Flash Crash

            In 2010 an event known as the "flash crash" occurred where it is believed one man lost billions of dollars in the stock market, causing the Dow Jones industrial to lose over 600 points in 5 minutes, which is a lot. This puts the ideas in fellow traders heads that this exact thing could happen again causing them to lose a lot of their money. Trader Navinder Sing Sarao is the believed cause of this market drop and was recently arrested for doing so. But I don't understand why, all he did was play the system in a smart way to gain himself money. The stock market is a gamble to begin with anyways, so he found a way to crack the system. None the less he was arrested and interrogated a few times before he was arrested, yet there is no solid evidence that he is the sole cause of this crash, although a lot of things point to him. The biggest concern with this is that it can happen again, causing billions lost, not only for traders but also for our country.

George Zhao

            Cheating is morally wrong, we can all agree on that, theres no point in diving into why cheating is wrong. But if its wrong why do people still do it? Well thats obvious, they do it because its the easy route and they don't have to study or try. Although teachers are cracking down on the cheaters, there are still going to be those that get away with it which isn't fair to the people who do work hard for their grades, but thats life. One of the things that helps students cheat in this generation, whether it be high schoolers, college students, or even elementary students is technology. Back when i was little you weren't even aloud to have your phone on your person during class, but now students take notes on them. Which can be extremely helpful, but it can also give them that temptation to go on social media during class instead of doing their work. It also gives them the ability to cheat during tests or quizzes, and you're probably thinking, why don't teachers just make them put their phones away during tests? Well they do, but that doesn't mean kids are actually going to follow the rules, although the should. The solution to this problem is simple, go back the pens and pencils, although technology is super helpful when used right, it seems to be doing more damage than helping students educations, and even if technology was abolished in the classroom, kids would still cheat regardless, because although you can teach a person right and wrong, you can't control their morality, thats something they have to do for themselves.

Discrimination or Caution?

              With all the recent issues with ISIS in the Middle East the issue is “caution or discrimination”, and as everybody knows there are always two sides to every story. So let’s start with discrimination, obviously not every Muslim is part of ISIS or Al Qaida, not all Muslims are going to blow up planes and bomb buildings. So it is wrong of us to look at a Muslim and discriminate against him or her. With all the Muslims in the world, many of them are very peaceful people, and then there are those who are jihadists and terrorists. But which one of them is the true Muslim? Because only one of those groups is interpreting the Koran correctly, and experts and professors lean more towards the jihadists being more accurate in the interpretation of the Koran. However that does not mean that they are 100% correct, only more accurate in their readings and studies than the peaceful Muslim. So to be real for a second, if you see a Muslim at an airport getting ready to board the flight with you, what are you going to think? I quite frankly would be a little nervous, of course not to the point where I want to get off the airplane or anything extreme like that. But I would probably have some sketchy feelings depending on the circumstances, and I don’t consider that discrimination, I call it being cautious. You have to remember 9/11, I’m sure there were passengers on those planes who had sketchy feelings too, even though Islam wasn’t as big of an issue with America then as it is now. But I wouldn’t consider that wrong, it would be like if a homeless person beat you up and robbed you one day, you’re probably going to be cautious around homeless people, even though they aren’t all bad people. There is a fine line between discrimination and caution.

We are at a time in the world where half of the marriages in the United States fail and end in divorce. This is not shocking to me at all, we live in a time where the media approves and encourages lust, and affairs, and makes it look normal to us. The saying “If you want it, go get it”, encourages the act of adultery, and the media gives people, both men and women, the idea of cheating on their spouse. Statistics show that marriages that end in divorce leave the separated couples in debt, and not financially stable, because of court, the lawyers and child support. So how can marriages be built back and restored, and kept that way? Unfortunately I don’t think they can, I think our society is too far gone to turn things around, and the only way to restore a marriage is with God’s help, and to want too, and I don’t think our selfish society likes doing the right thing these days.

Mary Jane

                          Since the legalization of marijuana in Colorado in 2012, there has not been much of a difference in revenue for the government. Granted the sales tax added on marijuana has definitely brought forth some cash but not as much as expected. The controversy over legalizing marijuana was either one, that it would bring millions of dollars to the government in taxes, or it would spark a social nightmare and drug abuse would take place, neither of which has happened. All the legalization of marijuana does is allow pot-smokers to just feel safer, and feel better about themselves that they aren’t breaking the law. No matter what state you go to, no matter where in the world you go to! There will always be drugs and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, it’s just the nature of man to do what makes him feel good. At first I thought yeah the legalization has to make a huge profit in taxes, but not everybody goes to a local herb store in Colorado to buy weed, when they could either grow it themselves, or buy it from a dealer much cheaper. So the question I ask myself is, should marijuana be legalized in other states as well? Or remain illegal. And personally I think it just depends on the states preference, because the use of marijuana is federally illegal, but a state can choose to make it legal obviously. But if it’s not bringing in as much revenue as we suspected why is it still legal? Why was an immoral thing such as this even legalized in the first place? Purely for money. We’ve become so corrupted as a society, that it doesn’t matter if what we are doing is immoral and wrong, but as long as we make money from it and as long as we are satisfied.

