Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world and co-founder of the Gates Foundation started in their annual letter that "almost no poor countries by 2035" and that the poorest nations in the world will have child morality rates as low as the US and the UK in 1980. Bill and Melinda Gates in their letter released three myths about poverty.
The first myth is that poor countries are not doomed to stay poor. Gates believes that by the year 2035 there will be no country that will be poor and most countries will be rich or lower middle class by then. He also states that labeling nations developed or developing does not make sense. China and the Republic of Congo are both in the same category of developing nations, even though China's economy is the second largest in the world and that it should be categorized by low, middle, and high income.
The second myth they states is that foreign aid is a waste a money. Gates states that not every program is perfect and that there should be a more effective way. He also states foreign aid does not cut a large percent of the budget at all. Norway contributes the most money to foreign aid and it is only 3 percent of its budget, while the US is only 1 percent.
The last myth is that saving kid's lives leads to overpopulation. The Fact is that when kids survive, that families will have fewer kids and decide to have small families.
Gates is very optimistic about our future, I am too, and I hope more are.
More on the Myths of Poverty
The Whole Letter - http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=home
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/no-poor-countries-by-2035-bill-gates-annual-letter-says-extreme-poverty-and-child-mortality-could-be-virtually-wiped-out-in-next-two-decades-9075149.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8UlTygCYjo
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Ukrainian Protests
If you have been living under a rock for that past couple of months, then you probably have heard about the protests happening in Kiev, Ukraine's capital city. The protests started in November of 2013 after the government of Ukraine didn't sign a deal that would make the country closer to EU and instead made them closer to their former Soviet ruler, Russia. Arseniy Yatsenyuk called upon the support of his followers on Twitter and Face Book to meet in Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Kiev’s central square to demonstrate against the government and their decision.
Ever since though the protest have escalated to full scale riots and Kiev's Maidan central square now look like a war zone with riot police and protesters on opposing sides. This picture album is by a blogger in the protests show the chaos in Keiv (http://imgur.com/a/WL1pY#0). As seen by the photos barricades have been built by protesters using things from sandbags to everyday furniture like a wooden table. Protesters only let in those who are contributing to the effort, if they be other protesters, bringing food and clothes, or press and journalist and they keep those who just want to see the action out. Protesters have even started to use molatav cocktails against the riot police. The government has also upped their arsenal by lifting the restriction of using water cannons on protesters which protesters should watch out for considering the freezing temperatures in Kiev(http://en.for-ua.com/news/2014/01/22/161046.html#.Ut_cw8KexQE.reddit).
Many of the scenes from Kiev look like scenes from an Apocalypse. There have been truces called but the protesters in Kiev are ready at any time to start clashing with the government, and will be interesting to see what will happen between the opposition leaders and the government.
Live Stream of Maidan Square - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/euromajdan/pop-out
Saturday, January 25, 2014
We Need Net Neutrality
Net Neutrality has been put into light recently in the US because a federal appeals court's decision of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate that internet service providers have to treat all internet traffic equality and now there is fear that ISPs (Internet Service Provider) will do because of this ruling. Net Neutrality should be regulated because it helps keep the internet an open platform for information and content to spread.
Net Neutrality is the concept that all data transferred through the internet should be treated the same by governments and ISPs. ISPs may not charge higher prices for different content, sites, applications, etc.
Net Neutrality should be required by law, if not then ISPs will have incredible control on what content their costumers receive on the internet. ISPs could have some content providers pay more or make special deals and in return users would find their content first in search results and put this content providers on a higher tier. Content providers not with this program would be put lower on the ISPs' list of importance and would receive less traffic. This means small business would have a harder time competing with bigger business who have the money to pay for the special deals. No Net Neutrality would also impact up and coming sites and content makers. It would be difficult for a new website to gain traction and continue on if bigger sites get the traffic diverted to them first. Content makers would safe the same problem as well, as their content would be put on the back burner if a big production house made a deal with an ISP. News could also be impacted by this. For example FOX, CNN, ABC, NBC, you name it could make a deal with an ISP and in return their sites would be the fasted to load and the first to show up in searches. That site would become the primary source of news and information for the users of the ISP and it would be hard for independent bloggers and journalist to compete with.
As it is now ISPs charges the customer one monthly fee for access to all of the content they want on the internet, and the only thing they can change is how fast your internet speed is. But with out Net Neutrality ISPs would be able to charge you based on how much of the internet you use, what sites you go to or both if the wanted to. They could make it so that you would have to pay five extra dollars a month to access Face Book or You Tube because the site on their end uses more bandwidth, or if you go over some set amount of data per month they could charge you extra or by the megabyte. Watching movies on Netflex, videos on You Tube, updating your status on Face Book and talking to your friends over Skype, would cost you more and more, because the ISPs would be free to charge you more for the access to these services.
