Credit Card Stranglehold

Next time you go out shopping, look at the front door, or near the credit card machine and see what types of credit cards the store takes. There is about a 99% chance that the company takes Visa and/or Mastercard. And there is a bill that will hit the Senate floor that will attempt to overhaul the credit card world. One of the things that store owners hope will be in the bill is the ability to negotiate fees with credit cards. Because when you use a credit card, the store must pay a fee. Small per transaction, sure, but overall, it cost companies $48 billion last year. A hefty sum indeed. Some people argue that Visa and Mastercard operate a dual monopoly (is that a contradiction?). Because if you do not take Visa and/or Mastercard, you will likely lose business. Most stores also take American Express or Discover card, but nearly all stores take V & MC. Card issuers claim that there is no monopoly and that new payment methods such as Paypal enter the market everyday, increasing competetion. But let's be honest, store owners are slow and reluctant to change, especially when new payment methods are not likely to have a strong, vocal backing. The solution: pass the bill in the Senate that allows store owners to renegotiate with credit card companies the fees that are levied against the stores.

E.g. Libel

Alaina Lamb is a blog post stealing midget woman. Her eyes are as black as the devil's cauldron. Her fake weave hairdo looks like a rabid raccoon had died and then got ran over on her head. Her arms look like twigs from a tree, an old, moldy, gnarled tree. Her fashion sense is dangerously sparse at best, scandolously out of dress code at worst. Hint hint Mrs. Lundstrom, check Alaina for dress code infractions. she glares at people constantly, either because she has some sort of degenerative eye disease, or she is just can't stand to see how evil she really is. Don't even get me started on her personality. She steals little girls and boys lunch money daily and then pushes them into the dirt outside the courtyard. After that, she spreads slanderous rumors about the older children she can't bully. She must do this because her parents don't care about her or her future. And let's face it, neither does she. She hasn't made any effort in any of her classes and her presence on the social scene is as low as her grades. STOP! I was just kidding ;) . That was an example of libel. It is not considered slander because it is written. Don't do it! It could cost you a lawsuit that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court.

The Age of the Stalker

So as I have been suggested to do, I am writing about stalkers. Mainly, how the Internet has aided in stalking people. Not in the criminal sense(although I do stalk Ms. Lamb...ha ha ha....), but in the sense that you try to find out everything about a person. This may sound cool for people you just met, if you want to find out information about them, but it borders on creepiness when you attempt to know everything about people you know already. Or if you stalk someone you like to see if they're in another relationship. Or if you try to be friends with someone just by knowing all their favorite TV shows and music. Just examples. Facebook (the link is probably blocked on school computers) has allowed for the stalking to run rampant. People who innocently post that their favorite band is Death Cab for Cutie and the All-American Rejects run the risk of being barraged by friend requests from people they don't know because of their musical taste. Or people who say that their favorite show is "Bones" run the risk of creepy kids who want to be forensic anthropolgists asking to be their friends so they can use their skeleton for their ninth grade science project. Crrepy indeed. I will sound like a parent, when I say this, but always be careful when putting seemingly innocent information out on Facebook, or the Internet in general. Creepers run wild!

Minimum Wage

I work for nearly minimum wage- $7/hour - when the minimum wage is $6.45/hr. In July, the minimum wage goes up to $7.55 an hour, and my manager will probably just round that amount up to $8 an hour. I'm pretty excited about my $1/hr raise, even though I will be leaving soon, but minimum wage is not exactly the best thing for an ailing economy. First, it creates a gap between the amount of employment demanded and the supply of employment. This gap is referred to as UNEMPLOYMENT! Run and scream everyone! No, calm down. But minimum wage serves a price floor, which means the "price" of employment must sit at or above this floor. Price floors (and ceilings, such as rent control) create a gap between supply and demand. The main purpose of minimum wage, I think, is to appease constituents. Employers must raise prices or fire employees in order to keep costs low, and since prices are difficult and unpopular to rise, employees must be let go. Sorry, oh large and all-powerful government, but your attempt to raise the quality of life actually just gets people fired.

