reflection

The discussion from wednesday was alright i still think the other reflection was better because not a lot of people talked and the point of every student has a right even though some were different than others. Some people in the class had great points and it's true that teachers and students have a job the teacher to have fun teaching and enjoying showing their students. Students should be motivated to want to learn and they should be happy they can learn because there are a lot of poor kids that would want to have theit spots in life and students should also appreciate it. Hopefully next discussion is better and more students are in the mood to talk including myself. there are also a lot of points that included real life problems.I really look forward to the next discussion.
period 1

U.N. secretary-general condemns reported Syrian rioting deaths

From Caroline Faraj, CNN

March 18, 2011 6:49 p.m. EDT

Syrian General Mohammed Hassan Ali speaks to reporters after security forces dispersed a protest on March 16.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: United States urges Syrian government to allow peaceful demonstrations
• Ban Ki-Moon calls reported killing of demonstrators "unacceptable"
• The unrest occurred in five areas; there were claims of casualties
• Demonstrators demanded freedom and an end to corruption

(CNN) -- The use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators in Syria was deemed "unacceptable" Friday by the U.N. secretary-general.
Ban Ki-Moon said in a statement that he is "concerned about the reported killing of demonstrators" in Diraa, Syria.
Witnesses said riots erupted Friday in the Middle Eastern nation. It is the latest of a string of Arabic-speaking nations beset with discontent.
The unrest spread through Hims, Diraa, Banyaas, Der Elzour and the capital, Damascus, witnesses said, and there were claims of deaths and injuries, but the assertions could not be independently confirmed.
Calling it "the responsibility of the government to listen to the legitimate aspirations of the people," Ban urged Syrian authorities to refrain from violence and to abide by their international commitments regarding human rights, which guarantee the freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom of the press and the right to peaceful assembly.
His comments were echoed Friday by the United States, which urged the Syrian government to "address the legitimate aspirations" of its people.
"The United States strongly condemns the violence that has taken place in Syria today and calls on the Syrian government to allow demonstrations to take place peacefully. Those responsible for today's violence must be held accountable," said U.S. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.
Demonstrators took to the streets to demand freedom and urge an end to corruption, but police surrounded hundreds of them and made arrests.
"Security forces are clearly nervous and did not expect to have demonstrations in five different places at the same time," a witness said.

A Facebook page that called for "Dignity Friday" showed images of clashes between protesters and security personnel.

President Obama, sounding more like a candidate

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama channeled his "change" message of the 2008 election in a speech to the Democratic National Committee in Washington, asking the group of supporters "not to lose that spirit that animated us early on."

March 16th, 2011

09:11 PM ET

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama channeled his "change" message of the 2008 election in a speech to the Democratic National Committee in Washington, asking the group of supporters "not to lose that spirit that animated us early on."

 

"My hope is that the same spirit that helped change this country in 2008, that that spirit is still in each and every one of you," Obama said Wednesday night.

But he acknowledged that some may become frustrated with the politics in the next election.
“I’m sure that some of you are like Michelle and at some point had to just stop watching cable TV because it was getting too frustrating,” Obama said.
That frustration, he said is why it is important to not just fight the same battles, but to instead change American politics and policies.
Echoing his 2008 mantra, the president said there is "a lot more that we have in common than separates us," and encouraged the group to not take his presidency for granted.
"As time passes, you start taking it for granted that guy named Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States," Obama said. "I hope that over the next couple of years, as we're seeing a lot of you as I travel around the country, I hope that all of you still feel that sense of excitement and that sense of possibility, because we still have so much more to do."

japan's future in three parts

Editor’s Note: Naotaka Matsukata is a senior policy adviser at Alston and Bird, LLP. He has served as Director of Policy Planning for the United States Trade Representative and Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman.
By Naotaka Matsukata – Special to CNN
Japan's history provides some important clues to how Japan will respond in the short, medium, and long term to crisis.  If history is a guide, recovery is certain and the progress will be rapid and eye-opening.
In the short term, this crisis provides an opportunity for Japan to come together politically, formulate agreed-upon policies and lay the foundation for stronger economic growth.

