Al Gore

A very nice article from the Washington Post about how Al Gore has done the impossible by rehabilitating his image after the 2000 Election and helped awaken a large portion of the population to the thPublishreats of Global Warming.

Whether his raising awarness has been enough and will really have an effect on global climate change I do not know. Only time will tell, but I still think we will be faced with some very harsh times economically and environmentally in the near future due to climate change already occuring or soon to occur.

His being at the Oscars tonight as raised speculation that he may announce his candidacy for President. While most insiders and politicos find this highly unlikely (as do I); I do think it would be one of most fantastic political moves of my life-time. Regardless, one can still hope he would run for President. Check out this site if you agree.

Update 2/26/07: Damn!

The Ugly Side of Greek Life

It is absolutely horrible what Delta Zeta did to one of their chapters. They basically kicked over half the sisters in the chapter because they were not "committed" enough. It just so happens that the sisters who were asked to stay were traditionally attractive and the ones who were asked to leave were not. How DZ thought they could get away with something like this in todays society, I have no idea.

It is stories like these that really make everyone think: "Oh, greek life is so horrible." For the most part it is not. I was in a fraternity. We were the not so cool fraternity on campus. We did not have the football or baseball players, we had the engineers, scientists, and video gamers. But we did do some good; raising money for Habitat for Humanity and working with kids at the Boys and Girls Club. We did educational events in our house and I made life long friends who have been there for me when things got really bad. We fell low on membership at one point but we did not need our national chapter to come in and kick out the "uncool" or "unattractive" guys in the fraternity. Had they done that, I and several of my brothers would have left as well.

Thank you Delta Zeta for continuing to sully the view of Greek Life.

Virginia bans Cell Phones for Teens while Driving

Virginia has banned teens from using cell phones while driving. I think that this is a good idea. I know when I was a teenager I was an idiot when it came to driving and I was really one of the better ones in my area. Too many kids around my age died or were seriously injured in car accidents.

It is probably going to be difficult to actually enforce since the police need a primary reason to pull someone over, not just because they are using a cell phone. It is a good thing I am not a cop in Virginia. I would see a teen on his or her cell phone and pull them over for going 56 in a 55 zone.

Now states just need to start enforcing the usage of hands free devices.

Voting Paper Trail

It appears that Congress is finally seriously considering a paper trail for electronic voting.

This is something many voting rights groups have strongly felt has been needed since to proliferation of electronic voting machines. I had to vote provisionally in the last election so I have not had the opportunity to use our new electonic machines. I was somewhat glad for that because the lack of a paper trail concerns me.

I miss the times I was voting in the Boston area (not just because my polling location was literally 200ft from my front door). My town used the optical scanning machines. I would fill out my ballot with a pen, check it over to make sure it was correct and then slide it into an optical scanning machine that would count the votes and drop the paper ballot into a lock box. It was relatively simple, but I felt confident my vote was being counted.

Hopefully there is enough support to get some sort of paper trail requirement for Federal Elections.