Is Texas really that big?

I know a lot of people from Texas and they always talk about how great everything is there.  If someone has an interesting story, on of my friends from Texas always seems to have a bigger and better story.  I instantly thought of this when I saw this map.  Also most of my friends from Texas have to be the life of the part and the center of attention.  But another reason why i chose this map was because on a family vacation a few years back my family and I drove from our home in Tucson, AZ to Atlanta, GA.  When we drove through Texas it literally felt like Texas was as big as it is on this map.  It took us about 2 to 3 days to actually drive across the width of the state.  But we all know that they say, "Everything is bigger in Texas." 

More Money, More Problems

Many people have very different opinions on what should be done in Africa to countries that do not have a good economy and government.  Just like everyone else, I also have an opinion about this topic.  The United States and other countries that give a lot of money to African countries to help their economy.  I feel as though this needs to stop because all of that money that is given to those countries is going to corrupt leaders.  I don't understand how the US gives millions of dollars and nothing changes over there, and yet the US still continues to give money.  Instead the US and other countries need to stop giving money, and go in and set up an effective economy and in some cases government.  This all should not be put on the US but on other countries as well because obviously all the money that is going over there isn't changing anything except keeping the corrupt wealthy.

Egyptian Protests

Picture above is of the riots in Egypt.

The protest in Egypt are against the President Hosni Mubarak.  The Citizens want political reform so that they have more say in what is in the best interests of the country.  Mubarak has not said whether or not he will run for another 6 year term in the up coming Presidential elections.  The White House said that this is a good time for Mubarak to show his willingness to listen to the citizens and make a political reform.

Picture above is another of the riots in Egypt.

Distances on a map can be misleading

Much like a lot of United States people, I also thought that Hawaii is just a hour or so off the coast of California. However, this is not the case Maui, Hawaii is actually about 5 hours away from Los Angeles, California.  As we can see in the picture I have taken from Google Earth, Hawaii is out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  This changed the way I think about the world because I thought Hawaii was much closer to California than it really is.  I then realized that this world is so much bigger than I thought originally.  This image was very eye opening for me and maybe for others that see this same image.

The True Story of War That People May Never See

Restrepo, is a movie and documentary, about a platoon of United States Soldiers that fought in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.  The outpost named Restrepo after a soldier that fought and died in action is the focus of the movie.  Restrepo was home to 13 soldiers.

I am a very big movie fan, I will watch most movies and get lost in them as if to be sucked into that world for however long the film is.  However, war movies tend to be very different from what a real war is like for entertainment purposes.  Even though a lot of war movies are based on true stories there tends to be a lot of factual inconstancies.  However, Restrepo is a film that puts those that watch the film into a real battle field with real soldiers.  The only thing hollywood about this movie is that the director cut down the material to make it into an hour and a half movie and also some music in the background for dramatic effect.  The director himself said that the sole purpose of this movie is to show what war really is.

This movie really taught me a lot about what real war is like and how war in the movies in not exactly how it happens in real life.  War is a lot of waiting around and boredom, and living in constant fear that when you are sleeping something will happen.  This movie really shows how stressful war is, unlike in the rest of the movies that make it seem like once the fighting is over or when the characters go to sleep nothing will happen until they are ready again.

The Great Firewall

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2006/tc20060112_434051.htm

The link posted above is a link about how China censors what it's people can view on the internet.  What I found interesting was that China's censorship is even censoring text messaging, Skype and even blogs.  The article also talks about how the agencies in China that watch over the internet employs more than 30,000 people to view various sites.  The article then contrasted that number to the 16,000 people that the entire CIA employs.  This article was very interesting to read, especially when the article talked about if I google Tiananmen Massacre in China the top 90 of 100 sites are blocked.  In the United States our censorship is very minimal, because of the right that the Constitution lays out for us.  However, in China some of these rights do not exist and that is why they have the censorship laws that they do.