Political Blog 2

What's Next?

2012-02-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

After nearly a two year absence, I am returning to blogging. It's definately been quite an eventful time. I will continue to post about politics, and other events in my own life. Stay tuned!

British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon Disaster

2010-06-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

On April 20th, 2010, a fire started on the offshore drilling station "Deepwater Horizon". It was owned by Transocean, under contract for British Petroleum (BP). The flames engulfed most of the station before it collapsed and fell into the Gulf of Mexico. Normally, this wouldn't be too serious of an environmental problem. However, the oil well that it was drilling at began to leak into the Gulf. This prompted an immediate cleanup effort by both BP and the US Government.

This is only the most recent of British Petroleum's reckless behavior. In the winter of 2004, BP cornered the Propane market, inflating prices for energy consumers in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States. The US Government fined them over $200 million in criminal, civil, restitution, and other charges. In March of 2005, a BP oil refinery in Texas City exploded, killing 15 workers. The underlying cause was due to BP's careless safety violations. They were fined a record $50 million under the Clean Air Act, and were forced to serve 3 years probation.

In March 2006, a BP pipeline in Alaska ruptured, leaking over 200,000 gallons of oil into the environment. A similar incident occurred in August of that same year. However, it fortunately only leaked about 1,000 gallons. A federal investigation found that BP was at fault for not maintaining the oil lines properly. They were forced to pay $20 million total to criminal charges, and to help restore the environment. They were also forced to serve another 3 years of probation.

In short, BP is one of the most careless oil companies in the world. They have set records for the amount of reprimands from our government. The fiasco in the Gulf is only BP's latest blunder. This company deserves to be dissolved for its own carelessness. Because it's not an American company, it's unlikely that our government will try to bail them out. I am very thankful for this. This world will be better off without BP's destructive behavior.

The Obama Presidency

2010-06-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

It was January 21st, 2009, when Senator Barack H. Obama Jr. was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. On that day, we saw what was, at least up to a few years ago, unthinkable: an African-American President. I was fairly surprised that there was such little racism in the campaign. In fact, more people tried to paint him as a radical Islamic terrorist, rather than a lower-class black man.
It shows that this country has certainly changed a lot since the 1960's -- hardly 50 years ago, when African-Americans weren't even treated equally. Now one of them is in the highest position in our government.

After taking office, one of his biggest tasks ahead was a major economic stimulus bill. It passed without too much trouble. Right off the bat, it was apparent that the Republicans were going to do whatever they could to prevent Obama from passing any bills that he wanted. This is what gave them the nickname "The Party of 'NO'". I couldn't agree more. During Former President Bush's 2nd term, he didn't take half the crap that Obama is already taking. "Socialist", "Communist", "Marxist", and none with any significant supporting facts. Take, for example, the Health Care Bill. Some on the Right called it a "Government takeover of our health care system". This couldn't be further from the truth. A REAL government takeover would be a form of Socialized Health care, similar to what Canada has, and was purposed under the Clinton Administration (dubbed "Hillary Care").

The bill did pass, but sadly, without the Public Option. The 'Public Option' was a government-run health care plan that had fixed prices. The purpose of this is to keep the costs of the privately owned Health care companies down, because they'd be forced to compete with the Public Option. Would this have worked? Unfortunately, we may never know.

On Terrorism, Obama has done what needed to be done a long time ago. He shifted the focus from Iraq, to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Also, he has personally addressed the people of Iran. However, whether or not the Iranian state-run television network allowed it to be shown, is quite another story.

Why did we invade Iraq to begin with? It was known, even then, that they had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Only recently have the American people began to see this. Although I commend our men and women in uniform for their service and their bravery in fighting for us, I do not see how this was a necessary war. Sure, we liberated the Iraqi people from a ruthless dictator who probably deserved what he got, but that's not why we invaded. We invaded because of one reason, one thing that keeps the world turning: OIL. Yet somehow, even though we invaded an oil-rich nation, gas prices soared to record highs in the United States.

Osama Bin Laden, in a recent audio-tape, called Obama a "House Negro". Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? Prior to World War II, Adolf Hitler stated that the United State's biggest mistake was freeing the slaves. Look where he ended up. It's quite possible that Bin Laden may have already met a similar fate.

Under the Obama Administration, a troop withdrawal plan has already been initiated, that will have all our combat troops out of Iraq by July of 2011, 8 years after the initial invasion. Obama has also ordered a significant increase in troops in Afghanistan. Although we are not sending forces into Pakistan, we are also aiding them in fighting the Taliban and Al-Quieda in their own country. Although it won't be an easy fight, we will hopefully be able to win it.

Overall, I would say that the Obama presidency has been a fairly successful one. He recently stated that if he had to give himself a letter grade for how well he was doing his job, he would have given himself a "B". I somewhat agree. Although some things could have been done better, he has done a significantly better job than Bush so far. At least we don't have any new wars breaking out, terrorist attacks on our soil, or major health problems, like those that broke out during the Bush Administration.

Political Blog 2: My New Blog

2010-06-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

This is my new blog. I hope to make it similar to last time, with the exception that I'll be posting a lot more often. I will be blogging on topics such a politics (what else?), and anything else that I see fit. Feel free to check in on this blog, and/or leave your comments. The only thing I ask is that you don't leave any iniappropriate comments. These will be dealt with accordingly.

To anyone who read my previous blog, my appoligise for changing sides so often. I will be sticking to only one set of ideals this time: my own.

I will be posting, in the comeing days, about my opinions of the Obama presidency, the BP Oil Spill, David Shuster being fired from MSNBC (There IS a god!), and anything else that comes up.

Thanks again for reading, and I will try to keep this blog as up-to-date as possible.

Thank you,
Gavin Carolan