No Net Neutrality would also allow ISPs to play favoritism. The ISP is able to determine what service is more important the other and could speed up or slow down the transfer of data depending on what site the user is trying to reach. For example what if you had Time Warner as an ISP and you wanted to go watch the latest cat video on You Tube, but it took ages to load, but when you went to visit Time Warner's video sharing site, the site and the video loaded instantly. ISPs would be able to force more users to their preferred sites.
Lastly being against Net Neutrality goes against the basic ideals of the internet, the freedom of the flow of information and content. The internet is a place meant for people to share and connect with each other and that will be hindered if ISPs are not kept in check with Net Neutrality. Beginners and small business would have difficulties competing with those who have a bigger budget and ISPs could play the odds in their favor. Net Neutrality should be regulated in order to insure a open internet for all that use it.
More on Net Neutrality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
http://www.theopeninter.net/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/01/14/fcc-net-neutrality/4473269/
http://rt.com/usa/netflix-net-neutrality-protest-061/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/27/net-neutrality-fcc-telecoms
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/goodbye-net-neutrality-now-what/#.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Maker of the AK-47
The AK-47 is the most used fire arm in the world, with there being over 100 million rifles around the world, and the creator of this simple rifle died on December 23 of 2013. Mikhail Kalashnikov died at the age of 94 and was the designer of the AK-47. Kalashnikov designed his rifle to fight the more technological advanced Nazi's during World War II. The rifle never saw combat during the Second World War because it was not put into service till 1949, but it has become the choice of weaponry among revolutionaries, terrorist, rebels, and many governments around the world. 
The rifle is easy to use and maintain, which is the primary reason why it has been chosen by so many. The rifle doesn't jam in jungles or desert environments, and because of this very reason why it was common for US troops during the Vietnam War to ditch their standard issue M-16 rifles and pick up an AK-47 off a dead Viet-Cong or North Vietnamese soldier, because the M-16 would frequently jam in the jungle environment of Vietnam, while the AK-47 continued to fire. The rifle was spread fast because of how cheap it was too, making it easy to afford for up and coming revolutionaries in Third World countries. The Soviet Union also heavily spread the rifle around. The Soviet Union would give their large quantities of the rifle to nations that supported them during the Cold War and it became the standard rifle among the nations in the Warsaw Pact. The significance of the rifle can also be seen in the national flag of Mozambique.
People have asked Kalashnikov if he regrets designing the weapon, because of how widely used the rifle is, and his response he said "I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence," which he said in 2007. However around near the end of his life, letters he wrote express the regret he had for creating the rifle that has been used to take so many lives (more about the letters). Around when he turned 91 Kalashnikov went to the church frequently and spent much of his time their. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church said that "If the weapon is used to defend the Motherland, the Church supports both its creators and the servicemen using it." And when it comes down to it, Kalashnikov could not control who could or could not use his rifle and for what purpose.
Sources
Pictures
Mikhail Kalashnikov - http://imgick.syracuse.com/home/syr-media/pgmain/img/post-standard/photo/2013/12/mikhail-kalashnikov-dead-at-94-9d4ced3cb62fbec5.jpg
Japan's Last WWII Straggler Dies
Even though Japan surrendered in August of 1945, officially ending the Second World War, there were some Japanese holdouts or stragglers who did not get the message who still continued to fight for the cause. The last confirmed holdout was that of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda. Onoda died at the age of 91 in Tokyo on Thursday. And this guy is the true embodiment to what being loyal is.
Onoda held out on Lubang Island in the Philippines from December of 1944 to his surrender in March of 1974. He wasn't alone either, during his 29 year tour on Lubang he fought alongside with Private Yūichi Akatsu, Corporal Shōichi Shimada and Private First Class Kinshichi Kozuka. Onoda was an intelligence officer and was sent to the island to sabotage US and Filipino attacks and was ordered by his commanding officer to never surrender and to take is own life if necessary. On February 28, 1945 US and Filipino forces landed on the island and most of the Imperial Japanese troops surrendered or died, except Onoda and his three men ran and took refuge in the nearby mountains and continued their mission.
Over the 29 years, Onoda and his men stole food from locals, killed their cows for meat, and got into skirmishes with locals and the police, ended up resulting in 30 deaths. Akstsu split from the group and surrendered in 1950 and in 1954 Shimada was shot and killed by a search party looking for the holdout. Air drops containing family pictures, letters, and leaflets telling them that the war was over were dropped into their hiding spots to encouraging them to surrender, but the group saw them as allied propaganda. Kozuka died 1972, after being shot by police when he and Onoda were conducting a raid and were burning rice that the farmers collected.