Final Project

First off, I did not choose this music per se. The original music was "Mr. Roboto" but that is copyrighted, thus, I had to change songs. Second, I know this project does not completely match what I said I was going to do, but I explain that later in the video. Enjoy!

Swine Flu?

Everyone has been glued to the television by the recent swine flu scare, but I have been wondering whether this illness is being blown out of proprotion. I know that it has killed many people in Mexico, but in America, I believe that there is little to worry about. It was discovered a few days ago that this strand of influenza lacks an amino acid group that would make it more virile. That means that it is not as potent as we once believed. The scare originally began because the flu can be spread through human contact, but how is that any different that seasonal influenza. I don't think that just becuase Mexico lacks a medical system that can quickly serve all of its citizens, that Americans should freak out and shut down schools. Shutting down schools only leads to people gathering together to use their extra free time. I saw on the news that parents of students whose school was closed organized a baseball game, thus nullifying the effect of shutting down school for a week. Only one American citizen has died and that women had underlying medical issues. And I am not the only one who believes that this is being blown out of proportion. 77% of listeners of a popular morning radio show believe that this flu is being blown out of proportion.

Week 13: College Board is Evil!

As AP season approaches, I am preparing for the imminent death that is AP Testing. If you don't know, College Board creates a new AP test every year, for every new subject. And they charge you $86 per test. Oh, and they also write SAT tests every year, and administer them about 6 times per year, for about $40 a pop. Thus, it is nearly impossible to avoid paying College Board money. A college-bound student must take either the ACT or the SAT and many schools require SAT Subject Tests, also a product of College Board. And then, companies such as the Princeton Review and Barrons, write books that supposedly help students pass the SAT or AP tests, and those cost about $20-$40 a piece. All in all, the cost of just getting into college can climb into the thousands of dollars, even before tuition and application fees are assessed. According to their website, College Board is a non-profit organization. However, this article shows that College Board's annual net profits are about $62 million dollars. This begs the question, where does that money go? Do CEOs receive benefits that are written off as "salaries"? Do new, lavish buildings get credited as "overhead"? I wonder.... Hopefully, College Board will attempt a grasp at morality and try to make getting into college more affordable!

Week 12: My Carbon Footprint

On Wednesday, I found out that I have a humongous carbon footprint. I commute nearly 60 miles a day to school, and that's if I don't have to go anywhere after school. On Mondays and Fridays, I carpool, so that means I drive about 240 miles per school week. Over the 180 days of school, I drive about 8640 miles over the school year. That means I use about 8.5 barrels of oil per year and produce 4.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year. This number is probably much larger if my entire driving year is calculated. There are two main reasons, I think, that these numbers are higher than my peers. One, my car is about 13 years old, which could mean than EPA regulations for the engine are less restrictive than current regulations. Second, I live 28 miles from school, 5 miles from the interstate, and about 15 to 30 miles from all of Hoover, the most popular place to shop or eat, and from all of my friends. There are no quick fix solutions to either of these problems and when I go off to college, my parents will have far less spending on gasoline. My younger brother will only have to drive about 3 miles to his school, and I will only be driving up to see them on weekends from college. Hopefully, this will reduce our family's carbon footprint.

Week 11: Bank Overdraft Fees

Besides the national banking meltdown, bank overdraft fees have contributed to Americans' mistrust in banks. Last weekend, I deposited my paycheck in the bank Saturday morning. That evening, I bought something to eat after I got off work. The cost of the food was more than I had in my checking account, and when I was checking my accounts that night, I noticed that my available balance was $-1.16. I panicked and thought I would get charged an overdraft fee, even though I believed that the charge should not be debited from by account until Monday, after my paycheck had been processed. All in all, I was not charged a fee, but the fear of having the fee assessed was enough for me. Why do banks charge fees anyway? Why not just decline the charge on the basis on Insufficient Funds. That would have saved me a ton of worry. According to this article, banks claim that it is impossible to maintain real time balances on many checking accounts due to the amount of debits and credits processing at any one time. Couldn't they just have a screen displaying available and ledger balance? That's what my bank does on their website. And the approximately $10 billion made off of "service fees", approximately one-third of a bank's income, could be used to install new software in their customer interfaces. I hope that eventually, a more open, speedy banking system will be available to customers.

