YAY! back to CNN! I was watching this morning because Obama was going to give a national address. Since I’ve been writing about basically nonsense the past month (aka, random things in my life) I’m happy to get back on track! My thought sequence the past month has pretty much gone like this:

Self: Let’s see… I need to update my page. What can I write about?

Other self: BLOG ABOUT YOUR IDEALS!

Adam/Jaimie: Are you blogging about your ideals?

Shane: Remember that twix commercial… about blogging about your ideals?

Self: CUT IT OUT! Stop the voices! No blogging about my ideals. I refuse to be such a self involved life sucker to my readers.

Other self: come onnnnn! you know you want to. everybody is doing it. blog about your ideals and your life, people will come…

Self: Come where? to my website?

Other Self: if you build it.. they will..

Self: STOP! enough with the nonsense! What are you, self righteous? //stalks CNN//

So yes. It’s been a tough past month, what with fighting myself and my ideals and all. But alas! I have something to finally get back with!

So anyway, he opened up the address with an alarming fact. They’re predicting that unemployment may possibly reach the double digits. That’s a scary thought. I think the highest unemployment has EVER gotten was 6-7%. The United States currently has approximately 305,576,420 people in it. So if it hit double digits- say…. 10% (only because I’m too lazy to do math right now and that’s an easy number, much easier than 12.6578 or something) then that’s 30,557,642 people who could possibly be unemployed. That’s a really scary thought! Of course, with unemployment, there are rules. People counted as unemployed are seeking and able to work, who cannot find employment at the current time. This does not include full time students or prisoners.

There are also SO many types of ‘unemployment’. There frictional UE (I’m writing UE from now on, for unemployment, because I’ve been riddled with typos and it’s starting to annoy me. I keep typing unemplyment. Unempl..iment? NOT PLIABLE! not easily bent! not quite the same as unemployment, so UE it is.) There’s frictional, which occurs when you’re moving from job to job. Cyclical, which are things like landscaping etc, where you’re unemployed for a portion of the year… then there’s structural, which happens when your skills aren’t matched up appropriately to any jobs in the area.

Say you’re a tech guru and all that exists around you are culinary jobs. Why ONLY culinary jobs? Beats the hell out of me. Maybe you live in Betty Crockerville. Speaking of which, since I’m such a TALENTED cook (HA!) one of my new years resolutions is to learn how to cook better. I like food. I like food a lot. Now, I wouldn’t complain about living in betty crockerville. I would MARRY betty crocker given the chance. Also sarah lee, mainly because she’s filled with syrupy goodness.

So… where were we. Let’s see, not easily bent, betty crockerville, town full of culinary weirdos.. ah yes. The next time of unemployment is… OH! ha. haha. I never finished what I was saying before. So, say you’re a tech guru living in betty crockerville. There’s almost definitely no kind of job there for you, so you’re unemployed until you find your way to a town that’s blessed with technology. Now that we’re back on track, the last kind of classical unemployment. Since it’s clear I’m having writing ADD today, I would just like to point out that even though I made a big fuss about using ‘UE’ instead of writing … that word… (now I refuse to write it) I STILL kept writing unemployment! I can’t even follow my own rules! I don’t know myself at all.

Now that we have all those out of the way, let’s get back to Obama’s address. He was basically saying that he is trying to coerce congress to pass an $800 billion dollar stimulus package. That will put us in short term debt of course, but sometimes you have to spend to win. He wants to put out dramatic action now because he feels that this could last for years if we don’t attack it head on right now. He plans on updating all the public universities and community colleges with the latest technology, which is EXCELLENT and a fantastic idea. One of the biggest barriers for a country to excel is being outdated with technology. Our whole country relies on it and I think for us to excel we need the best out there. Technology is moving so fast that unless we start teaching our youngest generation as soon as possible, it may be something that surpasses us.

The most valuable part of our society is the brilliant minds that are in every corridor of the country. We have so many amazing people, whether they be in the science field or entrepreneurial, that make new discoveries and carry this country. We need to support those people and encourage them to keep going because that’s our super power. China and Japan churn out brainiacs everyday, and they house some of the smartest people ever (along with india) but their cultures are so different from ours that we have a benefit. We have the ability to use our minds in ways that they can’t imagine due to the freedom of our capitalist society.

