Travis Online Journal

2010-07-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

Ok so this is old news and maybe you guys already knew this but I am currently watch season 5 of House and just watched the episode where Kutner killed himself. It shocked me that they would just get rid of one of my favorite characters and the only other good doctor besides House. Apparently Kal Penn(Kutner) wanted to leav ethe show because he accepted a position as the associate director for the White House office of public liaison. I don't really know what that means, but apparently he'll be working with real people through various charities and organizations, and representing President Obama while doing it

Look Barack Hussein Obama you can go ahead and mess up our health care system, borrow trillions of dollars from China and study Urdu poetry but when you start screwing up my television shows that crosses a serious line. He is losing a point for this one.

2010-07-21T02:54:00.000-07:00

Obama signed a Financial Regulation Reform Bill‎. This bill is happening because Wall Street collapsed and Obama needs to do something about the collapse. Obama seems to do a lot of things just for the sake of doing things or for the sake of change. While I agree that something must be done I don't see how putting even more mandates on every type of business - that had nothing to do with the Wall Street collapse - and none on the government sponsored businesses.

I’m not an economics major and so the possibility that I know absolutely nothing about how to fix the economy is a bigger possibility than Obama and his staff not knowing how to fix the economy. But this isn’t his blog so who cares what he thinks this is about what I think. Watch ABC News if you want to know what Obama is thinking. Obama is fixing the economy in the wrong direction. This bill could potentially hurt small banks and small businesses that rely on them and cost
consumers and slow down job growth.

I don’t see how creating more regulations and a tighter review of Wall Street will fix unemployment in America. He needs to fix the problems on main street instead of fixing the problems on Wall Street.

The supposed positives of this will be that people who borrow money from the banks will be protected from hidden fees and ridiculous terms that can't be met, but also will have to provide evidence that they can repay their loans. In my experience hidden fees and these ridiculous terms only come into play when you fail to pay your bill on time or you don't read the fine print of the statement to see these "hidden fees" If its in small print it isn't hidden its just SMALL!!! So it is protecting the people that don't pay their bills on time and aren't financially responsible enough to read the fine print to find all those so called hidden charges.

Instead of placing mandates on banks from giving out these ridiculous terms and hidden fees - maybe banks via the government need to do a better job on teaching our citizens financial accountability. Perhaps before anybody can get a bank account they have to take classes on financial responsibility and before you take out a loan you have to take an additional class. If anything this would just create more jobs for people.

Ya know how during a movie preview they will say "This movie will blow your mind!!" or use over the top adjectives like "breathtaking" and "speechless" or some other catch phrase that is way over the top. I can honestly say that all of those over the top catch phrases actually fit this movie perfectly. This movie is so great because it will be on of those movies that you can re-watch over and over again because the movie has so many levels and multiple views will be required order to grasp all the intricate details and to fully understand the multi-layered trips into the dreams and nightmares of the central characters.

I think the movie was perfect in every way and I actually love it that it ended with a cliffhanger. I love being able to speculate on the movie later and never knowing what happened. I don't think that his top ever stopped spinning. I think he was dreaming for the entire movie. His kids didn't look like they ever aged - THEY HAD THE SAME HAIRCUTS!! His reality was so messed up because he had spent so long in a dream and had traveled down to multiple levels his whole sense of reality had been skewered.

Consider this a new feature of my blog that like all the other features of my blog will only really happen when I want them to and with no consistency at all. Consider it a rip off of Stephen Colbert's "Tip of the Hat" and "Wave of the Finger" where he talks about someone or something that irks him and that he feels the need to wave his finger at or something that he wants to give kudos or a tip of his hat.

Instead of a Wave of the Finger I am going to give out a douche bag award which is named after Glenn Beck for being such a douche bag. It's not so much his political views although the guy is as Keith Olberman put it "an uneducated imperceptive panicky whack job" The thing that bugs me the most about Beck is his repeated mantra "This is about the truth" but yet is by far the most opinionated man on the news. Just like Beck this blog is about the truth and the truth is Glenn Beck you are a douche bag.

I used to like Mel Gibson. He is probably the only movie star to ever make us laugh at committing suicide in Lethal Weapon. Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ were epic movies. I can understand getting in a fight and saying mean things that you don't even mean - but this was over the line. I could never imagine saying those type of things to Sheena. I was going to post the video on here but it is so unbelievably offensive I decided against it - after all this is family blog. If this was the first time that Mel has gone off then it might be okay to look the other way but this has happened so many times. Another thing is if Jack Nicholson would of said those things we would of just laughed about it because Jack is a self-proclaimed jerk and doesn't claim to be a born again Christian or an astounding family man. Tom Cruise could probably get away with saying this because we all know he is crazy. But Mel has tried so hard to portray himself as a Christian family man that it makes these rants even more disgusting.

Oksana Grigorieva

Yes, what Mad Max said was pretty terrible, but I have a feeling that the entire time Oksana was recording this rant by Gibson she was thinking to herself "Oh this is wonderful I am going to get so much publicity off of this recording maybe my crappy music/movie career will take off!!" So I don't feel sorry for her at all. Mel and her are going through a child custody battle right now so this is a huge victory for her and this whole thing was probably planned by her to record one of his rants. You gotta be a pretty big douche to record someone when they are yelling at you and then to release it to the public. She knew that Mel has these kind of outbursts and took advantage of it.

Do I really need to explain why Lohan is such a douche and kudos to the judge for sending her to jail hopefully next time it will be for 90 years not days.

The Travies are the second part of the Stephen Colbert "Wave of the Finger - Tip of the Hat" rip off. It would be the Tip of the Hat part of it. I am going to award any person or thing that brings me amusement or is in need of some praising by me.

Chris Webber wins the first ever "Travy" for totally embarrassing Timberwolves General Manager David Kahn. For those non-basketball fans this video is featuring a conversation between Chris Webber and David Kahn. Chris Webber was a pretty good professional basketball player in his day and has turned out to be a pretty TV analyst and was interviewing David Kahn and asked him why he signed Darko Milicic to a 4 year 20 million dollar contract - when Darko has basically been one of the biggest disappointments and jokes in the history of the NBA. When Kahn compares Darko to Webber, Webber goes off on Kahn.

July 5th 2010

2010-07-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

I fall into peer pressure pretty easy and even more than peer pressure I am sucker for a good compliment so when two friends of mine told me that they missed reading my blog it immediately went to my head. I thought to myself "your right it would be downright selfish to deprive the world of my blog." Nobody is better at boosting my ego than me. I am probably the best ever at it.
I eventually want my blog to reach the status of a nation. A nation you say? Yes, a nation. I am not talking about declaring independence from blogspot.com. I am talking about a nation like the Red Sox Nation. How many followers do I have to get before I can refer to my followers as Travis Nation? Is four enough? If not I could ask my wife to read my blog and that would make it five. Whatever it may be I am up to the task.

In a previous post I said I wanted my blog to be more of a Jay-Z comeback than a Brett Favre comeback but it’s so long between posts that it is approaching Betty White level comeback. She went from Golden Girls to hosting Saturday Night Live and doing a skit where she talked about her dirty old dusty muffin. (Oddly, Jay-Z was the musical guest)

Once upon a time I had a format where I separated my blog into categories: Music, Movies, Sports, Nation/World Events, local events and my personal life. I think for organizational purposes I am going to get back to this method.

I originally started this blog as way to argue with Steve about sports. Since then it has blossomed into something else and I am totally fine with that. But lately I've been doing some thinking about my future. I love sports. It’s not a secret that I am obsessed with it so much that it has socially handicapped me to a degree that I would turn down thee most prestigious social event to sit at home and watch an NBA basketball game in late February. I spend hours online reading different sports articles. I love ESPN, NBA.com, Hoopsworld.com and Fox Sports. Recently, I was reading an article on my favorite sports website-Hoopsworld.com and I noticed that they were hiring for a sports writer in the Orlando and Portland area. I thought to myself "Wow! this would be awesome if I could write for them, too bad I don't live in Orlando or in Portland and I am in Pocatello, a non-sports town." I thought about this for a long time and it bothered me.

I thought to myself "Why not?" Why couldn't I become a sports writer?" Isn't that what Ray Ramona did on "Every Loves Raymond" just sit in his basement watch sports and then write about them in between making fun of his tall brother and his wife yelling at him? What is holding me back?" Then I started thinking about it some more. "Why don't I pursue a career in sports?" I truly think that no other profession on this Earth could make me as happy as a career where I could watch, write, talk about and read about basketball all day long.

I would be very happy being paid to write about sports but more than writing about sports I want to talk about sports via sports broadcasting. Then my cynical analytical thoughts started popping into my head. Each NBA team has two or three broadcasters at each game with one or two sideline reports, on a halftime show they probably have at max four people in the studio.

So if I am being generous each team has 9 people working at a game. You have three major networks and we will say each one has two full crews so each network has 18 people working for them, again that is being very generous. So if you add the individual team sports broadcasting team (9) and times it by thirty(the number of teams in the NBA) that gives you a total of 270 plus the 18 people on each of the three networks which would be fifty-four and then add that to 270 and you have a total of 324 available jobs in the nation.

An average NBA team carries 14 players so you have a total of 420 NBA players. Numbers wise it is easier to get into the NBA than it is to be a sports broadcaster in the NBA. I'm not making it into the NBA and the chances of becoming a professional sports broadcaster is statistically has fewer odds. This should be enough to derail me. Perhaps I am delusional but it hasn't derailed me. It has made me realize that I better do whatever I can to put me in the best position for that kind of job. I did some research. Penn State has the number one school for sports journalism in the nation and Syracuse has the number one program for sports broadcasting. I need both on my resume. I want to major in sports journalism at Penn State and then achieve my masters in sports broadcasting up at Syracuse. Now you can probably ask me tomorrow and I will have either changed my mind about what I want to do or reality will have hit and I will realize that this goal is pointless and unattainable. But as of now this is what I want to do. Penn State is very expensive and I think I am going to go to Idaho State for a year boost my GPA and hopefully make it more affordable via a scholarship. In the meantime I feel like I need to do something. I once read an article where casual fans could ask Stuart Scott any question and one person ask him how he could become a sportswriter and his simple suggestion was just to write as much as you’re possibly can about sports and then probably followed it up with some catchy and annoying catch phrase that just cheapens his profession. As much as I hate Stuart Scott I decided to follow his advice. So I decided to write a sports blog purely about sports. I don't know how but I want to try and get this sports blog to people that have some influence. I don't know how to get my small-time blog out to people but I gotta figure out how to start somewhere. Here is the link to my sports blog the first entry is purely about myself and how I became a Laker fan.

Television is my best friend. Commercials are my least favorite friend. I hate commercials so much that I can't stand to watch television live. I always wait for it to come on Hulu.com or netflix. But there are some television shows that I do want to talk about especially the television show "Lost". I watched all 5 seasons of Lost on DVD and watched the last season on television. Now knowing that it was the last season was gut-wrenching. It was like having a kid that is going to die in 17 weeks and then you will never see him again except if you watch your home videos of him and oh you can only see your kid for one hour on Tuesday.

Now I want to present you with a theory about Lost that I seem to really like. In a lot of religions, Christianity being one of them life is considered a test that you go through and if your good you go to heaven and if you’re bad you go to hell. This theory is that from the beginning of the show to the end of the show we were watching Jack's test. His life on this island was his real life and obviously Jack passed the test and maybe each of the characters have their own story and their own test but this show I think was Jack's test. Watch this clip, specifically the last two minutes of it.

Now what happened during that turbulence is Jack died there and when the plane calmed down that’s when Jack passed over and maybe the whole island, the adventure the whole thing happened during that turbulence. Remember Jack had told Kate that he had blacked out during the crash so he couldn't remember anything? Blacked out or died. The season finale when he met up with his father and his father told him that this whole ordeal was necessary for him to accept his death and he created this imaginary world in a way to procrastinate in a sense and what he needed to do was just give in and accept his fate. Now with that in mind, remember the first thing Rose said to him when the plane's turbulence finally wore off "You can let go now, its okay you can let go now" Metaphorically speaking she met you can let go of your life and accept death.

OK LOST TALK IS OVER----

But television talk is not over. I am a huge television on DVD fan and I love watching shows on Netflix. My wife and I are currently watching House on DVD we are on season 5. Usually what makes or break a television show for me is if I like a certain television character. Doesn't matter how dumb the show may be if I like that character then I like the show. Pretty simple equation. Take the show Supernatural, I hate all weird sci-fi shows like that and honestly I think the show itself is retarded. I absolutely can't stand them but I like the main character, Dean Winchester. Despite the show being retarded I still watch it for Dean and mainly because my wife makes me. You take the show NCIS which is extremely popular but I don't like any of the characters therefore I hate the show. Now Gregory House is by far the most entertaining and complex TV character of all time. His battle with his pain addiction, his cynical view of the world kind of reminds me of myself. I love the intelligent banter between Wilson and House. Just watching the show makes me feel smarter.

I am also very curious about this television show called Glee. I have it on my netflix queue but I want to get the first two seasons of Fringe, which by the way is fantastic before I get to Glee. This gives my readers plenty of time to convince me to watch or not watch Glee.

I really do want to make this blog a weekly thing. I doubt that will ever happen but if it does I would love to have a section where I talk about the latest movie that I've seen and it seems like I see a movie once a week. We are going to do a top ten countdown of the best movies I've seen this year.

