Change...I'd like mine back

I personally am not very pleased with the way that president Obama has been leading this country. The healthcare bill is a total fail. My father is a doctor, and I've been able to hear the opinion of an insider. Basically, if someone winds up in the emergency room and they don't have health insurance, then either the hospital ends up paying for it or those who have healthcare insurance do. Those who are well off and have worked hard to be where they are shouldn't have to pay for the poor who are just leeching off of them in this instance. The government takeover of healthcare, in my opinion, will never work. We have been worse off then we were when bush was the president. I think most of the criticism that he gets is usually undeserved. Some of the problems that obama faces are not his fault and just have to do with the time he took over. But I do believe that he has caused many problems. Change.....I'd like mine back.

Courage

Courage is doing something you are really afraid of doing. You do this thing that you are afraid of because you know that things will turn out for the best in the long run. It can be one of the hardest things in the world to master. I sometimes have to have courage before I swim really hard or new races in swimming. I get worried that I'll swim poorly and that really makes me scared before a race. But i just have to have courage and just pull through the race, knowing that i'll get better by doing it and that I'll be fine and that i won't mess up.

Leadership

Leadership is what makes any group strong. Without some solid leadership, your team or group will fall apart. We have a similar situation on the swim team. We need a captain, and Isaac Olson would be the perfect captain. He is oldest of the experienced swimmers and rightfully deserves the position. No 9th or 10th grader should ever be a captain. I'm really not enjoying swimming at all this year. I don't like the coaches and there is a lot of bull going down. I've been thinking about quitting and going to swim with the stingrays club up in faribault, where I actually enjoyed swimming. I don't know what to do at this point. 

Start of the swimming season

The high school boys swimming season starts on monday, and I'm really excited. I haven't really improved very much over the past few seasons, and that really motivated me to work hard in the off seasons. I swam at a swim club up in faribault and went to a swim camp at gustavus college to improve my technique. I also went to the y and swam often to work on the many new things that i had learned. I am confident in myself and what i can accomplish. I was told by someone who was a swimmer that one of the fastest people on their team in high school was a tall and skinny guy who didn't have a lot of muscle, just like me. Yet he could swim a 50 free in 23 seconds. Our school record in the 50 is a 21.28. That really made me realize that i was fully capable of swimming that fast, and that i just needed to work hard and improve my technique. My goal is to take the school record in the 100 freestyle, which is 47.47 seconds. My goal is to swim the same race in 45.5 seconds. I'd also like to take the record in the 50 free. My goal time for that is 20.5 seconds.
                                                              -Andrew

Giving

Giving is one of the most important and beneficial things we can do in this world. I think it is a lack of giving that makes up for much of the evil in this world. We opress other people because we don't give them a chance to be our equals, which they are. When we don't give to other people who are in need, we are taking away from them a chance to have the same comfortable lives that we are leading. Based on this logic, if giving is the cause of all good in this world, then the root of all evil must be stealing. When you kill someone you are stealing their life. When you persecute someone, you are stealing their right to be human. I think that if everyone would start giving each other their right to be human and treat them as equals and consider their rights for once, we wouldn't have nearly as much evil in the world as we now have. We should remember that every time we give, we are making a small difference in this cold world.

Hubble movie at imax

I recently saw an advertisement in the science museum magazine saying that there is an imax movie about the hubble space telescope and its discoveries coming to the science museum. I think this will be great and it will be amazing to see the incredibly high resolution spacescapes that the hubble has produced on the huge imax screen. The hubble is am orbital space telescope with a huge, extremely high resolution camera to take pictures of objects in deep space. It has given us an unpresedented view of the beauty of deep space, and it continues to show us new things all the time, such as the furthest visible objects in the universe, which are nearly 13 billion light years away. This means it takes light 13 billion years to reach us. This is just an incomprehesible distance for me, the fact that it takes light, the  fastest thing in the universe, 13 billion years to travel the distance. I hope that this movie will help people to realize the beauty and vastness of the universe we live in.
                                         -Andrew

