Massacre at Virgina Tech University

Yesterday all anyone could talk about was the shooting that happened at the University in Virgina. They came to find out it was a guy by the name of Cho Seung Hui a 23year-old senior majoring in English and after a day of bloodbath left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed in. What made him do this, how long did he plan on doing this. Fellow classmates said there were signs everywhere but nobody did anything about it. I guess he would write plays and there were very disturbing and he was referred to counseling to seek advice about his writing. After the murder scene they had found a note in his room that was discriminating him as "anti-woman, anti-rich kid." Therefore he did have a certain target he was going after. He was very quiet, always by himself he never reached out to anybody or talked with anyone. He was always the one in the back of the room not responding. He was a citizen therefore he could buy a legal firearm. Roanoke Firearms had sold the glock along with some practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571. They though He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. But what turned out that this kid had been planning this shoot out for awhile. Supposibably couple weeks ago they got a couple of bomb threats towards the engineering dept and they didnt do anything about it, and that's where he did most of the shooting at. I think this is such a tragedy most of these students had ambitions to succeed and graduate and now they have nothing. School is supposed to be a safe enviornment where people want to be. I think they should of done some follow up on the bomb threats and maybe they could of caught him. This type of tragedy makes people around the world be more cautious to their fellow peers.

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/on-close-knit-campus-gunman-was-loner/20070417115809990001

STRIKE

As of April 3 the strike was officially over, for students this was a disappointment for they were looking forward to not having classes for a couple days. In mid-March, the 11,000-member California Faculty Association voted to authorize a strike,with two-day walkouts rolling from campus to campus.This strike would of been on of the biggest strikes ever. For San Jose state faculty the biggest issue was the salary, since the cost of living here is much more. They came to an agreement all faculty are guaranteed a 20.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment in their salaries during the course of the four-year contract. Also a $28 million will be provided in the form of merit and equity increases that will provide raises for senior faculty who have reached the top of the pay scale, as well as boost junior faculty compensation. I'm glad to know after treading this article that our tuition shouldn't go up just because employees are getting paid more. That there is enough liquidity in our system for them to get paid their money. Although i was looking forward to the strike it wouldn't of really benefited the students that much because missing those classes would of taken away from other things, which we are close to end of the semester.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5584658?source=rss&nclick_check=1

Gas cartel

I dont know about any of you but to me i feel that gas prices every day keep going up a couple cents and its driving me crazy. Gas is not cheap these days but it might be coming back down in awhile because of a gas cartel. A gas cartel could both ultimately lower gas prices and push importers to develop alternative power sources. The world has vast, untapped natural gas reserves. if a cartel forces prices up artificially it will only spur innovation in extracting hard-to-reach reserves. New innovations will give power in the market, and prices overall will sink as more supply moves to market. Also Natural gas is more easily substituted than oil, countries not wanting to pay cartel inflated prices will develop alternatives, from coal to nuclear to wind power. But now that global warming becoming a concern with the carbon dioxide emission they might not want to subsistue coal and nuclear energy for natural gas. Although gas burns much cleaner than coal and natural gas is less expensive then nucluear power. Even if they do decide to create a cartel the supply and demand could easily be fluctuated. I really hope that they do come up with alternatives instead of natural gas. If it works like gas and it cheaper thats all that matters to me. I constantly commute back and forth out of town and with gas prices going up like this i wont be able to afford to do it as much as i do now.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/apr2007/db20070409_886425_page_2.htm

Global warming

I was going through the new york times and i came across this article about global warming and it made me want to read more about it. Last semester i took a meteorology class and we talked about global warming alot. This article talks about how each year the earth gets warmer and warmer from all the carbon dioxide built up in the air. Countries like Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide from fuel burning. But they face biggest risks from drought and disrupted water supplies. As the oceans fill with water from melting ice sheets, it is the crowded river deltas in southern Asia and Egypt, along with small island nations, that are most at risk. Eventually all the countries will be under water. The richer countries like United States don't have to worry about it so much now for at least couple more generations but they have started to build desalination plants, can work far from the sea, purifying water from brackish aquifers deep in the ground in places like New Mexico. Bush signed a treaty stating that countries will help others for cost of adaptation if they have to because of climate changes. It is clear that the rich countries are far ahead of the poor ones in adapting to climate change. But they can never be to sure. I learned that if they dont start taking percautions now and start worrying about it then sooner or later we can all end up under water.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/science/earth/01climate.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper