The Stock Market: Bear or Bull

Ok, so this week I decided since the stock market seems to be going on the uptrend, (knock on wood) I felt obligated to talk about it.

Recently I just started a Roth IRA, an individual retirement account, yeah super early I know. Since the market has been at all time lows in the past month, I decided it was time because in my opinion the market is so low how could it get any worse. I know as soon as I say that someone is going to get on here and say of course it can get worse. Well anyways you know what I mean. I'm being optimistic in that I hope by the end of this year or the beginning of 2010 the stock market will be going strong again, and after yesterday's 500 point raise in the DOW, things are looking good.

Anyways, I was listening to the radio this morning and heard that some are arg

uing that the bull market is in and could encourage the market to rise even more day by day. The difference between bear and bull markets are the bull is good that means that the buyers are optimistic and buying, the bear on the other hand is pessimistic and thats what some same we are still in and could be in with the current "recession".

Regardless of what people are saying in my opinion, things can't be any worse now than they were in the depression. I'm a firm believer in the fact that the depression was a one time slip up and we could stop another one from happening after FDR enacted that the market will close before it crashes. Ok I'm done ranting on. No malicious comments please haha.

MARCH MADNESS!!!

Ok so it's that time of the year again, time for the big NCAA basketball tourney. As we all know anything can happen. I wanted to bring to light that in the past 5 years the overall number one see has only won once and that was UNC. This goes to show that even the so called best team in the tourney can be upset. Me personally I hoping my team the Wisconsin Badgers can win atleast one game. They play a tough 5th ranked Florida State. For my bracket though I have to be realistic. I Had Wisconsin beat Florida St, but that was all. One can't be too risky when money is on the line. Regardless of that I'm always willing to root for the underdog and not afraid to put faith in a team that has little to no chance of making it. 

One thing I find truly interesting about this year's tourney is that there are 7 Big Ten teams in the tournament. Michigan, Michigan St, Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Ohio St, and of course the Wisconsin Badgers. In my bracket personally I put a lot of faith in this conference whether it will work out or not remains to be seen, but I only have one of the 7 teams dropping out in the first round and that is Minnesota, sorry nothing personal, but their chances against Texas are slim. As of right now my view on this is holding true.

I know this seems like ranting about how everyone should put faith in the underdog, but it pains me to see the same freaking UNC in the tournament every year as a #1 seed. That is ok, but I love to see them get beat because someone else deserves a chance. No off

ense to any UNC fans.

Verizon Wireless Store Mini-Review

A Critical Analysis of the Verizon Wireless Store in Muncie Indiana

On a cold windy morning in Matthews, Indiana I woke up for an exciting day in the metropolis of Muncie. I woke up and rolled out of bed and had no idea that the impending doom of the Verizon store was in the future. I went to my advisor appointment at nine while my mom did a few errands. She picked me up and we then went to Lucina Hall to do a get some information about financial aid. I then figured out that my mom had not yet gone to the Verizon store yet. I let out a sigh of agony because I knew the way the Verizon store worked. A disastrous method of waiting in line for long periods of time and then while your waiting in line you can look at all our latest models. What a marketing method.

After a short drive we arrive at the dreaded Verizon store. Before we get into the store my mom and I were nearly mowed down by an older woman in her big silver Chrysler van, I cursed to myself and we entered the store. My mom tells the lady at the check in desk that she came in a week early and told the girl to put the pictures on her cell phone on to her new picture card which is in her phone. Needless to say the girl didn’t do that the first time so she had to return to do this. I knew that we were going to have to wait forever even if it was a simple fix. The fact that they have a check in desk and a high definition TV with the waiting list on it meant a long wait. My mom said let’s look at phones.

So we begin scanning and touching all the new models of phones. After looking at every model they have we decided to see where we were on the list on the TV. To our amazement we weren’t even on the list! We stormed back up to the front counter and told the woman at the checkout desk. She responded I’m glad you brought that to my attention because sometimes that happens. I’ll get you in after Latoya; apparently that was the person at the top of the list. So after waiting a couple of minutes we finally got to the front desk. My mom ran into the same girl that took care of her last time. She stated that the last time my mom didn’t tell her to do that, but anyways she begun transferring the pictures to the card. My mom had 82 pictures on the phone and the women at the counter stated it would take around an hour to do because she had to do one at a time. So she asked us if we could wait. Meanwhile next to us we could hear an argument ensuing between the clerk and an older lady. They were arguing about her pre-paid payment she was making. I found it hilarious, but ignored the engagement. We told our clerk we would go to lunch, so we went to Buffalo Wild Wings down the road.

After a delicious helping of spicy garlic wings, we returned to the dreaded Verizon store. We bypassed the check in desk. There was no one there anyways to our amazement. We waited by the front desk for a few minutes until we finally told someone we were here to pick up my mom’s phone. The girl that had helped us before came out from the back and handed my mom her phone and told her that the picture card now had all 82 pictures on it. We both let out a sigh of relief. My mom got a discount because she works at the hospital and got a small refund. We both darted out of the store and more or less complained about it the whole way home. This whole trip to the Verizon store sucked because their whole system sucks period. Everything is wait, wait, and look at our new products. To me this is no way to conduct business and has a high rate of disaster due to people being pissed about waiting forever and having difficulties with their expensive phones.

The struggle in Darfur: Darfur Diaries

Ok, so last time I was talking abou the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and the genocide that happend there. 