Giving this movie #10 doesn't do it justice. This movie sucked. I pretty much hated every single moment of this movie. The story was uncohesive and unless you watched the television series before you probably didn't even get what was going on. M. Night Shyamalan is a fantastic director and this was definitely a disappointment. This movie was so hyped up mostly by my friend Shaun that I had huge expectations going into it. The problem with this movie was I knew going in it would have a weak story line and bad acting. I expected the special effects and the visual aspects to blow me away much like Avatar did. Avatar's story lined sucked, it was just the story of Pocahontas but they were blue people but it was masked by the awesome visual aspect of the show so people forgot how much the story sucked. The Last Airbender lacked everything.

I don't really even remember this movie just that it was lame and I didn't like watching it. I love Greek mythology but this one missed the mark. I do remember how the main character Perseus made a big deal about how he wanted to save the day without the power of the Gods and then ended up using Zues' sword and a flying a horse to defeat the Cracken.

I didn't hate this movie and I didn't like this movie. So for all the hoop-la about this movie and I can't remember a single thing about it obviously means it was pretty lame.

I love Tina Fey and I love how she is bringing back funny for women. I seriously would consider herself a modern day Lucille Ball and Steve Carrell everything he does is hilarious. Call me a geek for liking this chick flick but it was a good movie.

I didn't like how they bumped Terrence Howard for Don Cheadle and this movie had too many one liners. It's basically going the way I thought it would- its turning into a little kid’s movie ala the first series of Batman movies. Major disappointment Robert.

Ian Hill will tell you that a lot of times why I hate movies is I go into the movie thinking it’s going to be retarded and no matter how the great the movie may be I am going to hate it because of my poor attitude. That was definitely the case with Prince of Persia I thought the movie would suck as much as Jake Gyllenhall. It turns out Gyllenhall still sucks but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I usually hate anything to do with time travel but this was actually pretty cool. It had a Pirates of Caribbean feel to it and was a lot of fun to watch.

Maybe I am just a big Leo fan and I love scary movies. This movie had me on the edge of my seat the entire time and the story was great and even though I called the completely crazy twist it was still a lot of fun to watch. Sadly, it had a Sixth Sense-esque twist to it so watching it again probably won't be any fun and I really think scary movies like this one are only scary on the big screen. If you haven't seen it- definitely watch it.

I loved Robin Hood. I really hope this turns into a franchise similar to the new Batman series. I loved Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and I don't want to say that this one was better I thought this one was extremely good. The reason it’s so high up on my list is because of the potential it is showing. The sequel, if there is one will be epic. I loved the story line that is developing and the relationship between Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchet is great. The filming and scenery were spectacular it was full of great shots and I almost enjoyed that as much as the movie itself.

I know I will get a lot of flak for saying this but Twilight was awesome. This movie was exponentially better than the other Twilight movies. The directing/producing of the film was top notch. Forks Oregon is such a scenic place and like in the movie Robin Hood I loved the shots in the film. They still had all of those cheesy love lines, that I am positive are just taken out of the book and have to be in the movies but they delivered them in such a way that it wasn't cheesy and fake like all the other movies. Bella is still a terrible actress but Edward and Jacob have improved. This was a lot more cohesive and I finally was able to build a connection with the characters which I couldn't in the other two movies. I decided that I am not really on team Edward because I don't like him. He looks constipated and has a Conan O'Brien pasty white look to him which works for funny tall Irish men but not on vampires. I like Jacob even less. I think he is a being a douche bag for going after Bella when he knows she is dating/engaged to Edward so I guess I am on team Edward. I do not think that Bella should become a vampire. Can't they free Edward from being a vampire like Aladdin freed the genie? If this was Disney that's what would happen.

I like kid movies and I figured Toy Story 3 would just be another kids movie and I was totally fine with that and even excited to see the movie. Toy Story 3 turned out to be a real movie with substance. It had everything that a movie needs to have to be a blockbuster hit. The movie made me laugh, it made me reminisce, it put me on the edge of my seat, and it even made me tear up a little bit. The movie just contained every emotion that you want to get out of a movie. The story line was fantastic and was a great conclusion to a fantastic franchise. Beauty and the Best was the last animated film to win movie of the year and I honestly believe that Toy Story 3 will end up being the movie of the year.

My longtime blog readers will remember the "Obama Score" and I really need to bring this back. Not only is the Obama score more accurate than his approval rating and by constantly updating his score it will hopefully help me keep up with current political events - something which I feel the need to be informed about.

So since I haven't done it in a while I went through his Presidency and briefly recapped on the issues I thought were important and scored them accordingly.

Since he has been the President the unemployment rate has gone up 9 times and has gone down 5 times so overall he has done an ok job with the unemployment rate so I am going to give him a +1

Obama signs the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I am not knowledgeable on economics so I don’t know if the stimulus plan has actually worked but in Monopoly you have to pay all that money back. Plus I really don’t like how we still have Americans living off of their welfare checks because Obama enables them to do so and that is largely due to this act. So I am going to give it a -1

President Obama signs an executive order announcing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year, and signs a prohibition on using torture and other illegal coercive techniques, such as waterboarding, during interrogations and detentions, requiring the Army field manual to be used as a guide. I guess closing down Guantanamo Bay is a good idea but if we can’t torture people how is Jack Bauer going to fight off terrorists? Anything that hinders Jack from doing his job I am against. – 1

Obama signs his first bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which promotes fair pay regardless of sex, race, or age. Homos need fair pay too, Homos need fair pay too. +1

Obama reveals his proposal for the 2010 United States federal budget which is $2.381 trillion, an estimated decrease of 11% from 2009 +1

On March 9 Obama overturns rules limiting federal money being used for human embryonic stem cell research. +1

On March 27 Obama announces a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not really a new strategy just to continue with Bush’s strategy of sending more troops to Afghanistan. Sending more troops to Afghanistan is never a good idea but Obama realized his idea of just pulling everybody out of Afghanistan wasn't realistic This was his reality check. +1

May 4th – Obama hosts a Cinco De Mayo party. Yes, that’s right on May 4th. -1

Obama nominates federal judge Sonia Sotomayor because apparently wise Latino women are better than wise white guys. -1

On July 15 the Senate committee approves a plan to revamp the U.S. health care system - 1

Obama and Oprah go to Denmark to give a speech to the International Olympic Committee and fail to bring the Olympics to the USA. I have a hard time blaming anything on Oprah so I put all the blame on Obama. – 1

On October 9th Obama receives the Nobel Peace Prize award for doing a mediocre job as a President. It gives me hope that I can win the Nobel Peace Prize award +1

On October 23rd he declared the spread of the H1N1 virus “a national emergency” and then five days later he overturned a 22-year-old law barring foreigners infected with HIV-AIDS from entering the country. I could understand this if Magic Johnson wasn’t a US Citizen and we needed him in the country. -1
On December 2nd Obama ordered an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. -1

President Obama commits $100,000,000 to help Haiti recover from the 2010 earthquake. I know this sounds terrible, but if we are in such a bad recession wouldn’t that $100,000,000 really help our citizens. I know it’s terrible of me but let’s take care of our own country first. He is going to get a -1 and a +1 for being a better man than me.

January 18th Obama sends his first twitter update +1

Obama approves The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. This is the big one he screwed us over with his health care reform and then helped out struggling college students with the Education part of the bill. I am going to dock him a whopping negative 4 points for approving such an unconstitutional act but then give him a generous positive 2 points for helping out our college students.

March 31 - Obama announces that he will approve oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico . Yeah this wasn’t exactly his fault but it didn’t turn out so well so -1

Arizona introduces the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (introduced as Arizona Senate Bill 1070 which is strictest anti-illegal immigration measure in decades. I believe this was a result of Obama not doing anything about the illegal immigrants and Arizona felt like it was backed into a corner and wrongly and stupidly put this bill into place. If Obama was doing his job correctly I do not believe this would have happened. – 1

That brings us to the Obama Score. He was two points ahead but hasn't done so well since.

2010-03-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

Ok I am about to drop some truth bombs on my blog follower(s). I am was positive that due to this recent health care reform being passed that America was would be freaking out. That is why I decided that I once again needed to save America
Lets hit you with the reality of the problem. The USA spends more, per capita, than any other country on earth on healthcare. The reasons are pretty obvious we live a very unhealthy lifestyle, so our need for healthcare is greater than a place like Sweden. We have a lot of money to spend on healthcare because we spend less on other things, like food. Our leaders have used the "think of the children" idea to make us expect that all our healthcare is world class and all our healthcare facilities have the best equipment and training. most people (including republicans) agree that we have a "crisis" because our costs are moving up faster than inflation. I respectfully disagree Instead I would argue that cheap healthcare is available, just go to your local walk-in clinic or inner city hospital andtell them you can't pay and they will get you help anyway
I believe the problem, if it can be called a problem, is that we demand the best healthcare available in other countries and in our country, cheap healthcare is available, and good healthcare is available. Just like any other good or service, though, good healthcare is more expensive. This is not limited to our country. In the UK there are private non-NHS hospitals that those who can afford to, go to. they offer better care, but are more expensive. Our current system allows people to get good healthcare (if they can afford it) or cheap healthcare (which is decent, considering the cost)

Another thing you often hear is that insurance companies are raping us and making huge profits. This is simply untrue. The average profit margin for a health insurance company in the US is about 2.5 percent. for comparison, inflation is about 4.5 percent to 6 percent. Insurance industry profits are lower than nearly every other US industry. the reason the profits look so big is that insurance is such a voluminous business. when you are selling a product that nearly every person buys, it's easy to get to a billion dollars. the idea behind reform is to "bend the cost curve down" which means slow the growth of the rising costs of healthcare. This is good, but it's only half the equation. Bending the quality curve up, if you like, is the other half.

It's passed (officially) but i know there are several lawsuits lined up against the federal government already about it. It has more holes in constitutionally than a kitchen sponge. It passed the house and senate, but still has to be signed into law, and there will be tons of lawsuits because many people believe that parts of the bill are unconstitutional. and it doesn't go into effect until 2013. Some of the parts of the bill are as follows: require everybody to have health insurance. Many young and healthy people don't buy insurance because they simply don't need it because they don't get sick or injured. This means that insurance companies have to pay out more to the people that do pay for insurance. Giving them a little more income from people who won't need payouts will let them lower everybody's bills a bit. If it's unconstitutional it will have to be taken to the Supreme Court who will declare it as such. This will likely take several years to go through that process. .
If nobody sues, it will remain the law. If somebody sues, the courts will determine if it is constitutional.one thing i believe is unconstitutional is the mandate that everybody buy insurance. The constitution tells congress what exactly they can do, and every bill they pass has to be covered under the one of the provisions of the constitution. The one they use most often is called the "interstate commerce clause" which gives congress authority "to regulate interstate commerce" because buying health insurance is interstate commerce, they can regulate it. However, one of the provisions of the bill is a fine for those who don't buy insurance. The fine is, in effect, a punishment for doing nothing.
Our current congress believes such a fine will be covered under the interstate commerce clause because it has to do with healthcare. I believe that such a fine is unconstitutional because those that will be fined are precisely the ones who are NOT engaged in any interstate commerce because they aren't buying health insurance. In the bill, the section detailing the fine is headed "excise tax" however, an excise tax is a tax on a good or service. When you purchase no good or service, it is not an excise tax, it's a poll tax. the constitution however, demands that poll taxes be split equally over everybody. This poll tax does not fit that requirement.
The "excise tax" is so unconstitutional it boggles the mind how a group of lawyers could pass it. if you are interested, here's an article.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/12/Why-the-Personal-Mandate-to-Buy-Health-Insurance-Is-Unprecedented-and-Unconstitutional

Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to mandate that an individual enter into a contract with a private party or purchase a good or service and, as this paper will explain, no decision or present doctrine of the Supreme Court justifies such a claim of power. Therefore, because this claim of power by Congress would literally be without precedent, it could only be upheld if the Supreme Court is willing to create a new constitutional doctrine
To assess the constitutionality of a claim of power under the Commerce Clause, the primary question becomes, "what class of activity is Congress seeking to regulate?" Only when this question is answered can the Court assess whether that class of activity substantially affects interstate commerce. Significantly, the mandate imposed by the pending bills does not regulate or prohibit the economic activity of providing or administering health insurance. Nor does it regulate or prohibit the economic activity of providing health care, whether by doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, or other entities engaged in the business of providing a medical good or service. Indeed, the health care mandate does not purport to regulate or prohibit activity of any kind, whether economic or noneconomic. To the contrary, it purports to "regulate" inactivity.
The biggest problem is that the bill begins collecting taxes this year, for the next ten years, but only pays for 7 years (from 2013-2020) it's like buying a house on a 30 year mortgage but only being able to live in the house for 20. the only way to pay for the bill for the following ten years is to bring taxes up.
It's going to get struck down by the Supreme Court. I would be absolutely shocked if it didn’t

I'm Back

2010-01-06T00:18:00.000-08:00

My last blog entry was on April 18, 2009 and now its January 5th 2010 I don't like to consider these long breaks in my blog entries as a hiatus, blogger's block or a sabbatical but I would like to imagine that I just retired on April 18th and this is my comeback. I don't want it to be a Brett Favre retirement thing where its annoying but more like how rappers retire in between albums.

I think this blog entry is going to be a little different than previous entries. I think I got off track and just tried to make them funny and entertaining for people to read. I really started the blog entry first to argue with Steve about sports but more importantly to express my thoughts. I think this blog entry is going to be kind of a downer so I apologize for that.