In February of 1974, world explorer Norio Suzuki went to Lubang Island to look for the Lieutenant. Suzuki found Onoda on the 20th and the two became friends. Onoda told Suzuki that he would only surrender when he was relieved by a superior officer. So Suzuki flew back to Japan and with the help of the Japanese government they flew out Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, his old commanding officer to Lubang to relieve Onoda of his 30 year duty. Onoda surrendered and gave up his weapons and revived a pardon from the president of the Philippines at the time.
Later in his life Onoda wrote about his experiences in the his book My Thirty Year War and lived in Brazil raising cattle and returned to Japan in 1980. Onoda revisited Lubang and donated $10,000 to the local school.
Sources
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/onoda-japans-last-imperial-soldier-dead-91
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
Later in his life Onoda wrote about his experiences in the his book My Thirty Year War and lived in Brazil raising cattle and returned to Japan in 1980. Onoda revisited Lubang and donated $10,000 to the local school.
Sources
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/onoda-japans-last-imperial-soldier-dead-91
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
Jamaican Bobsled Team
Jamaica's Olympic Committee announced on their twitter on Saturday that they have qualified for the two-man bobsled team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. And I know what your thinking, "Jamaica has a bobsledding team?" and the answer is yes. The team is coming back after not qualifying for the 2006 and the 2010 Winter Olympics and the team consist of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon.
Even though the team has qualified for the games, it doesn't mean they can get their. The team is currently having funding problems. They were originally planing on having a four man team, but because of funding problems they had to cut back to two. Watts told the BBC that they need to raise $80,000 in order to play for the trip and to get new equipment. Now since the team has qualified they can use this to kick start funding for their team, so that they can get to Sochi.
If this bobsled team sounds familiar, it may because of the 1993 film Cool Runnings that is loosely based on the Jamaican bobsled team's first debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I have not seen Cool Runnings, but I do plan on watching it before the Winter Olympics in February.
The bobsled team first appeared in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and the members at the time were Devon Harris, Dudley Stokes, Michael White, and Nelson Stokes. They had many fans during the games, because of their underdog background.
Jamaica will not be the only tropical country that is getting a shot to compete in the upcoming winter games in Sochi. Other tropical nations that will have a presence in the 2014 games are Togo, Zimbabwe, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Virgin Islands, Brazil, Peru, Tonga, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Timor-Laeste. So lets hope these guys are prepared for the cold.
Hopefully the Jamaican bobsled team can raise enough funds, so they can compete in Sochi. If you are feeling generous and want to help them out visit this page. Lets see if we can get a Cool Runnings 2 after this. Now excuse me while I go watch the first one.
Sources
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1927933-jamaican-bobsled-team-qualifies-for-2014-sochi-winter-olympics?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=programming-national
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/19/5324410/jamaican-bobsled-team-2014-winter-olympics-fundraising
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_national_bobsleigh_team
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_nations_at_the_Winter_Olympics
Picture
http://msn.foxsports.com/content/dam/fsdigital/fscom/Olympics/images/2014/01/18/011814-OLYMPICS-JAMAICA-BOBSLED-TEAM-QUALIFIES-DC-PI-CQ.jpg
Sunday, January 12, 2014
NSA and CSEC
In the summer of 2013 NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden, revealed to the world that the United States Government spies on and collects data on their own citizens over the web and the phone lines. But now the nation up north, America's hat, Canada admitted on December 20th of 2013 that they "incidentally" track their own citizens. This was coming from Canada's equivalent to the US' NSA, which is the Communications Security Establishment Canada or the CSEC. The statement was posted on their website but it went noticed for some time by many Canadians. The CSEC did state that such actions are illegal in Canadian law and that they do not track Canadians on purpose, but their are many skeptics.
During the Snowden leaks, it was revealed that the NSA, the CSEC and their equivalents in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are best friends and they share their information and intelligence as part of the Five Eyes Alliance. Its pretty clear that the Five Eyes are close, especially the NSA and the CSEC. According to the Huntington Post, the Snowden documents revealed that the CSEC had set up spying post at the request of the NSA and that the NSA and the CSEC are in joint spying operations in 20 countries. The CSEC also spy in countries that are unavailable to the NSA.
But for those of us living in the United States who have been worried over the past half a year if the NSA will ever stop keep track of all the cat videos we watch on the internet and if the president if ever plans to address the NSA issue, well we are in luck. On January 17 of 2014 President Obama will deliver a speech about reforms to the NSA.
The upcoming speech is in response to many civil liberty activists and excutives of tech companies, like Google, who want the NSA to reformed. As stated in the article in the Washington Post, that various US agencies defend that the NSA's activities are important to public safety, but an White House Advisory board report in December of 2012 that the data has done anything what so ever stop terrorism.
