I also have been terribly busy with school. I am currently trying to write a policy review on something from the Social Security Administration. It is really hard to track down stuff beside the laymen level explanations. I am slowly getting there.

The class I had the final on was U.S.-China Relations. To most, this seems like a horrifying topic area, but it wasn’t too bad. Only one of the guys, showed up to the Monday morning session. I think the others wanted it to be a literal last minute cram. Since I took the exam before other people, I don’t know if the other two-three showed up. While I spent 8-10 hours on Sunday studying, I was still a bit anxious/nervous 20-30 minutes before the exam, even though I could inter-connect the terms that could be, which was all but two or three.

When I got the exam in front of me, I had a wave of relief came over me. for most parts. The exam had three parts: questions regarding articles in the New York Times, a few terms that had to be defined, then an essay. In the study group, we had covered all the terms and essay prompts pretty in depth. I had gotten up around 5:45 Monday morning. I had just started to review the NYT stuff when I went to have the morning session. Figuring out what articles are important since late October is a bit hard to do. On the terms, I think I did all right, I would have preferred to do some of the others, but what can you do, eh? The essay was the part I was the most nervous about, and that is the part I was the most confident about at the end. I ended up typing a page and a quarter, just about 700 words. The thing I felt great about is that I didn’t BS at all, I guess the conclusion could be a smidge better.

Now back to studying. –Ryan

I am not sure why I am being vague. Basically I met somebody who I thought I connected with really well. Or so I thought. I went from getting a reply to a text or instant message almost instantly, to going an hour without a reply or acknowledgment. While this happened she claimed it did not, however I could see quite clearly something was going on. After about a week of this I had enough, and called her out. I was hoping for a civil conversation, but it ended up being her yelling at me.

In other news, school is going not to well. My financial aide has not kicked in and paid. That means that the lovely housing department has cut off my meal card, and I cannot eat. Fortunately, I knew that they were going to do that and I bought a good amount of food prior to that. However, that doesn’t get around the real issue of why my aide has not paid yet. They have not called nor e-mailed me back yet telling me what’s up, yet the last time we spoke it was going to be done in the next couple days.

Having no money myself, I cannot really pay all of it, and I am considering a loan, which I am dreading. People have been like well that is just a part of college deal with it. So, like I said the past few weeks have been hell…

Technorati Tags: life, college

One of the reasons I also haven’t updated is because I lost one of my grandmothers not too long after Thanksgiving. I have been trying to deal with that. It was more like being there for my mother and sister, more than anything personally.

Then of course there is school and work, and trying to have somewhat of a social life. Just wanted to tell the people who visit regularly that I am all m right for the most part, but just haven’t had the time to update.

From the way in which my professor presented the question, your could tell that he intended that he wanted a yes, it will have major impact on foreign policy, or that no, global warming will have little effect on foreign policy since global warming is something that is made up, and we should not worry about it at all. Well, me being me, I do not fit into ether one of those molds. So, I do not know what category I would fit into, I am not really wanting to say that I have a Realist point of view for this never-ending debate.

To that end, I want to present a new way of thinking that is not a realist or a liberal view. What I would like to call this is, the logical or the logisticianal point of view. Which I am saying is you look at the hard facts and go from there. This is different from a realist view, since the realist would say we do whatever is in the best interest for the nation or nation-state. The liberal view says we need to come together with others, being countries or non-governmental organizations, to collaborate to get anything of value accomplished. That being said, this is my reply to the question at hand:

How and even if global warming will be addressed in future foreign policy all depends on who is in power. If the President becomes a literal figure-head to the United States, the leading view in Congress will become the policy. If Congress becomes a sitting duck, then that power is then transferred to lobbyists, whomever voice is the loudest. So, saying what will the policy be, whether it is in the foreign or domestic realm, in the next 5, 10 or even 50 years will be difficult to predict. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” made it seem that global warming/environmental issues would be at the forefront of his presidency, and thinks that an adopting of a similar policy from George Bush, was one of the number of things that ended up costing him to win the election. We all know what policies Bush has put into place since he has got into office.

Since my professor said he didn’t want a five page essay, I left out the fact that we cannot really ding President Bush on not doing anything regarding global warming because of the events of September 11th. Now, if those events never happened, it would be a different story. Political candidates often pick up some portion of his or her top opponent to gain the interests of a wider population. The follow-through of such policies are under a lot of criticism because of the reasons you can probably guess. I am not saying the President’s policies are flawless.

Technorati Tags: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Bush, foreign policy, George Bush, global warming, Gore, lobbyist, President Bush, policy, politics

The end of the Cold War brought about an unipolarized* globe or a global United States hegemony. Do we live in a unipolar world? Is there a shift towards a multi-polar world going on today?

Most of the class agreed that the world is unipolar for the most part, but is slipping. This is where the class went against me. They said that China would easily overtake the United States in the coming years. I think that the European Union could have a strong impact in the world. I was shot down pretty quickly. My view on their opinion is that they were thinking far too short sided. Yeah, I think that the European Union does not have much for power behind them, except for a few nations right now. But it is fairly new, the idea of the European continent working together started back in 1957 with the European Economic Community. The EEC had as its aim the eventual economic union of its member nations, ultimately leading to political union. It worked for the free movement of labor and capital, the abolition of trusts and cartels, and the development of joint and reciprocal policies on labor, social welfare, agriculture, transport, and foreign trade.

