Phones need to be gone!

I was reading one of my collegues blog and the story was that cell phones had been banned while driving vehicles. Statistics said that more than 50% of car accidents are due to drivers being on their cell phones. I'd be a hypocrite if i'd say that people who talk on their cell while driving should be punished. Well lets face it, I do it too and i'm pretty sure everyone else does. With those darn cell phones these day, it seems like the phone is glued to everyone's ear. What's worse is that I even see people texting while driving. Cell phones are a huge distraction while driving and i've seen with my own eyes where people run red lights since they are oblivious to their surroundings.

I researched and found out that not only is the United States trying to ban cell phones, but other countries are doing it as well. I'm curious to find out if banning cell phone usage while driving, means no more off hand phones? What I'm trying to get at is now adays people use headsets, bluetooth, or even install blue tooth into their vehicle to talk without holding the cell phone. Would this effect the same way to distract drivers? In my opinion I think banning cell phones is a good idea. It would probably bring the rates of accidents down a tad bit if people were more aware and focused on the road.

Hurricane Ike Victums

As everyone may know, ever since the big Hurricane Ike hit Texas Coast it has damanged a costly amount of more than 2 billion dollars. Victums of the tragedy are all worried that Federal Emergency Management Agency (F.E.M.A) will not put in money to help aid them. It was stated that within the first month or so when the hurricane had hit Texas, F.E.M.A were going to reimburse Texas 100% of all cost for the damages Ike had done. Currently, residents are still living in their cars, tents, condemned homes or even the streets since they've lost everything. I think too it is unfair that F.E.M.A helped Lousiana when hurricane Katrina had hit, but they are refusing to do the same for us Texans. If F.E.M.A does not help, a lot of residents and homeless people will have a hard time getting back on their feet and continue thier lives.

Cut thier HANDS OFF!!!!

I was reading the blog from Texas Lone Star State and even with legal actions that occur after person gets caught for shoplifting, I personally don't think the law is strict enough. Shop. pers from all over the country tell themselves everytime they come through the store, "hey, man everything is so darn EXPENSIVE!!" Well part of the hugest reason is due to shoplifters. The thief that is doing the work, thinks to themselves "oh its just one item, they have plenty more left" don't realize that actually for every item that is stolen, the store/company loses money for that particular item. Therefore, the next time they do new shipments, those items are now being increased in dollar amounts. So for the people that actually do pay for their items, they get stuck for paying such riduculous amount of money for that one item they've been purchasing for the longest time. I currently work for HEB and know that everysingle day we lose so much money in our store due to shoplifters. The main dept that gets hit the most is cosmetics. We all know that teenagers these days need their certain hygienes. Instead of paying an average of $3-4 for beauty products, they steal the product which makes the average prices increase to about $6-8. Now its almost stupid to even pay for just a plain lipstick tube for $6 dollars. Another increase in products due to shoplifters is food! You will not believe how many people i see at my store, go to the fresh baked goods and eat baked items and never once pay for it at the register. Simply because they don't want to pay $.50 for a doughnut, well guys prices went up to know $.79. You wonder why produce such as grapes, apples , and bananas go up in pricing per lbs. is due to people eating them and not paying for them. Come one folks if you don't have the money to purchase them DON"T EAT THEM! I noticed that the blog "Texas Lone Star State" stated that we should have a law for teens who shoplift, I think we should have a law for ANYONE who shoplifts, cutting off a person hands or fingers is a bit morbid ha ha (although i tried researching which country did that and had no luck) but i think just a slap on the wrist few hundred dollar fine is just plainly NOT ENOUGH!!!! This reminds me that not only are teens highly shoplifting, but adults DO DO IT TOO! I've seen adults getting handcuffed at my Store for stealing. The funniest thing is that they tried to be so slick, they had a basket full of dental hygiene's and they had went to another isle and the wife had stuffed all the products in her purse. Little did they know that they were on camera the whole entire time. After they purchased the remaining items the security and APD police were at the exit doors wainting to handcuff them.

