Don't Mess With Mali - Part Two

            The fourth listed reason was that Mali is an extremely cultural region with beautiful unique and peaceful traditions. Most of Mali follows a kind of unique and virtuous Islamic tradition, which gives women public lives. If countries begin to battle over Mali, many are afraid that the musical and artistic culture will be ruined. I don’t really see how this reason would affect other governments from taking action though. Hear me out, if you look at the history of Africa, there used to be a lot of tribes and interesting cultures but the countries carved it up anyway. What I learned in world history was that the imperialism of Africa caused the destruction of most of the tribes and cultures and traditions but the greedy European countries did it anyway.

            A conflict in Mali would also create victims of the crisis. There are hundreds of thousands of Malians that are already displaced from the country and dying of disease. The article mentioned exact numbers which I will gladly share; “there are at least 150,000 refugees in neighboring countries, and more than 50,000 that live in Mauritania, a refugee camp.” Many if the refugees are dying from malnutrition and diarrhea. This may be off topic and a Western opinion but I feel like diarrhea would be a horrible and stupid way to die. Anyways, if the fighting continues, there would just be more and more refugees and more and more people dying.

            Finally, Mali would matter because, almost sadly, it has become a kind of experiment to test how well international action would work against militant Islam in Africa; the way that the international governments fights against the extremist organizations can set a precedent for future military action for other groups depending on how successful that campaign is.

           

            Hopefully this summed up the article pretty well for you but honestly I see know that the reasons were a little politically biased. If you learned anything, it should have been just to leave Mali alone because it does matter and the actions have consequences. (343)

Don't Mess With Mali - Part One

                There are a lot of articles circulating on CNN about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but by looking around them I found an article about the French deploying more troops to Mali to help them combat the Islamist fighters coming into the country and then one about why Mali matters. The article listed six reasons and for my blog I will simply attempt to summarize them.

                The first reason Mali matters is the location of the country. Mali doesn’t have any economic value to any other country but it is a very large country – almost twice the size of France and so it has a lot of neighbors. The country basically holds a bunch of possible supply routes and escape routes for militants. This country seems like a Switzerland in the middle of everyone else’s problems. There is al Qaeda to the west of Mali, ethnic Tuareg separatists to the east, more al Qaeda problems to the North and sits beside some of the profitable smuggling routes from Africa to Europe.

                Ungoverned space was the second reason Mali was listed as important. Mali isn’t a country that is really governed and so a lot of extremist and criminal groups obviously want to nest their operations there because of that.  A lot of the bordering countries however, have obvious intentions to keep these criminal groups from setting up base in that country. Last spring, Northern Mali was apparently “the largest territory controlled by Islamic extremists in the world.” Everyone else does not want to see the rest of Mali turning into an Islamic extremist run country. That would make the entire country pretty much an enemy.

            Onto the next reason I guess; there is a possibility that Mali will become a site for recruiting jihadists. For those of you that don’t know, a jihadist is a part of the jihadist movement. Their objective is basically to try and free Palestine from Israel rule. I did a little research on it and only really found that al Qaeda is part of the group. All you need to know is that they are bad. Back on subject, with the French intervention, many people are worried that extremists among the Muslims in France that are originally from North and West Africa will seek revenge on France. (384)

The Suprising Results of International Meat

                I had actually already written a blog on this topic but thanks to technical difficulties, none of it was saved. So I will just do my best to reconstruct it and you will have to make due. Six days ago, an article was published on CNN about the discovery of horse meat, or rather DNA, in hamburgers that were on sale in supermarkets in Britain and Ireland. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland published their findings on Tuesday morning. They showed that ten out of the twenty seven hamburger products that they tested contained horse DNA, i.e. they contained horse meat. Twenty three hamburger products out of the twenty seven contained pig DNA, or pig meat. To put this in perspective, thirty seven percent of the tested hamburger products contained horse meat and eighty five percent of the tested hamburger products contained pig meat.

                For those of you that are unaware, hamburgers come from cows. I will be the first one to admit that there is a lot of meat and ingredients in store bought hamburgers that may not be the plain ground beef that I really want. According to another article I found, most hamburgers probably have E. coli and the cows that the hamburgers come from are fed chicken feces. I really don’t need to go into the unappetizing meat industry so I’ll just go back to my specifically titled article.

