Sunday, May 1, 2011

The Power of YouTube

Many people use YouTube. Whether it is to watch a funny video, listen to a song, or look at political ad campaign videos. Many people watch these videos and create their own beliefs from them. Much of the videos on YouTube isn't true, but the viewer doesn't know that. The viewer gets the idea from a video and either agrees or disagrees with it. Many of the YouTube watchers can comment on the videos and voice their opinion. With so many people with access to the video, these videos can become viral and it makes the public more involved.



Like with this video, many of these citizens may think that Obama is a unicorn rider and doesn't care about the situation at hand. Viewers can create their own opinion and voice it however they want. Many of the viewers get involved with comments and showing their friends the videos. The public now has an easy way to get involved without leaving their computers sometimes. These videos can promote ideas and people to want to make a change. This is how citizens participate with the Internet and share their ideas. That is why YouTube is such a great way to express our ideas and beliefs.

Obama vs. Trump; 2012

Obama is the 2012 Democratic candidate for President. Here is a video made for his reelection campaign.



Donald Trump will most likely be the Republican candidate for the 2012 election. Here is video for his election campaign.



First off I must say that I absolutely hate Trump's video. All of the stuff in it is just really wrong and unjustified. This video should not be on TV because it sends out the wrong message and wrong vibes. I really like Obama's video because it wasn't out there and really loud, it was more soft and to the point. The people in the video seemed really nice and I would much rather have an advertisement like that. Trump's video looks like it is made off of a little kids computer. You can't take a video like Trump's serious and that is why I think Obama's video is more effective.

The Issue of E-Commerce Taxation

How are we supposed to tax something we buy off of a computer? It is a difficult issue that has everyone trying to compose ideas that will figure out the issue of e-commerce taxation. Taxes are a necessity to make society work. Without taxes, there would be no roads, public schools, police or firefighters, or government officials. But how with a more and more Internet based society and more online shopping does that get back to the states. All of that money doesn't go to the state or the federal government which is not helping our financial issue at moment.
Each state has their own rules regarding what is considered a taxable product or service and what is not. Your products or services may be taxable in one state, but not in anther. In some states if you separately state items on your invoice they are not taxable, if you lump them together, they become subject to sales tax.
It's hard to get a grip on such a difficult subject such as e-commerce taxation. The states and federal government really need to figure out a good proposal to this idea because in the mean time, many states are losing money from things being bought off of the Internet. I hope this controversial issue ends up with a positive result for the states and federal government because major companies don't need to make more money and many small businesses will be out of luck.

We Want the Truth!

The government censors media without the public knowing it. Many news corporation dealing with politics are extremely bias to one particular party, which makes our news less reliable. The government can censor what they don't want the people to see which could cause conflict or public outcry. I don't think that the government should do this because the public should know the truth. If the public isn't getting the facts, then they are being told lies and none of that will help the future.

This report from Fox News was not aired because Fox didn't want the public to know what they were really drinking. My bet is that the government also did not want Fox to air this for fear that all of the milk being bought would no longer be bought. It is unfair for the public to not be able to know the truth in what they are drinking especially if they are giving it to their kids to promote "strong bones" and get their calcium.

One of the main quotes from the Fox station manager is this:
"We paid $3 billion dollars for these television stations. We’ll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!"
This is just not fair because the people want the truth. If news stations are censoring their news, then they will never find out the truth. I don't think it should have happened because the truth is always the right thing.

Here is the clip that Fox denied showing:




New York Times; Keeping You Informed

In the New York Times online website they basically have their whole newspaper plus blogs and comments from readers. It is a very good website with very good writers including Thomas L. Friedman, Paul Krugman, and many others. It is very good that they offer all of their news online for people that don't want to buy a subscription or just can't afford it. They have very interesting articles and it is nice to see what some readers have to say about the articles. 


I think the New York Times did a very good job on the article entitled, Republicans Are Pursuing a Wider Field for 2012 Race,  where they also added a lot of quotes and a picture that added to the whole thing. This article got straight to the point and did not bore you at all. It had a lot of people that had good quotes which made it not as boring and not as bias. 
“The race needs more responsible adults who can actually do the job,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.
I thought that this piece did a very good job because it did keep the public informed. It only told the facts and it got straight to the point. It didn't have a lot of  nonsense writing that the reader would get bored with. The picture and quotes really did add to it because the reader wouldn't leave the page out of boredom.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Check Your Facts



I think this video from MSNBC does work. It is just informing the public in a semi-brief clip but it really gets to the point. It is trying to show how the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, should really check his facts before he speaks. In this clip it talks about how things he says aren't always true. They talk about the true fact and then show him saying something different. They are trying to make people realize that you shouldn't always believe what you hear.

This first false thing Trump said had to do with the 9/11 terrorists. He said that the families of those terrorists had left a day before the attack happened. First there was never even any evidence that the families were in the U.S. And second when the 9/11 Commission Report came out, it said that Osama's family had left days after the attack after being screened by the FBI.

The second thing Trump tried to say was that Obama wasn't born in the United States. He said his Certificate of Live Birth didn't have a serial number and it wasn't signed. Both of those were false statements. Officials of Hawaii say that the certificate verifies that the President was born there.

This just shows that you should really think about who you are going to vote for president. I also thought this video was straight to the point and got its point across.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

New York Times Co. v. United States

The undeclared war in Vietnam caused a great deal of public protest during the late 1960s and early 1970s. A political scientist, Daniel Ellsberg, working for the Pentagon stole and copied a classified paper. The paper was entitled, "History of United States Decision-Making Process of Vietnam Policy" which was then published by the New York Times. The government stopped the Times from publishing the papers. The court sided with the New York Times in a 6-3 vote.

I don't really agree with this decision because one it was confidential papers and two they did not have consent of whoever published it. The public should know how the government makes decisions but not in this type of fashion. The state and foreign policy were in jeopardy in this type of case and the New York Times shouldn't have been able to release the Pentagon Papers.



The per curiam decision made in the Times case was that "any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity." This means that the New York Times is allowed to publish these types of things even though it might spark issues. I don't really agree with this because the government should try and maintain order.