A Moderate's View of an different style of a State of the Union Address

Good Morning Family! You didn't really want it! You don't really even need it! You barely like the guy and have no idea what he's saying outside of Fox news and radio, but here it is Lady's and Gentlemen: President Obama's State of the Union Address!!!! *Crowds cheering*

Now, I know most of you didn't watch it, and by now most of the nation has forgotten about it because of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, but I took 7 yellow-notepads worth of notes and by golly you are going to read them whether or not you really care nor understand any of the issues!

A quick side-note about the revolutions in Egypt. First, I think this is long overdue for the middle east and North Africa, where totalitarian regimes have suppressed human rights, weakened instead of strengthening their countries, and who's single iron-fist rule have only added to the poor and have weakened the overall state of the region. The thing that I am concerned about is the fact that these revolutions have the ability to spring strong extremist movements. I have nothing against Islam and quite frankly I think an Islam-based nation would be wonderful (it would be just like our christian-backed nation we live in today), the thing to worry about is the possibility of extremism to spring out of the chaos. In Egypt's case, it's more dangerous because these protests aren't unified by a particular leader, they are just hundreds of thousands of angry citizens taking to the streets, but with the "Brotherhood" emerging from the shadows and gaining more and more support (From what I can tell, the "Brotherhood" is an underground Islamic network that spans many countries and is more extreme than normal Islamic priests are) it could be a very bad thing. As History shows in the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Caribbean Crisis, and 1930's Germany and Italy, Extremists have tremendous support during times of crisis but rarely do they ever help the state become better than what it was. So even if an Islam based government arises, that's still better than an extremist one or one under another dictator. So hope and pray that peace-- or at the very least rationality and civility-- will come upon the regions of these revolts and that they will turn out for the better, not worse...

Alright, side note over. It's time now for:

STATE OF THE UNION SUMMARY TIME!!!!!!!!!!

His main message was to "out educate, out produce, and out do the world". Here's his steps on how to get there:

1. Research and Innovation

• Renewable energy (solar and Bio-energy)

• We need to re-invent ourselves and our energy by gathering the great minds of renewable energy like we did during the "Apollo" missions and the government will help fund these projects like we did for NASA
  
• Stop giving subsidies to Big Oil
• In 2035, 80% of America's energy will be from clean energy (including solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, etc.)

2. Education

• 1/2 the jobs today require education past a college degree, but 1/4 of all students aren't even graduating High School
• Families instill the love of learning and parents need to do more to enforce and encourage. "The Science Fair should be just as celebrated as the Super Bowl"
• Schools aren't doing what they can. "Race to the Top" made people enhance our school system and this will replace "No Child Left Behind".
• Principals and Teachers need to do more. We need to treat our teachers better (In Korea and Japan, teachers are called "nation-builders") by rewarding good behavior and not excusing the bad. We need more nation builders, so America wants 100,000 new teachers-- America wants you to be a teacher
• Making College more affordable. Will extend the Tuition Tax Credit. A same goal from last year, by 2020, America will have the highest % of College graduates in the world.
• Foreigners (both Illegal and Legal) need to be stop being sent away from our country after they get their education, but stay here. Says he'll work on fixing Illegal Immigration

3. Rebuilding America

• Infrastructure needs to be improved. We're falling behind other nations (and the world gave us a D on infrastructure). Redouble the construction effort on roads and bridges (and it'll be fully paid for). In 5 years, 80% of Americans will have access to High Speed Rail.
• We need to knock down barriers to help corporations compete. He wants to change the Corporate Tax codes by simplifying them and getting rid of loopholes--use the savings to get rid of corp. taxes without adding to the deficit.
• Exports will double by 2014. America will only do trade that'll benefit American workers
• Re-evaluation of Government Regulations-- but we'll be implement common sense laws
• Health Care. Essentially, he's willing to work with Republicans to fix and mend the bill, but he's not going back to the "pre-existing conditions" days. "Lets fix what needs fixing and keep moving forward

4. Debt Free...r

• The worse of it is over, and while some spending was needed, we can't keep spending more than we earn. Families are budgeting, so should the federal government. Proposal: freeze domestic economic spending for 5 years. (Wants to eliminate what we can do without)
• Can't just cut domestic spending (it's only 12% of the budget) but we need to cut all excess spending-- Health Care (medicare and Medicaid), defense, and domestic. (one thing he said we can fix is the Medical Malpractice reform).
• Find a Bipartisan way to fix social security. Can't be privatized so that it's based on the whims of the Stock Market.
• Can't keep giving the top 2% super high tax breaks. We need to simplify the individual tax code

5. Make Government more efficient

• We're reorganizing and combining agencies to make it more efficient
  
• The White House and Congress are going to let the public know what they're doing by providing information 3 days before it happens
• Obama will veto any bill with Earmarks

6. Foreign Policy

• Build Coalitions across political, moral, and religious lines. We need to defeat threats wherever they are.
• We've improved Iraq. Combat missions are over, new government is in place, and our civilians are working with Iraqi civilians. American Muslims ARE a part of the American Family.
  
