Ridiculous Griffin

Scary News for Small Businesses in NY

The reason why small businesses in NY can do better than other small business might be because they are not many Wal-Mart in New York. Wal-Mart tried to open store in New York already but they have failed.

Now it is back, and mounting an aggressive campaign to crack the country’s largest urban market. Wal-Mart is looking at properties in each of the five boroughs and has hired Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s former campaign manager, Bradley Tusk, to help coordinate its lobbying efforts.

They are desperate to open stores in Queens and Staten Island and since people are crowded in New York, they are going to make hell of a money if they success in this campaign. However, if they open, many sole proprietor will suffer and end up closing their store, because they cannot compete with Wal-Mart's low price.

What are American Soldiers suppose to do?

America soldiers are still fighting hard for their own country, they are doing their best to follow their orders, but it is not easy for them to follow it, when they do not really know the enemy. And because they do not know the enemy, they cannot just open fire at anyone because they might be civilian.

Six American soldiers were killed and more than a dozen American and Afghan troops were wounded on Sunday morning when a van packed with explosives was detonated at a new jointly operated outpost in southern Afghanistan.

If they go soft on the Afghanistan, more America soldiers are going to die. I am not saying they should just shoot at every Afghanistan they see, but they have to come up with some kind of plans to identify their identity, or some sort of things.

Dell is about to make a big move

Dell, the third largest computer company, is in talks to buy Compellent Technologies, which is a data storage company, after losing bidding war over 3Par to HP. 

The company announced today that it’s in talks to acquire Compellent for $27.50 a share in cash, valuing the business at about $876 million. The companies declined to comment further, saying no agreement has been reached.

 Compellent's stocks are going to go up by high if they agree to this deal, and I think it is going to happen, soon or later. It would be wise to buy Dell or Compellent right now, before Dell buy them.

What is this E-books going to do?

Barnes and Nobles, ordinary book store came up with the E-book with the touchable and color screen for the E-book users.

Well, it’s time for some progress. Barnes & Noble’s new Nook Color ($250) is the first big-name e-book reader with a color touch screen. It has confusing aspects, but it’s light-years better than last year’s slow, kludgy black-and-white Nook. (The company says the new Nook was designed by a new team, based in Silicon Valley and composed largely of former Palm employees.)

It does look handsome, but I do not think they are going to sell a lot of product because why would people buy that when there are Ipad and Galaxy Tap. Compare to them, it has no special feature, and Ipad and Galaxy Tap has all the features that Nook Color has, but more.

Mental Health Break

Twitter problem

This will never happen in America because the United State is the land of the freedom, which means they have right to say whatever they want. However, Chinese do not have that right. And like Facebook, China blocked the twitter, so people cannot have freedom of speech, but this woman is imprisoned for re-twitting. 

A Chinese woman was sentenced to one year in a labor camp on Wednesday after she forwarded a satirical microblog message that urged recipients to attack the Japanese Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, human rights groups said Thursday. The woman, Cheng Jianping, 46, was accused of “disturbing social order” for resending a Twitter message from her fiancé that mocked young nationalists who held anti-Japanese rallies in several cities last month. The original message sarcastically goaded protesters to go beyond the smashing of Japanese products and express their fury at the heavily policed expo site.

She used the twitter by burrowing beneath the government's firewall and I do not understand why she had to use twitter so badly. I think imprisoning her for a year for twitting is kind of harsh, but she needs some punishment because she disobeyed the law.

Ireland in big trouble

Ireland have never accepted any financial aids from any country before. But this time, they are looking for help from other countries and group like International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank because they cannot bailout by themselves.

 Ireland had been reluctant to accept any bailout that came with strings attached. But on Thursday, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told the Irish Parliament that it would be a “very desirable outcome” if a contingency capital fund could be established with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Ben May, an economist with Capital Economics in London, said the size of any bailout would depend on what the examiners found on the books of the Irish banks. He said that 60 billion euros ($82 billion) might suffice if it was to cover only the government’s financing needs for the next few years but that more might be necessary to have firepower in reserve.