Week 10: Literary Culture

If you have not heard of Harry Potter or Twilight, then you are lame. Just kidding, but you have been under a rock somewhere. I have read all the books in both series and am a fan of both authors, but I was wondering, which has had the greater effect on teen culture. Harry Potter films on average have grossed nearly $900,000,000 per movie, with only five movies released and the franchise is the second highest grossing franchise in history (Second to James Bond, with 22 movies, average gross: $200,000,000). With all movies, merchandise, and books (400 million printed copies) accounted for, the Harry Potter brand is worth about $15 billion dollars, an expensive brand to say the least. Onward to Twilight. The Twilight series, with just 4 books, compared to Potter's 7, has sold 42 million copies worldwide, approximately 10% of Potter. The first film, titled "Twilight", grossed about $375,000,000 about 42% of the average Potter film grossing, although Twilight had a significantly lower budget ($37 million).

Furthermore, the Twilight series has been compared to the Harry Potter series. They say that reading the books in unnecessary and to just watch the movies instead. Harry Potter is better literarily I think Harry Potter wins! P.S. Stephen King said Meyer can't write.

Project Precis

My final project will be to make a short documentary discovering my global impact. I will track my water, electricity, food, and gasoline usage for a week, and then film my use for one day. I will use the averages from the week in my documentary and then possibly extrapolate my usage for a month, a year, etc. I hope to gain a more complete view of my footprint on the world.

Week 9: Pickens Plan

I am a member of the Pickens Plan, a plan to end the United States' dependence on foreign oil. The plan's namesake, T. Boone Pickens, made his money in the oil business, but now, he has invested significantly in this plan, and stands to make a lot of money off of the plan if it succeeds. I don't blame him, because at least he has a plan. The plan includes changing many of the truck fleet to run on domestic natural gas and investing in solar and wind power. However, this blog post is not about the plans details, but how the plan is marketed. The most recent e-mail I got concerning the plan includes a link saying "Join the virtual march." In a flat world, people are busy, and many people don't have the time to march and participate in demonstrations, especially in today's economy. However, by making the participation in this plan virtual, and thus much easier, T. Boone can increase the number in his "Army." Also, on the website of the Picken's Plan, there are links to widgets, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, videos, articles, lectures, etc. This mass amount of information as well as the ease of access to other media outlets also helps out the Plan. Third, T. Boone appeals to citizens on the patriotic front. The slogan "End Our Addiction to Foreign Oil" links negative connotations to foreign oil and many quotes on the website emphasize that we are sending our money abroad when we should keep it in our country. By appealing to pathos, ethos, and logos, T. Boone Pickens provides the greatest oppurunity to connect with potential recruits to promote his great plan.

Week 8: Poor Little Penny

I'm writing this after getting off a 6 hours shift at work. I worked as a cashier for those 6 hours and I had to make change, a lot of change. And I realized something, counting out 1, 2, 3, or 4 pennies is quite annoying. Although work was not that busy tonight, counting all those pennies costs times, and if we were busy, that wasted time would translate to customers having to wait for their food. For my wage, $7/ hour, a penny is equivalent to about 5 seconds, while for the average hourly wage of $17/hour, a penny is equal to about 2 seconds. According to a USA Today article, the penny wastes about $300 million in consumer's time. Not only that, it costs about 1.5 cents to make a penny due to the high cost of zinc, but even if the penny could be made for free, its usefulness has faded faster than its shine. Myths that rounding purchases up or down to the nearest nickel also are invalid. Anyone with a basic knowledge of statistics could testify that about 50% of purchases would round down with the other 50% rounding up, so all consumers would come out about even. My recommendation, get rid of the penny! It could replaced with a dollar coin, to replace the wearing paper dollars. 

