Students Could Cost Parents Home

In Sarasota, skipping school is a habit that many students of Sarasota, Booker and Riverview high schools share. The agency in charge of providing homes for the lower-class families has released a plan to solve the issue: If your students do not show up in class, you will be evicted. Sarasota is the first city in the state of Florida to introduce this new law. Famous radio star, Bubba The Love Sponge, stated that "Maybe it will piss people off enough that they'll actually get off the public dime, so they don't have to answer to the government. Probably not.” I believe that this is a good idea to get students to stay in school, but the parents can only do so much. The parents can make sure that their kids get to school, but will the students actually stay? Does it then become the school's responsibility? Or if the kids leave campus under school hours, do the parents still lose their homes? There are a lot of questions that have been left unanswered and I feel that this is a law that should've been thought through a little bit more.

Al-Qaeda Leader, Osama bin Laden, "Brought To Justice"

As we have all heard by now, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, or just Osama bin Laden, was killed by a group of Navy SEALS late last night night. After years of planning, CIA opperatives tracked a trusted Al Qaeda courier to bin Laden's hiding place. Although there was no proof of bin Laden's presence, President Barack Obama gave the order for the team of Navy SEALS to invade the million-dollar compound. Once in the compound, the SEALS began exchanging fire with bin Laden himself, and three others. The Navy SEALS demanded that bin Laden surrender, but when bin Laden began to fire his weapon, he was shot in the head, and shot once more to ensure his death. DNA results have come back confirming bin Laden's body. I belive that this particular topic is a toss-up, meaning it has it's goods and it's bads. It is an incredible feeling, knowing that the mass-murdering terroist bin Laden has finally been taken down after 10, very painful years. But on the flip-side, does this mean that al-Qaeda has been eliminated? Or does this mean that a more deadly and terrofying terorrist will take the reigns of al-Qaeda. How will al-Qaeda respond? I can only hope that this truly is the END of the war, the end of al-Qaeda, and we can bring our troops home.

Father Using Son To Cover Own Tracks?

Troy Bailey Sr., father of Troy Bailey Jr., dialed 911 frantically after his son shot and killed his mother, Julia Bennett. He stated that he accidently left the gun in reach of his son, his son picked up the gun and pulled the trigger. Neighbors, friends and relatives refuse to believe that the two year old Bailey Jr., could’ve picked up the 3-4 lbs. gun.
                “We’re not buying it,” said Hugh Pearce, Bailey Jr.’s uncle. “We just don’t think it happened that way… But we want to see the police finish their investigation.”
                I personally do not believe that a toddler can pick up a 3.5 lbs. gun, hold it, and fire it as well. Police are still trying figure out if this is an accident, or if the father shot the mother, and used his son to cover it up.
                Neighbors stated that police questioned the child and swabbed his mouth and checked his hands for gun powder residue. Police are also investigating the vantage point to determine if the bullet came from a shorter or taller height.
                As of right now, the boy is in the custody of Bennett’s sister Angela Thompson. “He asks about his mom,” said Thompson.
                Troy Bailey Sr., the father, is not aloud contact with his son, as police are still investigating the incident.

All Games Aside

Yesterday, American rapper, The Game, was detained after entering Canada as a part of his music tour. The Game, who's real name is Jayceon Terrell Taylor, is being detained in Canada for two weeks to process his inadmissibility. But why? According to TMZ.com, The Game was denied access into the country due to his ties with the 'Bloods' street gang. A representative of Substance Entertainment Group - the promotion company of The Game's Canadian tour - stated that, "concert organizers secured all permits and approval to get Game into the country." The west coast raper form Compton, California tweeted Wednesday that he will be detained for 14 days before being heard by a judge and that, "at that point the judge will decide either to deport me or give me a sentence for violating Canada's immigrant entry laws." He went on to state his opinion on the matter, using his wide variety of obscene profanity. While The Game believe's that Canada is violating his rights, someone should remind him that Canada does background checks when entering the country. If you have a criminal background, you will be denied access into Canada. The Game has had several encounters with the law including an assault charge, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and a felony weapons charge after a pick-up basketball game (I take it he lost?). The loud-mouth west coast rapper has nothing to complain about, especially if his court date goes in his favor and judges deport him back to the United States.

Duck, Duck, Snooze?

This Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fired another air traffic controller for catching some Z's on the job. It happened around midnight at the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center. One of the other controllers noticed his sleeping colleague and reported the incident to the manager. While no aircraft calls were missed, this is the seventh time this year that an air traffic controller has been caught sleeping on the job, all of which happened during midnight shifts. The other similarity between the incidents is that all of the controllers  went to sleep deliberately. Controllers have been caught napping in Washington D.C., Knoxville, Seattle, Reno two cases in Lubbock, and now Miami. The FAA believes that fatigue and scheduling have played major roles in the recent outburst of job snoozers. FAA Administrator, Randy Babbitt and head of controller's union, Paul Rinaldi will begin a tour of many major air traffic control facilities. Their first stop will be at an Atlanta regional radar facility. 
"We are taking swift action to ensure the safety of our aviation system," said Ray LaHood, transportation secretary. "There is no excuse for air traffic controllers to be sleeping on the job. We will do everything we can to put an end to this."
I believe that making SCHEDULED visits to SOME major air traffic control facilities will not have any effect on this issue. That's like trying to throw a surprise birthday party for a psychic. He's going to act surprised, but he knew it before he even walked into the room. Visits shouldn't even matter in the first place. What are visits going to do, even if they are by surprise? Assuming you catch another guy sleeping on the job, you fire him, and don't teach anybody a lesson. I believe that they should shorten the hours of these workers or have the managers do consistent report-ins to ensure that his control guys aren't sleeping. This is a situation that should probably be handled. I mean after all, these are the guys that pilots count on to let them know if they're going to hit another plan or not.

Glee Star Gives Row Team Donation

I think that the Glee star, Jane Lynch's doation is not only a good thing for the row team, but a good thing for all of the other students. The row team probably doesn't receive that much attention and support from fellow students. Maybe when the students find out that a Golden Globe winner is donating money to us, they might want to check it out. It can also bring good publicity to our row team as well.

Fallen Officers

I believe that the parents of Nicholas Lindsey should not be held fully accountable for their son's actions. Although the parents probably should have found out that something was bothering their son, they had nothing to do with his actions. The person that should be held accountable is Lindsey, obviously, and whomever encouraged the shooting by giving him the gun. I think that the parents should of been more aware of their son's problems and probably should have solved it with the school, police officials or the officer himself. I don't think that if the officer had on his bullet-proof vest, things would've been different. If he had on the vest, and then got shot, things would just be flipped around because the officer would've then shot the student and we would be wondering if the officer handled the situation correctly. I personally believe that the break out of fallen police officers is an issue that the state and even the country (We're not the only state with this issue) should bump up this issue towards the top of our priority lists. Police officers have been protecting us from criminals for a long time, and now we need to do something to help protect them.