Tackling Global Warming!

I read an article in the New York Times called Obama's Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact. This article talks about how we may now have hope to bring the World's most powerful Nations together and tackle global warming.
The attempt to do something like this in 1997 was a badly flawed plan called the Kyoto Protocol. Many countries didn't do their part to decrease carbon dioxide poisoning and the US didn't even seem to try or acknowledge they needed to. In the new protocol the US will be the, "forefront of the international climate effort and raising hopes that an effective international accord might be possible." In this protocol we will be, "reaching beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions and including financial mechanisms and making good on longstanding promises to provide money and technical assistance to help developing countries cope with climate change." So in other words we will be doing a lot more. I feel that the reason for this is because we know now that we need to do much more because we're more informed about what is wrong in the World. Bill McKibben, who runs the environmental organization, feels that the US should take this protocol much more seriously because we learned from the Kyoto Protocol that if we don't no one does.
The article goes on to talk about how the UN's top climate official Yvo de Boer, will be making rounds and talking to everyone about the climate. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is trying to form a partnership with China on the Climate Control and expects a special envoy soon. Now the problem is going to be passing the bill, which Obama thinks it will be passed this year and to see how far everyone is willing to go. Many countries refused the Kyoto Protocol so George W. Bush rejected it.
It seems that this protocol has a much better chance than Kyoto because this time politics is involved and politics is what started it unlike Kyoto. Environmental ministers and climate scientists are who started Kyoto, for the new protocol we have higher officials, "laying the groundwork."
I love that we're coming up with a new pact with the powerful countries in the World to help save the environment. I hope that it works out much better this time than it did last time. I personally think it will though because we're finally taking it seriously because we know we have to. We have come a long way in ten years and we have learned a lot more about the environment and know we need to do something about it and soon!

Fighting Over Stimulus Bill!

I read an article from the New York Times called, Governors’ Fight Over Stimulus May Define G.O.P. In this article it talks about how the Republican Governors are trying to decide on how much of the $787 Billion Stimulus Bill they'll accept. They know it will help out the states that are deeply in debt but they also feel it won't start helping them until a year from now.
The new stimulus law will "Cut taxes, and provide billions of dollars to the states for education, transportation, Medicaid and energy and environmental projects." Many feel it will keep us from having even more layoffs in the future as well. However for many Republicans they feel that the bad outweights the good in the stimulus bill. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is all for the bill to be passed and he feels that the Republicans in state houses and in Congress need to be team players and not split it into sides. The Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist also feels that Obama is doing the right thing and that we should give him a chance.
However many Republican Governors think that the bill will not be helpful, especially the Republican Governors who will be running for President next election. According to the article one Governor stated, “It would be like spending a dollar to make a dime,” Governor Jindal said on “Meet the Press.” “I just have a fundamental disagreement with this package.” He said that he would however accept the money to save jobs and get companies back on track but he wouldn't accept money to help out unemployment because that would increase the employers taxes. That increase would keep the companies in the hole. Many are completely against helping out unemployment but okay with helping with the jobs. I also agree that the jobs are much more important than the unemployment because if we can fix the job situaiton then they're won't be a need to fix the unemployment. According to the article "In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Barbour criticized the stimulus law, saying: “It’s filled with social policy and costs too much. You could create just as many jobs for about half as much money.”
So many of the Republican Governors are against this bill being passed and some say they won't accept certain amounts of the money. The other Governors who are all for the bill have stated that they would be happy to take the money that those Republicans won't accept because their state needs it.
I agree with the stimulus bill for the most part. I don't think we should give too much to unemployment because I'm hoping that we won't really need it all that much if we can fix the job situation. I also agree with the Governor who said that helping out the unemployment would put an extra tax on the employers/companies. If that were to happen then that would hurt employment.

Citizenship

I read an article in the New York Times called, U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship. This article was about making immigrants legal, however there was a stipulation, they must have the qualifications and they must join the war.
The article stated, "The American military will begin recruiting skilled immigrants who are living in this country with temporary visas, offering them the chance to become United States citizens in as little as six months," because we need help in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think that it's great that they're giving citizenship to people who really want it, though I really don't like the reason behind it. Plus what about all of the other people that want citizenship but can't get it this way because they don't have the qualifications. The article said they were looking for immigrants who were well educated and had something to offer the army. They are running out of people like this because the people who are mainly signing up now are people who can't get jobs. Many of them don't even have high school diplomas. The article stated, "Recruiters expect that the temporary immigrants will have more education, foreign language skills and professional expertise than many Americans who enlist, helping the military to fill shortages in medical care, language interpretation and field intelligence analysis."
I agree with them on that, we do need our soldiers to be smart and know what they're doing out there. It will also be a good idea to have soldiers who understand immigrants because they are immigrants and thats what we have to deal with over there. I just don't like it because we are using them for that. We are using them for their expertise and passing up all of the other immigrants who aren't as good because of their education background when we hire people from the US into the army without high school diplomas.
I do agree with the fact that the immigrants who join the army and become citizens must, "pass tough background checks." I feel that anyone who becomes a citizen or joins the army should have to pass the background checks.
I suppose something else that is good about this situation is that there will be more qualified people on our side. The article says that because of the need for soldiers they have allowed soldiers to enlist even though they have a medical condition or a criminal record. This could put a stop to that plus give us experts in the fields we need experts in such as, doctors, specialized nurses and language experts.
So all in all I am happy about this because it is giving citizenship to deserving people and helping out the army but I don't like the fact that it's skipping over other immigrants because they're not as qualified.

A Nuclear Free World??

I read an article on The Nation website called Nuclear Neanderthals vs. Obama's Common Sense. This article was about how the President feels about nuclear weapons, what he wants to do about them and what others feel about them and want to do about them. It starts out saying that since George Bush is back in Texas, (deeper meaning: He's out of the White House), and Obama is in the White House then there is finally hope on getting rid of nuclear weapons. Obama doesn't see the need to build anymore. That is another story for the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who of course was under Bush in his administration, and he completely supported Bush's ideas on building more weapons. According to the article, "Gates is a relentless supporter of building the next generation of nuclear weapons--the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program." So Gates doesn't really want to support any policy Obama gives on not building any new weapons.
It says that we have over 5,000 weapons and they will last at a minimum of another 80-100 years. There is a want to reduce this number to at least a 1000 and even if we do that we will still have plenty enough to blow up the world! The article also points out how the US wants other Countries to "restrain their nuclear ambition," so if we want that then we need to restrain our own. So if we go through with his plan to build more weapons the other Countries will think we're trying to one up them, to have more and be better and more powerful.
There are many organizations against nuclear weapons and they have been speaking out about them recently also. There was an article in Parade magazine about how nuclear weapons need to be demolished completely.
Obama is making a new policy to reduce our nuclear weapons to 1000, though the policy has some holes in it. The article states, "Let's hope those flaws aren't around a renewed arms control effort, and that President Obama is making it clear to Secretary Gates that he has a new boss and a new policy he needs to support."
I really and truly hope that Obama isn't going to fall in with Gates and make more weapons because I'm totally against nuclear weapons! I really don't like war at all but if there has to be a war I'd rather it be without nuclear weapons because they cause so much damage to the Earth and the people and living things in it.