Sunday, June 12, 2011

Photo gallery on Afghanistan's War

Notice the difference in the terrain between Afghanistan and Vietnam.
http://www.time.com/time/audioslide/0,32187,1927405,00.html

A Photo Gallery on Vietnam War

These picture's helped me understand some of the situation's in Tim O'Briens book, "The Things They Carried."
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/photoessay.htm

M4 Carbine

This is the assault gun they use in the army nowadays.
http://tech.military.com/equipment/view/89046/m4-carbine.html
And some more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine

M240G

More info about the M240G.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M240_machine_gun

Replacement of M60

http://tech.military.com/equipment/view/89057/m240g-medium-machine-gun.html
So I guess they replaced the M60 in Vietnam with the M240G for the present.

Restrepo

I'm going to include this documentary in our group essay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZmJ9iYWx5o

Vietnam's Gun Power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_the_Vietnam_War
Wikipedia has a nice page on the Vietnam War equipment.
Enjoy!

War Baggage

Hey guys,

This is a sight I'm going to use for my group essay. It's about the present's war baggage and their weight.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/weapons/Weapons_of_the_United_States_Military.htm

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Blind Trust

The Global Financial Meltdown of 2008 was triggered by a lot of contributors; but the top contributors were Banks, Mortgage Corporations, and the people. Banks and Mortgage corporations have blindly trusted people and gave out loans that couldn’t get paid back for many reasons; some from the people, and some from loan sources. Mistakes were made from loan givers that led to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis; and to prevent those mistakes in the future, the rules and regulations for loan giving should be stricter.
The biggest mistake was from loan sources; giving out home mortgages blindly to people who lost their jobs or didn’t have jobs. According to June Johnson in his book, “Global Issues, Local Arguments,” “‘Household debt hit a record 133 percent of disposable personal income by the end of 2007.’ When the poor-risk buyers could not make their payments on subprime mortgages, banks and institutions around the world left holding assets they could not liquidate (turn into cash)” (141). Mortgage Corporations were racing in marketing their loans to people and started giving out loans without properly checking the financial status of the loan taker. After those mortgages are not paid for, the houses the consumers buy are repossessed by the loan sources. The houses are then resold with a cheaper price than the original.
And to make the problem more complicated, house prices have also went down. The article, “Seven Lessons From the Financial Meltdown,” by John W. Schoen, suggests that the financial services industry were marketing the idea that house prices never go down, but “(d)espite recent signs of life in the housing market — home sales have bounced off extremely depressed levels — prices are still falling in many parts of the country” (Schoen). This fall in house prices made the loan givers sell the houses cheaper than the cheaper original price, which was a real loss.

Another mistake was the Mortgage Corporations greed; with more loans, comes more interest. The list above shows 25 of the top loan givers with the loans made between 2005 and 2007. It was getting wild and out of control. Some of them went bankrupt, and some of them got sold to other mortgage corporations to prevent bankruptcy. And also, they got assisted from the government and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) (Dunbar). Greed was the reason behind those large amounts of money in the list. Blindly trusting people to pay back the loans and almost running out of money because in the long term, they will get their interest back. But that wasn’t the case with most of those people with loans; most of them couldn’t pay back. Then the corporations turned to the government for assistance.
Looking at this mistake from another point of view; people who buy more than they can afford was the cause for the Global Financial Crisis. In the article, “The Politics (and the Economics) of Mortgage Relief,” posted in The Red State website; I read, “Many people took advantage of an extreme lapse in underwriting standards during 2005 and early 2006 to buy more house than they could afford” (Cianfrocca). People sometimes under-calculate their financial status and when loans are easy to get, they will go right ahead and buy the best for themselves. Everybody wants to be living the good life and the American dream. I don’t think the mistake is from the people, but it is from the Bank or corporation they got the loan easily from.
The rules and regulations for getting a loan shouldn’t be easy; that’s a good way to avoid a similar future crisis. In the article “Who’s Behind the Financial Meltdown,” by John Dunbar and David Donald, a discussion on how loans are given to anyone. “Subprime borrowers are generally people with poor credit who may have a recent bankruptcy or foreclosure on their record, according to the Federal Reserve” (Dunbar). Giving these people loans can only lead to them not paying the loan back and later became the financial meltdown. Changing the rules and regulations in order to be stricter will prevent people with bad credit history from getting loans which will not be paid.
Banks will try to strip people from their money any way they can. Giving out loans is one way of making their money. But if they get greedy, a global financial crisis can happen just like the one in 2008. The government should put some regulations in order for these corporations not to mess up and try to get some help from the government. When a person messes up, it’s his life; but when these corporation mess up, it’s a national issue. It affects everyone; the people who buy more than they can afford, and the honest people who pay for other peoples mistakes.