This week I've began reading a new book called Darfur Diaries Stories of Surv

ival by Jen Marlowe with Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro. It's a documentary of the accounts in Darfur a region of Western Sudan as indicated on the map to the above. The state of Darfur has been fighting a deadly civil war since 1983. Many countries await agreements between the North and the South Darfur states because of the Oil reserves that lie in the country of Sudan.  To no avail the war still wages on and it seems like nothing can interfere with this conflict not even the stranded refugees on the Chadian border in the Sahara desert.

In this book it describes the horrible accounts of raping, killing and pillaging of the Darfurian tribes houses. Some of the horrible conflicts involve Arab militias called, the Janjaweed. They would roam the states burning harmless citizen's houses to the ground and killing and raping unsuspecting refugees. Even though this is only the surface the torure that this tribe administered to their prisoners was unbelievable. The Jajanweed would heat up stones until they were unbelievable hot and insert them into their prisoners genitals be it man or woman, which is unbelivable. There is no way to explain how horrible it is on paper. Words cannot describe what happens in Darfur. 

The refugees struggle just to make it in Darfur let alone do other things like edcuate their children and have a normal life. The UNCHR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) try to assist the refugees, but the number of refugees are only growing and there are too many of them now. Other NGO's (Non-Governmental Organization) also send aid through food and other necessities they may need which helps, but the weather is harsh since they are in the Sahara desert or very close to it. Darfur Diaries is unbelievable descriptive primary source of the tragic events that have and will continue to happen in Darfur. The crooked government in Sudan only contributes to the violence and until they overthrow

n it will continue.

Sources Cited:

Darfur Diaries Stories of Survival. Marlowe, Jen

History of Iran

Ok so this week I read in time magazine that Mohammed Khatemi claimed that he was planning to run for president again in Iran against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khatemi claims that drastic political changes are needed to prevent further harm to Iran's economy and international image. 

First off, starting back in January 16, 1979 Mohammed Reza left Iran for the U.S. at the time the U.S. had a very good standing with Iran. Not 3 weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to office. Khomeini feared that the Shah, Mohammed Reza's, attempt to westernize Iran would lead to a loss of religion. The Shah had banned turbans, beards, and veils. In between this time the U.S. embassy had been captured

 and 60 U.S. hostages were kept for a year and a half during the extradition of the Shah.

Ayatollah after coming back began many senseless

 battles where he would send children out to fight armies with deadly weapons, he would send these child

ren out with only sticks and after all the sensesless battles 100,000 were dead and Iran was bankrupt. While in office Khomeini exceeded power by Iranian president and installed law by religious rule. On April 7,1979 Iran became a Theocracy.

 10 years later summing up a lot of history that happend in between. 

The Ayatollah died in 1989. Mohammed Khatemi was elected as president and quickly wanted to establish a nuclear arsenal, which is why I do not understand why they would want to

 elect him as president again. Isn't that why the U.S. started all this conflict in Iraq for. It was just to "check" for nuclear weapons. Iran's history is truly interesting and has A LOT more to it than what I summed up in a few paragraphs.

Survival in the Killing Fields

Ok so I know not everybody is as interested in history as I am, but I'm currently reading a book for my history 198 class called Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor. It is the story of this man's true account in Cambodia during the revolution that resulted in the Khmer Rouge-Pol Pot Regime.

Naturally, Cambodians are very gentle they almost have a lazy sort of attitude, Haing Ngor describes his regular life until the Khmer Rouge and the Lon Nol with U.S. backing are at civil war near the South Vietnam/Cambodia border. Most of them think that if the Khmer Rouge win then life will simply go back to the way it was. Then their old leader Sihanouk will come back to power and everything will be fine. It doesn't happen this way the U.S. describe the spread of communism by the "domino effect" and that is exactly what is happening. When the deadly civil war ends the Khmer began evacuating the major cities and forcing the "new" people or the city people to harsh work and punishment. Horrible racial discrimination against the Chinese, Chams (Hindu worshippers, typically farmers), and Vietnamese are among the groups that were almost certain that if their origin was found out that they would be executed.

I'll stop explaining the story, but this book is very interesting in that these people had their culture stripped away, and that was everything to them. The Khmer persectued so many in this horrible holocaust. Over 1,000,000 died during this period for no reason but racial discrimination.

I'm not by any means trying to force feed this to anyone, but I just found it interesting the stories that this man recollected over these years and the horrible torture that these human beings went through.

Google Earth?!

Ok so I don't exactly know a whole lot about what exactly you can do with this program Google is providing now, but I think I have a general idea.

In the past week i've heard and seen many students/adults/etc all messing around with Google Earth. I don't know why so many people are so fantisized by the fact that you can examine cities, states, and countries that have been there for many years. Don't get me wrong, the close view of the cities such as seeing what is there as far as properties and such is definitely a revolution in technology, but has our society gotten so lazy that we don't even bother to use maps, globes or other geographical tools. Instead we use the internet to virtually spy on other cities.

I find it funny that as I sat and wrote this in Bracken library a student sitting next to me was using Google Earth for who knows what. Will the next step be adding moving people live stream of what is actually happening in that city at this very moment. Who knows maybe it already has happend.

Even so much as my mom was asking me about this last night, which is what gave me my inspiration to write about this. Is a Big Brother operation in the near future?