Pentagon shooting..!

On March 5, 2010, John Patrick Bedell walked into the pentagon opening fire on two officers shooting and injuring one. Other officers quickly ran out to help the injured officer and opened fire on Bedell. Bedell was shot twice and taken to the hospital where he later died. This was completely unexpected and shocked many people.

This has caused many people to believe that things like this can be prevented. But the question is, how could it be prevented? They say that more could have been done to prevent it, for example, look at all of his video’s on the popular site you tube. The shooter’s parents warned people about him and told officials that he was considered “dangerous”. Everything was there, it was just the fact that no one thought that the guy would snap and gun down a government guard.

Things like this really can not be prevented. There is no possible way (unless someone gives you an exact date) to tell when some one is going to commit a crime. Everything is unexpected and random. Yes, the guy was considered dangerous, but this does not mean, “Hey watch out he’s going to open fire on the pentagon”. I’m not saying that what the guy said was ok, I’m saying that people need to realize that what he did could not be prevented.

This article applies to what we have been going over in class when it comes to creating a “defendable argument”. The local news stations were the ones claiming that this crime could be prevented and in my opinion it could not be. We do not have the time, people, or money to hire people to look over everyone in the United States to prevent things like this. It is impossible. Anyone who would even believe that it was preventable has no idea how much work would have to be put forth for that.
　
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35716821/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2010/03/06/simon.pentagon.shooter.cnn?hpt=C2

Toyota!?

Many people have heard about the recent Toyota recall on about 4.2 million Toyota vehicles. Toyota has rarely ever been scrutinized for anything they have made and have been known for their reliability for many years. Until recently, Toyota was one of the very few car manufacturers that had not been effected by this recession that the United States has fallen into. Now, they have millions of cars on the road that have to be brought in to be serviced or the owners could face serious injury or even death.

Late last year, Toyota had a recall on the floor mats in many of their vehicles. This recall was due to the floor mats catching on the accelerator pedal causing the car to continue accelerating with out the drivers foot on the actual pedal. This may not seem like a major issue, but it has been the source of many accidents. A good friend of mine works at the local Priority Toyota and told me that they cut the bottom of the gas pedals and took the floor mats out of the drivers side for a quick fix. Recently they have installed clips to hold the mats down, therefore, solving the problem.

The more recent recall has to do with many of the Toyota vehicles getting the accelerator stuck open in return making the car speed off out of control. This problem has killed at least two families in the last few months. Others were more fortunate and were able to regain control before any harm could be done. Because of the severity of this problem, Toyota owners were encouraged to get their vehicles fixed as soon as possible.

Because of this recent recall, Priority Toyota has their employees working twelve hour shifts, and massive amounts of overtime. They went from working the usual eight to four shifts, to running two shifts, one from seven to seven and the other from twelve to twelve. This is costing them money, and at a time like this, no one can afford to loose money.

The recall goes much further than just Toyota, and the driver's of Toyotas. My dad, the owner of Tidewater Auto Auction, has dealers calling him asking him, “Do you allow Toyotas to sell out there?”. Even the used car dealers are having trouble getting rid of them. No matter what year they were made people do not want them anymore. People have lost trust in what was once know as a great car manufacturer. Hopefully Toyota will straighten their reputation out this year or it may cost them everything.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2010-01-21-toyota-recall-gas-pedal_N.htm

Weddings?

Weddings. Some people love them, some hate them, others are in them, I personally have never been to one till this last weekend. The adventure started when my girlfriend opened a wedding invitation that she had received in the mail. She read it allowed and said that here cousin Jake was getting married and he had sent both me and her an invitation.

At first I was skeptical about the whole situation. The wedding was in Richmond, Virginia and required us to stay the night in a hotel. I looked at the situation as my weekend being boring and shot. Considering I had never been to a wedding, I saw it as very boring and drug out way beyond belief. Another factor that I was worried about was the fact that I did not have or ever had a suit of my own. It was Thursday and the we where supposed to leave Saturday at noon, so I had to move quick. I went to Men's Warehouse and they quickly got me fitted for a suit and tailored by Thursday night.

The wedding started at six p.m. and was at a local church in Richmond. After the solid two hour drive we showed up at the ceremony. The whole family and the bride and groom's friends were there. The actual ceremony took around forty five minutes which I was told was a little longer than normal. Over all the ceremony was boring and exactly what I expected.

Next was the reception. Thats where the fun began. The food was incredible, and the drinks were flowing. There was a D.J., and a dance floor filled with the all of the guests, it was awesome. I think the final head count was around a hundred and seventy eight people and every single one of them had a great time. This reception completely changed my outlook on weddings, it was a blast. So next time someone asks me if I want to go to a wedding, I am going to jump on the invitation as fast as possible.

Cell Phone Use While Driving

Since attending Old dominion University, I have been driving from Chesapeake to Norfolk at least three times a week. Before I started school here I had not been to downtown Norfolk more than a few times. But now that it is almost a daily routine have noticed a huge problem, people talking or texting on their cell phones while they are driving.

People are completely clueless on what is going on around them when they are on their phones. They will do a complete lane change without even noticing that they have moved. Its ignorant and very dangerous. In the last few years, a few laws have been passed trying to prevent people from doing this. It is now illegal to text and drive in the state of Virginia, but that is not stopping anyone. You can and will see a number of people texting and driving on a daily bases there is nothing being done to stop it.

The other law that was passed makes it illegal to be on a phone while driving if you are under the age of eighteen. This law is also not helping the problem we face everyday, its not enforced at all. Each year thousands of car accidents are cause by careless drivers that are using these cellular devices, I mean is it really worth the risk of dieing or killing someone?

The laws are not being enforced strictly enough, this needs to change is any progress is wanted. If you get a ticket for texting, you face a twenty dollar fine. You cant even fill up your gas tank for that. It is just a pointless ticket that is more of a waste of time to pay than a lesson learned. This is why people continue to break these laws multiple times daily. I personally am just tired of having to be on the constant lookout for people coming into my lane, hitting my car, or pulling out in front of me. Something has to be done, and the laws need to be enforced more strictly.

the economy

The economy sucks. There's no denying it. For the past year or so, thousands people across America are loosing their jobs each month. Anything from big businesses, to small businesses, sales are down and job loss is up.

Being in college now, I don"t have time to work full time like I did before, therefore I needed a way to make money without taking up all of my day. I searched around, looking for some way to make "quick cash". Well i found it, buying and selling cars. Over the past two years I've owned over thirty cars, and loved every minute of my new found "job". I could buy a car and have it sold within a week, while still making a great profit.

That being said, this was a year or so ago, now with the economy the way it is, I struggle to get a car sold every two months. People have lost jobs, which means loosing their source of income, and in return, makes it near impossible to sell anything these days. I'm hoping that in the next year, the economy will be back to where it was so that I can have some sort of income.