Lower Crime Rate

The article in focus this week in the Star Tribune was about how crime has decreased in Hennepin County. There has been a certain name given to Minneapolis which is not a favorable one which is murderapolis, because of much of the crime. With the news of a lower crime rate I was very pleased. The reason for this decrease in crime was due to a new taskforce according to Sheriff Rich Stanek. This taskforce arrested a total of 60 people, and confiscated 54 guns. A lot of money was also taken from criminals who sell drugs. Stanek says that there are more criminals who are growing marijuana, and he basically compares these farmers with those who are brewers of beer. What I found rather concerning was how other counties feared that criminals will head toward their areas; I mean what do these guys want to keep Hennepin County in bad shape so they could have paradise. Stanek’s new taskforce also took a new approach to gangs; as opposed to arresting individual gang members the taskforce uses past records to arrest groups. Perhaps the most surprising news from this article is what Stanek also credits the recent crime drop which is the collapse of the 35W Bridge. With no explication of this I would have to assume that the bridge was needed by crime to deliver drugs but since the bridge collapsed criminals could not adapt. Overall I am very pleased with this news because people need a society that has no crime I just hope that this recent decrease in crime will pave the way for that.

Face Value part 2

For Today’s article I wanted to continue my piece about how few Venezuelans support changes to the Constitution. I decided to continue because of another article I read from the LA Times which was not in the Star Tribune un-like my previous one was. This article from the LA Times talked about how Chavez, president of Venezuela thinks he is God now. I first just wanted to know what exactly Chavez said, and when I found out what he said in the article it was not the same as what the headline on the LA Times said. Both articles from the Star Tribune and LA Times have many things in common, most important they both jump at the opportunity to make Chavez look bad based on opposition views and/or less than credible sources like the pollsters. The headline on the LA Times article reads “SOTTO VOCE: Chavez on the Cross”, and the article begins with “Guess who thinks he’s God?” Chavez compared his situation to what Christ’s, which is far from saying that he is God. To say the truth there are many people through out history that have suffered (like Peter, one of Jesus’ first disciples), not as much as Christ though. Even if Chavez said this (because I would not be surprised if LA Times misquoted Chavez) the statement is far from saying that he is God. Another piece in this article that I found rather far from the truth is when LA Times called him a “benevolent dictator” even though Chavez was first elected by a majority of Venezuelans, was brought back after the coup attempt in April 2002 by a majority of Venezuelans, was voted to stay in power by a majority, was again voted in by a majority for a new term, and the proposed changes to the constitution was approved by a majority in congress. So is there something missing, I did not know that being voted democratically to office makes you a dictator.

Face Value

The article that was of interest to me this week was about how few Venezuelans support changes to the Constitution. This article cites two pollsters that show Chavez (current president of Venezuela) losing support from 69% and to 61% and how the opposition has gained from 21% to 29%. A recent newcomer to the opposition was Raul Baduel a former defense minister of Chavez who also helped him return to power after the April 2002 coup attempt on him but now advocates for a coup on Chavez now. Both pollsters say that Chavez’s reforms will pass because of low turnout from the opposition side. If all this information is taken at face value then it is very interesting how still a majority supports Chavez, and that Chavez is looked upon as a dictator to the minority (29%) and how many senators and congressmen in the US support any attempt in his defeat, as they also did in April 2002 according to the article “Venezuela Between Ballots and Bullets”. Although claimed by the Los Angeles times as being independent pollsters Alfredo Keller and Luis Vicente Leon have been shown to be rather anti Chavez instead of being biased. Alfredo has been quoted to say in reference to the current situation between the opposition and Chavez to the LA Times “a fight to the death…between two counter-posed ideological forces: an authoritarian socialism with a spirit of revenge against a democracy that is open to the market.” Luis is less of an anti Chavez if he is one at all compared to Alfredo, although several articles name him “opposition pollster”. The basic truth is that the Star Tribune article should not be taken at face value.

Black Holes

The article that I read was about super massive black holes. Prior to the mid 90s it has been theorized that super massive black holes (big as distance between mars and the sun) exist in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This theory was confirmed in 1994 by the Hubble space telescope. Presently new techniques helped astronomers like Andrea Ghez take a better look at the center of our galaxy. Her results showed that several suns are revolving rather quickly around what is believed to be a black hole. The new theory presently to explain why there is a black hole at the center of our galaxy is that all galaxies have them and they are involved in the creation of galaxies. This is a very interesting article because for a long time black holes where looked as science fiction. They are very interesting perhaps because black holes can be considered one of the most mysterious things in the universe. According to this article black holes eats and spits out materials, for a while I believed that they just ate. Basically if there is an object too close to a black hole it then gets caught in its gravitational pull and goes in to the event horizon (the area around a black hole) and is never seen again. The mysterious part of all this is what exactly happens to that object when it disappears from view. According to the laws of Thermal dynamics energy can not be created or destroyed but rather changed into another form. My personal opinion is that black holes are not responsible for the creation of galaxy. I based on another law of science that states “everything tends towards disorder.” Black holes destroy, so in my view something that destroys is not responsible for creating something the opposite of disorder, but I do believe that black holes play an important role in the function of a galaxy.