I personally do not understand why Ireland did not get loan from IMF or other countries earlier, but I think it is really good they are trying to get loan from them because South Korea was once in a financial deficit, and overcame it by getting loans from IMF. Of course it does not mean they are going to be a strong nation again, but they at least get a shot at becoming better country than they are right now.

Some School Needs Students

Not Like Acalanes High School, schools in Maine needs many students, so they are going for a Chinese students. There, of course, are some reason why people does not move to that area, but they want people to come to their school.

 Kenneth Smith, the schools superintendent, is so certain that Chinese students will eventually arrive by the dozen — paying $27,000 a year in tuition, room and board — that he is scouting vacant properties to convert to dormitories. On Friday, Dr. Smith left for China, where he is spending a week pitching Stearns High to school officials, parents and students in Beijing, Shanghai and two other cities. He has hired a consultant to help him make connections in China, lobbied Millinocket’s elected officials and business owners to embrace the plan and even directed the school’s cafeteria workers to add Chinese food to the menu.

I personally think Kenneth Smith made a smart move, because no matter what they do, he knew Americans will not go to that place where there are hour’s drive from the nearest mall or movie theater, or that it gets an average 93 inches of snow a year.He found a perfect alternative to get his school running, even if it means they have to bring foreigners to their school.

Jerry Brown's New Advertisement

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman are still competing over the Governor. I do not know who is going to win, but I like this new Ad that came up by Jerry Brown.



This Advertisement show us that Meg Whitman came to California 30 years ago, when Jerry Brown was a Governor,  and I think she kind of admits Jerry Brown's ability of governing a state.

Mental Health Break

Chinese Stealing Talented American

The United States' Silicon Valley is known to the world as a world of technologies. However, the this might change as the Chinese company, Huawei Technologies, is trying to hire engineer from Silicon Valley.

This spring, an executive from a Chinese telecommunications equipment company made an intriguing job offer to a Silicon Valley software engineer. The Chinese company, Huawei Technologies, wanted to get into the booming market for Internet-based computing, and it had just moved its United States research headquarters here to capture some of the best local talent.

They are not recruiting few engineers, they are willing to hire almost every people from Silicon Valley. 

“How many engineers would you like for your team? Several hundred? That’s not a problem,” the recruiter said, according to the engineer.

 It sure is great opportunity for the software engineers,  and we cannot say anything about that Chinese company recruiting talented American. However, if Silicon Valley does not do anything to prevent this from happening not only losing money, America will lose their future.

LimeWire is About to be Disabled

LimeWire was a software I used to use to download musics, although I knew it will cost lot of musicians money. However, people who still uses LimeWire might have to find other software to download musics because it is about to be Disabled.

A federal judge in New York issued an injunction on Tuesday that will essentially shut down LimeWire, the big music file-sharing service that has been mired in a four-year legal struggle with the music industry. The case has already resulted in the company and its founder being found liable for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

 Even though using LimeWire is a great software to get a free song, but I do believe it needs to be disabled because its costing musicians' money and if they keep on losing money, they, someday, might stop making musics and we do not want to see that happen.

Mental Health Break

Mental Health Break



 Kobe putting everybody on the clinic

Attack Leading to the Deal

Recently, the United States did not do anything but defending themselves. Sure, the troops are in other country, but in reality, they are not doing anything aggressive. Therefore, it seemed like the war is never going to end. However, America will no longer wait for them to attack them, it's time to finish the job.

And it seems increasingly clear that he is partly using the attacks to expand a parallel path to the end of the war: an American-led diplomatic initiative, very much in its infancy but ultimately aimed at persuading the Taliban — or large parts of the movement — to make peace with the Afghan government.

Because of those aggressive moves, the U.S. and Taliban are approaching to the new deal. If they stopped from being defensive, but being offensive, they could have reached the new deal sooner than this. Even if they do not reach the new deal this time, this proves that Taliban are still afraid of the U.S. so they should keep attack them until they surrender.

Time to Drive Electric Cars?