Week 7: Underage Drinking

I am writing this blog entry on this topic for two reasons: One, it is the subject of a scholarship essay that I need to work on, so maybe this will inspire me to work on it. Two, I believe that as an 18-year-old, I am given the right the vote and the responsibility to serve, both in the military and on a jury, so why am I not allowed to consume an alcoholic beverage. My goal in this post is also to try to maintain objectivity. Here we go. In 1984, Congress passed a bill that states who did not prohibit the purchase and possession of alcohol by minors would receive a 10% cut in the state highway budget. This bill passed mainly due to the increased number of alcohol related fatalities. According to this document, states who lowered the drinking age by 1997 have seen a decrease in highway fatalities, but at the same rate as states who maintained the drinking age. Therefore, the main reason that advocates of the 21-year-old drinking age in the eighties have not seen their argument bear fruit. Also, many college and university presidents have spoken out, saying that even if the number of highway fatalities has fallen, the number of non-highway alcohol related fatalities has grown. One example of binge drinking caused by the stigma of 21-year-old drinking is Gordie Bailey. Gordie was rushing a fraternity and one of the initiation rituals was to drink as much alcohol as possible in 30 minutes. Gordie consumed approximately 17 shots before passing out. When all of the brothers returned to the house, Gordie was placed on the couch and the fraternity president instructed others to check on him. When his pulse was found to have stopped, the brothers called for help at 6am, when they had gotten back at about midnight. Undoubtedly, this would have all be stopped if there were no such thing as initiation rituals, but this also could have been stopped if Gordie had been exposed to alcohol before, known the dangers, and consumed wisely. I hope I have maintained a mostly objective stance, but I think that because I can elect a President, fight in a war, drive a car, and serve on a jury, then I should be able to have a drink.

Week 6: Green Building

The presentation today made me really want to build a LEED platinum house and I was thinking of all the things I want in my house, but more importantly, how it will affect my family. I would like to have as many windows as possible, all openable. In the living room/den, I would like one of those walls made of multiple panes of glass that can be moved away to create an open space. That would increase the intrinsic value of my house and would allow for more communal living with nature. If I build a house in Washington, D.C. area or in Southern California (two hotspots for aerospace engineers), then I will able to take care of the amazing weather in the spring and fall there. Second, I would like to include solar panels on all of my roofs (or the majority of them) to power the house. I could even possibly make money by selling back the energy I make that I do not use. I would also condition my children to be more energy conscious so that they know how much energy they are using and they work to reduce that. I hope that making my children more aware will rub off on their friends and continue to inspire future generations. Maybe one day, in a perfect world...

Week 5: Gambling in Alabama

This would be the post my inquiry essay would stem from if that essay was not already complete, but I will do it out of order. I believe that gambling should be allowed in Alabama for many reasons. One, gambling does not directly kills anyone, but alcohol and cigarettes accounts for millions of deaths per year and they are legal to adults. Second, alcohol and cigarettes cost society billions of dollars a year, but gambling could actually contribute to society. Third, gambling addiction affects fewer people than either alcoholism or nicotine addiction.

Next, gambling has many possible benefits to a society. The profits from government controlled lotteries could be used to fund education, like in Georgia where the HOPE Scholarship is funded and so is the entire state's prekindergarten program. Money could also be used to fund local projects, like parks and roads and physical fitness centers. All of these things could be used to improve the living conditions of Alabamians and raise the rankings of the state of Alabama as a whole.

Week 4: Proliferation of Paper Media

Media is an intrinsic part of the lives of Americans. However, for the last century or so, media has been dominated by print. As the world as a whole becomes more digital, I wonder why almost all major publications remain on paper. If we are trying to reduce our carbon footprint, why are millions of paper products wasted everyday. I agree that some impoverished areas can only distribute news on paper as opposed to digitally, but for European countries and America, why can't we reduce our need of paper? All news should be able to be distributed digitally over the Internet. Some news sites, such as CNN, do publish much of their news online because they have no printed outlet, but periodicals such as the Birmingham News, The New York Times, or countless magazines, would do well to take a pseudo-page of CNN's book. Perhaps then, some of the paper that is wasted daily could be conserved.