• We're taking the Fight to the Taliban. We're training Afghan police and getting rid of their strong holds. But the Afghan government needs to do more. Will start bringing troops home in July.
• Nuclear Weapons are locking down on every continent (staying strong against Iran and North Korea)
• New South American Alliances
• Our purpose is more powerful than our "power". We helped the people of South Sudan end a genocide and have peaceful elections to separate into a separate state. We support the people of Tunisia and all democratic aspirations of all people
• The U.S. Supports it's troops. We will make sure our soldiers have their benefits and equipment. Gays will serve openly in the Military and all U.S. campuses will be open to military recruiters and ROTC's.

7. In conclusion...

• Democracy can be messy, but it's the best one of earth
• lets be civil in our debates, but never lose focus of the dream (The American Dream and "Winning the Future")!
• It's because of this dream and the big things that we do that THE STATE OF OUR UNION IS STRONG.

Alright, so that was his hour and a half speech in a summary. Now, the unique thing about this speech was that unlike most State of the Union addresses, it wasn't a laundry list of all the things they accomplished and all the policies they want to do this year. It was more of a "big picture" idea with less actual policy suggestions so that it could be more of a "feel good" speech. The other unusual thing (but really good) is that Republicans and Democrats actually sat next to each other during the address instead of being split down the Isle like normal. This lead to a more civil tone (no "You Lie!" hackles) and it felt more like an adult speech than the usual "Middle School Pep Rally".

So, looking over my notes, I really liked what President Obama said. I agree with the High Speed Rail system, I loved how he asked parents and teachers to do more for education, fix government regulations on corporations, being willing to actually confront the debt and do something about it other than ignore it, reorganizing government agencies and supporting Gays serving openly in the military. I agreed with a lot of the stuff said in the speech because this time it was more centralist and bi-partisan than in years prior.

Now, there were things that I didn't like.

First off, I didn't like Michelle Bockman's "Tea Party" address after the State of the Union. I don't like the Tea Party because they're too radical and hot headed. They don't listen to reason most of the time and they'd vote against some thing beneficial if it didn't follow party doctrine.

2nd, While I did like his stance on renewable energy, I think the technology is still far off. And while research will help speed it up and we need it, we should also make sure not to forget that oil is our life right now and we need to keep it coming till we have enough sustainable and profitable renewable energy sources to sustain our needs. I'd love to see a lot more research into nuclear power plants, because that's the best renewable source we got!

3rd, I wanted to hear more about the deficit reduction. Right now our national deficit is $14 trillion and our "total" debt (including total personal debt, interest, overspending, etc.) is $55 Trillion. The U.S. has a GDP of $14.5 Trillion and the U.S. Government collects $2.2 Trillion in taxes every year, but spends $3.5 Trillion. (to look at real time figures, go to http://www.usdebtclock.org/ it's an eye-opener). While Obama said he wants to cut spending and lower the deficit, little has been said or done about what to do about it. Obama's not the only guilty one, Congress hasn't been saying what it wants to cut other than "we want to cut spending".

I think that's really it. I liked a lot of things about it (including the repeal of "Don't ask, Don't Tell". If you want to know why, ask and I'll explain on the next blog post) but I do want the government to be more responsible and responsive for it's actions. So I'm all for cutting the debt, just where do you want to cut it (and I know you haven't looked at the budget yet, but you should have some ideas, and if you don't, admit it instead of hiding behind legal jargon that we can all see through).

Hope you enjoyed the show! Good night everyone!!!!

What a week!

HELLO FAMILY!!!!! How's everyone doing back there in freezing cold Nebraska? Can you believe that the east coast has gotten over 6 feet or more of snow and over here on the top of the mountain we can't even get more than 2 in. at a time??? That's not very sustainable for ski resorts...

Hey, I'm also pretty sure I updated the blog last week too. Hmph. Well, what can you do?

Alright, so between the 16th and the 23rd there wasn't alot of interesting things going on, just normal school and work stuff. This past week though has been really, really hard and fun, so I'll try and walk you through it all...