First electric cars came out a while ago. However, not many people bought it because it was too small, or they just did not like the design. So, some company came up with new electric cars that actually has a lot of space and looks cool. However, many people are afraid to buy the care because  the car itself cost a lot of money and

Buying the charger and having it installed will average $2,000 (Nissan says $2,200), but there are many important variables that could raise the price quite a bit from there. Richard Lowenthal, chief executive of the charging company Coulomb Technologies, said that in extreme cases major wiring upgrades and installation of new panels could cost as much as $10,000. 

Unless people come up with the new ways to reduce the cost of installation, no one, except rich people, could afford to drive the electric cars, which means even though many people care about the environment, simply cannot afford to save the earth. I think government should support the electric cars industry or that charging companies, so they can lower the price of their product.

Reward for Being Patient

33 Chilean was trapped in the mine tunnel for more than 2 months. However, they have managed to get rescued by the government by being patient. They survived from that horrible incident, and they are about to get surprise present. NY Times said,

Leonardo Farkas, a Chilean businessman, has already written checks of five million pesos, or about $10,460, to each of the 33 men. Mr. Farkas, an eccentric mining entrepreneur known across the country for his philanthropy and long blond hair, went ahead with the donations as a way of helping the men ease into their new lives. 

And they also get a free vacation in Greece. I really think they deserve that money and a vacation, because they have motivated a lot of people who was in a desperate situation like them. And they need to relax for a while, because they were under a lot of stresses for last 2 months. There are no doubts that they do not deserves that money.

Silicon Valley’s Solar Innovators Retool to Catch Up to China

Tom Friedman talked about the importance of environment. And attempt of using the renewable resource, fuels from the heaven, are necessary to this country. And this could make our country to be more green and efficient. NY times reporter, Tood Woody says,

Founded by veterans of the Valley’s chip and hard-drive industries, these companies attracted billions of dollars in venture capital investment on the hope that their advanced “thin film” technology would make them the Intels and Apples of the global solar industry.

Solyndra came up with a new technology that would reduce the price of the solar power technology, and this could lead the America to be number one again. And not only that, Solyndra is not outsourcing the jobs to the foreign countries. This kind of proves that Tom Friendman's idea, code green, will lead the United States to be a number one nation again.

My Political Lean

My result for the political philosophy quiz is moderate. 



   The Quiz

The following are your scores. They are based on a gradual range of 0 to 12. For instance, a Conservative/Progressive score of 3 and 0 will both yield a result of social conservative, yet 0 would be an extreme conservative and 3 a moderate conservative

Conservative/Progressive score: 5
You are a social moderate. You think the progressive movement is overall well meaning, but sometimes it goes too far. On issues like abortion and affirmative action, you see the negatives of both extremes on the issue. You probably value religion, but at the same time you think it should still stay separate from the government

Capitalist Purist/Social Capitalist score: 8
You are a Moderate Capitalist. You support an economy that is by and large a free market, but has public programs to help people who can't help themselves or need a little help. Pretty much you believe in the American economy how it currently is.

Libertarian/Authoritarian score: 5
You're a Moderate. You think that we all have certain inalienable rights that must be protected, but that sometimes laws need to be made to protect the majority's lives or quality of lives. You might think that the 2nd amendment isn't necessary anymore because letting everyone a gun is extremely dangerous to the community. You might also be against illegal drug use or public pornography because of its possible harmful effects to society.

Pacifist/Militarist score: 4
You're a Moderate. You think that in very rare occasions, the United States should invade a country in order to make the world better by spreading democracy or ending a tyrants rule. You also think that defense is very important, and we shouldn't lower the defense budget. You think that, while the Iraq War probably was a mistake, that we can make the world a better place by sticking with it and spreading democracy in the middle east.

Overall, you would most likely fit into the category of Moderate

Senator John McCain defending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

For the first time, I agree with him. When people are about to die, or in danger, they don't ask if the person who is trying to help them is gay or not, all they want is help from someone else. However, the way Senator John McCain answers the question kind of bothers me, because he would not pay attention to other people's opinion, but I think he got the point.