Adaptation/Evolution

The ability to adapt is one of the best traits that living things have. They can adapt to their environments through the process of natural selection. The best genetic mutations (adaptations) which allow an organism the edge over its competitors in survival are passed on through reproduction, and the cycle continues into the next generation. These small genetic changes can accumulate and lead to large changes, which is how speciation (the evolution of new species) and ultimately large scale evolution takes place. While many creationists would say that this kind of evolution never takes place, speciation has been observed and the fossil record essentially lays to rest creationist arguments. The fossil record is abundant in transitional fossils, which are fossils that show the gradual evolution from one type of organsim to the next, such as fish to amphibians. It would be quite useless for creationists to argue against these obvious evidences. Also, if every organsim had existed on the earth at one time, then we should find fossils of Velociraptors mixed with the fossils of modern humans, but this isn't what we find. We find every fossil at a certain depth based on its age, and the deeper the depth, the older a fossil is. The fossil record only truly makes sense when viewed in the light of evolution. We also see evidence for evolution in vestigial structures, which are organs that are reduced in functionality, or have lost their function completely and are no longer needed, all due to evolution. One of my favorite examples of this is the fact that whales have tiny leg bones that are completely covered by flesh and have no function whatsoever. One must think logically: If this animal were created in its present form, then why would it possibly have leg bones that are completely useless. Creationism has no answer to this, and this can only be logically explained if whales evolved from land mammals, and that the leg bones are just leftovers from evolutionary ancestors. I'm a Christian, yet I believe in evolution, which is possible. In fact, polls have shown that many of the world's Christians believe in evolution. I'm really tired of all the useless creationist arguments, and listening to a creationist is like listening to a broken record. They just repeat the same arguments again and again, year after year, even though these arguments have been refuted scientifically time and time again. I hope that creationism will die out in the next 40 years in the light of modern science.
                                                                  -Andrew

Humanity

People have always wondered what makes us human and sets us apart from animals. Humans are obviously very different from animals. We have a complex civilization and are capable of abstract thought, which means that we can ponder deep questions, such as why are we here? and how did the universe begin? As far as we know, animals are incapable of pondering these same questions. Humans can also express many emotions, such as love and compassion. While some primates can also have these emotions to some degree, they don't display them as often or to the same depth that humans do. Sometimes people think that because they have a different skin color than someone or that they are wealthier or more intelligent than someone that that means they are better than them. I don't think this makes any sense. We are all members of the human species and we alll have similar feelings and desires. You may be better at something than someone else, but that person is probably more skilled than you are in a different area. I think that humanity will have finally reached its full potential when we put aside pride and prejudice and work for the commo good of everyone. Sadly, this probably won't happen any time soon, and may never happen. People are just too selfish and enthralled with themselves. I believe this is the root of all evil in this world.
                                                            -Andrew

Antimatter Spacecraft

I read this article: http://science.howstuffworks.com/antimatter2.htm
Antimatter is like normal matter, except that the charges of the particles of antimatter are reversed, so that an electron is positive instead of negative, etc. Upon contact with normal matter, 100% of the mass of the collision is converted into energy, which makes it an extremely powerful potential energy source. However, extremely high energy particle collisions are needed to produce it, so you need giant accelerators, called atom smashers, to produce it. We can only make extremely small amounts of antimatter, so the amount needed to produce a significant amount of energy would cost trillions of dollars. However, there are plans to build reactors to specifically produce antimatter, which would lower the cost for the same amount to a few thousand dollars.
NASA researchers have produced plans for a spacecraft powered by antimatter. It would take 11 months to reach Mars with current technology, however, this spacecraft could make the journey in 1 month, making travel tto Mars practical for the first time. This spacecraft would focus the energy from a matter-antimatter reaction out of a nozzle to produce thrust. I would say that this spacecraft will be possible within a few decades, or possibly less.

Beauty

One of the most beautiful things that i can think of is the night sky. I have always been fascinated with space and astronomy, and i really enjoy the times i get to look at the night sky through our telescope. It is amazing to me that when we look at an object that is 1,000,000 light years away, it is like looking 1,000,000 years into the past. I have always wondered what is out there, and if there are other intelligent beings like us. I wonder if we will ever be able to travel among the stars like in science fiction. Its hard to fathom the distance between the stars. The closest star to the sun is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.5 light-years away from the earth. This means that it takes light (which travels at 300,000 km per second) from this star 4.5 years to reach the earth. The nearest galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, is 1,000,000 light years away, which is an unimaginably far distance. Even our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has been estimated to be 100,000 light-years across. We would need a serious revolution in technology just to think about crossing these distances. But i think that it's possible someday. I believe that the stars will continue to amaze me all of my life!
                                      -Andrew

Preparing for hunting!