I'm curious to what will be said on January 17 by President Obama. I want to see what the changes will be and how dramatic they will be, or maybe it will just be some simple name change, like the NPA, National Protection Agency.
Five Eyes Facts - www.privacyinternational.org/blog/the-five-s-fact-sheeteye
Obama Reforms NSA - http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-to-announce-changes-to-nsa-surveillance-on-jan-17/2014/01/10/462f9140-7a2c-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html
Polio Free World
Polio is an infectious disease that mostly infects kids that paralyzes those it infects. The first polio vaccine was released in 1957 and since then the vaccine has gotten rid of Polio in almost every country in the world. Now India joins the list of countries where polio has been eradicated. The last recorded case in India was in January 13 of 2011. It was a girl in Subharara village and now she only suffers a limp.
India this year has been declared Polio free by the World Health Education. When a country becomes Polio free, it means the disease has been destroyed in the country and that the only possible way it could come back is if the disease comes from a country that has not become Polio free. According to the World Health Organization as of 2013 Polio was at its all time low. From 1988 Polio cases have decreased by 99%. From 350,000 cases in 125 countries, to 223 cases in 3 countries in 2012. Only three countries remain that still have Polio epidemics are Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. If Polio does become eradicated in these last three areas, then 200,000 new cases of Polio could appear every ten years.
Even though India has been declared Polio free, doesn't mean everyone in the country is immune to the deadly disease. According to the deputy director health services in charge of the polio eradication program there are still some remnants of people who are reluctant to get their kids vaccinated. Many of the people who do not want to get their kids vaccinated believe that the vaccine will cause infertility in them.
Future generations will have to get the Polio vaccine in order to guarantee that the disease will never pop up again. In November of 2013 the World Health Organization reported 10 cases of polio in Syria, which have been the first in 14 years. The World Health Organization estimated that in 2011 that 95% of the children in Syria had been vaccinated. The current civil war in Syria has put a damper on the prevention and eradication of Polio as now it is estimated that 500,000 children have not been vaccinated since the beginning of the civil war. To combat the outbreak the World Health Organization plans to launch vaccine campaigns in the neighboring countries of Syria.
With the continued effort of the World Health Organization to help and educate people, maybe one day Polio will no longer be an issue.
India Polio Free - http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/close-to-victory-india-will-officially-be-declared-polio-free-on-monday/article1-1171899.aspx
Polio in Syria - http://cistranfinance.com/news/armenian-health-ministry-urges-syrian-armenian-children-to-get-polio-vaccine/666/
World Health Organization and Polio - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs114/en/
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Why Fahrenheit is Better
Celsius is used in every country in the world to record and report temperature. There are only three nations in the world today that still use Fahrenheit, which are the United States, Belize, and Palau. The rest of the world has switched to Celsius in everyday use for the temperature, but I believe that Fahrenheit is much better when it comes to everyday use.
Looking at Celsius it makes sense why it is adopted world wide, because of where the scale is set, with 0 degrees being the freezing point and 100 degrees being the boiling point of water. While Fahrenheit has 32 degrees being the freezing point and 212 degrees being the boiling point of water. The creator of Fahrenheit, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, did have logic when setting 212 degrees as the boiling point. When Fahrenheit was testing his thermometer in his lab he made zero the coldest it could get and still be recorded with the mercury. 32 became the point were water would freeze and 212 became the boiling point, which is a 180 degrees difference or a half-circle.
Celsius is much better for scientific purposes because of its base ten system and the fact it is easy to calculate. In every day use Fahrenheit makes more sense. 0 to 100 on Celsius tells me the point when water will freeze and boil, while 0 to 100 on Fahrenheit tells me the range of temperature any person can go out side and be comfortable. The gap between Celsius' 0 to 100 is more extreme than Fahrenheit's 0 to 100. If your outside and the temperature is 100 degrees Celsius, you're dead, at the that point you don't care if the boiling point of water and freezing point are easy to understand. At 0 degrees Celsius water freezes, but I don't, I can still walk around out side comfortably and just put on a long-sleeve shirt. Any thing under 0 degrees Fahrenheit I know its really cold out and might frost bite. Any thing above 100 degrees is really hot out and I might die of heat stroke. Either way I should stay inside.
In short, when it comes to the everyday use Fahrenheit is better, while Celsius is better for other uses, because Celsius is based off water, while Fahrenheit is based on the range of comfortable temperature for humans.
Picture Source - http://imgur.com/PuNzp
Celsius and Fahrenheit creation - http://www.ericpinder.com/html/fahrenheit.html
Uses of Celsius and Fahrenheit - http://www.diffen.com/difference/Celsius_vs_Fahrenheit
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