More Discrimination at Work

After 9/11, many people got defensive and discriminated Muslims. It's been 9 years since September 11 attack had occurred in the United States, but people are still discriminating Muslims at work.

At a time of growing tensions involving Muslims in the United States, a record number of Muslim workers are complaining of employment discrimination, from co-workers calling them “terrorist” or “Osama” to employers barring them from wearing head scarves or taking prayer breaks. Such complaints were increasing even before frictions erupted over the planned Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, with Muslim workers filing a record 803 such claims in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009. That was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to federal data.The number of complaints filed since then will not be announced until January, but Islamic groups say they have received a surge in complaints recently, suggesting that 2010’s figure will set another record.

 I know people are still upset about September 11 attack, and they have right to be angry, but they should not express their feelings. Not only government, the people are not letting other birds to fly in, but instead, they are making them to fly away from America. And if people does not stop this soon, I think America will lose many brilliant people, and more and more people will hate America and possibly become terrorist to get revenge on the society.

Reducing Obesity or Reducing Hunger?

Kids are getting fatter and fatter everyday, and trying to reduce the childhood obesity, the senate passed the bill, which deals with that problem, in early August. Some people are happy about it, but some others are not.

At issue is how to pay for additional spending on the school lunch program and other child nutrition projects eagerly sought by the White House. A bill that the House is expected to consider within days would come up with some of the money by cutting future food stamp benefits.

Since the government does not have a lot of money, they have to cut future food stamps benefit, then it creates a massive problem to the people who does not make a lot of money to support their family.However, I do believe the bill, which is strongly suggested by Mrs. Obama, is really necessary for kids, but now is not the right time to do it. We should take care of the people who cannot get food first.

Overpopulation might get worse

The Book, Big, Flat, and Crowded, by Tom Friedman also talked about the earth getting overpopulated, and this article, from NY Times, says, it might get worse.

Today the fertility level in China is around 1.7 children per woman. if China were to relax its one-child policy, then it’s reasonable to expect that fertility would rise. How much? Well, if fertility increased to replacement level of 2.1 (an increase of just under a half a child), which is not unreasonable given desired family size, the country’s annual number of births would increase by nearly 30 percent, or approximately five million additional births. By midcentury, this would add up to nearly a quarter-billion more Chinese than currently projected by the U.N. And given China’s impact on the environment, especially greenhouse gas emissions, this change of policy clearly portends a great deal.

 If Chinese start to give birth to more than one child, the world would get too crowded, so the the fuel from the hell would be gone sooner than we expected. I am not saying they do not have right to give birth to more than one child, but that sounds kind of scary.

The reason why the U.S. shoul use less fossil fuels

The main reason of greenhouse effect, CO2, is keep increasing because the world is getting flatted. And Tom Friedman said the reason why the world is heating up faster than ever is caused by India, and China's economy growth, and in this article, Yu Qingtai said,

When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, we cannot only look at the current situation and ignore history, nor look at overall emissions and ignore per capita figures. China’s accumulated emissions account for only 7% of the global total. Emissions are caused by consumption of energy, and this is the foundation of social development. As a Chinese person, I cannot accept someone from a developed nation having more right than me to consume energy. We are all created equal – this is no empty slogan. The Americans have no right to tell the Chinese that they can only consume 20% as much energy. We do not want to pollute as they did, but we have the right to pursue a better life.

According to this, American just cannot blame other country for using a lot of fossil fuel, because America consumes most of the fossil fuel from all around the world. Telling other countries not to consume use as much fossil fuel as the U.S. is really selfish of them, because they do not have right to interfere other countries business.

Look at this doubters

Again, I am using Portugal's recent success of not using a lot of Fossil Fuels to support Tom Friedman's book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. And this article from NY Times shows how they managed to succeed that.

Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves. 
Today, Lisbon’s trendy bars, Porto’s factories and the Algarve’s glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.
Land-based wind power — this year deemed “potentially competitive” with fossil fuels by the International Energy Agency in Paris — has expanded sevenfold in that time. And Portugal expects in 2011 to become the first country to inaugurate a national network of charging stations for electric cars.