Morals or Money

     
        Recently the venture capital firm, which is an investor in Facebook and a co-founder in PayPal, invested millions of dollars

 in a marijuana company. Most companies are leaning toward more beneficial investments for the world than “sinful companies.” But is smoking weed sinful? Is it morally wrong? First of all if it’s against the law it’s obviously a sin to partake in, but what about Colorado where it’s legal? Then is it morally wrong? Does marijuana benefit our health, or does it corrupt our minds? These are all hard questions to answer. I think marijuana can medically be helpful, but there are always people who will corrupt it for something different to make them feel good, and that’s when it becomes morally wrong. It is also a personal conviction with most people, same with drinking or smoking cigarettes. Most people would say it is unethical to smoke weed, as well as invest in a company that sells it for recreational use. Part of me wants to disagree and say no its fine to invest in a company for something you disagree with, as long as you're making money. But that's not right, because if you're investing in a company you are supporting them, it would be the same thing if someone invested in a prostitution organization but didn't believe it was right. So it obviously is wrong to invest in a marijuana company if you do not fully support them. But it is their choice and their money, I just think there's many other things that could better benefit society than drugs.

Charlie Hebdo, An Inspiration

                      Charlie Hebdo, if you haven’t heard, is a magazine that in a sense makes fun of everything using series of cartoons to illustrate their senses of humor. Recently the largely populated area of Muslim’s in France got a little upset about a cartoon done of their prophet Muhammad. A little upset is an understatement, two Muslim extremists came in and killed ten of Charlie Hebdo’s employees and two policemen as well. Most people would think to back off to avoid even more casualties, and that’s the exact opposite of what they did. They decided to make another cartoon with Muhammad holding a sign saying “Je Suis Charlie” meaning I am Charlie in French, pretty ballsy move. You would think that the Muslim extremists would bomb the whole building where they work, and they very well could, but they haven’t yet, and this cartoon has only helped them. It has given them fame and revenue, normally Charlie Hebdo prints about 60,000 copies of their magazine, but after the killings they printed and sold over 5 million copies. Talk about opportunity cost, I mean yeah they lost 10 lives but they sold over 5 million copies! But in all seriousness the loss of those employees is a tragedy, it’s inspiring that these people, even after those deaths, continued to fight for their cause knowing well that there could be dire consequences. These people had a choice, either to back down and get walked on and killed, or to stand up and make a statement, if only everybody had an attitude like the people of Charlie Hebdo.

Recently as everyone who drives knows, the gas prices have dropped crazily. We can thank the Middle East for increasing the Oil exports, which increases the amount of gas we have in America, at a lesser price. This increase in oil has in a sense hurt the NYSE and also the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225, for most investors of oil traded their stock, causing the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to fall 37.62 points. So although the decrease of gas prices is helping everyday average Americans, it’s also hurting the economy in a sense. There are always two sides to every story though, I would describe what has happened is a good thing, but someone might disagree with me. A lot of workers are getting laid off in North Dakota and Texas because they are no longer needed, if we can just get oil from the Middle East why would companies want to pay extra money to workers? This is in a sense a Cost Benefit Analysis, we could be using money to pay workers in the U.S. to be harvesting this oil, or we can just get it from the Middle East which is obviously cheaper since prices are going down. The Marginal Cost has gone down since the Scarcity of oil has gone down as well. We no longer have to pay $4.00 a gallon because we are getting oil for cheaper, in larger quantities, which is our, as customers of gas, our Marginal Benefit.

 

         Recently in the media world, Sony Pictures had been working on a movie that was planned to be released on Christmas day. Seth Rogan and James Franco were going to be staring in this comedy film called “The Interview.” The plot being the assassination of Kim Jung Un, did not go over to well with Korea. Un had people hack into Sony threatening the theaters, that led to four of the major movie company’s backing out of showing this film. Is it smart of them to back out of showing this movie? Or is it cowardly? As the United States, we have this thing called freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free to do whatever we want, all while abiding by the law of course. But if we have freedom as a country why is Sony deciding to pull their movie? Because we are scared of some threats? The United States gets threatened all the time, and we are going to let it affect what we watch? Even though it sounds very arrogant and foolish, if we want to watch or produce a movie as Americans’ we should do just that. But what if Sony did produce this movie, and it went to theaters everywhere. Then North Korea launched an attack on the U.S. and we had a war on our hands, all because of some movie. Sounds like a pretty dumb thing to go to war about. But if we don’t produce this movie than Korea has beaten us without even fighting us. Truthfully I don’t know what is worse, getting attacked by Korea because of a movie, or losing a battle we haven’t even fought in. I think as American citizens we are very selfish and arrogant and we want what we want when we want it. Which isn’t a good thing, but since we already are we mine as well go with it and get what we want, we have the best military in the world! I don’t think we should be afraid of Kim Jung Un just because of a movie.