So the point i want to state is that, i think we should make a law that is much more stricter on shoplifting. Will this prevent theft? i think it would decrease the amount much more if people knew that the consequences are much more severe.

Prison Security...Needs to be more secured

A huge lockdown ordered by Gov. Rick Perry was to shake down all prisoned inmates in search for contraband cellphones, narcotics, or any other unacceptable objects that they are not allowed to obtain. Seems like these days prisons have been slacking on their security and surveillance due to not enough officers, underpaid staff, and lack of equipment. DallasMorningNews stated that we ought to have better security to prevent these inmates from possesing these contraband items. The other week StateSenatorJohnWhitmir was infuriated by the fact that a deathrowinmatecalledhisphone and threatned his daughters. How on earth did these phone calls from a celled convict reach Mr. Whitmir? Turned out that one of the prison guards had accepted a bribe from the inmate in return for a cell phone. This particulary cell phone was passed around to other inmates and made over 2,800 calls in the past month. Mr. Whitmir asked the FederalCommunicationComission on why they have not acted to make cell-signal blockers to make cell phones useless, and have only a landline phones. Only a fifth of the prison unit has metal detecters, that tells us that convicts can easily smuggle in narcotic, money, phones, or anything else. Another reason that perhaps convicts have easy access to these objects is due to guards being bribed in allowing these transactions to happen. Perhaps if prison guards are paid more than the starting salary per year of $25,400, guards wouldn't be suckered into these bribes and focus on keeping the units secured. We ought to look into the legislation to see if they could fork out more money for underpaid staff, and more equipment to keep these convicts from contrabanding things from the free world. For the jobs that the prison guards and correctional facilities have to do, they deal with everyday convicts that misbehave by not cooperating, stabbing, fighting, throwing feces, and even spitting on the unit staff. $25 grand a year is not worth working for and that is the reason why the units are way understaffed. Legislation should look into this in funding more money to get this issue resolved!

Exonerations Increasing !!!!

For years, Investigators and District Attorney (D.A) have used many differnt procedures to prosecute criminals. D.A's and Police dept used procedures such as: polygraphys, photo lineup, drive bys, psychological manipulation, sketch drawings, confessions and much more. DallasMorningNews reporters Steve McGonigle and Jennifer Emily (both focuses on Dallas County Crimes) have been ananlyzing recent criminal convictions and realized that DNA testing helped 18 of 19 Dallas County convictions. These DNA testing proved that these convicts were innocent the entire time.
The Unknown author of this article, opinionated that if police dept don't start cracking on a proper procedures to convict a suspect, the States should get involved. JudgeBarbaraHervey began over the summer to sort out breakdowns in justice. Looking over cases and just like D.A Craig Watkins who is currently reviewing 40 different penalty cases in Texas to be sure we have the right guy.
So far Police Dept are still currently using the "drive by" method on picking out a suspect. Drive by is meant for witnesses to be driving past the suspect in a squad car and then to point out "Yes that is him". Within moments the suspect is handcuffed and brought into the station for immediate questioning. Its methods like these that causes society to know that its just so easy to point out a person and state that they committed the crime. A 2005 sudy by Samuel Gross and his colleagues counted 340 exonerations between 1989 and 2003 and notes that these convicts spent more than a total of 3400 years in prison which averages out to about 10 years per person. The Innocence Project that specializes in exonerations via DNA evidence named 7 major causes for wrong convictions. 1. Eyewitness identifications - Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder, we can't rewind our minds or play our minds exactly the way we first see it. This is why it is important to make sure that everything must be correct visual facts. 2. Unreliable scientific evidence. 3. False confessions- sometimes convicts are pressured into confessing even though they did not commit the crime cause they've been tortured or lied to stating they would get less time. 4. Misconduct by forensic scientists- they are not always 100 % sure. 5. Government misconduct - like Peter Limone. 6. Perjury by informants and snitches- Snitchers who snitch for their own benefit. 7. Bad Lawyering- Lawyers who fail to do proper work such as failing asleep during trials, fail to do thorough investigating. So far with all these exonerations, some might get compensated for their time served and some might not.

