State of the Union address
I do have to say, I wasn't originally going to watch it, but a friend talked me into watching it. Hawaii had the fortunate opportunity to watch it twice (if one so choose to) since it broadcast live here at 1600 HST, so pretty much when people were getting off of work and then stuck in traffic. I believe we could also watch it during prime time. I watched the live broadcast on cnn.com. The only thing wrong with CNN was that the video occasionally froze and I had to refresh the page. If you did not see the broadcast and haven't read or seen the video yet, you can find it HERE. That link takes you to the White house page with the speech written out, and also a link to the video.
The address itself I would have to say was a motivational speech, given to hopefully inspire Congress and also Americans to get their butts into gear and do something this year (and years to follow). So tax cuts, is the point to just get money into the American's back pocket or to try to save the economy. Don't get me wrong, I know very little about this, but how does tax cuts help with the federal budget. Why would it be smart to lower the income that is received. Isn't the whole point of a budget is the attempt to come out black instead of red? Any basic engineer that knows how to do a balanced equation knows this. I would even go as far as saying that the economist know this as well.
Since production facilities in American have cut down the jobs from 1000 to 100, how are we going to create jobs in the industrial field? Do we build more plants, or will we continue to out source our work to other countries, countries that President Obama stated have "realized that with some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world." In that same line of thought, President Obama then goes on to state, "And so they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. They’re investing in research and new technologies. Just recently, China became the home to the world’s largest private solar research facility, and the world’s fastest computer." I want to focus on the part that "they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science."Where is America in focus in math and science?
To answer this, I would like to refere to Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 prepared for the Presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medice. The report can be found HERE which takes you to a free PDF. Excerpts from the Executive Summary on pages 7-12 give some factoids on where the US stands now. Below are some of the factoids that can be found:
A Few Factoids
- Thirty years ago, ten percent of California’s general fund went to higher education and three percent to prisons. Today, nearly eleven percent goes to prisons and eight percent to higher education.
- The United States now ranks 22nd among the world’s nations in the density of broadband Internet penetration and 72nd in the density of mobile telephony subscriptions.
- In 2009, 51 percent of United States patents were awarded to non- United States companies.
- The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of mathematics and science education.
- Of Wal-Mart’s 6,000 suppliers, 5,000 are in China.
- There are sixteen energy companies in the world with larger reserves than the largest United States company.
- No new nuclear plants and no new petroleum refineries have been built in the United States in a third of a century, a period characterized by intermittent energy-related crises.
- Only four of the top ten companies receiving United States patents last year were United States companies.
- United States consumers spend significantly more on potato chips than the government devotes to energy R&D.
- In 2000 the number of foreign students studying the physical sciences and engineering in United States graduate schools for the first time surpassed the number of United States students.
- Federal funding of research in the physical sciences as a fraction of GDP fell by 54 percent in the 25 years after 1970. The decline in engineering funding was 51 percent.
- GE has now located the majority of its R&D personnel outside the United States.
- Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is now lower than when the first personal computer was built in 1975.
- In the 2009 rankings of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation the U.S. was in sixth place in global innovation-based competitiveness, but ranked 40th in the rate of change over the past decade.
- China has now replaced the United States as the world’s number one high-technology exporter.
- China has a $196 billion positive trade balance. The United States’ bal- ance is negative $379 billion.
- Sixty-nine percent of United States public school students in fifth through eighth grade are taught mathematics by a teacher without a degree or certificate in mathematics.
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. This summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
And now people wonder why President Obama said that China has surpassed us. Ok, enough of politics and what not. The only other comment I have is that President Obama encouraged Congress both Republicans and Democrats do to something, but never really said what HE was going to do to improve things on a larger scale with a definable position and action plan.
Pro Bowl
As some of you watched this weekend, the Pro Bowl was here in Hawaii. Now, the weekend festivities and the week really before the Pro Bowl saw an increase in the amount of large SUVs (that are normally seen on the mainland for football players) increased exponentially it seemed. Crazy parties and fans were all over Waikiki. I was down in Waikiki on Saturday and ended up going to the Pro Bowl Block party. Why not? I don't know when the next Pro Bowl is going to be in Hawaii along with it really is something different that happened on the island. The block party was really more like 8 blocks down in Waikiki. The party started officially at 7pm, but the street was closed at 5pm and the vendors had mostly set up by 5:30pm. Food vendors and ware vendors were both there. Most interesting, but also not very surprising was that a lot of the ware vendors and some of the food vendors that I have seen around the island before marked up their prices just to make a killer profit off of everyone down there at the party.
It was pretty packed down at the block party. The picture on the left is at one of the entrances to the blocked off area. The picture on the right was at the ESPN stage between their interviews. I do have to say that in pretty much all of their (boring) interviews, they were more concerned about asking the interviewee more about who would win the Super Bowl rather than the Pro Bowl game. I guess that's how it goes. There were also random NFL light balloons down the street as seen below. They were actually pretty cool.
I do think the part that most people wanted to see were the Pro Bowl Cheerleaders. Granted I didn't get a good picture of them since no flash, them moving, etc. They did end up walking in front of me at one point when they were traveling from one stage to the next. Security guard/body guard at the front of the line and the back of the line. Pretty entertaining to watch.
I did not go to the Pro Bowl itself, but drove past the "Official" location of the tail gate party. I also tried to stay away from the Aloha Stadium area due to the increase of traffic, crazy drivers, and drunk people. The game itself was pretty boring as well, with the AFC prolonging the game in the final minutes. Football players are pretty apathetic. It will be interesting to see if they go on a lockout with the NFL.
Other events
I had a friend that came out here to visit another one of his friends and also me. He stayed with his friend on Wednesday and Thursday and then stayed with me on Friday and Saturday. When he was with me, I picked him up from Kailua. Since his friend did not have a car, I decide to take the long way back to my place (and to also avoid the horrible traffic since it was rush hour). We took the northern route, pretty much up the Windward Coast, to the North Shore, and back down through Central Oahu. He got to see pretty much 70% of the island on that drive. We went to the worship night at my church. Good times, although I wish that they would intermix some "modern" worship songs into the set, but still good overall. The church provided hot dogs, chili, and rice. It was a good meal as well.
Saturday morning we went to the USS Arizona Memorial. Now I haven't been there in a while and a lot has changed since I last was there. They have upgraded the visitor buildings and have made the place really nice. The actual memorial is a very somber place and it is great that those that survived the USS Arizona and attack on Pearl Harbor are being remembered with their fallen comrades.
The memorial has been made into a larger memorial that includes the USS Oklahoma and the USS Utah Memorials, both of which are located on Ford Island. Those two other battleships sunk during the bombing. Those that do not know what the USS Arizona Memorial looks like, it is the white structure to the right in the picture below. The battleship to the left in the same picture is the USS Missouri, where the Japanese surrendered to the United States.
There is still oil leaking from the USS Arizona and you can see the oil sheen in the picture above. The entire battleship is still in the harbor, although the mast and the con tower have been removed. Some of the ship went to Arizona to be displayed there. The rest of the ship that was removed is somewhere in a temperature controlled facility under lock and key. Don't ask where, because I don't know where it is. The park ranger stated that fact and you have to know someone very high up to get a peak at it. Every day there is a different American flag that is flown above the monument. Colors are at 0800.
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