and fossil fuels. 

According to the article, Leave It in the Ground, Climate Activists Demand, at the current rate the global temperature is predicted to rise to three degrees C.  In order to combat this rise in temperature the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is convening to propose a new climate treaty that will present ways to reduce fossil fuels emissions.  The treaty is designed to allow for emissions to be reduced prior to 2020.  According to the Carbon Tracker an inevitable collapse of the economy will result from the continuing investments into fossil fuels.  This investment will result in global carbon emissions that will continue to rise higher every year.  The collapse from investments will result in countries having to resort to limitations on how much of these fossil fuels are burned. 

British Successor Rule in Action

The British throne may be ruled by a Queen one day if the current queen, Queen Elizabeth approves the new legislation. Since 1701 in the Act of Settlement boys could could “jump” in line over their elder sisters in order to rule. The new legislation which has already passed the House of Lords states that if Prince William and Duchess Kate have a first born girl, then that girl could be the successor to the throne.

This is a very important topic in the lives of the British people. If Queen Elizabeth agrees to the new legislation, the baby would be third in the line of command as a new ruler. It is an interesting topic noting how much history there has been in the royal family. The heirs to the throne have predominantly been ruled by men, but this is all likely to change here soon if this new legislation gets passed in time. Another article on the royal baby states “but things could get complicated if the succession rules are not changed before the birth.”

Censored Uprisings

While doing the readings from today, I got to the cyberwar article and remembered talking about the Internet and cyberspace in a different class. We talked about the different laws and censorship within the Internet. Some countries, usually the top countries like China, have strict laws on censorship. If that’s the case, then how are uprisings and rebellions possible in those type of censored places?

This article, China Toughens Its Restrictions on Use of the Internet, talks about how China blocks anything and doesn’t allow anything online that deals negatively towards the government or politics or other religions besides their main religion of Buddhism. I know that there are ways around the censors and laws, but it seems that it is extremely hard to in those places. I also don’t exactly see how they are able to happen and be successful like we’ve seen so far.

Syria

After a little geography and history lesson given in class today, I went back to my apartment and thought about some of the things that were mentioned. The one thing that stuck out the most for me was the conflict in Syria. I had no idea about the conflict that has been happening there. Apparently it is a big deal that has many parts to it. I did a quick searchon google and here is some of the stuff that I came up with.

The first website I came across was a story that BBC did on an attack or massacre in a town called Haswiya. Haswiya is a small village right outside of HOMS (western Syria). the story talks about what they “think” happened and for what reasons.

Page after page of web results shows attack after attack. One example is that of an attack on the town of Sanamein along the western side of Syria, where 45 Syrians were killed in an attack. The intruders were forces from President Bashar al-Assad.

This got me to thinking, why is the president of Syria invading towns within his country? Maybe I am misreading or correct me if I am wrong. If anyone has any insight to what is really going on please let me know. I have a feeling that there is more to this story than what we hear in the news.

Racism Still Lives in Sports

There has been a lot of buzz going around about the prevelance of racism in sports today. This has always been a touchy subject for me, so I thought mayeb I could inform readers about the struggle still happening today. Many people are unaware that racism is still a huge factor in today’s sporting world. Racism and stereotyping is a huge issue for sports players and fans all across the world. Numerous examples of racism and stereotyping occurs every day around the world to players and coaches. In the United Kingdom where soccer reigns as the leading sporting event, Milan’s midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng walked off during a match because of racist comments shouted at him during a match.

Another example of the brutality of racism at work is with Capital’s hockey player Joel Ward who was “attacked” on Twitter after a game in which he played. These two athletes are just a few cases in which athletes who are playing hard at a game that they love are being mistreated just because of the color of their skin. I cannot even fathom what these two men have gone through.

To know that there are more and more cases of the blatent racism going on in today’s world is troubling. There needs to be a stop to this “crime.” My opinion is that this is a crime and that those who are committing these unbelievable acts should be brought to justice. All men are created equal are not just words without depth, but a true statement about the equality rendered to everyone.