Alright, well, the first major development happened on Monday. In my Poli Sci 170 (that's International Relations), I had my first exam and geography quiz. I'm pretty sure I aced the exam but I didn't do so hot on the geography quiz. I had spent about an hour or so on an online map quiz game putting the correct countries in the right places, and by the end I knew where all the countries went. I wasn't prepared though when they handed me an outlined map and told me to start labeling the 20 states, regions, and waterways in under 5 minutes. Maybe I was thinking there was going to be a word bank or something, but I couldn't answer about 3-5 of the 20 questions because I was used to hearing the name of the country and then putting it in, not naming the country off of a blank map. So I learned my lesson in that regard.

Air Force is just as tough as normal, actually, it's much tougher now because our new PFO (Physical Fitness Officer) goal is to have everyone get a 96 on the PFA and to make out Det. the #1 in the region and nation (apparentaly our region [the NW] is the top in the nation, and our average PT score was like 90 something, and the #1 Det. was in Washington with something like 95-96 or something. So if you're #1 in the region, you're #1 in the nation), so we've been doing alot more running, pushups, and general nastyness. Thursdays are what I like to call "pain-days" becuase we're too tired and sore to think of anything more clever. Most thursdays we have to do 200 Push-ups, Sit-ups, flutter kicks, jumping jacks (2 jumping jacks = 1). We also try and run 17 laps (Most don't even run) and other body breaking stuff. And we're supposed to get this all done in 49.5 minutes (or as most as we can) as a flight, so it's pretty tough, but it's a good work out all the same.

Well, more detail than I wanted to go into for Air Force, I was up really late tuesday night working on the next geography quiz and a 1.5 page reading question about why democracies don't fight each other. I am happy to say that I did much, much better on the Geo. quiz (I think I got 100%) due to changing the dificulty where they show me the outline of the state and I have to type the first 3 letters (It was Europe, then Middle East, now Asia and Oceania). Then thursday night was heck (essentially in a nut shell, after my 6 am PT, I have classes from 9-3 with only a 1 hour break at 2 for lunch, and then I have band from 7-9, so I only have about 2 hours to do Friday night's homework) because I was up till like 1:30 working on a 5 page current events paper about the role of State Power and Influence between China and the United States. But I pulled off a really good paper, so it was all worth it!

Saturday was Ice-skating with the ward along with my usual 6 hours or so of homework. Ice skating was a blast! We ice-skated for an hour and then did broom hockey for an hour. I had a lot of fun! I was pretty decent (I only fell once because I was trying to whip someone) and a couple people were commenting on how I made it look “natural”. Of course, it didn’t feel natural to me (The skates were pretty good, but they killed my arches, plus the ice was rough (no Zamboni) so it was hard to skate without feeling like you were tripping over cuts), but hey, I’ll take that complement! The broom hockey was fun (you don’t wear skates, just your shoes) and there was about 30 people all with sticks, slipping and sliding on the ice going after a single ball trying to get it in a goal. Because there was so many people though, it made shooting hard because everyone would bunch up in front and just push and whack. But it was fun because since the ice was rough you could run on the ice without slipping, and then you could slide! It was a lot of fun! Plus, I had a bunch of people tell me how involved and intense I was! (It’s called broom hockey, so I wasn’t afraid to push a few people around!) But it was a lot of fun!

The other really cool thing that happened on Thursday (yes, my heck day) was that I got to go and play Laser Tag at this really cool place called Laser Assault. I'll try and describe it the best I can for you. Now the outside of the place was next to a bunch of semi-run downed Mexican Shops, so at first it seemed like it was going to be a really cheap and lame place. But first we got these awesome laser guns-- instead of shooting just a dot, it shot a really bright and strong red beam so you could see exactly where you were shooting and who was shooting back at you! Now, try and picture this, you walk in like you would at any other laser tag place (kinda curves around a bit) and it's pretty dark in there with glow in the dark paint. The room is huge! with about 100-200 feet across and two stories that wrap around the entire room (width was about 50-100 ft). There are fog machines in random places to make the room more intense, there are discarded oil drums, platforms, and random walls placed all around for super intense hiding behind, running, and dodging. They have cool music playing the background (my favorite was Through the Fire and the Flames) and they had ramps, mirrors, ledges, islands, and wooden slits and railings to shoot through. And like I said, because they beams were straight lines, you could see exactly where you were shooting and where other people were shooting at you! Oh it was alot of fun! I almost ran into the Colonel a couple of times, but it was a blast! And for groups of 10 or more it's only $6 for an hour! It was super fun!