I do have a few things that I would like to get off my chest. I don't like the holidays. I do like the holidays. I like eating turkey on Thanksgiving, giving and receiving presents on Christmas and having BBQs on the 4th of July. But its all the extra stuff about holidays I can't stand. I know I am a Grinch. I think a lot of it has to deal with the fact that my parents are divorced so growing up every single holiday of any sort was a tug-o-war between which parent I spent the holiday with. It was terrible. No matter what one parent was going to be upset and it truly is one of the worst parts of being a split family is that you can't spend the holidays with both parents. I guess I shouldn't complained about it. My problem growing up was that both my parents wanted me around and I know that there are kids out there who have parents that don't want them around so that is even worse. I thought that once I was married it would all stop but I was wrong. It's still that way which kind of sucks but I am getting to the point where eventually its just going to be my wife and I at home for the holidays and if my parents want to stop by that will be great. This last Christmas was full of unnecessary drama and tension. Tempers flew and things escalated and got out of hand and bridges were burned. I don't want my blog to be a place where I point fingers and place blame on individuals so I am not even going to get into the horrible mess that happened on Christmas as a result of a lot of immaturity on every side(including yours truly)

People will tell you that I am pretty relaxed laid back kind of guy that I really don't let things get to me. I try not to overreact to things. I very much live out of the moment. When bad things happen I like to wait until I am out of wake and let things settle and then asses what has happened and then just deal with it. I want to give a small scale example of how I handle things. A while back Sheena dropped her cell phone in a puddle and the water got in and the cell phone wouldn't work. Sheenas was freaking out and was all stressed about having to buy a new cell phone, I think we were pretty broke at the time and even with insurance to get a replacement is $50 bucks and $50 bucks is $50 bucks. I think Sheena was a little upset that I wasn't upset. I tried to tell her that we will take the cell phone apart try to dry it out and if it doesn't work in the morning then we will deal with the stressful situation of getting the cell phone replaced. I refused to be stressed out about the situation until the results were final and I knew exactly what was going on. Lucky for us the cell phone worked out just fine and there was no need to be stressed out. I try to always take that approach to remain calm and to assess the situation in its totality.

No matter what the crisis is I need to calm down and let the crisis play itself out and once all the smoke has cleared I can assess the damage and then react. I think a lot of times we are so fast to react the minute something bad happens that we often make things worse. Whether we misdiagnose a brain tumor altering some ones life forever or we emotionally react to situation by having a stressful night because we are worried about paying $50 bucks to get cell phone replaced. Our mental capacity or lack of mental capacity is going to determine how that situation is going to play out. Now obviously you stub your toe your toe is going to hurt but then I suppose it how we handle that pain.

2009-04-19T14:52:00.001-07:00

I really have had a hard time sitting down to write a blog...and I am making no promises that it will turn into a regular thing. I do miss writing my blog and the few responses that I get from it. Last time I blogged it was around January and it was talking about my New Years Resolutions...I am happy to admit I have not kept a single one. Oh well maybe 2010 will be my year.

The only New Years Resolution that I have kept is to enhance my television experience. I have been ordering 24 on Netflix and I am officially addicted to the show. Jack Bauer is my hero. He is way tougher than Jason Bourne, Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and Vin Diesel. I do however think that David Palmer is a terrible President and I hate his wife. He couldn't handle his wife ordering him around and telling him how to be the President so he divorced her. Bill Clinton didn't do that with Hilary, he kept her around, he just cheated on her with Monica Lewinsky. I don't know why David Palmer didn't take this route it would of been a lot more like real television. My goal is to watch all the episodes of 24 and then next fall when the new series comes out I can join that Jack Bauer bandwagon.

On a side note I wanna talk about my disgust for Vin Diesel. He is a terrible actor and the ugliest man alive. I want to demonstrate this by a simple mathematical equation. You know how Jay Leno used to do that funny gimmick like if so and so had a baby this is what it would look like. Well that's kind of what I have done here.
If you take a down syndrome baby and chimpanzee and if they have a baby together it would equal Vin Diesel.

I want to apologize to all down syndrome babies and chimpanzee for comparing them to Vin Diesel and I am sorry if I offended any of them. In their defense a down syndrome chimpanzee would probably be a better actor.

Ya know I have always considered myself a very accepting person of any race, religion, sexual orientation it does not matter to me as long as you are a good person, heck you don't even have to be a good person to be my friend, you could be a terrible person and own an XBOX and I will probably like you.

My point is I have always considered myself to be very accepting and comfortable of any type of person. But I have to admit something: I watched the show Milk, ya know the one with Sean Penn and he is a gay activist who is running for a spot on the city council in San Francisco. This movie took place in the 70's I think and they were taking away all the jobs from gay people and Sean Penn wanted to change that so he was running for office. While watching the movie I felt bad for the gays and even was happy when the gay's got their jobs back and was sad when Sean Penn got shot but...I just couldn't do it. I had to turn away or fast forward through the gay kissing scenes. I guess I am just not as accepting or as comfortable in my own sexuality but I couldn't watch Sean Penn and James Franco make out.

This got me thinking was it really the fact that they were two guys kissing or just two people that I am not attracted to kissing. I mean I don't have a problem watching two hot chicks make out so it can't be that I am not comfortable with gays kissing. I don't think I wanna watch old people make out and I remember it was always awkward when Roseanne and John Connor would be intimate with each other. So maybe its just unattractive people. I am pretty sure this is why they only have beautiful people on television.

I got tickets to the Jazz-Lakers playoff game. It's in Utah and its going to be on game 4. I am really hoping that the Lakers will be up 3-0 in Utah and can sweep the Jazz on their home floor. I plan on bringing my broom to the game and sweeping the steps of the Energy Solutions Arena when they complete the sweep. If I don't get beat up, kicked out of the arena or arrested for acting like a total jackass then i will consider it a failure. The tickets are up in the nosebleed section but all I really wanna do is just give Jazz fans a bunch of crap.

I wanna give a shot out to my friend Kendall who sent me an invitation to the group Pocatello Music. I love going to concerts and I actually prefer going to unknown crappy bands then big time bands so I am thoroughly excited for a website that is going to keep me informed of all of the concerts that are coming up in Pocatello. Here is the website http://www.pocatellomusic.com/ check it out.

Now these ain't your small town local bands. My brother is getting married on June 20th to Heidi Stewart, pretty exciting I guess but what I am more excited about is his bachelor party. On June 6th in the Idaho Falls Civic Auditorium MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice are performing and we are going. It 1990 musical ecstasy. I will be rocking the MC Hammer pants and the side steps in my hair.

Saudi King Abdullah

Who the heck is this guy!! Do we love oil so much that we have to kiss and bow at this guy's feet. As far as I am concerned every other world leader should either be a Tony Blair or a Saddam Hussein. In other words they are either a 'Yes Man' who supports every action we take or they are a terrorist and we should hunt them down and hang them. Ridiculous. This King Abdullah might be like Aragon in Lord of the Ring, the King of Gondor(Yes, I realized I just embarrassed myself by making this analogy and demonstrating my love of Lord of the Rings)but then we are like the hobbits and we bow to no one.

I want my president to be 1st class Bad A who doesn't take crap from nobody. Why can't our president be more like Harrison Ford in Air Force One and instead of bowing and negotiating with terrorists/foreigners he just beats all of them up and throws them off of his plane.

So I keep on hearing about how the newspaper industry is under attack and that eventually newspaper will be joined with alarm clocks as becoming obsolete because of advances in technology. The cell phone made the alarm clock and the home phone obsolete and the internet will make the newspaper industry die. To me there is nothing more American than sitting down at breakfast and reading the newspaper first thing in the morning. No wonder they call it the World Wide Web, once again Al Gore is trying to make us more world friendly. Well screw you Al Gore and the world I am going to order a subscription to the Idaho State Journal. GO USA!!

I am only 24 years old and sometimes I feel like my beautiful wife is trying to turn me into a 44 year old. We go on walks every evening, which I won't lie, its probably the best part of my day. But shouldn't we go clubbing every night and get hammered or staying up all night play World of Warcraft instead and to top it all off she purchased a humidifier yesterday. SO LONG YOUTH!!!

2009-04-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry to all the non-sports fan for the lame return of my blog. It will be purely about the NBA Playoffs although I do fully intend to post a complete blog tomorrow. Let's hit it:

Lakers vs. Utah: Lakers over Utah 4-0

The Jazz vs. Lakers are always special to me. My family(Dad and cousin Steve) are huge Jazz fans and this is purely for bragging rights. I still have not forgotten the back-to-back sweeps handed to the Lakers in the 1997 NBA Playoffs and the second time in 1998. I have still not forgotten about that so I am hoping for sweet redemption and predicting the Lakers to return the favor and sweep the Jazz out of the playoffs will this probably happen no it will not but I will be attending Game 4 and nothing would be sweeter than standing next to Steve as we watch the Lakers sweep the Jazz off the floor.

Denver vs. New Orleans Hornets: Denver over Hornets in 6 games

I almost picked the Hornets to win this playoff series, winning a playoff series is never easy when you have George Karl as your head coach. They should give the Nuggets a handicap like a 10 point lead or start the series with the Nuggets 1-0 since they have Karl giving instructions during the game. As long as the Nuggets don't listen to George Karl and don't look to Carmelo Anthony to lead them they should get past the first round but it will tough and all the credit should go to Chanuncey Billups.

Portland Trailblazers vs. Houston Rockets: Houston over Portland in 7

I picked Houston to win but I'm going to be wrong. Two reasons why I picked them to beat Portland is because #1 I don't want Portland to be in the second round against the Lakers and #2 Portland doesn't have any playoff experience. Tracy Mcgrady is injured so he isn't there to jinx the Rockets and I think it would be beautiful if the first time that Mcgrady's team gets past the first round is when T-Mac is hurt.

Spurs vs. Mavs: Spurs over Mavs in 6 games

Hey! Its the San Antonion Spurs and I really don't care that Manu Ginobli is hurt. This is best supporting cast that Duncan has had since Robinson and Avery Johnson played. Jason Terry will score like 30 points a game and Dirk will once again be shut down and once again the Devin Harris trade will come back to haunt Mark Cuban when Tony Parker runs circles around Jason Kidd.

Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Detroit Pistons: Cavs in 4 games

I don't see any way that the Pistons can win a game against the Cavs. They have a rookie coach, Kwame Brown and no Chauncey Billups. Favorite thing about the Pistons is they traded Chauncey Billups because they thought Rodney Stuckey would be able to replace Chauncey Billups and then eventually they found out that Will Bynum was better than Rodney Stuckey and in the middle of this they tried to trick the entire world into believing that Iverson's back is too hurt to play and that's why he is not with the team. I am fully expecting Rodney Stuckey to pull a Tanya Harding and hire somebody to attack Will Bynum with an ice skate during this series.

Boston Celtics vs. Chicago Bulls: Celtics over Bulls in 6

The Bulls will run a million pick and rolls and Glen Big Baby Davis and Kendrick Perkins won't be able to do a thing about it. Derrick Rose is going to get punked by Rajon Rondo and maybe finally people will say that he is a legitimate point guard. I fully expect the Bulls to give the Celtics a tough tough series. I am 100% percent sure that Brad Miller and Kendrick Perkins will get in a fight and both be ejected.

Orlando Magic vs. 76ers: Orlando over 76ers in 5 games.

This will be a great matchup one for the ages. Two of the best post players going one on one in a battle of the bigs. Elton Brand vs. Dwight Howard....oh wait nevermind.

Atlanta Hawks vs. Dwyane Wade: Wade in 6 games

Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Al Horford, Mike Bibby, Dwyane Wade, Dwyane Wade, Dwyane Wade, Dwyane Wade

2009-01-07T01:10:00.000-08:00

I guess I have been slacking lately on my blog for which I apologize immensely to the three or four people who actually find my blog to be entertaining, unfortunately I am not one of those four or three people.
One of my many New Year Resolutions is to keep up on my blog. I really enjoyed writing it and I love the feedback that I was getting and it was a motivator to keep me informed on current events. More importantly it really helps to kill time while I work my graveyard shift. Now I have a new work schedule for next semester and I will be working three graveyard shifts. Does this mean three blog entries a week? Probably not and if so then don’t expect anything great from each blog entry. I kind of want to jump around on a number of topics today none that any of you will find that interesting but I don’t really care.
First Topic:
I guess my first topic will some of my New Year resolutions. I think putting them on my blog will actually be a very effective way to make sure that I keep them since I am publicly declaring them to my faithful readers and this way if I fail at achieving my New Year Resolution than instead of just me realizing that I am a weak, pathetic human who can’t accomplish anything in his life but everybody else will.
Here are a few of my goals worth discussing:

I think the majority of people set this goal every year and that is to lose weight.
I read something about how like 70% of new gym memberships occur in January and February because of people signing up to join a gym at the beginning of the year. I didn’t sign up I am continuing to rip off my brother’s Gold Gym membership. It is January 6th and I have actually been to the gym twice. Not too shabby I just wonder how long I can keep this up. I don’t want to do anything radical to lose weight like exercise for 2 hours a day at 5:00 am in the morning or go on some weird diet and eat cottage cheese and oatmeal for the whole year. I just think that I am going to cut back on a few things such as soda pop and eating out which will also save me a ton of money. I would like to throw in go to the gym and exercise I don’t think that is anything to radical and overwhelming so I am going to try and milk Trevor’s gym membership for as long as I can until he realizes that he doesn’t go to the gym anymore and cancel his membership and then I have no gym and that will effectively put a stop to me going.