     My dad, my brother, and I spent this weekend at our grandparents' house preparing for deer hunting two weeks from now. This will be my first time deer hunting, so I am very excited. My grandparents live near Dalbo, Minnesota, a small town near Cambridge. They own many acres of woods and my grandpa is a very experienced deer hunter, so it will be the perfect place for my first hunt. We tried out the rifles we will be hunting with on pumpkins. The pumpkins didn't stand a chance against the 30/40 Krag, which is the rifle I will be using. It is a very old rifle, probably used in the Spanish-American War of 1898. It is still in fairly good condition though, and it works very well. In addition to trying out the rifles, we set up blinds, or camouflaged shelters to shoot from. We set up two blinds at different locations where deer usually pass through. They are simple blinds, made from camo fabric with zippered windows and doors in them. We spent time with my grandparents and went to see a movie. We had a great time and I can't wait to hunt!

Airsoft

Today I played airsoft as a youth group activity for my church. I had a lot of fun. Airsoft is a combat simulation game of sorts where you have a gun that shoots 6mm diameter plastic bbs. Often times these guns look like real guns (M16s, Ak-47s, etc...). For a nice gun you can spend in upwards of $300. There are usually two or more teams in the game, and the object of the game is to get the other players out by shooting them with your mock firearm, which can hurt quite a bit. It leaves welts (or worse), and I still have scars of two welts my brother gave me earlier this summer. You usually wear these scars with pride when you're an airsoft player. The game requires a lot of strategy, most of it borrowed from real ground warfare. You have to figure out how to flank your enemies and lay down ambushes and similar strategic moves. This is the part I'm really trying to improve on now, since tactics can usually win the day. The development of good tactics takes the most time for the developing airsofter. Its a really fun hobby and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys action activities.
                                                              
                                                                     -Andrew

Freedom

Freedom is very important to this country. It is our primary founding value, and it is what defines us as a country. One of our most important freedoms is the right to bear arms. I believe that this right has been significantly infringed in the past decade. There are way to many permits and licensing restricitions that our gowernment has put on firearms. The Bill of Rights explicitly states that the government shall put no such restrictions on citizens' right to bear arms. Gun restricitions are supposedly ment to keep guns out of the hands or crimminals, but I believe they do nothing but keep them out of the hands of law abiding citizens who deserve to have them. Crimminals, by nature, are those who disobey the rules and regulations that the government lays down, so would it be logical to assume that since you lay down a restriction on certain firearms, that crimminals will stop aquiring such weapons? No. Such laws are pointless and illogical and don't really help that much. That's just one of the many things that I believe are wrong and don't make sense that the liberals are pushing and trying to make part of the law of the United States. I don't always disagree with liberals though, I think they have some really good ideas. Well, that's just my two cents on the issue.

Wormhole travel possible?

I've always been interested in science fiction and the many technologies it portrays. One of these is the ability to travel between the stars, via a warp drive or wormholes. It can be helpful to think of space as a two dimensional sheet (which it is not, space is three-dimensional so any curvature would be in the 4th dimension, which people can't visualize) with a small amount of curvature (many physicist believe that space is curved). This would suggest that the universe curves back in on itself and is closed. If you were to punch a hole through space, which is what a wormhole would be and is what some think black holes are, you could travel to an opposite side of the universe without having to travel the long, curved way around the outside. This could make travel to distant stars instantaneous. However, the problem is that we don't know how to generate black holes at will, and even if we could, we don't how to keep them stable enough to travel through. Physicists have suggested that if you aim enough high-powered laser beams at a single point in space, you could create a black hole. You might be able to keep this black hole stable by using negative energy, a form of energy that has a repulsive gravitational effect that would counteract the intense gravitational pull of a black hole. Considering all the advances that have been made in science, I would say that travel through space via wormholes wouldn't be impossible 300-400 years from now.
                                                              
                                                                         - Andrew

Justice/Fairness

     I personally believe that justice is very important and that a nation needs a good legal system to succeed and last a long time. I dislike our nation's legal system, and I believe that there are many changes to be made and improvements to be had. For one, in many cases, it seems like the defendant has too many rights. I understand the aim of this is to make for a fair trial, but there comes a point when it is obvious that the defendant is guilty, and prolonging the trial only makes for a a waste of time and lots and lots of money. The second complaint i have against the legal system is that lawsuits are so commonly misused. A woman sued McDonald's for not having a warning on the cup that said hot on it, because she had spilled the coffee on herself and was burned. She won the suit, and as a result received around $37 million. These types of cases show that there are many people who lack common sense and look for an easy way to make a quick buck, and don't want to work for a living. These people are commonly referred to as losers. There need to be regulations on the parameters of a lawsuit, in order to keep ridiculous cases such as these out of the system. My third and final complaint is that many punishments seem inadequate to a great many people. Some people who have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter because of a DWI have received only 5 years in prison! 5 years for killing someone! I think that this should warrant the death penalty, and that anyone accused of killing someone intentionally or as the result of plain stupidity should receive the death penalty. That's just my own opinion.