Week 3: The World is Fat

After reading "The World is Fat," I understand some of the reasons why the world has come to gain so much weight and the number one reason is liquids. As we all know, not all liquids are bad. Water is the essential fluid, it gives life and helps maintain homeostasis in the human body and in the world. However, more popular drinks have replaced water as the number one form of hydration. I admit I have said, "I don't like the taste of water," but what I really enjoy is the sugary, syrupy taste of processed drinks (however, Alabaster's water has a distinct taste of lime because of the nearby quarry). As these drinks have grown more pervasive in society, the world has gotten fatter. Most people used to drink breast milk in the first year to 18 months and then drank water or milk during adolescence, and then beer, water, ale, milk, wine, etc. during adulthood However, in moderation, all of those things provide healthful benefits and that is why the obesity levels in early society were much lower than today. Now, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have at least 8 varieties of their name brand available at once (Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Cherry Coke, Diet Cherry Coke, Cherry Coke Zero, Cherry Vanilla Coke, Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke, Caffeine Free Diet Coke, etc.) and the wheel of capitalism has made these popular drinks more avaiable, and thus, made people drink more, thus making them FAT!

Week 2: INC(RED)IBLE?

Similar to week 1's post, I am going to critque another companies blatant branding. Anyone not living under a rock will have seen at least one person wearing a shirt that has said Inspi(RED) or something similar, the important part being the (RED). The purpose of the (RED) campaign is to eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa. Like last week, I agree with the purpose of the program, but the means to acheiving it are, in my opinion, less than honorable. When I visited the (RED) website, the third thing on the navigation bar is shop (with Home being number 1 and Learn being number 2). Shopping is how I can eliminate AIDS? Wow, I better go buy something or I am a bad person. This is probably what (RED)'s creators were hoping to get out of shoppers. I have looked at (RED) products as a way to do something to help out if I purchase something, but a surprisingly small percent of the procedes go to (RED). The most recent example is a Dell Laptop. I am going to buy a laptop for college and I was looking a a Dell M1530 and one of the color options is Product (RED). I clicked that option and $25 of my purchase is donated. After customization (I customized this laptop to be ideal), the price can to a little less than $2500. That means that less than 1% of the purchase is donated. How can I defeats HIV/AIDS with less that 1%? Maybe if the whole world joins in, maybe...

Week 1: Going Green?

Today in Ms. Abernathy's class we discussed a bit on the difference between what people say and what they do. And that got me to thinking about going green. Many A-list celebs are going green because its the new "In" thing to do, not for the purpose of saving the planet. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort that celebrities are doing and I like the fact that they are using their wealth and fame to spread a message, but I think they are doing it for the wrong reasons. This article details how many carmakers are lending out prototypes of energy-efficient cars to A-list celebs to promote their companies. Could anyone in the real world even afford these cars: NO!! The Tesla Roadster costs $100,000, almost as much as my parents house 13 years ago! Another car, while getting 130 mpg of hydrogen, must be filled by a trained professional with negative 423 degree hydrogen. My advice to car makers, make the cars more affordable or at least more sustainable (negative 423 degree hydrogen?!) before you give one to Brad Pitt or Angeline Jolie.

In Response to Blog Assignment of "This Blessed House"

After reading "This Blessed House" I recalled the last few pages where the religious artifacts were driving a wedge between Twinkle and Sanjeev. I couldn't help but think about the divisive aspects of organized religion. I personally find that organized religion can be very harsh on the spiritual life of a person. I do not agree with many of the things that the main stream Protestant church says is right or wrong (homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, etc.), but I still believe in spiritual aspect of the church. I believe that Sanjeev represents the non-religious spiritualist (even though he never expresses spirituality) and Twinkle represents the Church because she keeps finding and keeping the religious artifacts.

First Post

Wow, this class is quite interesting. I loved Michael and my project on sea levels, the graphic was super cool. I believe that my "open essay" assignment will be letter to President Barack Obama as a supporter of the T.Boone Pickens Plan. This plan seems most plausible and easy to do (relatively), even if Boone Pickens will make a handsome profit of such a plan.