I have a lot of the same old same old goals that everybody sets (see above) and I am sure every faithful churchgoer sets the goal to not miss church and yes that is one of my goals as well. Although I already will end up missing the first two weeks of church due to work and I will be honest with yak if my Eagles make the Super bowl I am most likely skipping church that day to savor the moment. Nothing like reading the Bible and learning about Jesus to take you out of your football groove. So I am not too confident that I am going to keep this goal but I am definitely going to attend church more than I have been.

I think it’s important to set financial goals and weight loss goals and goals that will improve your chances of going to heaven all admirable goals but I also think it is just as important to set goals that will just make you happy. For instance I don’t watch a lot of television, and when I say television I mean television shows, I watch a lot of sports. I know these sounds like the opposite of a goal because most people set goals to watch less television but I am setting the goal to watch more television. Specifically television shows that my wife and I will enjoy. I can watch ESPN all day long with no problem if I wanted to – goal accomplished. But let’s not beat around the bush on this one my wife and I love just staying home and watching television. The only thing is we can never agree on what to watch. Since she doesn’t want to watch ESPN all day long. Cable is included in my monthly rent so I might as well take advantage of that right and I sure can’t afford to go out and do something that would be more productive so staying at home plopped out on the couch watching television is the cheapest way to have fun. I also feel that I am out of a social loop. I have never seen Lost or Heroes or 24 and so my goal is to catch up on the previous seasons so I can look forward to watching the new episodes with my wife when they come on the television.

2008-11-20T20:03:00.000-08:00

First off I usually work ONE graveyard shift at work a week and that is when I write my blog don't know if I care that much to write it when I am at home but...I have the flu and didn't work yesterday(Wednesday, Nov 19) and I am not going into to do my graveyard shift(Friday, Nov 21) so I am sitting at home sick while my wife is at work with no energy to anything but watch Sportscenter for the fifth time today. I did not however watch The Price is Right that Dane Cook says you always watch when you are sick at home.

So I am blogging live from my living room.

CURRENT EVENTS

So apparently they want to build a coal gasification plant in American Falls. I don't know much about Coal gasification plants I assume that they will cause pollution but will also provide jobs and a boost to the economy in American Falls and the surrounding area. I am not quite sure I understand all of this I certaintely don't understand how coal gasification plants work but like most industrial plants it will release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, but releasing carbon dioxide isn't consider polluting then what is it considered? The plant will emit CO2 for a couple of years but they are going to build a huge pipe to Wyoming and then the C02 or whatever will end up in Wyoming. Not sure how that really works but...I LOVE IT!!

So we are building a coal gasification plant and will reap all the benefits but then we are building a huge pipe to transfer all the carbon dioxide to another state. That has to be the GREATEST IDEA EVER!! and why would Wyoming agree to this? Wyoming you are such a dumb bitch.

THE OBAMA SCORE

Al-Qaeda number two Ayman Zawahiri is pissed off at Obama for several things. Zawahiri said "What you have announced before ... that you will withdraw (US) troops from Iraq (and send them) to Afghanistan is a policy that is doomed to failure ...

"If you still want to be stubborn about America's failure in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of (President George W.) Bush and (Pakistan's ex-president) Pervez Musharraf, and the fate of the Soviets and British before them."

He is also pissed off because Obama was born a Muslim claims to be Christian but has prayed with the Jews who are the enemies of Muslims.(I thought Americans were the enemies of the Muslims) and when Zawahiri means he is pissed off at Obama for praying with the Jews he really mean he is pissed off that Obama didn't get rid of Joe Lieberman and that Lieberman will retain his spot as chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Pissing off Terrorists -1
Keeping Joe Lieberman who enjoys killing pissed off Terrorists +1

Obama wants to make Hilary Clinton his Secretary of State. I don't really know what to think about all of that. I know Obama said he wanted to surround himself with people that would disagree with him but does he really need to go as far as appointing Hilary Clinton to be his Secretary of State? I didn't like Clinton and I was happy that Obama won the democratic election over Clinton but I think she is by far the most qualified and would make an excellent Secretary of State. I don't think Hilary will accept the position and I think Obama knows this and he is doing this to win over all the Hilary fans andif anything its a good PR move to bring all the Clinton supporters on board to the Obamatrain.

Offering Hillary Clinton Secretary of State: +1

ENTERTAINMENT

AC/DC came out with a new album and they didn't disappoint me. I was a little hesitant that it would be like when Metallica released St. Anger and I was so excited to listen to it and it totally sucked. AC/DC and Aerosmith are my two favorite rock n roll bands from the 80's. This is just a great album and just like classic AC/DC

I had a discussion with my friend Hal about the new James Bond movie and I posted on his wall how I was disappointed in the movie and I think I will just cut n' paste my comment:

I dont know why I was so excited to see the Bond movie. The last Bond movie I turn it off after they are done playing cards, because the rest of it is dumb. I thought the opening song sounded like crappy techo and I know I just admitted that some techno isn't crappy which is a contradiction. I thought the fight scenes were too ... Read Morelong and they tried to make them like the Bourne Identity fight scenes, there were no dirty sexual innuendos for all the old people to laugh at and make you feel uncomfortable, the Haitian girl was kind of hot, but these last two Bond movies the Bond girl has been very disappointing and where the heck is Q and all the cool Bond gadgets?

So maybe I missed something in the plot, but the bad guy in the movie had bought up all the water supply in Bolivia(60% to be exact) and then decided to charge a ridiculous amount for water. I think he also built a dam to on an underground river to control even more of the water and this is why the Secret Service and the CIA was trying to kill him. The whole movie I though "so what? That's just a good business idea" I really don't see why the Secret Service would get involved in it, I thought maybe like a Better Business Bureau or whatever they have in Bolivia would just handle the whole thing. I think a good idea for the next James Bond movie should be about a coal gasification plant building building a 120mile pipeline to another state to dump all of its C02 there. Now that would make a great movie.

SPORTS

ISU Basketball

ISU played a pretty good game against Eastern Oregon and Demetrius Monroe looks pretty good. I like how he shows absolutely no emotion and doesn't even look like he is trying at all when he plays. Then ISU lost in Hawaii, a very tough place to play, in OT. They play in Boise this Saturday and I wished I had the money and desire to drive up and watch them play Boise but I am definetly going to be watching the game.

ROCK YOUR VOTE

Ok so I have the NBA League Pass and of course the basic cable which gives me TNT, ESPN and ABC so I can watch every single Laker game except for the ones on NBATV. While this poses a problem for me is because once a week fans can vote online for which game they want to appear on NBATV and so far two Laker games have been voted to be on NBATV. This is terrible, so everyday I get online and I vote for any game besides the Lakers.

MY LIFE

My English class is killin me. I always thought that I was a pretty good english student but this teacher is just tough. I got a 65% on my first paper and a 75% on the second paper(that was the sleep deprivation one) This next paper I am writing it on stem cell research. why did I choose to write a 1600 word paper on stem cell research when I know absolutely nothing about stem cell research. I really don't know I guess stupid people just do stupid things. But I have studying stem cell research and was really surprised with my ability to understand exactly what it is. Could I give a lecture or a presentation on stem cell research, Absolutely not, but hopefully I can BS it enough to write a paper on it.

I probably won't be writing a blog next week since I am going to Colorado to visit some of Sheena's in-laws and I doubt I will have time to write about it but I will let you know all about my trip when I get back.

2008-11-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

Ok I am going to try a different format with my blog I am going to break it down into separate categories so those people that don't care about sports can easily just skip that or for those people who just wanna know what going on in my life can just read that. I really want people to express their opinions on the issues that I bring up so feel free to disagree with me, I would rather you disagree with me and tell me why you disagree then to tell me you agree with me. Of course it goes without saying that if you disagree with me you are an idiot.

CURRENT EVENTS

So Barack Obama has been very clear that there is still only ONE President of the United States, but I think people forgot to tell him that ONE President is still George W. Bush, but that's ok I am actually excited for January 20th when Barack Obama is officially our President.

The biggest thing is Barack Obama has done since becoming President Elect is appointing Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff. Emanuel worked with Clinton. Emanuel was huge in trying to get universal healthcare during Clinton's administration that's obviously why Obama pick Emanuel was because of his knowledge in healthcare. I don't care if you get Tony Blair to help you with Obama's idea of universal healthcare. There is just no way free healthcare is going to happen in the United States of America so if that's the reason you picked Emanuel it was a waste of chief of staff and plus the guy FAILED in getting universal healthcare in the US so obviously his track record isn't very good.

I don't like free healthcare for several reasons. Doctors wouldn't make nearly as much money as they do now and that would kill our economy. Since they won't be making a nice six figure salaries they will either start up a private practice which is way more expensive than public healthcare or quit and nobody is going to go to school for eight years to be a doctor so the quality of healthcare will go way down.I do not like Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff mainly because I am not supportive of free healthcare.

Lets keep a score of things that I don't like about Obama and things that I do like about Obama.

Obama: -1(not off to a good start)

I don't like free healthcare for several reasons. Doctors wouldn't make nearly as much money as they do now and that would kill our economy. Since they won't be making a nice six figure salaries they will either start up a private practice which is way more expensive than public healthcare or quit and nobody is going to go to school for eight years to be a doctor so the quality of healthcare will go way down.

Obama will have an immediate impact once he finally gets into the White House. There are a lot of changes that he will probably do immediately. Things like free healthcare, abortion rights and gay marriage needs to go through congress and it can take forever but he will use executive powers to immediately reverse George Bush's policies on stem cell research and oil exploration in national parks. He will use executive powers to reverse Bush's policies on stem cell research and drilling more oil in America.

Ok so lets talk about both of these issues. First stem cell research:

Obama has supported stem cell research to find cures for things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson disease, cancer, spinal cord injuries, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and muscle damage but in order to do this research it involves destroying a human embryo. The controversy here is that these human embryos are humans and we are for lack of a better word killing people. It goes along the same line of abortion and the same question needs to be answered, "When does life begin?" I personally do not think that life begins until it becomes a fetus which generally takes eight weeks once the little soldiers implants itself. So I do not think that the destruction of a human embryo is destroying life and believe me I am against abortion but I do not think that this is the same thing plus not all stem cell research requires the destruction of a human embryo adult stem cell lines can be made to create embryonic-like stem cell lines using a single-cell biops and get the same results so maybe to avoid all the pro-life fanatics Obama needs to focus purely on that but if he doesn't I still only see good things that can result from stem cell research.

So one point for Obama.
.
Drilling in America:

The federal Bureau of Land Management has said that there is about 360,000 acres of public land in Utah that can be drilled for oil and gas and that's only what they allowing us to drill on there could be a ton more. This energy plan is a lot better than pumping up our tires with air. I know he wants to drill in National Parks and a lot of these park goers are going to throw a fit about that but If we had our own oil and didn't have to pay oil in the middle east it would lower gas prices and help our economy out a ton. I just hope Green Peace doesn't screw this one over for us.

Another point for Obama

Ok so I read this story and I was pretty surprised and had a hard time not finding a little humorous.

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice…..

“Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable,” said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

“We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion,” Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. “We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough.”

Geez we are making a lot of enemies first the gays are mad at us for pushing the banning of gay marriage and now the Jews are mad at us for baptizing all the dead holocaust victims. Atleast Obama wont he popular vote in Utah so all the Black gotta forgive us for the whole not givin black people the priesthood. I don't really wanna get into a discussion if baptizing people of other churches is right or not, because I am still doing the temple work for John Stewart as soon as he kicks the can, but I wanna understand the Jews point of view. So if I am Jew I view the LDS church as just a crazy gay-hating cult and why would I care what they are claiming to do to my fellow jews.
ENTERTAINMENT

So I am going to Colorado for Thanksgiving. I love road trips and the reason I love them is I love listening to music and I just never can justify just sitting there listening to music considering all the time I waste watching sports and playing video games, so whenever I am in my car I just can kick back and listen to music. Sheena always complains about how all I listen to is punk rock and never the classic rock of the 70's and 80's that she loves so on this trip I am really going to try and be a good husband and listen to her music for the WHOLE TRIP. Sheena is going to end up driving to Colorado but I am taking on the sacred responsibility of being the Car DJ. I am in charge of supplying us with some sweet tunes to listen to and since my ipod was stolen we are going old school and I burn CD's. I want to take a voyage through the history of rock. Start with 60's bands like The Beatles, Bon Jovi and The Rolling Stone and then 70's with Led Zepplin, Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix and 80's bands with Def Leppard, Aerosmith and AC/DC and conclude with Nirvana and Audioslave. Through the tour of Rock I want to listen to some Black Sabbath, Queen, Styx and Foreigner. I hope Sheena is ready for Travis' salute to Rock. By the way I know there are some Something Corporate fans reading my blog and I would love to hear what you think about their latest album I listened to it for the first time yesterday and was very impressed.

SPORTS

Today at 7:05 I will be attending ISU's first game of the Men's Basketball season against Eastern Oregon. I don't know as much about college sports as I would like to but I am extremely optimistic about ISU's basketball team. They are probably not going to even win the Big Sky Conference but I think they will be competitive and they have some good teams coming to play up at the Holt and I really want to support ISU's team this year and I hope our student body can come through and give them a home crowd.