 Portugal succeed to use less fossil fuels by using the fuels from the heaven, such as solar, wind, and water power. If Portugal was managed to succeed that, then I think America can succeed in using less fossil fuels as well.

Europeans are stepping up

In the Book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Tom FriSolar panels at a plant in Freiberg, Germany. Germany is the world’s largest solar market.edman mentioned about Denmark using Taxation to stop people from using a lot of gift from the hell. And not only Denmark, France are using more and more renewable resources, gift from the heaven, every year, and i thought, "Hey, they are actually a lot of Europe countries that are going for the reusable energy in Europe country."after reading this article from NY Times.

Europe’s evolution toward a heavier reliance on renewable energy is nicely documented in a report released this week by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. The study, “Statistical Aspects of the Energy Economy in 2009,” provides a wealth of interesting detail without a lot of editorializing.
From 2008 to 2009 alone, the use of renewable energy in the European Union increased 8.3 percent. As I’ve reported as part of our continuing series, “Beyond Fossil Fuels,” some countries have made particularly great strides in this arena. Portugal now gets nearly 45 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, up from 17 percent five years ago.
The Eurostat report found that the production of energy from hard coal and natural gas showed an “important decrease” (9.2 and 10.1 percent, respectively). To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the European Union is also aggressively pushing its members to cut back on their use of coal.

European countries are trying really hard to make world cleaner and by using those renewable resources, they proved that they are stepping forward every year, so they get richer every year, but America is not doing anything but keeping walking in the same place.

Do you still think Global Warming is a myth?

Although many scientist proved that global warming is real deal, and earth is getting hotter everyday, there are always some people who does not believe in that because some area is getting colder.

Tibet’s high-altitude meadows disappear as global warming and overgrazing accelerate desertification. “Once the grasslands are destroyed, they rarely come back,” a Chinese official says. [The Guardian]
The Amazon River drops to its lowest level in 40 years, causing transportation chaos. [The Telegraph]

It is too late to restore the things we had already done to this planet, however, it is not too late to stop global warming from getting worse, so people have to realize now that the global warming is a real, and do something about it. From NY Times.

People are training for green jobs right now!

 Tom Friedman said the united states should go with "Code Green", to make the world healthier and that is the way for United States to be in the center of economy of the world again. And this article, from NY Times, proves that the government is trying to go with "Code Green."

The federal government is pouring $500 million into training for green jobs, and the sector devoted to energy efficiency is estimated to grow as much as fourfold in the next decade, to some 1.3 million people, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Its March 2010 report was financed by the Energy Department. Green-collar jobs have grabbed the public’s attention, and educational institutions are starting programs to train the managers who will oversee the technologies, manufacturing processes and materials that will be used to conserve energy and help safeguard natural resources.

The government are starting to realize how important is the "code green" is to United States. But unfortunately, not many people wants to take that class because they do not always lead to employment in the current economy.If company realize how important the "code green" is, then someday, they might lead the employment in the United States.

You can change the world, too

Tom Friedman said, world is getting hotter everyday, and one of the main cause of the greenhouse effect is the carbon dioxide (CO2) which is created by human. This article tells us the things we could do to make Earth healthy.

The third consecutive Spare the Air Day was called for Friday as hot, stagnant air remained in the Bay Area.
Both Wednesday and Thursday were also Spare the Air days, after a cool summer had brought only two before this week
With ozone levels in the air expected to approach unhealthy levels, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District declared a Spare the Air day for the region.
The agency encourages people on Spare the Air days to take bikes, public transit or carpools instead of driving solo, to cook indoors rather than barbecue, and to avoid using aerosol sprays and gas-powered gardening equipment.

 We could prevent releasing a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide by following those suggestions. I think the citizen of the United States cannot just rely on government to solve this environment problem, so we have to act first, show government how much we care about the environment, and then eventually, they will use some money on this situation.