Oil Continues to Spill

In a blog post on Crooks and Liars, "karoli" writes of the continued spilling of oil in water sources despite the cap on the Deepwater Horizon spill. They go on to say that "not one Republican supports comprehensive energy legislation," and that if any of them "decided our planet mattered more than their re-election, we would be debating comprehensive reform." I agree wholeheartedly with this statement of Republicans' preoccupation with votes and ignorance of what really matters. If they could look at the world as more than a place to rule politically, they could see that our planet is dying and we need to do something to protect and heal it. The only way to do that is to find a way to replace oil as our main energy source with a renewable source that won't hurt the health of our home. If there was even one Republican that was brave enough to speak out, we would be able to do just that.
Karoli's purpose is to convince anyone that is tired of waiting for politicians to do something about our dire need for renewable energy sources that if any Republicans had the courage to care about the health of our planet, we could work together to find new ways to use the Earth's natural renewable resources to maintain our way of life without harming our home further.

Troops Need to Blow Off Steam

According to a recent editorial by Lionel Beehner of USA Today, what deployed troops need more than anything else is more opportunities to blow off steam. I could not agree more with Beehner's opinion. Soldiers overseas have copious amounts of down time and frequent boredom. Because of this boredom, troops have been known to do any number of things to blow off steam. For example, soldiers from different parts of the world have been making dancing and lip-syncing videos to different American pop songs. These videos have received mixed reviews from people from all works of life, but I say good for those men and women who have the courage to show who they are despite the uniforms they wear. Also, due to the trauma of wartime, The Department of Veterans Affairs has recently relaxed the requirements for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now veterans are doing things like playing paintball to ease themselves back into society after serving overseas. "Stress relievers are critical to keeping morale up and casualties down," Beehner says, and he's right. Think of how low the stress level here at home is compared to the stresses overseas, and despite that, we still have dozens of opportunities to blow off steam. Shouldn't the soldiers who are in even higher stress situations daily have just as many opportunities, if not more?
Beehner's intended audience is the American people that are unaware of the need for healthy and constructive ways to soothe troops' nerves, and his editorial is perfectly suited for just that.

National Guard on the Border

According to the Austin American-Statesman, on August 1, the federal government will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to watch for any illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. Because Arizona has had the most trouble with immigration, they will receive over twice as many troops than any other border state with 524 troops compared to Texas's 250, California's 224, and New Mexico's 72. Although the governors of Texas and New Mexico say that 1,200 troops is insufficient, they can deploy some of their own troops to the border to supplement the federal troops. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) is opening a new office in Ajo, Arizona to focus exclusively on cross-border crime.
This article informs its readers of what the U.S. national government is doing to help solve the problem that immigration is becoming in border states. It is worth reading if you're interested in what is being done and what still needs to be done to keep illegal immigration to a minimum.