                One of the most shocking things I found out from the article was that in nine out of ten of the burger samples, there were relatively low levels of horse DNA but it one of those ten burgers, twenty nine percent of the burger was horse meat. As an AP Statistics student, I know that if that was the outcome of the sample, there is probably a higher chance of getting more horse meat in the burgers. That is absolutely disgusting. I would be curious to find the results of similar studies in other countries. (329)

Tragic London Crash

                This morning, a helicopter in London crashed into a construction crane and fell to the ground. Two people were killed during this collision and thirteen others were injured. An article on CNN describes this horrible accident. A helicopter pilot by the name of Peter Barnes who was fifty years old was the pilot today of the helicopter that crashed. He unfortunately was one of the two people that died and the only one on the aircraft. Tragically, he was the father of two young children. The second person that died was near the crash site and was evidently too near it. They were rushed to the hospital but apparently could not be revived. According to a nearby builder who saw the crash, the pilot looked like he had not seen the crash because he hit the crane at full speed. When it hit, the rotor blade snapped off and the helicopter spun to the ground and erupted into a burst of flames.

                The helicopter crashed near a busy intersection at the “height of the morning rush hour.” The particular location was in Vauxhall, south of the River Thames in central London. Coincidentally, the crane that the copter crashed into was being used for what will be known as the Vauxhall Tower, which will be one of Europe’s tallest towers when it is finished.

                It was very foggy this morning in London which was probably the reason that the crash occurred. It makes me wonder whether this will spark new helicopter flying rules or new air force laws or something. It might impact the future height that helicopters will be allowed to fly at. Although it also may not because depending on how much of that tower is built already, it may just be pretty tall. With the addition of the extremely tall cranes, I wonder how high up in the air this helicopter was. It just seems extra tragic that the pilot had a family that he won’t be able to go home to. (335)

Luge: Unknown by Many but Not Forgotten

                After a class, almost off topic, discussion about luge and the alleged luge team run at our school, I decided to do a bit more research about the sport and compose a blog on the topic. This was in part to inform anyone that reads my blog about the sport, but since no one really reads my blog anyway I decided that it was be also in part to simply humor my teacher if he reads the title and decides to actually read the blog under the title.

                Believe it or not, Luge is the actual name of an Olympic sport that has also been described as “extreme sledding.” There are three “sliding” sports in the Olympics, bobsledding, skeleton, and luge. Luge is the fastest and most dangerous of the three.  According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, luge riders can reach up to 87 miles per hour (that is almost as fast as I go on the interstate! Totally kidding by the way.) A luge itself is a “small one or two person sled on which one sleds supine (face up) and feet first.” The people that ride a luge are able to steer the sled by “flexing the sled’s runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat.” Hopefully this doesn’t take much muscle because professional luge riders would have to have giant shoulders and calves, which is a very strange combination to have, especially if they don’t require any thigh or bicep muscles. It would be a strange sight to see if some guy came walking up the street and was rather slender and scrawny but had the largest calf and shoulder muscles you have ever seen. It would be like a football player with only some of his padding.

           

            Well hopefully this blog enlightened you on the sport Luge. Hopefully my teacher is reading this now and wishing that he hadn’t ever brought it up Oh well! (326)

Work and Leisure Worldwide

                A mother’s favorite motto: “You better go to school Little Johnny or you’ll end up like that guy or worse yet!” I read an article about the differences in labor across countries and it got me thinking about the differences in some professions. For the purpose of this blog, the worse yet will be compared to a fast food worker. This job was chosen randomly without bias, just observation, and the claims in this blog do not have any actual proof or information to back them up, they are however based on my observations and experiences with fast food workers.

                A surgeon is probably considered a pretty high job to be at and the most pre-planned mother’s dream for her baby to be successful. Again, this doesn't apply to all mothers, just hypothetically speaking. A fast worker is probably on the lower end of the working food chain. In this blog, I will compare the two based on my observations and stereotypes.

                The easiest differences in jobs are that a surgeon operates on people and a fast food worker serves them instead. A surgeon deals with people’s organs and insides and a fast food worker will deal with the food that goes in someone’s insides. A surgeon would probably live in a bigger house and have a bigger salary. This is mostly due to the difference in salaries; A surgeon will make somewhere around 300,000 dollars every year whereas a fast food worker will make a measly 16,000 dollars every year. This could just be me, but that 284,000 dollar difference has got to make some kind of a difference in living styles.