He also wants to fix roads, bridges, etc as well as give every family making less than $200,00 a tax break of $1,000. (YES! he said it this time, so anyone who disagreed with me last time… kiss it :) just kidding. I felt like being rebellious for a moment) He also wants to make more of the medical system automated so that there’s less room for human error and patients won’t go through multiple or repetitive tests because their records aren’t kept up the right way. I think this is great, because the health care system as well as hospitals are some of the most backwards systems going on right now. So many discrepancies with insurances and patients not being treated right away and dying in the waiting room. (I think there were two cases last year of that. One person was literally on the floor dying, and when security walked in and saw them they just walked out and didn’t alert anybody. Sickening) The health care system can use a good unraveling and and fresh tie up. I don’t fear that we are turning into a socialist society and I think our health care will be okay. There’s just lots of things that need to be fixed. So anyway, if you would like to read the rest see the video of his address (my fingers are tired) please go to my best friends at this location:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/08/transition.wrap/index.html

EDIT: I just watched people’s responses to his speech and what they wrote in to CNN and it boggles my mind! Seriously.. “we need to eliminate taxes and kill the IRS!” (okay maybe not kill, but they pretty much said they want them to disappear). Let’s think about this.. do you think that the government pulls money out of their ass? Actually… don’t answer that.. cause they are pulling magical loans out of nowhere right now, but the point of TAXES are to pay for things the government gives us. Sure, let’s forgoe taxes. When I need to get a hold of you i’ll ride my bicycle to your cardboard box and put my ‘hello world!” handwritten letter through your makeshift lego mailbox. Just don’t sick scooby doo on me, cause I’m pretty sure the only pets we’ll be able to own during the cardboard lego era will be a cartoon one that we watch. OH WAIT! we won’t have dtv converter boxes! or TVs! They don’t make suzy homemaker fake TV’s yet… but at least we can bake yummy clay cookies! Maybe you can walkie talkie the sound of a barking dog.

I stumbled across this video in my early internet browsing today and it is absolutely AMAZING! I wish I could give credit to whoever made it, but I have no idea who it was.

Obama ’08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

I read an interesting thing today regarding voting. I know that when you go into the polls to vote, you automatically assume that the order you vote in doesn’t matter- all that matters is who you say you’re voting for. WELLLLLL I have news for you. That’s not how it works. I wasn’t aware of this so I figured I would help make everyone else aware since I just heard about it. When you go into the polls to vote, you have to actually tick Barack’s name first, and THEN “Straight democratic”, or else it doesn’t register that you voted for Obama as president. I don’t know why it does that but it does.

It is claimed that this will only happen in NC because it has been caught in the other places it occurred, but don’t be stupid and trust that. Please click his name first then “Straight democratic”. Also be aware that if you go to the polls wearing anything electoral, even a button, you will not be able to vote. Some states are nice and will allow you to cover up your pin or put on a jacket to cover your shirts, but not all states are like that. They are hoping that you go home and decide to stay there rather than fight the line.

I just thought I would let you guys know. Early voting has begun as of Monday, October 20th… beat the rush, get your butts out there and vote! [For Obama. Just kidding haha vote for whoever you want to... just don't tell me about it. Lol]

Who is ‘that one’ you may ask!? The one, the only….*drum roll pleaaaaase*

Barack Obama!!

During the presidential debate John Mccain kindly (*cough* not so kindly) referred to Barack Obama as “that one”. What he didn’t know was he was throwing fuel into the fire for the media to come up with this WONDERFUL website that makes me giggle everytime I see it. http://thatone08.com/

Please click onto the song bahahaha it’ll get stuck in your head for hours.

That is all. Sorry for the short post.

OH! ALSO!! I know I have lotssss of wonderful readers that like to stalk my blog, so I just wanted to clue you in on the fact that I have a JOBBY JOB! That’s right kids, I have a job writing :) I am the new voice of “Helpmepaymyloans.com” WHICH (aside from the name that sounds a little not so college friendly) is actually a really informative and neato website. I’m covering everything that has to do with the financial sector and making it FUN! I put up one post already and I’ll be attempting to get between 2-4 every week. Go stalk it because the more people that go there, the more sponsors we get, and the more supplementary income I will have to support my coffee habit :)

Also, since I have an extremely high flow of traffic through my website, I’m interested in finding a business or website (big or small) that would like to be featured in that handy dandy little advertising block I have going on. You would be somewhat of a sponsor… We negotiate a very small fee and everyone who consistantly goes to my website will see your advertisement. I’m sure you know how it works. If you’re interested then just shoot me an email at svn@knights.ucf.edu