I would like to say that I know the NBA pretty well and I am fairly knowledgeable with EVERY NBA team and I can assess them pretty well but the team that I follow the most and know the most about, The Los Angeles Lakers, I always have a hard time assessing how good they truly are because I am so biased towards the Lakers because I love them so much.

I know its only been 7 games into the season but this team is one of the best teams I have seen in a long long time. I didn't watch the Celtics much last year and even Kobe admitted that they had one of the best defensives he has ever seen and they did win around 66 games but I haven't seen a team that has been this dominant since probably the 1999-2000 Lakers where Shaq was just unstoppable and won the MVP. The Mavericks had an incredible year when they went to the Finals but they were the Mavericks so there was nothing dominating about that team since Dirk Nowtizki could never scare anybody.

These Lakers are killing teams. They are the highest scoring team in the NBA and have the 2nd best defense in the league. They might have the best bench in the league, Utah's bench would give them a run for their money and the best starting five in the league manned by the best player in the league, Kobe Bryant. I just don't see how this team is going to lose. Maybe I am wrong and I need somebody to bring me down to Earth about the Lakers so please do so.

Steve sent me a text message on Thursday saying "the hawks are legit" and honestly I couldn't agree more and be happier about this fact. I jumped on the Hawks bandwagon as soon as they got Mike Bibby in a mid-season trade. They had all these high-flying dunkers and about 8 small forwards who want to run the break and I knew that as soon as they got a decent point guard they would be the funnest team to watch and trust me they are the funnest team to watch in the NBA and the fact that they are legit and a really good team is totally awesome.

MY LIFE

So in the last section I am going to talk about what is going on in my life, I generally find this the most boring part of the people's blogs since I don't really care what they did during the week I am just looking for some shout-outs in their blog(yeah I know, how self-centered) or things I can agree with or disagree with so I apologize.

I am doing better in my fantasy basketball league, which is a huge deal to me, I get so addicted to fantasy basketball and waste way too much time and care way to much about how my team is doing. Speaking of wasting time with the NBA I have got myself a pretty sweet hook-up. So if you have Directv then you can watch all NBA games on your laptop for free . I do not have NBA League Pass but Chris Maynard does. So thanks to Chris for giving me his Directv account number I can watch all the games on my laptop so I don't have to miss any of the games this season and to make it even cooler I rigged up my TV to my laptop so I can watch the games on my TV so now it's just like I have the NBA League Pass. So thanks Chris for kindness and helping me save 85 bucks but more importantly sticking it to the man.

So on Wednesday I got pulled over by a cop because my registration had been expired since March. I told the cop I didn't know, which was a lie, I have already been pulled over for it once way back in June. The douche bag gave me a ticket and its going to end up costing me 52 bucks plus the cost of my registration.

2008-11-07T01:19:00.000-08:00

First off let me apologize for two things: The first thing I am going to apologize is for my last blog entry it was a cheap and desperate attempt to have something interesting on my blog and I am sure it failed miserably. If you don't like reading English papers then you probably didn't enjoy reading my last entry and if you don't like reading crappy blogs then you probably didn't enjoy any of my blog entries. The second thing that I am going to apologize about is that I am once again going to talk about politics but the last time I blogged about politics I got a record number of comments, a whopping 5 comments!!!

Barack Obama

I did not vote for Obama HOWEVA I am totally fine with Barack Obama being our next President and I am not freaking out like all the other people who didn't vote for Obama. I do not think that Obama is the anti-christ or that he is a terrorist or anything like that, I think he will do just fine as our President. The guy is so likeable and charming how can you not immediately fall in love with him every time he speaks. (He kind of reminds me of Bruce R. Mckonkie when he speaks)
I am sure Obama could convince me to walk through fire and then be overjoyed that I was burned from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I said before that I really don't think that it's the President who is making all the decisions, or any for that matter, but the people behind him. I think the President is just the face of those decisions and needs to have enough knowledge to back them up when they are talking to the media, Congress or leaders from other countries. So all I really care about is that my President is well-spoken, he is diplomatic and won't embarrasses our country by sounding like an idiot or having sexual intercourse with his interns. I think that Barack Obama will be able to represent our country in a very dignified and respectful manner and definitely better than John Mccain.

I am also extremely proud of our country and the progress that we have made in civil rights. No other country in the world could of been able to pull something like this off to quote Christopher Wallace "it would of been like the French electing an Algerian to be their President." African-Americans went from slaves to being treated like second class citizens and now to becoming the President of the United States of America.
Tupac Shakur talked about all the things that are wrong with America and how they treat African Americans in his hit single "Changes" and he says and I quote "And although it seems heaven sent We ain't ready, to see a black President" this is the exact kind of change that Tupac and I am assuming Obama was talking about and we were definetly ready for it. Obama's believed in change and as he defianetly announced on Tuesday night "Change Has Come!" I think it is just incredible how far this nation has come in its effort to squash discrimination.

When Mitt Romney announced that he was running for President I was obviously very intrigued by the idea of a Latter-Day Saint being our President. I had many discussions with my father about Mitt Romney and if I would be voting for him if he was put on the Republican nominee and I told my father several times that I would not be voting for Mitt Romney because we shared the same faith and that I wanted to learn about his policies and all the other candidates policies, and I wanted to vote for Mitt Romney because I believed he was the best man for job, and if I believed he wasn't the best man for the job then I WOULD NOT vote for him.

When Martin Luther King prophetically said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." While Obama's change that he believed in came true on Tuesday I do not think that Martin Luther's dream of his sons being judged by the content of their character rather than by the color their skin has been fullfilled.

It worries me that I was even able to get this information because I don't think it should matter but according to CNN exit polls more than 95% of black voters voted for Obama for comparison, Asians voted for Obama at a rate of 63% Latinos voted for Obama at a rate of 67% and Whites voted for Obama at a rate of 43%. Nationwide 51% of people voted for Obama. To me that means around 30 percent of African Americans voted for Obama because he as well was an African-American. To me that is just as bad as all the white people who said they wouldn't vote for Obama because he was an African American or all the men who wouldn't of voted for Hilary Clinton because she was a woman. Now I know that this happens every single election year and that only because Barack Obama was the first African American to become the President that race is being discussed, but it told me that even though we have come a long way in treating every one as equal and not discriminating because of race we still have some work to do.

PROPOSITION 8

Ok I am a Latter-day Saint so I obviously am against gay marriage right? In a way I am against it and in a way I am for it. I am not going to pussy foot around this issue at the risk of offending some people so I am sorry if I am too bold in this blog entry. Proposition 8. Big deal right? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been very involved in Proposition 8. They have encouraged church members to vote "Yes" on banning gay marriage in California. I want to be very careful of what I am saying here. I believe 100% that the leaders of my church as receiving direct revelation from God so I am very careful not to say that they are wrong but I do not understand why we are getting in the middle of this political issue.

This in excerpt from the LA Times:

During the campaign, a website established by Proposition 8 opponents used campaign finance data and other public records to track Mormon political contributions to the Yes-on-8 campaign. Opponents estimated that members of the church had given more than $20 million, but the amount is difficult to confirm since the state does not track the religious affiliation of donors.

A commercial opposing Proposition 8 also drew criticism. In it, two actors portraying Mormon missionaries forced their way into the well-kept home of a married lesbian couple. Here is the commerical:

Jeff Flint, strategist for Yes on 8, called the ad "despicable" and said it "crossed every line of decency."

"I am appalled at the level of Mormon-bashing that went on during the Proposition 8 campaign and continues to this day," he said. "If this activity were directed against any other church, if someone put up a website that targeted Jews or Catholics in a similar fashion for the mere act of participating in a political campaign, it would be widely and rightfully condemned."

Members and leaders of the Catholic Church and other Christian churches were also heavily involved in the campaign to pass Proposition 8. The Knights of Columbus, which is tied to the Catholic Church, gave $1 million, and several evangelical groups gave millions more. But they have not come under the same kind of attack.

Leaders of the No-on-8 campaign said they did not believe they were engaged in Mormon-bashing. "This is not about religion," said Jacobs. "This is about a church that put itself in the middle of politics."

I agree with that last statement, we put ourselves "in the middle of politics" something which surprised me and I think we are going to get a lot of flack and negative attention for doing so, but then again our decisions come from a much higher source even if I don't understand exactly why we decided to become so involved.

We are going to break this down Gay Marriage into two sections: First section: My opinion on Homosexuality and the second section my opinion on Marriage.

We fear people who we do not understand. I went on my mission to England and there were a lot of Arabs in England and they had the full ensemble. Dressed from head to toe in traditional clothing and they scared the heebie jeebies out of me. They just looked like terrorists or ninjas and I was constantly waiting for these women to pull out either a stick of dynamite or a ninja star and throw it at me. I didn't want to approach them, talk to them or even make eye contact with them...but one of the few times that I went and knocked on peoples door I happened to knock on a home and sure enough a women dressed in all black with the whole outfit on answered the door. I gave her our little spill and of course I wasn't expecting to get in the her home to share more about our message and I really didn't want to either but surprisingly she let us in. We sat down and talked to her for a while and met her kids, her husband was still back in the middle east, and we became very good friends with this lady, her name was Agusta Din-Gabishi. We were invited back to her home several times and we didn't even attempt to teach her about our church but I got to know Agusta very well and realized that she was just like every other lady I have ever met. We watched the Simpsons together, complained about the weather and she was completely normal, she chastised her kids when they didn't do their homework and was one of the nicest ladies that I have ever met and completely changed my view on Islamic people and I immediately overcame my fear of them.

The only reason that I even feared Agusta was because everybody told me too, the media had me convinced that they were all terrorists. All that it took for me to get over my fear of Arabic women or Muslims in general was to understand them and to get to know them. I guess I had the same problem with gay people. I didn't know any gay people and always felt that if I was confronted with a gay man I would feel extremely uncomfortable and wouldn't want to talk to him.

Two summers ago I was scammin Teleperformance out of some money by going through their month long paid training with no intention of staying with Teleperformance. In my class I sat next to a lesbian. I think her name was Stephanie, but that doesn't matter, Stephanie was very proud of her homosexuality, she had a rainbow necklace on and announced to everyone on the first day at class that she as gay. Stephanie was very open about it and always talked about how much she loved having sexual relations with women and it kind of was like getting thrown into the deep end of my uncomfortableness of homosexuals. Anyways, one day in the break room myself and two other coworkers were talking about how cool we thought it was that Stephanie was so open about being gay and how much we admired it. We talked about how we wouldn't have the guts to openly announce to the world that we were gay because we would be afraid that society would look down on us and wouldn't want to be seen as social outcasts.

Then out of the blue one of my coworkers just said "Yeah, it would be hard to tell everybody. I'm gay and I've never told anybody until now." We were shocked!! I don't know if it was the fact that Stephanie told everybody she was gay and we were all cool with it or why he thought that it was a good idea to open up about his homosexuality, but whatever it was he just felt it was ok for him to tell us that he was gay. The point is the fact that he told me he was gay didn't change a thing about the way I felt about him. I just kind of shrugged and said "ok" and then I think we went on to talking about the Transformers Movie. I liked the kid and I see him around every now and then and I don't think of him as my homosexual friend but just as my friend. It's really no big deal to me that he is gay. I think he is a great guy.
I do not believe that homosexuality is morally right on a moral stand point I believe it is wrong. This is not only a Latter-day Saint teachings it is something that is or at least should be taught in every Christian church that accepts the Bible as the true word of God. I do not believe that homosexuals are evil people or that they are condemned to Hell for liking someone of the same sex or that they sinning by having these feelings.

HOWEVA I do believe that engaging in homosexual activity is a sin. The best way I can compare it would be the example of two Alcoholic parents, when they have kids, and if especially if the mother was drinking during the pregnancy the kid most likely will inherit his parents addiction to alcohol. I believe that drinking alcohol at any age is a sin. Now this kid even though he is a an "alcoholic" has not committed any sins, it's the way he was born there is nothing he can do about it, but if he drinks alcohol then he is sinning. Same thing with homosexuals, while being a homosexual is not a sin, engaging in homosexual activity is a sin.

Second Topic and it won't be as long: Marriage:

In the LDS religion we believe that marriage is a sacred ordinance it is so sacred that we only perform marriages in our temples and the only people that are allowed in our temples are worthy members of the Church and one of the requirements of being worthy of going to the temple is obeying the law of chastity which means that you cannot engage in homosexual activities. So if you are a homosexual, you are breaking the law the chastity and will not be allowed to go to the temple and get married.

We believe that marriage is something that is ordained of God and must be performed by the correct authority, and we are the only Church on Earth with the authority to marry people and that these marriages can only take place in the temple and that you may only go to the temple if you are worthy to go to the temple. In a civil wedding you make vows to love honor and cherish your wife til death due you part and in LDS wedding you make vows to love honor and cherish your wife for all time and eternity. So basically in the LDS church if you are not married by the proper authority, the priesthood, and only the LDS church has it, and if its not in the temple, and only worthy members can enter which means you cannot have a same sex marriage in the temple, then are they really getting married? No they are not, as far as we are concerned they are just signing a court document that says they are married and the only things that change is your last name and how you file your taxes and insurance. So even if gay marriage is legalized they still are not getting married according to the LDS definition of marriage. My point is they are not threatening the sanctity of marriage because even if proposition 8 is turned down and they legalize gay marriage in every state, they are still not getting married under the proper authority in the temple and besides homosexuals are going to engage in just as many homosexual acts if they are life partners or if they married to each other anyways.

