Republicans, weak and strong


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The Republican Party, what can be said about them? One thing is that they are tired about immigration reform taking a back seat to other hot topics like health care and economic reform. Now it looks like 2 states, Arizona and now Minnesota have now made new extreme immigration laws that let police arrest with reasonable suspicion anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant (see image to right). Another area where the republican party needs reform is there slogan stated at the last RNC, and frequently repeated by Sarah Palin, "Dill Baby Drill". Since the oil rig incident in the Gulf of Mexico, there has been a lot of talk and discussion about changing that, and they should. It was a bad idea to begin with and now they are really regretting that poor decision for a slogan. Although I usually don't agree with the Republicans, I do have to concede the fact that the right to own guns is protected by the second amendment and the Democrats shouldn't be so b*tchy about it. Guns are guns, no matter how big they are, but they should e regulated with laws limiting how old you have to be to purchase them.
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Tweet forever


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In a recent move by the Library of Congress, they have decided that Twitter deserves to be remembered for as long as they are in existence.
“The library will archive the collected works of Twitter, the micro-blogging service, whose users currently send a daily flood of 55 million messages, or tweets, all 140 characters or less.”
This now means that we have to be careful what we tweet, as it will all be recorded forever, even those few people who just spam things, like this person, claiming to have gotten a "free" macbook air. Congratulations, your douchiness will go down in history
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Community Service Paper


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Community Service Paper

     For my community service project this year, I decided to, in a way, kill two birds with one stone in a way. I have combined both my senior community service project with my Eagle Scout community service project. For my project, I researched the wildlife, mainly the birds that live up at Fernandez Ranch, a beautiful new 702 acre addition to the Muir Heritage Land Trust (see chart). The ranch will open to the public for recreational use June 6th. After all of the research was done on the types of birds/owls/bats living there, I then proceeded to look up and find the best types of bird and owl houses and bat boxes that would help out the most up at the ranch. After all the research was done on the boxes and the designs were finalized, the hard part of the project began. The catch with all Eagle Scout projects is that all materials used in the project must be donated to the cause, we could not buy anything. I then started to go around to the local Ace™ stores and ask a couple of my dad’s friends who are in the construction business, but times have been tough and with the economy the way it is, they couldn’t help as much as I thought they could. Out of desperation, I put on my uniform and headed over to the Home Depot® in Concord and to my amazement I was pointed to the floor manager who said, “Just take a cart and get whatever you need”. The total of both trips to Home Depot, the first to get the wood, stain, brushes, screws, and everything else we needed, and the second when we found out that they needed to be on poles, not on the trees themselves, turned out to be around 375$. The great part was when we got back to the register, Arnold told the cashier to simply clear the purchase and we didn’t spend a penny (except for my dad, who got a new drill bit that he thought we would need, and that broke when we tried to use it, ha ha). I then proceeded to put out in our scout weekly newsletter that I would be building the birdhouses the next weekend, and I just had to wait until that one week where it rained the entire week in January. The good thing was that my dad and I were able to set up a tarp over where we were going to be working. I had about 10-12 boys and two fathers come over and help me out, and we worked a little later than I had planned but we got the construction part done in just one day other than the 3 days that I had originally planned. When it came time to install the boxes though, not only was it the only sunny day that entire week, but also everyone who I had asked to help then was busy with other things to do, so it ended up being my mom and dad, myself and Beth, the representative who I had been working with at MHLT. We traversed the mud and the hills, and we managed to install all 14 birdhouses and eventually 1 bat box. I had originally planned 14 bird houses, 2 bat boxes, and 3 owl houses, but the bat boxes are very intricate and hard to make, and the owl houses would have needed to have been on a 20 ft pole, and that would have been too much to do. By the time all of this was completed, it was January 23rd, two days before my 18th birthday, and the deadline by which eagle projects must be submitted by in order to be eligible for the eagle board of review (which I passed, piece of cake). My original idea was to finish the project in the fall, still having it be able to count towards my senior project, but I wanted to be able to experience as much of scouting as I could, turning in my binder just hours before the start of January 25th, my birthday. What was amazing was that over this whole process, I was able to get in 41.5 hours for myself, and about 78 hours of volunteer time put into the project, giving me more than enough to be passed the 100-hour minimum. Thinking back on this whole process, I have learned one thing that I cannot only apply to school, but the rest of my life and that lesson is that procrastination does not always work.
            There are many topics small topics that can be taken from this project, the biggest is the preservation of wildlife habitats. This has always been a problem in this country, destroying habitats in the name of the “greater good”, but just how much can big companies justify it this way before they realize just what they are doing to the natural wildlife in the area. This has been going on for years and years ever since the Louisiana Purchase convinced people to go west, and in turn eventually exploit the land for personal gain. The first major player in wildlife conservation was John Muir, who managed to get Theodore Roosevelt to go camping with him, and show him “The Real Yosemite”. After this outing with Muir, Roosevelt then created the US National Park Service, to protect lands like Yosemite and others around the country. In more recent years, private organizations like the Muir Heritage Land Trust have themselves purchased and maintained areas like the Fernandez ranch and their other holdings around the bay and tried to recreate the magic of Yosemite in our local area. This massive job seems like a relatively easy one when thinking of the national park service, but for an organization like the Muir Heritage Land Trust, it is not so easy. In fact, you can donate now by clicking here to go to the homepage and clicking on the picture of Gary Bogue, who openly supports the efforts of the organization in his column in the Contra Costa Times. The other day when installing the huge bat box, Beth and I were talking and ever since Gary Bogue has been mentioning them in his article, the land trust has gone from getting 10-20 donations a week to 50 or so a day. Every penny helps them do their jobs, keep these lands, over 1800 acres, pristine, and preserve the wildlife there. There are not many organizations like the MHLT around here, and we should do whatever we can to help preserve these open spaces for the sake of the wildlife, for inspiration for art projects, or for day hikes like in boy scouts.
     Another great thing I learned from doing this project is the significance of the Boy Scout program. I have been with the BSA since 1st grade in tiger cubs. I made it through cub scouts and at the end of 5th grade I made the transition to boy scouts. My 8 years with Troop 241, based out of the multipurpose room at Stanley middle school, has taught me a lot. I have gone on week long outings into the high sierras and climbed to the top of Mount Whitney. I have also gone to Yosemite national park, the same area where John Muir took Theodore Roosevelt and convinced him that this beautiful land could only be saved through some sort of government intervention, or witch the result was the National park service. I have personally had such a great time with my troop and Boy scouts, I am even going to stay on with my troop after my 18th birthday and become an assistant scout master to teach the same values that I have learned from my vast experience camping and having fun in scouts. Through out the country, only about 2-4% of all Boy Scouts reach the rank of Eagle, and I am very proud to become one of the few that has achieved this rank.
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Republicans find a Re-do