                Let us compare the experience it takes to get to each of these positions. A surgeon will go to school for a minimum of eight years with the addition of residency. They will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for this schooling as well. A fast food worker does not even have to finish high school and in turn will pay nothing for his schooling.

                After they get the job, a surgeon will work crazy long and odd hours whereas a fast food worker will work normal hours and may have trouble even getting enough hours.  A surgeon will live off coffee because of his long and weird hours and a fast food worker will drink coffee, of they can afford it, because they didn’t sleep long enough, were lazy and groggy, and need to get into a better mood.

                So in short, one has a clean, more extravagant life style, and the other has a less-surgically clean and maybe money-tight lifestyle. The career choice is always up to you but I mean, sometimes, your mother may be right. (454)

The Improvement of International, and Nation Economies

After reading about the acknowledgement of Ghana’s improving economy by the World Bank, I discussed it with my father. We began a new discussion about the United States’ economy and how it could easily be improved. His side of our discussion basically went like this…

How about our president starts working with congress to correct some of the wasteful spending. Business had to cut back and work harder, yet government keeps hiring.  Layoff 50% of the work force and make the remaining pick up the slack.  Do this first by getting rid of all the redundant jobs.   Next make term limits on congress and the senate.  6 years each, it was never set up to be a lifelong job.  All government employees pensions go back to social security and they become part of that program just like all the working class people.  All government employees including congress goes back to Obama care which they forced down the working class families without even reading the bill they were passing.   Then put unemployment back to 6 months and have people look for a job.  There are way too many enticements not to work.  If you still don’t have a job after 6 months, you can go on welfare. First thing you do on welfare is get drug tested, all tattoos and piercing are notated.  If any new ones show up you don’t need free money to live because you decide to waste it on other things and your welfare will stop. You will be expected to work, picking up trash, cleaning and rebuild parks, etc,  4 days a week 8 hours a day and on the 5^th day you can go out and look for a different job.    If you are hungry and you get food stamps, then you can only buy, potatoes, rice, hamburger, milk eggs and vegetables. These are called stapes and will keep you alive while you are going through your transition.   Drug testing is mandatory and if you test positive, you are kicked off welfare and food stamps for 6 months.  If you won’t take care of yourself, why should anyone else care and pay for it?   All disability recipients will be investigated and if shown to be scamming the country, they are barred from any of the benefits.  Next, anyone on welfare gives up their cell phones which are a pure waste of money. 

The society that we live in now promotes worthlessness and expects to be rewarded. 

To get some self esteem, people need to work and see that they are accomplishing something.    If we are paying out money to people, let’s expect something in return. (440)

Enrique Pena Nieto - The New Mexican President

Mexico may be one of the up and coming countries in the world for manufacturing as stated on CNN.    One of the first things that (Pena Nieto) Mexico’s new President did when he took over office was to work with his congress for Bipartison cooperation.  He is taking on the problem spots with the cooperation of liberals and conservatives.  His first three things on his agenda is to raise taxes, increase competion and take on the teachers unions. 

Their GDP is expected to grow at 4%, twice as fast as Brazil and the United States.  It is the 4^th largest producer of Cars and and with the new trade agreements in place, Nafta, it’s shipping and delivery costs a lot less than any Asian Country.  It exports more products that all the rest of the south American countries combined.  One of the key factors is that they have a younger work force than most countries, averaging 34.  Russia and China are 44 and Japan is 56. Surprising the median age of the US work force is 39.   

One of the major problems they are addressing is that Teachers Unions.  Unions were a great thing when working conditions were terrible and people were mistreated, but unions has long out grown their usefulness and now only hold hostage things we all need so they can get what they want.  Don’t they understand that when one persons salary goes up everyone elses salary needs to go up or the prices need to go up so we are all on the same footing.  The benefits are a mute point.  You can’t always have some one win because someone else has to lose.  When the loser gets to far down, they start to rebel. 

What I find interesting is that they are having the same problems as our country, but they are doing something about it and both parties are working together.  Instead  of bullying congress, it is surprising that he is working with them and they are actually all working together.  I suspect that he does not have a lot of favors out there who financed him and he is not trying to pay them back with forcing issues.  Of course mexico still has other major problems like drug wars and violence, but they are working around other areas to get everything back on track.    