Before the crisis, Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s approval ratings were in the low 30s. The political order was stagnant. Over the past decade, the Japanese government has lost the confidence of the people.
This crisis will likely provide Kan with an opportunity to unify his own political party and the people of Japan. This is a chance for Japan’s government to restore some of the people’s confidence. If the Japanese people return some confidence to their government, it will increase the ability of the political leadership to make hard decisions on issues from immigration to the budget.
In the medium term, look at the U.S.-Japan relationship. For the last five years or more, Japan has been enormously concerned about its place in America’s orbit. The Japanese have asked: “Is the U.S. passing over Japan for China? Is Japan falling as a priority in U.S. foreign policy?”
America’s response to this crisis will be a measuring stick for Japan about U.S. commitment to their country. How closely does the United States cooperate with Japan in responding to the crisis?
In many respects, the relationship between Japan and the U.S. has been kind of like Jekyll and Hyde. On the one hand, you have had  efforts to cooperate on security issues despite clear, detailed problems that have come up time to time. On the economic front, there’s always a lot of friction in terms of the competitiveness of Japanese industries, its industrial policy and various other issues related to market access.
Does America pull back from pressuring Japan on Okinawa issues or other economic issues to let Japan come back and find its footing? What kind of pause takes place now? How much of the humanitarian issue takes center stage?
Over the long term, look at Japan’s international relationships. Japan has always been on the giving side of humanitarian assistance. Now it is on the receiving side. Does this bring Japan a greater awareness of global suffering? Will it make Japan a more integrated member of the global community?
When historians 100 years from now will put this event in the context of Japan's modern history of response and rebuilding after crisis, they will see it as just one more time the people of Japan have come together and made recovery a catalyst for reform and prosperity.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Naotaka Matsukata.

Senior Democrat Conyers criticizes Obama

By Paul Courson, CNN Senior Producer

March 14, 2011 7:49 p.m. EDT

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan. criticized President Barack Obama on several issues Monday, including American foreign policy.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Conyers says lack of a strong rival is the "only thing that saves" Obama
• Veteran congressman wants to "make him a better president"
• The Michigan Democrat is critical of U.S. foreign policy

Washington (CNN) -- Senior Democrat John Conyers of Michigan criticized Barack Obama Monday, hoping, Conyers said, to "make him a better president."
Citing the troubled job market, rising energy costs, and turmoil in the Middle East, Conyers told reporters at the National Press Club: "We keep getting a longer and longer list of things he wanted to do, wished he could do more about, and is of course having a big problem."
"The only thing that saves him, of course, is that there doesn't seem to be anybody to run against him next year," Conyers said.
After naming prospective challengers Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, among others, Conyers said he still supports Obama because "the alternative is unthinkable. I just want to make him a better president."
American foreign policy was among the areas the Michigan congressman criticized for what he consider an emphasis on military might over other ways to achieve U.S. goals.
Conyers said, "It is kind of amazing to me that there is still adopted, even in this administration, the attitude that military prowess will settle things down. And they rarely, if ever, do."
He also responded to a question about the recent departure of a ranking State Department official who was critical of how the Pentagon is reportedly treating U.S. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, a soldier suspected of a role in the WikiLeaks scandal.
"I was not in agreement again with the president saying that he's told Manning's been treated -- his confinement is okay, that he's told everything is alright. I don't think it's all right."
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned in recent days after remarks indicating he agreed with criticism over Manning's conditions of confinement.

Conyers Monday suggested Crowley's concerns might have a basis. "They may well be accurate, and probably are, but I think he was prepared for what happened."

Japan earthquake: Tsunami hits north-east

Click to play

Japan's most powerful earthquake since records began has struck the north-east coast, triggering a massive tsunami.

Cars, ships and buildings were swept away by a wall of water after the 8.9-magnitude tremor, which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant, where pressure has exceeded normal levels.
Officials say 350 people are dead and about 500 missing, but it is feared the final death toll will be much higher.
In one ward alone in Sendai, a port city in Miyagi prefecture, 200 to 300 bodies were found.

---

In the centre of Tokyo many people are spending the night in their offices. But thousands, perhaps millions, chose to walk home. Train services were suspended.
Even after the most violent earthquake anyone could remember the crowds were orderly and calm. The devastation is further to the north, along the Pacific coast.
There a tsunami triggered by the quake reached 10km (six miles) inland in places carrying houses, buildings, boats and cars with it. In the city of Sendai the police found up to 300 bodies in a single ward. Outside the city in a built-up area a fire blazed across several kilometres.
Japan's ground self-defence forces have been deployed, and the government has asked the US military based in the country for help. The scale of destruction from the biggest quake ever recorded in Japan will become clear only at first light.

The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, said scientists.

Thousands of people living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been ordered to evacuate.
Japanese nuclear officials said pressure inside a boiling water reactor at the plant was running much higher than normal after the cooling system failed.
Officials said they might need to deliberately release some radioactive steam to relieve pressure, but that there would be no health risk.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier said the US Air Force had flown emergency coolant to the site.
But US officials later said no coolant had been handed over because the Japanese had decided to handle the situation themselves.
The UN's nuclear agency said four nuclear power plants had shut down safely.
Measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, it struck at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.