So that's about it for the week. I normally won't write this much, but this last week was the most hard and most fun week of the month, so it needed some extra room for an exposition dump. I'm going to update this every week and I encourage the family to do the same. This could probably count as a Duty to God journal, plus keeping this for family records would be super beneficial for all of us! Now, as promised, the next post will be a full detailed account of President Obama's State of the Union address, his main points and promises, and what I felt about it. I do this because as a politically active family, it's only fair to judge a person based on what they said they were going to do and not on any pre-existing judgments or views. So I hope you enjoy it and I'll talk to you guys soon!

It's a Do Nothin Week

Hello Gang! Glad to see that things are still going well for you guys in Omaha! Sorry I wasn't able to skype much tonight, but I'm home all day tomorrow so feel free to give me a call.

Well, this week wasn't too exciting. I had your basic daily mundane things to do (like homework and classes) while tying to figure out how to get the Band class in, find music books, make some deposits, etc. etc. etc. The typical junk that you have to go through throughout the week. I am on First Part in the University Band, but I'm not too excited about the music. It seems to me like it's inbetween Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble. So I'm buying the books that the auditions always come from and I'm going to start practicing my trumpet as soon as I get them (there hasn't been much reason to practice till now).

Having my own room is still great, but my room is at 71 degrees right now (despite that I'm trying to cool it to 68 and heat it up to 40), so I brought out my fan for the past few nights and it's white-noise inducing coolness has help keep the area around my bed relatively cool at night. Speaking of cool, it hasn't really snowed at all this year in Utah! I mean, what the crap, N.Y. and Boston get like 2-3 feet in one day and keep getting hammered by snow storms and for crying out loud, even Georgia has snow! But all we've been getting is either little fluries or drizzle!!! GAH!!! How hard is it to snow super hard in the mountains??? I've been wanting to build a snow fort or a tunnel system for weeks now! *sigh* well, can't get everything I suppose... The Weather Channel says we might get snow on Tuesday, Wendsday, Sunday and Tuesday, but who knows if that'll happen or how much we get...

Well, that's about it. Only two things left to say.
1: Mark your calendars because on Jan. 28th Phineas and Ferb will be doing "Rollercoaster-The Musical" as a musical parody of their first episode and on Feb. 11th the 2nd season will officially be over with "Make Play" and "Candance gets Busted". It should be exciting!!!!
2: FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, UPDATE THE BLOG OR ALL THIS WILL BE IS A PLACE FOR ME TO UPDATE DURING COLLEGE AND FOR YOU TO POST MISSIONARY LETTERS I SEND BACK!!!! Come on!!!

With love,

-Steven

Beginning Semester Recap

Alright Gang! It's been way too long since I last updated this blog. Nothing short of my own lack of motivation, but something I plan on fixing this semester!

So I am going to try really hard not to make these post a month long exposition dump. Cause that's not fair to anybody to have to read that. Plus, my life isn't that riveting that you demand a second by second account of my day like you were a follower of Sarah Palin on Twitter.

So what to talk about then? Hmmmmmmmmmph... Well, not much use of going over the break. I mean you were all there yourself to see me relax and unleash a semester's worth of pent up emotion. So first off, Thanks for making that a wonderful break! Loved spending time with you guys! Can't wait to come home in April!!!

So we got that out of the way, now what.... Hmph... Kinda tricky to do this now that I can't really exposition dump on you guys...

SUMMARY TIME!!!! Basically, the first week of classes is going fairly well. Good teachers, not too hard homework yet, and NO ROOMMATE!!!!!! Nothing against Ben, but it's nice to have your own room (as Sami will attest). Other than that, I've been sleeping alot during my homework time (because I stayed up too late playing with you guys during the break instead of going to bed at 9! Why'd did you guys make me stay up????) so while my homework isn't behind, it's not done before hand like I usually try to do.

Other than that, I've actually increased my social life by 300%!!! So far I found a breakfast table that meets at a regular time (Yes, I'm eating breakfast now), I've been talking more with people outside of my room, and last night Frank and I had a "homework party" for about 3 hours (The problem with Homework parties is that it's either all homework or all party. It was all homework for about a half hour and then it was all goofing off for another 2 and a half hours. You can't do both at the same time!!!). And this week I started going to the Gym and spent 3 hours there this week running on the treads but mainly spending a few hours on the weight lifting machines (they're more fun than running in place!!!), so results are expected to follow in the coming months.

I think that's about it. I'll either start doing this ranging anywhere from daily to weekly. But they'll be short, I promise! Hope the rest of you guys update this at some point! Love you all!