                                             -Andrew

Be Factual

     In my opinion, being factual is the most important aspect of being a journalist. After all, journalism is basically writing to get the facts about an event out to people. I don't care if my newspaper articles aren't fun to read, I just want the facts. (Worth would definitely disagree with me and will probably post a comment stating such.) I don't really read the newspaper anyways, and when I do read, I don't read because I think it's going to be fun. I just want to fins out how the event really happened. Also, when i read magazine articles, I just read for the facts. You could be a very captivating writer and have a way with words, but if you make up things that are totally false and try to pass it off as a news story, you would have not only failed at journalism, you could also get in very big trouble for libel, and end up being sued, which is not very fun. These things considered, i think it's safe to say being factual is the most important aspect of being a journalist.

                                            -Andrew

Noise/Silence

     Sound is one of the most amazing  properties of the world we live in. It brings so much depth and clarity to our existence. One of my own favorite things about sound is the music that it can make. I love listening to music, and whenever we have work time in a class you can probably find me listening to one of my favorite songs on my iPod Touch. There is something about the rythmn of the music and the total cancellation of the outside noise that helps me stay focused and concentrate on my schoolwork. Surprisingly, one of my favorite genres of music is metal. This is really surprising to some people because I don't look anything like a metalhead. I think the heavy and complex riffs incorporated into the style never get old and are fun to listen to. All these things considered, being deaf would be extremely hard for me. I would miss sound a lot.
        
                                                -Andrew

Swimming

     Swimming is my favorite sport. It has been ever since I started swimming in 5th grade, and chances are that it always will be. It's a sport where you can get awesome exercise while you have a good time with your friends. It doesn't matter how old you are, you can still swim. In fact, there are people over 80 years old who still swim competitively. If you're naturally athletic, you can try a sport for the first time and be amazing at it. It's not like that in swimming, you have to work very hard to be good. The water is such an alien environment to the human body that you simply can't just get into the water and be amazing. I've been working very hard in swimming lately, and I have seen it pay off. In fact, my goal is to take the school record in the 100 yard freestyle and then to go on and swim in college, possibly at Gustavus Adolphus. Swimmers have the highest rate of graduating from college out of all the different athletes from the assortment of college sports. Considering everything that the sport of swimming has going for it, it is a shame that it doesn't get more credit than the small recognition that it gets in the realm of high school sports.
            
                                                 -Andrew

Friendship

      Friendship is essential to your making it through high school. Friends are people you can identify with and share your feelings with. High school can be an emotionally tough time, and without anyone to identify with, you can become very sad. A true friend is someone who you can always count on, who will never exclude you, and you can always tell them the whole truth about how you're feeling. There are times when I feel really down, and my friends can really help me to feel better. Sometimes it can be really hard when you start slipping away from from someone who was your best friend. It hurts, and sometimes you start to hang out with that friend and you get back to where you used to be; other times you just sort of lose that friend, which can be one of the hardest things of all. Regardless of your situation, your friends will be one of the most valuable things that you have.

                                                                       -Andrew

No hats in school?!

     Last year, I was eating lunch with my friends and one of them happened to be wearing an Albert Lea hockey stocking cap. When the lunch lady walked by our table and saw this, she promptly told him to take it off. I think that is just ridiculous. I mean, he was showing his support for his school and his team by wearing that hat. I understand the school policy about wearing hats, and that it is designed to prevent gang violence. So from what I would imagine, whoever wrote the policy had bandanas and solid color caps in mind, not school sports hats! Wearing a hat that says albert lea hockey is really no different from wearing a t-shirt that says albert lea hockey, and I've never heard of anyone starting a fight with someone because they were wearing a t-shirt that said albert lea hockey or any other sport on it for that matter. So in my opinion, I think  the albert lea high school should seriously reconsider this policy pertaining to school sports related headwear. 

                                        -Andrew