Yes, if they are married then they will file their taxes differently and they can be on their life partners insurance plan and will be rewarded a few financial benefits, but I do not see how it is taking away the sacredness of marriage and from a moral standpoint I do not see the difference between being gay life partners and a gay married couple.

On to some lighter topics:

I am dead last in fantasy basketball which I am extremely pissed off about it.

The KFC Combo meal is a huge rip off. I spent 9 bucks on my KFC Combo meal and totally wasn't satisified I would of much rather got the three chicken piece meal with two sides it would of filled me up more and cost half as less. The Big Bell Box trumps KFC Combo meal any day of the week.

The Lakers look awesome. I love how Odom is coming off the bench, something I wanted to happen last year. It's nice that they can always have either Odom and Gasol or Odom and Bynum and of course Bynum and Gasol on the floor at all times. The Lakers are kickin some serious butt.

My Lakers are 4-0 and as Stu Lantz, the Lakers play by play announcer mentioned the last time they started 3-0 they won the championship and if there is a bright side to Obama winning the Presidential election is that the last 7 titles for the Boston Celtics only happened when a Republican was the President.

Sleep Deprivation

2008-11-02T19:58:00.000-08:00

Well I wrote a paper for English and I found it very interesting and an eye opener and since I did not post a blog last Thursday(I'm sure you were all upset) I decided to post my english paper. I apologize for this.

On November 4th we will cast our vote for the next President and when we cast our vote we will vote on the candidate that we believe will improve our country the most. These past few weeks we have heard each candidate's argument about how they will improve this nation. During the Presidential debates they have addressed our nation's biggest problems from a failing economy to expensive healthcare, increased taxes, and a poor education system but have failed to address one of the nation's biggest problem; sleep deprivation. Millions of Americans suffer from not getting the required amount of sleep and our nation is paying for it. Instead of billion dollar tax bailouts and complex and confusing health care plans, Americans really need to have a couple of extra hours with their heads on their pillows. If Americans were getting the recommended hours of sleep each night we would save American lives, boost our economy, make healthcare affordable, improve our education system and improve the overall quality of life for every single American.
The American people are simply not getting enough sleep. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. The average American sleeps 6.9 hours during the week and 7.5 hours on weekends ("National Sleep Foundation"). Despite the recommended amount of sleep for adults being eight hours a night and for adolescents and college students its nine hours each night (Behrens and Rose 502).
William Dement, a researcher at Stanford University, who has written several books on sleep deprivation, including The Promise of Sleep, co written with Christoper Vaughan, talks specifically about sleep "debt" and how the brain reacts when it is not getting the required amount of sleep. The brain keeps a tally of how much of you have slept and knows exactly how much sleep you need to get every single night. For instance if a person sleeps only six hours every night of the week that person has fallen short of the recommended amount of sleep by a whole ten hours. A person between the ages of 11-17 have missed out on approximately 15 hours of recommended sleep and will not be fully refreshed until those 15 hours of missed sleep are made up. Every week Americans are accumulating an average of 6.5 hours of sleep debt and in a year that adds up to 13 and a half days worth of sleep that they missed out on (Dement and Vaughan 537-544). Too many Americans do not fully understand the effect that sleep deprivation has on them because if they did getting a full nights sleep would be one of their top priorities.
One of the biggest topics that have been discussed in these Presidential debates is the 781 American soldiers that are being brought home in body bags every full calendar year that we are over in Iraq (icasualties.org). Even though the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration estimates that 1,500 people die every year on our nation's roads due to sleep deprivation (Behrens and Rose 502). That's nearly twice as many people dying on our roads on their way to work or to see their family or friends then defending our nation. A mother who loses her husband in the war can have some comfort in the fact that their fallen loved one sacrificed his life for the betterment of our country but when they hear that their husband is not coming home because he didn't lay in bed an extra hour it makes the devastating news unbearable. If Americans were getting enough sleep, it would drastically reduce the number of accidents and deaths that happen on a daily basis.
Another topic that is being discussed in the Presidential debates is our nation's economic crises and both candidates have offered their reasons why the economy is failing but neither candidate has talked about how sleep deprivation is costing us billions of dollars every year.
The Economic Policy Institute shows that since 1969 Americans have increased the amount of time they spend commuting and working by approxiametly 158 hours a year which is causing people to become sleep deprived while at work and the effects of their sleep deprivation is hurting the economy ("Sleep America"). The National Transportation Board concluded that sleep deprivation was the cause of the Exxon Valdez a massive oil tanker crashing and spilling tons of oil which ended up costing more than two billion dollars to clean up. In addition to the environmental damage the Exxon Corporation was charged an additional five billion dollars in punitive charges (Dement and Vaughan 537-544). The effect of an employee who was suffering from sleep deprivation cost our economy billions of dollars and gives a perfect example of just how much sleep deprivation in the workplace can cost. The U.S. economy loses 54.6 billion dollars every year due to decreased productivity, sick leave among employees and property and environmental damages ("National Sleep Foundation").
Each candidate has talked about making healthcare cheaper and more available to everybody. They want to implement new and complicated healthcare plans when all they really need to do is encourage people to get the recommended amount of sleep. The National Institute of Health spends $200 million a year trying to solve the ongoing problem of sleep deprivation and spends 15 billion dollars to help the 40 million people in the United States who are diagnosed with chronic sleep disorders. According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration sleep deprived drivers cause 100,000 accidents every year resulting in 71,000 injuries (Behrens and Rose 502-503). Every year 30.4 billion dollars are spent by Americans on health care due to sleep deprivation ("National Sleep Foundation"). We are wasting billions of dollars that could be used to lower healthcare costs because people don't fully understand the importance of a good night's rest.
Highschool and college students are the most sleep deprived people in our nation. The National Sleep Foundation has reported that 80 percent of adolescents do not get the recommended nine hours of sleep each night(National Sleep Foundation 521-526). Highschool students' lack of sleep is putting our nation's future at risk. If we do not take the necessary steps of educating our youth then the future of this country looks very poor. The value of an education is irreplaceable and providing the best possible education program for them, so that further on in their lives they can contribute to society, is one of our nation's top priority. Making sure that highschool and college students are getting the recommended amount of sleep needs to be the first step taken to improve education program.
The lack of sleep among highschool students is showing; more than a quarter of highschool students are falling asleep in school and just a little under a quarter of students falls asleep while doing their homework and 14 percent of students don't even show up to school because of sleep deprivation (521). Two-hundred and eighty students were surveyed at Harrington High School and 90% of the students said that the reason they were getting bad grades was due to lack of sleep ("Science of Sleep"). According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2006 Sleep in America poll showed that 80% of the students who are getting nine hours of sleep say they are getting A's and B's in school(National Sleep Foundation 521-526).
Dr. Mindell, director of the Graduate Program in Pschology at Saint Joseph's University, emphasizes the importance of highschool students getting enough sleep when he said "Sending students to school without enough sleep is like sending them to school without breakfast. Sleep serves not only a restorative function for adolescents' bodies and brains, but it is also a key time when they process what they've learned during the day"(522).
More than half of our nation's highschool students go to bed at 11:00 p.m. or later and are getting up 6:30 a.m. regardless of when they go to sleep that night. Jodi A Mindell, co-chairman of the National Sleep Foundation poll task force, explains why highschool students are not getting enough sleep, "In the competition between the natural tendency to stay up late and early school start times, a teen's sleep is what loses out"(522). If there were no early school times and if highschool students weren't forced to leave at 6:00 in the morning to get to school at 8:00 a.m. then they could afford to sleep in and get the required amount of sleep.
Richard Schwab, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania performed a study on his high school daughter and concluded that "school systems should be thinking about changing their start times. It would not be easy--they would have to change the busing system--but it would increase their student's sleep time and likely improve their school performance." In 2007 Science Daily surveyed 280 students at a highschool in Philadelphia and the students they are not as alert in the morning and do not test as well in the morning and the best time to take a test would be from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.("Science Daily"). As a result the students would perform better academically and that their grades would improve if they could sleep in longer. Students would not only test better but they would learn and would in result would prepare them for college.
Colleges are just as guilty of early start times and by not having any classes that before 10:00 a.m. If colleges had later start times and lengthen the school year we could spread out the homework we could get rid of all-nighters or late night cram sessions. College students biggest challenge isn't the early start times; it is when they have to work a full-time job to support themselves and still maintain good grades and still get the recommended nine hours of sleep. If we were able to take some of the 100 billion dollars we are wasting a year due to sleep deprivation then we could offer more scholarships and financial aid then college students could focus purely on getting a better education and it would have a trickle down effect on our entire nation and would result in a better America.
Business hours are as much to blame for the sleep deprivation as any thing else in America. If we are forcing our schools to start later it would only make sense for businesses to have to follow the same schedule. Business should not be able to open their doors until at least 11:00 and must be closed at 8:00 p.m. There are approximately 22 million American workers that are expected to work shifts that are extremely unhealthy and cause severe sleep deprivation and we need to limit the number as much as possible("Sleep America"). Obviously we cannot close hospitals, police stations and fire stations and other facilities that are mandatory but twenty-four hour grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, phone centers and other unnecessary jobs need to let their employees go home and sleep.
Overall the quality of Americans' live would improve. People would no longer be grumpy in the morning and cranky all day because they didn't get enough sleep. We would be more alert and prepared for the demands of our daily lives and could handle problems with greater ease. We would be a happier and more productive nation if we were getting our recommended eight hours of sleep.
I love Presidential candidate Barack Obama's simple solution to saving oil and the increasing gas prices instead of drilling for more oil or developing an alternative to oil he simply encouraged people to inflate their tires. If inflating our tires is the solution to the oil crises in America then simply getting more sleep is the solution for our struggling economy, expensive healthcare, improving the educational system throughout the nation and improve the quality of life in America. Each candidate and their respective advisors have stayed up many nights thinking about what new programs they will implement once in office to improve our nation and in actuality the best way for them to improve a struggling nation would be to set the example and get a good's night rest.

2008-10-10T00:58:00.000-07:00

I wanted to try and steer away from issues such as politics and the war(aren't they the same thing?) in my blog because they are controversial and could upset the 3 people that actually read my blog. You know what I just realized my wife is not one of those 3 people that read this blog...kind of sad. But anyways I wanted to avoid those issues because they can upset people but more than that I really don't know anything about them. I am extremely uninformed when it comes to political issues such as taxes, health care, foreign policy and the war but that doesn't mean I dont have an opinion and please forgive me if I say something that isn't true and completely inaccurate this isn't a research paper its my opinion and most of my info comes from Stephen Colbert so sometimes I wonder how accurate it actually is. It feels like this election is just a lot more popular. That being involved in politics is just the latest trend and you're not cool if you don't know whats going on in the White house and just like every popular trend that would make me instantly cool and fulfill all my wildest dreams of being socially accepted by my peers I just watched the ship sail away and the minute I finally catch up and all of a sudden when I am ready to view my political views and show to all my friends that I know a thing or two about what is going on everybody will become anarchists and hate the government and refuse to even waste their time listening to what they are saying.

Personally I don't think that who the President is really matters. I pretty much think it's the guys behind them that are making all their decisions and they are just the face of those decisions. I want a President that isn't going to embarrass me when he gets on television and talks(President Bush) and/or sleep with Monica Lewinsky and then lie about it. I want a President who is going to help our relationships with other countries and Mccain obviously has a ton of experience with Foreign Policy but I think Obama could represent our country with class and is extremely well-spoken and would do great with Foreign affairs just because the guy knows how to pretty up the package or put the lipstick on the pig. BOOM!!

My opinion on Barack Obama:

It seems like to me that Obama campaign slogan should be: "Hey if you hated how our government has done things for the past 8 years vote for me" Wasn't that basically John Kerry's political stance? "Hey if you hate George Bush vote for me." "Change we can believe in" seems to be his preferred slogan but I really wonder what changes he is actually going to make. He talks about free health care and it seems like a good idea I certainly can't afford health care so"Yay for Free Healthcare" but I don't think that if he wins the Presidential Election he will even be able to change that anyways and I am not entirely convinced that it would be a good idea if he did. He also mentioned pulling the troops out of the Middle East in what 18 months but then didn't he go to the Middle East and realized that probably wouldn't be the best idea?

This whole idea of Barack Obama being too green to be a good President is a bunch of crap studies have shown that when a President has been involved in politics too long they are actually crappy politicians i.e George Bush, Richard Nixon and the ones with less experience i.e John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter all proved to be great Presidents so this whole Barack Obama being too green doesnt make much sense. Although I am glad that the media is taking the high road and they are saying that he shouldn't be President because he is 'green' instead of saying that he shouldn't be President because he is black.

Also whats the media accusing him of being an Elitist. Shouldn't our President be an elitist? I am going to rip off some of John Stewart's material here but people do realize that if Barack Obama does a good job then they put his face on A MOUNTAIN! I want my president to be an Elitist I want him to be embarrassingly better than everybody else. I don't want a President that thinks he could be a good President in a weird sort of way if everything works out. That's stupid.

There just seems to be too many questions and concerns I have about the changes that Obama would be making and I really doubt that even if he is president that he will even be able to make the changes. The whole Church thing with his preacher and all that jazz bothers me and while I believe that there is nothing wrong with Islam and I have met and know some very outstanding Muslims. So help me it does bother me a little bit that he once was a Muslim and it bothers me even more that he tried to cover it up. Ya know that old saying that goes something like it "being easier to deal with the enemy if you know what it is" or something like that well I know exactly what I would be getting out of Senator John Mccain and I am comfortable with it I don't know what I will be getting out of Obama and that kind of scares me and that's why I have been leaning towards voting for John Mcain.

My Opinion on John Mccain:
I really don't have much of an opinion on John Mccain and I think that is why he is going to lose the election he just hasn't got enough media exposure and/or attention as Obama. Mccain's campaign manager really sucked. I just don't know anything bad or good about him. He looks awkward and stiff like he is on the verge of doing "the robot" I think its cool and all that he was a POW but I am getting a little sick of how he feels the need to mention it every three sentences. I think his idea of the 5,000 dollar tax refund is stupid and like Obama health care idea won't even happen once they get to the White House.

I guess my biggest pet peeve about John Mccain is that he isn't funny and not fun to make fun of. In all honesty what really matters to me is what President can the talk show hosts make fun of the most. Clinton gave us great material because of "blowgate" and George W. Bush jokes were classic and he provided more material for the late night television that any other President ever has and ever will. But the only thing we can make fun of Mccain about is his age. That's lame. Come on Johnny ya gotta give us something. Your killing me.

I guess the reason that I am going to end up voting for John Mccain is that I don't know have any problems with him I really can't think of anything that really bugs me about him and as I mention there are just things that bug me about Obama. I think at the end of the day that I am going to vote for John Mccain but I think Obama is going to win this election and I think that I will be "ok" with that.

Ok and now on to the big issue: The War

First off I am going to start off by saying that I know absolutely nothing about what is going on over in the middle east. I also hate it how we are still discussing whether or not we should of even invaded Iraq in the first place. It's a dead issue. We are there whether it was the right or wrong decision to make and the only thing worth discussing now is what should we do NOW that we are there.

I will get to my opinion on the whole War in Iraq in a minute We are going to compare this to sports. Trust me it will make sense eventually. If you wanted to know about how the Lakers game went down there are several ways you could go about this. You can get it from several different viewpoints and depending on which viewpoint you had would determine your opinion of the game.
VIEWPOINT ONE: THE MEDIA

The Lakers played last night and it wasn't on TV so all I could do was watch the highlights of the game on Sportscenter and look at the boxscore. I got a very small idea of how they did. I know they lost and that Vladimir Radmonovic was the leading scorer and Al Thornton played very well. I know because Sportscenter told me. I only saw the highlights that they decided to show me and I know very little about the game. So I got my information from the media and I only know what they decided to tell me and I only saw about 45 seconds of the game. So I have very little knowledge of what happened in the game.

VIEWPOINT 2: WATCHED THE GAME LIVE ON TELEVISION

This way I am going to get to watch the whole game live on television and I will have a better understanding of the game since I know what happened from tip-off to the final buzzer. But still I only get to see what that particular television station decided to show me. I am missing out on some very fundamental aspects of the game that can't accurately be portrayed by sitting on my couch watching the game.

VIEWPOINT 3: WATCHED THE GAME IN PERSON

This is probably the best way for me to get the most information. I am at the game. I can see everything. I can form my own opinions that are not going to be swayed by the media. I can see the emotions on the players faces. I can see what the camera isn't showing the people sitting at home watching on television. Unfortunately very few people have this option of getting this close to the game we can't all afford courtside seats to the Lakers game. If I was not able to attend the game I know that I would get a much better recap and understanding of the game from Jack than I would from whatever anchor is on ESPn but yet even then it would be purely based on what Jack Nicholson thought about the game and my opinion would be based on what Jack told me.
VIEWPOINT 4: PLAYED IN THE GAME

Ok I don't play for the Los Angeles Lakers and very few people play in the NBA at all so this viewpoint is very rare but it is the best viewpoint. Kobe knows exactly why they lost last night to the Clippers. He knows everything about the game. The 24 players who suited up and maybe the coaches know more about the game than any one else in the arena and obviously anybody watching the game or highlights. They experienced it first hand and if I wanted to know about the game I cannot think of a better person to ask than Kobe or any of the other players in the game. I do realize that Kobe would never admit that they lost because he had a bad game or he shot the ball too many times, but if he was completely honest about the game no body can dispute that he would be the man to go to if you wanted the truth about the game went down.

That's how I feel about this whole situation in Iraq. We know so very little about what is going on. The majority of the world gets their opinion from "Viewpoint 1: The Media" and that's by far the most limited and inaccurate viewpoint out there and to base your opinion on that to me it's irresponsible and ignorant. You may argue that you are basing your opinion on facts and that the media cannot contort the billions of dollars that we have spent on this war or all the innocent people that have died. Your right about that but if that is all your basing your opinion on then you are missing out on the big picture all your really doing is reading the boxscore from the basketball game and your not seeing all the things that don't show up on that boxscore.

Why do you think Obama got so much flack from John Mccain for declaring his stance on the war before he even went to Iraq? He was probably getting his information from the Jack Nicholson of the War in the middle east and when he went there and experienced it for himself his opinion changed. I am not enlisted in the military and I have never been to Iraq so I feel that I really can't state my opinion on it since I know so little about it and I think if people were honest with them self they would be in the same boat with me. I will say this every soldier I have talked to who has returned from the middle east have all said that whatever they are doing over there is a very good thing and they are helping the people and it is not a waste of time or money. Are they being too prideful to admit that what they are doing is wrong? Maybe, but I still value their opinion and give them more validity in their view of the war than anyone else and from what I have heard from them is that they are doing a great job down there and need to stay to finish it.

Mormons and Latter-Day Saints

2008-09-26T01:35:00.000-07:00

No big events have happened recently school has started back up again but who really cares about that. I am taking one class its an English 102 class its boring its lame and its 2 1/2 hours long on Wednesday night. I was taking two institute classes. The first one was a Book of Mormon class but the teacher made me feel like I was in seminary again and I hated it. I hate the whole institute treatment. I want a teacher on the first day to come in sit down and say "Hi I am Brother so and so I really don't care what your name is right now and I especially don't care what barn animal you are most like or what your favorite flavor of icecream is let's open up all scriptures and learn about some cool stuff."

I know that institute is for social interaction and its a program that is set up to get young hormonal single mormons married so they dont do the dirty before they tie the knot. I get all that, but isn't that why we have Food n Forums and Institute activities? I don't know I just hate it all. I mean I wasn't learning anything from my teacher I left with that warm bubbly feeling but I could get that by just reading "Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul"

Since I am on this whole spill about what bugs me about the church I want to talk about my recent visit to BYU-Idaho or as like to refer to it as "Ricks College"

So I was on a double-date with my cousin Steve. He was on a date with this girl from Rexburg who attended BYU and we went go-karting and out to dinner and then we returned to her apartment to watch The Office and while I was at this girl's apartment in Rexburg WITH MY WIFE it was getting kind of late and I had drank a lot of Coke at The Outback (I know this girl already thought I was going to hell for chuggin 4 glasses of Coca-Cola) and I had to go to the bathroom. So I jumped up off the couch and I inquired where the bathroom was and she told me I couldn't use her bathroom because I would and I am not kidding I would cross "the chasity line" You see there was a door that lead to all the bedrooms and apparently the bathroom and guys were not allowed to go past this "chasity line" it was a rule at the dorm.

At first I thought it was just one of those rules that was there and nobody really followed. I mean if you gotta go you gotta go. I headed to the door and I got some pretty serious stern looks from this girl that I can't go in the door. I asked if she was serious and she was dead serious! She really would not let me go to the bathroom because of would of broke some imaginary line in her apartment.

I reluctantly did not use the bathroom I mean I have only been married 2 months and I would never even think of cheating on Sheena with a toilet for heaven's sake. I love her too much to do that. I made covenants in the temple to obey the law of chasity and no tinkle was worth doing that.

I mean come on what a stupid idiotic rule. What if two horny mormon college kids finally got the nerve to go for it and have sex and they bust into their apartment and start heading towards the bedroom approach that "chasity line" and what do you expect them to do? Have a moment of clarity and go "Oh yeah...that gosh-darn chasity line I forgot about that...well shucky-darn lets just put our pants back on and go to FHE it's my turn to bring refreshments." Of course not if they wanted to they would fornicate right on the friggin chasity line. So really the only thing the chasity line is doing is preventing people who need to go to the bathroom from going to the bathroom.

Which brings me to my point:

MORMONS AND LATTER-DAY SAINTS

I wrote a blog on myspace that is very similair to this infact I am going to directly cut and paste it from my myspace blog and then add in a few new thoughts so lets consider it the

MORMONS AND LATTER-DAY SAINTS VOLUME 2

There seems to be a big misconception in this town and maybe it is spreading worldwide and I feel the need to clear it up. There are two dominant churches in this town and that is the Mormons and the Latter-Day Saints. To the untrained ignorant eye they are perceived as the same but that eye couldn't be more blind. We may go to the same building and church and even listen to the same doctrine each Sunday but how we interpet that doctrine is were we differ.

Mormons believe that drinking Coke is against the Word of Wisdom because of the caffiene in it. The World of Wisdom teaches we should not put anything into our body that is unhealthy and YES Coke is unhealthy because of the caffience but also because the cups of sugar and corn syrup Rootbeer and Sprite is just as unhealthy for us as Coke and Mountain Dew. What about the homemade rootbeer and peach cobbler we have at every Stake Campout I have been on and we will glady stuff our faces with krispy kreme doughnuts and hot buttery scones until we die of obiesity.

They set mandatory curfews on college campus because the devil rules the night and that they should only be friends with and associate with other Mormons. Unless you have a chasity line in your dorm then it is not approved living for young men and women. The Mormons will follow the teaching of their Bishop over the teaching of Christ. They only go to church to socialize and to perform their callings so they may receive the recognition of the other members. More than likely the only other time they follow their religion is when other Mormons are around. They really have no real conviction or faith since it is based on social acceptance in their Mormom community or at Church. They really only follow their "religion" when they are at Church or around other Mormons.

The Mormons are the reasons Latter-Day Saints are persecuted on a daily basis. This is a false and hypocritical church. I am very glad to say that I am not a Mormon. I am a Latter-Day Saint. While I will be the first of many to admit that I struggle every day in following the teaching of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I do however worship God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ and only them. I follow the teaching of God and his Prophets. Do I care if you are not a Latter-day Saint? Not one bit. I love my faith and respect and at the same time respect other people's beliefs and if one of their beliefs is that my religion is incorrect then I will respect that.

p.s. Can somebody please tell me why Chili's has discontinued the Awesome Blossom. That's the only reason I even went to that restuarant.

2008-08-25T08:47:00.001-07:00

Geez its been a while since I have blogged. I don't know if you guys really care or even if you are reading this blog and my the nagging feeling that I have had about posting a new blog is completely ridiculous and I so high on myself that I feel you guys hang on every word I type. My job provides me with a lot of down time so I might blog a lot more or find something productive to do at work.

It's been over a month since my last entry and a lot has happened. First I got married and that was pretty amazing, by far the greatest day of my life. It was so beautiful. The day was crystal clear and my wife looked absolutely wonderful. LDS Weddings are very different than the average wedding. It's hard to explain but you just feel like instead of a ceremony or a time to declare you love to your soul mate it feels like God is more involved in it. I guess that's why we call them sealings because it really does feel like God is sealing you to your wife. A lot of things went wrong that day but the fact that I married the love of my life over shadows everything.

After we got out of the Temple we had to spend forever taking pictures. I hated my photographer. All his pictures were good I mean they were high quality but he had us do the stupidest poses for pictures. It was such an awesome feeling.

The reception was so beautiful and very well decorated and the food was great, but nobody showed up it seemed. We had immediate family and a few people from church, but not half as many as I thought would come. There were a few friends who came but they really dropped the ball on that and bombed out on me, but like I mentioned earlier none of that even seemed to bother me. Overall you get so sick of standing there and shaking people's hands so it was probably good that nobody showed up so we could get out of there sooner.

It did make me wonder though if I am like Michael Scott from "The Office" where he thinks he has a million friends and everybody kind of pretends to be his friend but when it really comes down to it they all hate him and find him very annoying and dumb. I mean I thought if I was like anybody on the office it would like Kevin or maybe best case scenario Creed Bratton.

The honeymoon was nice and very relaxing we had a lot of fun and lets not beat around the bush we had a lot of sex. I don't know if you guys are wondering how that went but this is all I will say. Sex for me was like Lebron James - Definitely lived up to the hype. For Sheena is probably like Kwame Brown - a major bust.

I started a new job about the beginning of August at the Bannock House. The Bannock House is a home for kids between the ages of 12-18. It is a segway home for most of the kids living here. They are waiting to either be given new foster parents or have recently been to Juvenile Detention and the State has decided that it is in their best interest to live here before they are sent back home to their parents. Not all the kids are juvenile delinquents, most are but being in trouble with the law is not the only qualification of coming to the Bannock House. There are instances where for whatever reason their parents biological or legal could not provide the necessary care for their child whether it be because both the parents are in jail in some cases they are deceased and there are no relatives who are available or willing to properly care for the kids

My part of the job as direct care staff is to watch the kids. For the most part we just hang out with the kids. We try to provide a fun and safe environment for them as well as be an example to the them. I love my job its fun and its very educational for me. When you can love your job and enjoy coming into work it makes life so much easier.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I work from 7:30am to 4:00pm the kids are in school from 8:00-3:30, so I only get to hang out with them for an hour during that time. So while they are in school I get to basically do nothing. But while they are here I pretty much just sit and listen to them complained about everything possible little thing or I watch VH1 one with them
Married Life

It seems like ever since I have gotten home from my mission people ask the same question everytime they see me. When I first got home, it was always "Are you excited to be home?" After a while the question changed to "So when are you getting married?" and then when I got engaged it was "Are you excited to get married?" and now that I am married it is "How is married life?"