I think that with technology these days, we are a bit more advance and could hopefully decrease wrongful convictions. No one should serve time like these men, for a crime they did not commit. Its a big no-no to just do random drive bys or single mug shots to identify suspects. As a "procedural" court system, we should have proper procedures in convicting suspects with hard proof evidence. After this whole time my belief was that the court knew what they were doing, apparently not.

Is Mr. Watkins postponing death Penalty? Or is he Really seeking Justice?

After reading the article in the Dallas Morning News, I did quite a bit of critical thinking. A lot actually. Craig Watkins wanted to freeze all 40 death penalty cases, and review each case specifically to ASSURE that we got the right "Guys". Mike Hashimoto believes that if Mr. Watkins thinks that we should re evaluate these cases, he should have found Hard evidence to back up his statement. Yet, Mr. Watkins have not found any cases that are led to prosecutorial misconduct. I think Mr. Hashimoto is trying to see if Mr. Watkins indeed is trying to seek "Justice" or is he just stalling time. What makes me wonder is that, what Led to Mr. Watkins to start thinking that there might be error in these cases? Could it be that he might not agree with the death penalty? Or did he get suckered into some sort of Loop Hole? Whats funny is that, i did indeed look up a news story that Mr. Hashimoto mentioned, The case with Aubrey Hawkins. The "Texas Seven" convicts who escaped from a prison, had came upon a sporting goods store where Officer Aubrey Hawkins responded to a robbery call. While trying to stop the felons, he was shot to death and ran over by the fugitives. When all Six were found (one committed suicide) , the first one to recieve the lethal injection was on August 14, 2008. Michael Rodriguez. Now , there are 5 more left to go, but yet, Mr. Watkins without a doubt knows for sure that these felons committed the crime and are still breathing till this very day. Its kind of difficult to really see if what Mr. Watkins is doing is an act of justice. Does Mr. Watkins really need to go back and re assure that these cases are correct , after the fact that these capitol murders have gone through LONG Jury trials? For the victums family, and loved ones, do they feel at ease that the punishment for what these felons were to deserve have not yet been served? Also, what if? You never know if maybe the prisoner is actully innocent. I think all in the end, if IF a person were to be found Guilty in the end, wouldn't that mean our Governtment is a fault ? Who would we prosecute then?

The stress Asian Parents give us to become something/someone

This article is on how hard and crucial it is that Asian students must strive to become something of themselves as they grow older to complete school for their degrees. Asian parents push their kids to go to school and learn more. The article from the Dallas-Morning news by By HOLLY YAN and STELLA M. CHÁVEZ, described how Chinese students attend school perhaps 6-7 days a week instead of only attending 5 days of school. In doing this, with the extra help and the extra practice on subjects such as Math, English, and Chinese language, students are progressing in school much better and much faster. The Chinese school has proved to help students academically and helped them preserve their culture and language.

Chinese school is not only for Asians, its open to the public for anyone attending elementary all the way thru high school. Jamal Abu 14, attended the Chinese school and he is black. His mother put him in this school to help him with math since he was struggling to understand the subject and now he comprehends the subject much better than before. Doug Wike, sent his two adopted Chinese girls to learn more about their culture and heritage. These schools has been around since the early 1900’s and they’ve still been going on strong helping students improve in school.

I think this article is worth reading because maybe students should if time allowed, study more. Not only does it help students improve on their academic skills, it'll help them prepare for college. Its interesting how many different perception you can take on this matter. Some parents beleive sports is the key to success, other parents think books and focusing on class is the key to their childs success. It all depends.

Here is the article, and take a look at the video yourself.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/092108dnmetchineseschools.1a39281.html