                Why can’t the United States use this as an example.  People there try to work for a living, the government does not hand out free money, pay peoples rent to live and if they have big screen TVs they had to work for them.  If they don’t want to work they stave.  Good motivator.  (446)

Malala Yousafzai's Recovery

Last trimester, I wrote about Malala Yousafzai; the fifteen year old Pakistani woman activist that was attacked for going to school. Malala spoke and blogged in favor of education for Pakistani girls and against the Taliban rule. She then became the target of an assassination attempt by Pakistan militants. She amazingly survived the attack but was left with life-threatening head and neck wounds.

                It has been three months since the attack and she has drastically recovered but still far from a full recovery.  She was just discharged from a hospital in Britain where she had been recovering for the past three months. She is scheduled for a cranial reconstructive surgery in the next month that will replace a shattered portion of her skull with titanium or perhaps her own bone if possible.

                The article on CNN described Malala’s shooting and her recovery. It is possible that Malala got her defiance and strong will from her father who runs a school in Pakistan that is open to girls. This school is in direct defiance of the Taliban rule. The scary thing though mentioned in the article was the Taliban statement issued after Malala was shot that said that if Malala lived, they would come after her. It makes me wonder whether Malala will live after her recover and how she would be able to survive. I don’t know if she would be allowed asylum in a different country or if she would be offered protection of some kind. Her father however told reporters that he has every intention of returning to his “native country” after she recovers.

                I think that it is really inspirational that Malala is recovering so well. I don’t know what I would do if I was fifteen and became a target of the Taliban. The wide support of this girl is also admirable and it shows how one person can really make a difference and shine light on a bad situation. It is sad however that someone has to get severely injured to actually make an impact on people’s minds. (344)

New Traffic Restrictions Leading to Outrage

                At the beginning of the New Year, China set in place new traffic rules for the country. An article on CNN describes the rules and the reactions of the people about the new rules. According to the article, there were more than two million car accidents in China during the past year which led to more than 62,000 deaths. To give you a number to compare to, there were around 33,000 deaths by car accident in the United States in 2010. The need for more strict traffic laws is understandable, however the new system seems a bit peculiar and unfair to many drivers.

The new driving rules in China include heavier penalties for violations such as drunk driving, phone usage, and running lights. The new system uses a sort of point deduction on licenses. For every violation, there is a certain amount of points deducted from a driver’s license. When the points total reaches twelve, the driver’s license is suspended and the driver must then take a sort of drivers-ed class where they review traffic rules for seven days and then must pass a test at the end of the class.

The part of the law however that is sparking the most outrage in drivers is one of the rules that states that a yellow traffic light is the same as a red light. Running through a yellow light twice in one year would result in suspension of the license.

I think that the point system is a good idea for things like speeding tickets and what not but if the point system is used for drunk driving and serious violations related to that, I don’t think that the enforcement is serious enough. The yellow light rule however is stupid. The whole point of a yellow light is to slow drivers down. If you take away the purpose of the yellow light, drivers have to slam on their brakes to keep from going through a yellow light. This would just cause more accidents and worsen the automobile problems in China. (341)

Top Ten Terrorist Takedowns of 2012; Part Three

           Nearing the end of our list is number eight; Aslam Awan. He was a senior al Qaeda external operations planner, which I am beginning to believe means that he was the leader of that division. He was apparently responsible for the planning of attacks against the West. The article stated that he was not well known to the public but was known to the “intelligence community.” This seems to infer that the rest of the names on the list were well known. I can see how the rewarded guys could have been known, but I still haven’t heard of most of these people. He died on January 10.

            Adis Medunjanin is number nine on the list. He was given the job by senior external operations leaders (maybe he knew our number eight) to blow up the New York subway. Fortunately, thanks to the United States law enforcement, he was stopped a few days before he was able to complete his task. Medunjanin is actually the only name on this list that wasn’t killed in some kind of drone strike, air strike, or operation. On November 16 he was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and other charges.