I want to address the last question. Married is great I love it and it is everything its cracked up to be but at the same time its not that much different. I already spent every single second I could with Sheena. Living together can be kind of a change but we knew each other so well before that nothing the other one did surprised us.

There are little differences. Sheena makes me put on deodorant before I go to bed and sometimes I feel like I am back in highschool where I had to tell my parents where I am going and when I expected to be back now I just do that with my wife. But the most of the changes and differences are wonderful. I don't have to go home at night and I get to wake up to her every morning.

Before the Wedding

2008-07-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

WAITING FOR THE WEDDING

Well it's Wednesday I get married in two days. My sister Kendi and my brother Jeremy are in town and thats pretty exciting. I went over to see Jeremy but he was asleep. I think actually seeing all my family is probably more fun than the actual wedding, honestly the wedding and the reception will probably be lame and boring, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't come. I hear the the reception is actually going to be pretty amazing. I am excited to see what Karen, our wedding planner, has done with the reception. I honestly have no idea what it is even going to look like. I imagine the flowers will be pink and yellow since those are our colors but other than that I don't know anything.

I wish I could just fall asleep and wake up and we would be in our car driving to our honeymoon although thats on Saturday and we are going to the Blackswann Inn on Friday night and I might wanna be awake for that part of the weekend.

It seems like everyday something else goes wrong, the building for the reception in Oakley gets condemned, they misspell Sheena Dad's name on the invitation, Sheena doesn't get the shoes she wants. Your twin brother threatens to not come to your wedding because "he can't stand to be in the same room as Mom" Everyday something gets screwed up so I wish there would be less days so less things get screwed up. It's a simple equation: One Day= Something goes wrong

AWKWARDNESS+DRAMA+TENSION= MY WEDDING

It seems like everyday somebody gets offended gets mad because we did something or we didn't do something. It's amazing how little things can set someone off. I think when this whole wedding is over all the drama with everybody will probably just blow over. Having your parents divorced and attending the reception together can be very awkward and that will be a little awkward. However, it's not really my Mom and my Dad having to stand by each other for 5 hours that makes it awkward it's probably my siblings who have a problem with either my Mom or Dad having to stand by them that is makes it even more awkward. Hopefully the lovey-dovey feelings I get from standing next to my bride in her beautiful white wedding dress will drown those feelings out and the excitement of getting to bump uglies with Sheena later that night should do the trick.

THE TEMPLE

One thing that did not go wrong today is that Sheena actually went through and got her endowments out at the temple. I am assuming most of you people know what I am talking about or are at least aware of it so I am not going to dwell into what it's all about. It was an amazing experience as I brought Sheena through the veil. I don't think anything can top that experience with of course the exception of us getting married. It was one of the happiest moments of my life and definitely something that I will never forget. It's an amazing and literally an overwhelming experience.

2008-06-24T16:44:00.001-07:00

I suspected that my blog would primarily be used as another way for me to argue with Steve and this next blog is purely to prove Steve wrong. In Steve's blog he mentioned how the 2008 USA Basketball Dream Team is "probably the best team since 1992." I disagree adamantly. The 1996 USA Basketball Team would absolutely embarrasses this current team. There were 5 returning players from the 1992 Dream Team they beat the competition by an average of 34 points and it was the year that Barkley stated that their goal was "to embarrass and totally annihilate their competition." That attitude alone is the main problem with our current USA squad. Let's compare their rosters:
1996 USA Olympic Roster
Shaquille O'neal
Charles Barkley
Scottie Pippen
Mitch Richmond
John Stockton
Hakeem Olajuwon
Karl Malone
Grant Hill
Reggie Miller
Penny Hardaway
Glenn Robinson
David Robinson

1800-322-3770

2008 USA Olympic Roster
Dwight Howard
Carmelo Anthony
Lebron James
Kobe Bryant
Jason Kidd
Chris Bosh
Carlos Boozer
Tayshaun Prince
Dwyane Wade
Chris Paul
Micheal Redd
Deron Williams

CENTER:

Shaquille O'neal vs. Dwight Howard
Dwight Howard is a beast. He is a Shaq in the making. He is huge, plays for Orlando, fun loving, all he does is dunk, but as good as Dwight is and will be I doubt he will ever be as dominant as Shaquille O'neal. He gets a lot of attention for the being the next Shaq but in actuality he is probably just the next Shawn Kemp(without all the illegitimate children) Shaq was in shape, motivated and a complete monster in 1996
Advantage: Shaq
Hakeem Olajuwon vs. Chris Bosh
I don't even see the point in explaining why Hakeem Olajuwon would win this match up. Olajuwon is the most underrated player of in NBA History. He is the all-time leader in block shots and had the best footwork of any big man that ever played. Robert Horry, who played with Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Shaquille O'neal, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, when asked who was the best player he ever suited up with his response hands down was The Dream.
Advantage: Olajuwon

POWER FORWARD:

Charles Barkley vs. Carmelo Anthony
I think the biggest reason why the 1996 USA Team would destroy the 2008 team is because of their post players. Barkley would out muscle and out play 'Melo. Barkley might struggle with guarding 'Melo in the open court but even though Melo has 4-5 inches on Barkley, Carmelo would be embarrassed by Barkley in the post.
Advantage: Barkley

Karl Malone vs. Carlos Boozer
Isn't it ironic that we are comparing these two players. Everything that Carlos does well Karl Malone does it ten times better. Karl Malone is the model for consistency and power. Boozer can't play defense and disappears in big games. Malone is arguably the greatest power forward of all time and Boozer will end up his career as a poor man's Karl Malone.
Advantage: Karl Malone

Scottie Pippen vs. Lebron James
This is the hardest match up to decide who has an clear advantage. Lebron James will probably go down as the greatest basketball player of all time. In my opinion (and you obviously care about mine since your reading this blog) Scottie Pippen is the second greatest perimeter defender of ALL TIME behind only Micheal Jordan. If you made an ALL-NBA Defensive team of All-time Scottie would be on it hands down. Pippen wasn't a slob on the offensive end either. Lebron doesn't play any defense and his lack of a consistent outside jump shot hurts him in international play.
Advantage: Push

Grant Hill vs. Tayshaun Prince
Whenever I talk about Lebron James I say that he reminds of when Grant Hill was in his prime. In 1995-96 Grant Hill averaged 20.2 ppg, 7 assists and 9 rebounds. If you were a basketball fan and didn't like Grant Hill then you have a problem. Meanwhile I am giving Prince the 'Christian Laettner Award' for the player that simply just doesn't belong on the team.
Advantage: Grant Hill

SHOOTING GUARD:
Mitch Richmond vs. Kobe Bryant
This matchup is the only clear cut advantage for the 2008 Team. Kobe Bryant could play for the 1992 Dream Team. Richmond is a fantastic basketball player and didn't Jordan once say that he was the second best shooting guard in the league. But Kobe is Kobe and I seriously consider him the best scorer of all-time. Richmond was a great scorer and a fantastic shot but he is no Kobe Bryant. Kobe is probably the only one of the 2008 Team that has the right mind sight and is the only one who cares about playing defensive and bringing the much needed intensity and die-hard attitude the 1992 and 1996 teams had.
Advantage: Kobe Bryant

Reggie Miller vs. Dwyane Wade
Let's just say that Dwyane Wade is healthy and at 100% percent for the Olympics although I seriously doubt he will be. Just like Richmond, Reggie Miller is just a fantastic shot. I don't know why the Olympic committee hasn't picked up on this trend. Both Reggie and Richmond are zone busters and if they had these guys on the team the competition couldn't play zone and the USA team could do what they do best and break the team down with penetration and isolation plays. With that being said I think Dwyane Wade is a better player than Reggie Miller when he is healthy but in international play I might take Reggie.
Advantage: Push

POINT GUARD:

John Stockton vs. Jason Kidd
John Stockton is the greatest point guard of all-time although Jason Kidd is not far behind him. Jason Kidd international experience 34-0 with him running the team is impressive and gives him an edge over John Stockton. But as mentioned earlier you need to be able to hit an outside shot to keep the defense honest and Kidd cannot do that. The international guards are big and strong and Stockton size worries me and I like Kidd's size in that match up. Jason Kidd's biggest strength is his passing and getting everybody involved and Stockton does that better and he can hit a shot.
Advantage: John Stockton

Penny Hardaway vs. Chris Paul
You can't help but get goosebumps when you think of the '96 Penny Hardaway. He ruled the world. I remember that some people even thought he was better than Micheal Jordan and thats sayin something. This was Penny in this prime he averaged 21 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 steals a game in the 1995-96 season. Chris Paul averaged 21 points, 11 assists and 4 rebounds and 2 steals a game.
Advantage: Push

THE BENCHWARMERS:

David Robinson and Glenn Robinson vs. Deron Williams and Micheal Redd

It is impossible to compare these players but it does show the differences in the teams. The team in 1996 had size and the 2008 team has a bunch of guards who can't shoot with the exception of Micheal Redd. David Robinson is a 1st ballot hall of Famer and one of the 50 Greatest Players of all time. Glenn Robinson is the recipient of 'The Christian Laettner Award' although I am impressed with any basketball player that can play his whole career without jumping or bending over. Deron Williams is a good choice but with Chris Paul and Jason Kidd is he really going to be needed wouldn't Allen Iverson be a better choice. I love Micheal Redd he is really the only player that can consistently hit an outside shot but wouldn't Gilbert Arenas or another big player be a way better selection?
Advantage: David and Glenn Robinson

YOU AINT COOL UNLESS YOU BLOG

2008-06-18T18:52:00.001-07:00

If blogging is cool consider me Gilbert Arenas. Blogging seems to be the thing to do nowadays and I assume that like every trend as soon as I catch on and start doing blogging it will no longer be cool.

I would like to say that I will update my blog daily but I seriously doubt it. I think its mainly going to allow me to put my opinions down. I have tried keeping a journal and just never seem to do it and this might be the next best thing.

I want to be more involved with what is going on in the world and the internet is a great way to do be up to date. I am interested in have my very own web page and becoming more involved in the internet. I feel like I am missing on such a huge part of our society. I don't even know how to use Ebay and many other amazing resources and tools that has been provided to us through the internet.

I think my blogs will mainly be used to post my sport predictions, my opinions, photos and I am huge movie critic so I would love to post movie reviews. I am also having some pretty exciting things happening in my life. I am getting married to Sheena on the 18th of July and I want to be able to record my thoughts on what it is like to be a newly married man. I am pretty opinionated guy and this will let me express my opinions in a more healthy way. I don't think it will even matter if people read my blog. I think this will be a healthy outlet for me.

SPORTS: LAKERS

2008-06-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

LAKER'S SEASON END

My Lakers are done. They lost in 6 games to the Boston Celtics. Surprisingly I am ok with that I thought the Lakers overachieved this year and I cannot be disappointed in the season. Of course there is a little disappointment when your team makes it to the Finals and they lose but overall I am very happy with the Lakers. I am glad that they lost Game 6. If they had lost at the last second or within like six or eight points the whole game it would of been excruciating to watch.

THE OFF-SEASON

After losing the Lakers Kobe was asked if a healthy Andrew Bynum would push the Lakers over the hump and Kobe said that getting Andrew Bynum back will solve a lot of the teams problems and it very well could solve the problem of rebounding and shot-blocking but Andrew Bynum if far from the physical tough low-post player they need. I don't like how the Lakers are built. I don't think that a frontline of Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol will work. Lamar Odom can't consistently hit outside shots he barely even shoots and makes mid-range jump shots so they won't be able to spread the floor to create room for Kobe to operate. Odom isn't quick enough or talented enough to guard the opposing team small forward. I am not saying that trading Odom is the best and only solution for the Lakers. Players such as Josh Smith, Ron Artest, Shawn Marion can all be free agents this offseason. The best scenario is if Ron Artest opts out of his contracts and signs with the Lakers or does a sign and trade for a player like Luke Walton.

The Lakers should and probably will consider trading Lamar Odom when they got Pau Gasol he became a very expensive 4th option. He has one year remaining on his contract so that can be very enticing to other NBA teams looking to save some money. The Pistons are having a fire sale and are willing to give up anybody for the right player and Carmelo is on the block as well the Lakers could even go for a less hot accomidity and get the ever underrated Gerald Wallace.

I AM GETTING MARRIED!!

2008-06-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

The wedding is July 18th at 6:30 pm at the Indian Hills LDS Church Building. I apologize to everyone who didn't get an invitation although I doubt anybody who is really reading this blog isnt invited since Steve will be the only one to check it out or Sheena if I make her look at it.

Planning a wedding isn't as bad as I thought. I didn't care really too much about the invitations and that seemed to take forever but other than that I have enjoyed it. Its expensive. A couple hundred bucks here and a couple hundred bucks there. But we really got lucky and have had people step up and really help us out.

Sheena is an employee at Party Palace and they have volunteered to pay for basically everything. We have an amazing wedding planner, Karen Hall, who has really gone above and beyond to make this reception extra special. Everybody has been so amazing. My mother, my father, Kathleen and Trent Stephens, Derek and especially Karen. Sheena stresses out a lot about the wedding and I cant even imagine how much she would be freaking out if we had to do it all alone.