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As I got up this morning to check my email for the last time before I head down to LA on a very educational band tour (with an all day stop at the happiest place on earth), I was shocked by all the articles on my news feed, saying that the House of Reps needs to vote again.
"During an all-night voting session, two points relating to student loans were found to violate Senate procedure..."
is what one aide to Senate majority leader Harry Reid said about it. The whole thing was only 16 lines out of the entire 2700+ page health care bill, and after staying up all night, they finally found it.
"Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said more than 10 Democratic politicians had reported incidents since Sunday's vote, some of which he described as "very serious"."
This part is sad people. There is too much hate (it is a strong word) around this bill already, like on Sunday, when the House voted on this the first time, people were spitting on Emmanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), yelling racial slurs at members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and anti-gay slurs at openly gay representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.). This bill is good, why can't the republicans see that and stop their "constituents" (people who watch Glenn Beck) from openly showing why the Republicans are loosing support. If they ever want to win back the house or the senate, the Republicans need to cut ties to the extremists, like Beck and Limbaugh. They also need to educate themselves, because according to a new Harris poll that was talked about on a blog I read (sometimes) the results of witch are still making my head hurt:
  • 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
  • 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
  • 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
  • 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
  • Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."
 They are right about one thing, the Antichrist is among us, but they are looking on the wrong side of the political spectrum, it's Glenn Beck. Who else would call Jesus a Nazi?
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Glenn Becks new anthem


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Glenn Beck is very easy to make fun of, I can't deny that. This is what he released as his "new national anthem" after Barack Obama was sworn in as the new President. I am very surprised that he didn't have Palin holding the gun.

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First Obama, now Jesus, make up your mind


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People, he has crossed the line now. First Glenn Beck calls President Obama a Nazi, and now late last week he came out that because Christians believe in social justice or economic justice they are Nazis and Communists. Before I go on, i just have to point out that the one thing, that the whole reason for the red scare in the 60's was that communists were "Godless Heathens", and if Glenn Beck actually read something, he would know that, and to say that Christians are Communist is kind of like the idea of a Volvo with a gun rack, just plain crazy talk. Now back on topic, Glenn Beck said that:
"Social justice was the rallying cry--economic justice and social justice--the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front."
I do understand what he is saying, and I do agree with it. The Germans during that time in history were facing the most extreme inflation in recorded history, and they just wanted to correct the wrong that done to them by the Treaty of Versailles. The means that they went by to correct this injustice however, is what everyone thinks of when they think of Nazi Germany. Hate crimes and starting the second World War ans killing about 6 million Jewish people is why I along with most people don't like them. I don't know what he is thinking of, but the definition of Social Justice I found in the dictionary was as follows:
"Main Entry: social justice
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society"

Now from what I can tell, This seems like a Good thing, making sure that the little people have every same chance for advancement and advantage as the rich people, like Beck, do. I really wonder what goes through his mind before he speaks, if he ever stops to think "maybe I shouldn't say that". All that I know is that there will be some sort of backlash about this, and I will post the video from either Comedy Central show that does something about this. Below is some funny pictures of Glenn from the article, just for a laugh.


My Precious.
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Taking it too far


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We all remember about a month ago when The Supreme Court gave their ruling on corporate rights, right? Well now one little corporation is putting this to the test. Murray Hill Incorporated is running for the 8th district seat in Maryland in the upcoming election.
"Bring on the competition"
That is what the incumbent Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D), who holds the 8th Congressional District, says to this play for corporate power. Who really knows why they are doing this, is it because they really want to show how The Supreme Court has messed things up by making that ruling? or is it simply a publicity stunt to get more clients? Who knows? One thing is for sure, it will be interesting to see how the people of the Maryland 8th District will vote, or if this will even last that long. Below is a video that they recently put on their site, saying that
"Now that Democracy is for sale Murray Hill Incorporated is Offering Top Dollar"

Seriously? Since when was Democracy EVER for sale? I seriously doubt that this is what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote The Constitution. This is just ******* crazy if you ask me.
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