Continue reading the main story

• Japan quake: video reports

The tsunami rolled across the Pacific at 800km/h (500mph) - as fast as a jetliner - before hitting Hawaii and the US West Coast, but there were no reports of major damage from those regions.

Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas in the states of California, Oregon and Washington.
The biggest waves of more than 6-7ft (about 2m) were recorded near California's Crescent City, said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.
A tsunami warning extended across the Pacific to North and South America, where many other coastal regions were evacuated, but the alert was later lifted in most parts, including the Philippines, Australia and China.
Strong waves hit Japan's Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, damaging dozens of coastal communities.
A 10m wave struck Sendai, deluging farmland and sweeping cars across the airport's runway. Fires broke out in the centre of the city.

National debt: Where the Tea Party is wrong

By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writerMarch 10, 2011: 11:25 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- First, let's give the Tea Party props for thinking critically about how much money the government should spend -- energizing the debate about the national debt.
Now for the fact check: Some of the Tea Party arguments for how to address deficits are just plain misguided.

Here are four assertions Tea Partiers make that don't pass the sniff test.
1. To kill debt, cut spending but don't raise taxes: A staple Tea Party promise is to cut spending and keep taxes low.
"[Americans] want spending cuts now, not in ten years. They don't want more job-killing tax increases," Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois said in a recent statement.

Walsh went on to say that the $100 billion in spending cuts that many in the House GOP wanted to make over the next seven months "is what tackling the deficit looks like."

Not quite.
For starters, the cuts proposed by the House GOP primarily hit non-defense discretionary programs, which make up less than 15% of the total budget
Budget experts on the left and right say successful debt reduction can only occur when spending is cut across all areas of the budget.

And excluding revenue increases from the mix is the equivalent of one hand clapping: ineffective given the size of the country's debt.

Ronald Reagan, often revered as the king of small government and low taxes, signed into law some of the biggest tax cuts in modern history. But Reagan also approved some of the biggest tax increases, too. And he did so to help reduce swelling deficits.

Reagan raised more revenue not by raising tax rates but by making it harder to evade taxes and by reducing the number of tax breaks on the books.
2. We can't move fast enough: For Tea Partiers there's no time like the present to cut spending in the name of fiscal responsibility. But they are coming up against a tough reality.
There is "an unrealistic expectation of how quickly things can change," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group. "Some spending can't be shut off that fast, like a faucet."
That's because some spending cuts could affect benefits that people have come to rely on and changes might need to be phased in slowly to give them time to adjust.
3. Never compromise: The Tea Party freshmen succeeded in pushing House GOP leaders to propose deeper cuts for this year than they originally planned. And that pushed the Senate Democrats to agree to make some cuts, but they've rejected the magnitude of cuts in the House GOP bill.

National debt: 'Time for gridlock is over'

"I don't think compromise right now is the option," Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a GOP freshman from Tennessee, said last week. "What we're asking is not unreasonable. People sent us here. There was a referendum. We were sent here to cut spending."

Walsh from Illinois put it more bluntly to Time magazine: "I came here ready to go to war. ... The people didn't send me here to compromise."

Standing one's ground is one thing. Not being willing to negotiate can create a potentially destructive stalemate that perversely could end up worsening the country's fiscal situation. That's because it can divert energy from more important fiscal matters and possibly create bad blood that will make the much bigger debate over long-term debt reduction that much harder to have.

4. Lifting the debt ceiling is a license to spend more: A number of Tea Party lawmakers claim that raising the debt ceiling will just encourage politicians to spend more. Not raising it, they reason, will force Congress to deal with its spending habits.

"I am not in favor of raising the debt ceiling. In the last 10 years we have raised the debt ceiling 10 times. We are just giving the Congress a license to keep on spending," Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Raise the debt ceiling - or cut $738 billion this year

To the contrary, the need to raise the ceiling reflects previous commitments Congress made to borrow more in the future -- such as the $858 billion tax cut compromise passed in December.

If the ceiling is not raised, that can introduce a host of destabilizing factors that again could make the fiscal situation worse, not better. Among the potential fallout is higher interest rates, which hurt consumers. And if the United States ever defaulted on what it owed, that could rock world markets.

A recent report from the Congressional Research Service noted that if lawmakers didn't raise the ceiling this year, they would need to come up with $738 billion just to meet the country's bills over the next six months. And if they don't raise it by 2012? They'd need to come up with even more.

And all that assumes Congress doesn't commit to any new spending. It just reflects what the country would need to do to meet the old spending commitments on the books