Works Cited
Cianfrocca, Francis. "The Politics (and the Economics) of Mortgage Relief | Redstate." Redstate | Conservative News and Community. Eagle Publishing, Inc., 31 Mar. 2008. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://archive.redstate.com/stories/economy/the_politics_and_the_economics_of_mortgage_relief>.
Dunbar, John, and David Donald. "Who Is Behind the Financial Meltdown?" The Center for Public Integrity. The Center of Public Integrity, 06 May 2009. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/economic_meltdown/articles/entry/1286>.
Johnson, June. Global Issues, Local Arguments: Readings for Writing. 2nd ed. Boston: Longman, 2010. 141. Print.
Schoen, John W. "Seven Lessons from the Financial Meltdown - Business - Eye on the Economy - Stocks & Economy - Msnbc.com." Msnbc.com - Breaking News, Science and Tech News, World News, US News, Local News- Msnbc.com. Msnbc.com, 15 Sept. 2009. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32544407/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/>.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Low Quality Vs. High Quality


Free trade has affected the American market and made some people go out of business. Now, people have the choice to buy less quality items cheaper than American Products. But those cheap products most of the times break and you would have to go buy another one. American products surely costs a little bit higher, but they last longer.
               How does free trade affect the US worker? It can affect him a lot, but the world is changeable. Everything changes over the years. American business is slowly falling down, does that mean the plan that American workers are following should change? In my opinion, some changes have to occur in order to lift the American market.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sweat Shop Disasters


       After reading the articles from this week I found out that Sweat shops are actually a good transitional phase from the rural area into cities. Sweat shops actually give people the opportunity to leave their towns and go live in the city where they can make more money. In order to get into the society, they can work at sweat shops only temporarily to put some money aside for their education. After getting a degree in a professional field they can leave and start their lives the way they want.
       In the article, “Sweat, Fire and Ethic,” the writer shows us how badly conditioned Sweat shops used to be. He mentioned how these conditions can lead to disasters and fatalities. How a fire killed 146 young workers in a sweat shop in the USA in 1911, and how the accidents in February and March of 2006 killed 88 young women and girls in Bangladesh. Shouldn’t we care about these working conditions that are killing those young people? Instead of thinking whether or not to buy the stuff made in these developing countries?

Saturday, April 9, 2011

A New Blogger in Town

Hello guys,

       I've always been around blogs and bloggers, but never thought of ever making one. I'm a musician from Kuwait who live in the United States to study and hopefully stay, because the future I'm pursuing is kind of disrespected in the Arab world. I'm studying Engl-1A this quarter and part of this class I have to create this blog. You win mom!! (she is the most addicted blogger I know).

       My major is Music, I play the guitar. 8 years ago, I was lost. I didn't know what the future held for me, and wasn't that good in school. I did alright most of my school years until the cursed last year, which I flunked 2 times. It wasn't because I neglected school or anything, but it was because of the material they teach us in our subjects. It was totally different than the 11th year.

        In my third year repeating the 12th year, I started smoking in school which was against the rules. One of the teachers caught me smoking once and decided to make me a model in front of the other young students. So he decided to expel me for a week. I had a test that week so I got angry (oops, Anger Management!!) and punched that teacher in the face. I was sent to the dean afterward and then they decided to expel me from Kuwait's schools.

       I didn't know what to do. I joined the army for a month then decided to runaway (lol!) I was in the army facility where they train us when I got the idea that this isn't the future for me. So I decided to climb the wall to FREEDOM!! It was hilarious. Barbed wires everywhere, guards. When I finally made it across the wall I went to a cafe which was open in 3 am. and called a cab to get me home.

       After that I joined a company where my uncle used to be head of the Management Information Systems office. I joined in as a computer administrator since I've been around computers all my life. I did alright until I started listening to rock n' roll and Metal. Then I decided to get me a guitar and started learning. I learned so fast that my father told me to go study Music. Now that's an idea, why didn't I think of that? I'll tell you why, because of the environment I'm living in. Nobody knows anything about Music. some people think that Music is forbidden too!! I used to be around the musical bands in school all my educational years. I remember going on the piano in school and tell the teacher to teach me to play something while the other students making fun and shouting in the back. My culture never took Music seriously.

       I then enrolled in an internet based high school from America and had to do a year and a half to get my high school diploma. I finished it and enrolled in the college I'm in now. I found out that Music is a whole subject that we are missing in Kuwait. History, Theory, and a different language all together.

       And this is it, My life up till now...