A Right To Die

          Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with glioblastoma and was told she had only a few months to live. At only 29 years old, this was devastating news for her and her family. Instead of going on and on about this woman's life, I will spare you the details. Basically she was the face of the "Right-to-Die" movement where she proclaimed she would not let this cancer kill her, so she had an assisted suicide instead. The question is, is this right? Is it okay to take your own life if it spares you the pain of death that is coming? Biblically I think this is wrong because God gave us life and it is his right to take it away, not ours. But hey, if abortion is morally right in todays society, anything should be acceptable. But unfortunately not everyone in our world looks at issues like these biblically, so I have to address it non-biblically as well. So even if this assisted suicide was considered okay, where would it end? They would then have to start considering euthanization of the sick and the elderly as being okay. But if we say thats wrong then everybody starts getting all sensitive and crying saying "we have a right to do this its our lives and our bodies" but the constitution says we have equal rights as people, it doesn't mean we have the right to do whatever we please. If that were the case we would have no laws and our country would just be chaos. But this woman did have cancer, and she was going to die a painful death, so this assisted suicide made her, at the time happier, and I'm sure it made her family happier too knowing she would not be going through as much pain. So although I do not think her decision was the right one, she did what she thought was right, but was it right?

"Torture"

                  Recently reports of torture from the CIA have been released. The CIA handed over information about torture such as waterboarding, rectal rehydration and other painful acts that were not authorized by the white house. Out of 6,000 pages from a report, the CIA released 528 pages about the things that they were doing. 5,472 pages are still in the hands of the CIA and I think they should stay there, we don’t know any other methods of torture that they used except for the ones that they told us. Is it immoral to torture? Torture is torture, whether it’s extreme torture or very mild, it’s still torture, but the ends justify the means. As a country, if we can save thousands of lives by torturing a few, it’s okay. But not everyone agrees with that statement, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the CIA to do what they had to do, but not to tell him what they had to do, otherwise he would have to take action and prosecute those in the wrong. It’s like when you go to tell your mom something but she says I don’t want to know so she doesn’t have to get you in trouble. The main point of this issue is the morality of our country, is it okay for us to torture if it gets us valuable information, or is it wrong?

Fegurson Part 2

           Everyone knows what is going on in Ferguson, Missouri, if you don’t, watch the news or read the paper. Basically police officer Darren Wilson is being accused of an injustice by doing his job, and defending himself. Shooting an unarmed teenager for no reason sounds bad, and that’s what the community of Ferguson is making it seem like. But that’s not what happened, Wilson was beat and got charged by 6 foot 4 300 pound Michael Brown, and so Wilson shot him. Is this an unjustified killing? Would you consider this a murder? Who’s in the wrong here, Brown or Wilson? In order to determine this, there has to be a trial, but before the trial there has to be enough evidence, and to figure that out, the case has to go to a Grand Jury to see if it is even worthy. A Grand Jury consists of a District Attorney and a group of 12 to 23 average American citizens. This case went to a Grand Jury for a couple months, and I’m surprised it even took them that long to come to the conclusion that this officer is not guilty and was just doing his job. The whole reason for a Grand Jury is so people like Officer Wilson don’t go to prison because they are accused for shooting someone, even when it is their job. But vice versa if Wilsons shooting was dirty and he really did “shoot him for no reason” then Wilson would be put on trial and be convicted, based upon how the trial went. The Grand Jury keeps Police Officers in line, cops can’t do whatever they want without consequences, the Grand Jury takes away their power of being able to do anything, but still allows them to do their job if they are doing the right thing. The Grand Jury is a vital part of our government and without it, our justice system would fail to bring justice to those who need justice brought to them, and it could falsely convict those who are doing the right thing, such as Officer Darren Wilson.

 

 

Christianity Without Hell

          

What is hell? Hell to some people is just a word, or an idea, but to Christians, it is ones eternity. But it is an option of eternity, the other being heaven. Christians believe everyone deserves to go to hell for eternity because of our sins, but since Jesus Christ died for our sins, we now have a chance to choose, since of course God gave us free will. But what would Christians preach to non-believers if there was no hell? Because then there would be nothing to be afraid of after death. So if there was no hell would Christianity even exist? Why would it? If there’s no hell why would we want to live our lives for God if we are going to go to heaven anyways? The problem is exactly that, we wouldn’t praise God if we didn’t have to face consequences of sin. But now the real problem is, are Christians only praising God out of fear of going to hell? You can clearly tell the difference between a Christian who legitimately has an unconditional love for God, and a Christian who is just afraid of hell, technically I wouldn’t even call them true followers of Jesus. So what is the point of hell? Hell is where sinners, which we all are, who didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their savior and live their life for him, go after death. For eternity. That is a scary thought, which is why a lot of non-believers turn to Jesus, because they are scared, which isn’t wrong, its good people turn to Jesus when they are scared. But its even better when they stay with Jesus, and they become true lovers and true believers of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”