            Last but not least is number ten; Sheikh Khalid bin Abdel Rehman which is apparently one name. He was a senior leader and religioes figure in al Qaeda. How a person could be a religious figure I have no idea. Sheikh Khalid bin Abdel Rehman was killed in a drone strike in December and was allegedly the successor of another man who was killed in a drone strike and also happens to be number one on our list.

           I stated at the beginning of my post that I found two main things interesting; my ignorance on what the terrorists did and who they were, and how they died. I would really like to point out the fact that only one of the men, number nine, is actually still alive. The rest were pretty much killed by drone strikes, whatever those may be. I guess a lesson to learn from this might be to not become involved with a terrorist organization because you will probably die by drone strike. (373)

Top Ten Terrorist Takedowns of 2012; Part Two

The following are the continuation of part one, takedowns number three through seven are described below.

            Number three is Badr Mansoor who, in the article, is apparently described as “the most senior Pakistani in al Qaeda.” I have no idea what that means but he was a main target for the United States. He was apparently a coordinator for the Taliban but was killed on February 9,2012 by a missile strike.

            The fourth man in the list is Badruddin Haqqani who was a commander in the Taliban Network and son of the founder. It’s almost sad that he was the son of the founder because it automatically made him a target. Of course, his own involvement probably made him a target on his own. Haqqani was responsible for a lot of attacks on the U.S. Embassy including other assaults in Afghanistan. He is also deceased as of August 2012.

            Next up is Abu Usman Adil who was emir, or military commander or local chief, of IMU which is an ally of both al Qaeda and the Taliban. This alliance is probably the reason that this guy was a very important terrorist target. The organization has also admitted to being responsible for many suicide attacks in Afghanistan. He was killed in April.

            The number six takedown was Sakhr al-Taifi. Al-Taifi was the second highest al Qaeda leader. I’m not sure if him and Abu Yahya al-Lib (number one) had the same job or not but it kind of makes me curious about the infatuation with the second highest leaders, why not go for the first? Al-Taifi was in charge of the rebels and commanded attacks against forces. He also carried out orders of the senior al Qaeda leaders. That all stopped though on May 27, 2012 when he was killed during a security operation in Afghanistan.

            The seventh takedown was of Zulkifli bin Hir. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that name because I won’t be of any help. Bin Hir was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah which was a terror group associated with al Qaeda. He also allegedly trained members of the group Abu Sayyaf in bomb-making. He was a very “skilled” individual. The FBI offered a five million dollar reward for his capture, which again is around 582,591,256 dinar. Unfortunately the grim reaper caught up with him as well on February 2, 2012. (394)

Top Ten Terrorist Takedowns in 2012; Part One

            In sync with the New Year, CNN listed the names of the top ten terrorist take downs that occurred during 2012. The list below names the men that were either killed or indicted in the past year:

1. Abu Yahya al-Libi

2. Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso

3. Badr Mansoor

4. Badruddin Haqqani

5. Abu Usman Adil

6. Sakhr al-Taifi

7. Zulkifli bin Hir

8. Aslam Awan

9. Adis Medunjanin

10. Sheikh Khalid bin Abdel Rehman



            All of these men were high up or commissioned by the al Qaeda terrorist organization. As I was reading about these men and the things they did and how they were killed I found a couple things interesting; mainly how most of them were killed and what they did that I didn't know about. I could probably blame my ignorance on the fact that I didn't pay much attention to world events until I started this blog for world humanities but still.

            The first man, Abu Yahya al-Libi, was second in command of al Qaeda and although he wasn't actually involved in the fighting by al Qaeda, he was the man who appeared in most of al Qaeda’s recruitment videos. He was obviously a hot commodity because The U.S. State Department offered a one million dollar reward for his capture. One million dollars is a lot in the United States, I took the time to convert the one million dollars to Iraqi dinar and came up with around 1,165,182,513 dinar. I don’t know what relevance that has to it or how much that will buy you in Iraq but I’m sure it’s enough to have a lot of people looking for this man. He was killed though on June 4,2012.

            The second man on the list is Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, who played an important role in the bombing of the USS Cole in October of 2000. The bombing killed 17 American sailors and injured at least 40 others. The U.S. State Department offered five million dollars for his capture so he was apparently more wanted that al-Libi. For the sake of repetition, I converted five million dollars as well, which is equal to around 582,591,256 dinar. No one actually received the reward money however because he was killed on May 6, 2012. (378)