Then in 1992, the idea of the European Union was renewed, by the Maastrict Treaty. It brought on negotiations on a monetary union as well as a political union. As of today, there are 27 members, with three others waiting on being admitted. I won’t even guesstimate when their entry would happen. However, if these three countries are admitted to the EU, the total number is 30 nations. Although a lot of the members do not have a booming economy now, we don’t know how this will be in the future. In a post I wrote a post, Future Plans, which was partly a review of Peter G. Peterson’s book, Running on Empty, which talks about the current deficit the United States is currently facing. I don’t remember the details, but according to Peterson, we will run ourselves into the ground for Social Security around 2030.

Given that the system is only about 15 years old, so it is fairly new. Already it has established a common currency in 13 countries. One thing that the European Union does not have a whole lot of natural resources, but Poland has just began drilling for oil, so that area is really unknown at this time. Also things like alternative energy are also possible. So, in 20, 30, 40 years, who really knows the dependence on oil.

For example, in the 1990s there were electric cars on the streets of mainly California. These cars ran so smoothly, the auto manufacturers recalled them because the cars would cost the companies more money because the consumer wouldn’t need to have so much maintenance done on it. Cars are one of, or is the top, reason we consume so much oil in the United States. They were pulled off the market because researchers found out that there is approximately a trillion barrels of oil left in the earth, which results to $100 trillion dollars of business, or money in auto manufactures pockets. Do you see why it was stopped?

Anyway, back to my main topic, if the European Union made decisions like that now, who knows how much money could be saved. My main argument was that we honestly don’t know what the future will bring, but in the next 5 or 10 years, the United States will be at the top.

Asides: the information about the electric car was taken from the movie, Who Killed the Electric Car, here is the IMDB entry, and the Wikipedia article.

Technorati Tags: debate, economy, electric car, EU, European Union, oil, United States, world economy

I started this post the other day after reading Dan’s post on the One-Day Blog Silence proposal followed by Dr. Dave’s response to it.

I am actually in agreement with Dr. Dave’s post. Although I do feel for what happened at VA Tech, I am concerned about the proposal. It’s one in of those things that the thought that counts, but there are larger issues, as Dr. Dave points out, that may deserve a silence. However this is a nice tribute,

Technorati Tags: www.onedayblogsilence.com

We were there until almost 8:30, and she had to get back home. I was absolutely beat, I studied practically 9 hours straight on almost no food. I had a protein bar when I got up, I took a break around 3 to get a smoothie, and on my trek there, a group was giving away FREE food. I was like sweeeeeeeet, unfortunately it was only half a sandwich and a granola bar, but free. I ate the sandwich on the way into the place to get my smoothie. On my way back, I gave them a ‘can I have another’ look, but they didn’t bite.

I arrive back at my dorm, around 9, and sit down to dinner at 9:30. Absolutely drained, I decided to take a cat nap and then study some more. Well, when I got up, I was like oh crap, I don’t know what to go over, what to memorize, blah, blah, blah. After almost 3 hours of that, I said to heck with it, I am off to bed for good. My exam was at 8:30, I had my mom give me a call around 7-7:30. I managed to get up at 6 to get some last minute studying in, but I didn’t make much progress than I did when I quit 4 hours ago. Yes, I took a final on 4 hours of sleep.

I walk into my final, gave it an once over, and was like I was stressing over this and this, but it’s not on here. I only said damn I should have gave that term more than a quick read while studying two times. Somehow I managed to finish the test with just about a half hour to spare. The person I studied with finished before that even. After a quick bite to eat I manned our booth at the tech fair. I primarily answered questions about accessible technology, and did on-the-fly accessible web design evaluations.

As for the rest of the week, it was pretty mellow.

Technorati Tags: finals, exam, exams, study, UW, web design, accessibility

Althoigh I could talk about this book some more, it wasn’t the purpose for the post. The purpose for this post is to talk about what I feel while I read this book.

I feel as though I can do something about the current state of affairs. Everybody that knows me knows about either my passion for computers or my vast knowledge of them. While reading this book, I feel as though all that stuff is gone, and I want to pursue things covered in this book. Does this mean I am now inspiring to be the president or a representative? No. I just want to help people. Back in the day, I felt that the only way to do that was through improving computers, or helping people with technical support. Running on Empty, just adds to the pile that has been growing over the past several years, which is pursuing something pertaining to the Federal Government.

Like I said earlier, I am not telling people to listen for a guy with the last name Benson to be running for Congress or the presidenticy, rather I am wanting to help open eyes. I am talking about starting off from a normal level and working myself up the ladder as some kind of an advisor or an analyst. Most likely either general analysis, or something relating to technology.

The concern I have about this is in being a general analysis you will have to cover a wide variety of things. What I think myself is the followimg:

1. Hey I am a computer/engineering guy majoring in liberal arts, a full specturm change, and doing well at it. Plus I learned about things that were 100% new to me. Clearly after allowing myself exposure to something, I will pick it up.
2. Second, as a general analyst, you aren’t looking to make sure every t is crossed or i’s are dotted, but rather the big picture is there. Basically, having the ability to point out and to say, “Hey, this is total crap, fix it.”

Now in regard to the second statement above, I am not saying crossing t’s or dotting i’s are not imporant, I am saying when going through something those first, second, or third times making sure that the big picture is clear, and also is a good one. The readings, meetings, or whatever, after those first initial times are there to making sure that every t is crossed or i’s are dotted. In reality, this is most likely a hierarchy of sorts, so the top people make sure that the big picture is there, and further down people make sure the correct and logical steps are there.

I hope somebody shares their two cents on this…