One of the most obvious differences in freedoms is the drinking age. In the US, you cannot have alcohol if you are under 21 years of age. I’m 20 years old now, and I was able to drink beers, wine, and mixed drinks all around Europe without ever being asked for ID. How does that count as “freedom.” The insanity, though, is that I can go to Walmart and buy a rifle just like that, whereas Europe tends to have stricter laws on weapons. As a nation that has stores check if you are over 18 just for buying WD-40 (yes, I was carded at Walmart today for buying WD-40!), you’d think guns would have stricter limitations, but no. You can be trusted with high-power weapons and get shipped off to war, get married, and go in debt once you hit 18, but drinking beer is too dangerous. One claim I even heard in support of the 21 drinking age was that alcohol can damage a developing brain (which develops until you hit 21). Funny though, because a bullet in the brain is a lot worse, but you can be in the military at 18.

Another thing about Europe is a general freedom of speech and the press. The US has clear censorship on broadcast television and radio, and they get away with doing so because they don’t want things that are “obscene.” Funny, I didn’t see an asterisk anywhere in the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Nope, no asterisk. Yet somehow we mustn’t have anything “indecent.” Any American traveling to Europe will be shocked to see nudity on TV around midnight. But Europeans aren’t shocked at all. Kids shouldn’t be up that late, so if they see it than the parents are at fault (or just don’t care. After all, it’s just boobs). Or maybe the definition of decency is different. In the US, we glorify war. Violence doesn’t shock people here, but talk about sex and you’ve brewed up a shit-storm. In Europe, it’s the opposite. Sex is fine, it’s natural, but war and violence is frowned upon.

I’m generally amazed at how Americans think they live in the freest country in the world. They don’t realize that this country is still stuck with puritan laws and mindsets that stifle our basic freedoms of expression. Even with religion, this country barely recognizes gay marriage, let alone gay adoption, and claim grounds on this being a “christian nation.” First off, there’s the freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Next up, Catholic countries in Europe allow gay marriages and even gay adoptions. They’re not morally corrupt, they just don’t have an asterisk next to “free” like the US pretty much has.

Of course, this opens up many questions. If the government pays for your healthcare, then they will start passing laws to prevent people from doing things that will get them sick (smoking, drinking, etc.). I’m not a huge fan of these “nanny laws,” as it’s not really what this country was founded upon.

But what really rubs me the wrong way with this whole debate is how people are going after this topic. It’s like watching children fight. The Republicans are name-calling and saying this is the end of the world. The worst is when they say things like “oh the government shouldn’t get involved in issues like this.” Really? So were they also opposed to No Child Left Behind? Where was their outcry when Bush passed that? Or the PATRIOT Act? And with that logic, they’d be OK with abortion being legal, right (otherwise it’s a healthcare-related law).

While we’re at it, we should repeal Medicare. I hear old people criticize Obama and healthcare, but they get to get a free motorized wheelchair paid for by taxpayers? I’m paying into Social Security, but everyone knows that by the time I get to that age, there will be no money left (this has been said for years). You cannot be against healthcare for all if you reap the benefits of our current Medicare system.

I think a healthcare reform isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If we fix the holes where money is leaking and make the system efficient, we can actually save money in the long run. But if we start making concessions on what should be covered and pass a bill riddled with pork, loopholes, and concessions for the wealthy, then the public will lose in this.

People need to stop picking sides on this issue just because of party lines. Making your argument against healthcare because Obama “is a communist” is stupid and childish. It’s interesting to see the people that were always like “you can’t make fun of the President” and “If you don’t like this country, then leave!” when Bush was in power now do the exact opposite now that a Democrat is in power.

This is all just my opinion as of now. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, and I really don’t think that Obama will drive this country into the ground (we could say Bush did that already…). A lot of people will probably have differing opinions, and I encourage intelligent discussion in the comments. Any comments which are hateful, trolling, or otherwise irrelevant will be deleted.

One thing I realized about the iPad WiFi + 3G (as they’re calling the 3G version) is that one could have it as their only computer for a rather low cost. For about $730, you can get the 32GB 3G version, pay $30/month and have access to the Internet everywhere AT&T has coverage (it seems to be able to revert to EDGE if 3G is unavailable). Pay $30 more and you have a full office suite. This satisfies what most people use netbooks for (web browsing and typing documents). It beats paying $800+ for a laptop plus $60+/month for internet (or even the $40+/month for cable/DSL). Albeit, you can’t multitask and you’d probably want the keyboard as well, but the original iPhone retailed at around the same price, and it didn’t even have the App Store.

The iPad isn’t as revolutionary as Apple made it seem. The iPhone was revolutionary. It brought touchscreen phones a huge boost, and when they opened it up for apps it also revolutionized the industry. Suddenly we have a new job title: iPhone developer. They had designed a system that was intuitive, creative, and successful. The iPad uses the same system, only bigger. Sure, the new apps look nice and with the added real estate, you can do more on the screen, but it’s not a revolution in the industry. If you look at old blog posts rumoring this device, it seems that the “giant iPhone” sentiment was taken as a joke. A family friend of mine joked once at an AT&T store, pointing at the giant iPhone display and asking if she could have that exact phone, since she wouldn’t have to worry about losing it. It took them a while to realize she was joking, but it’s not that funny when they actually make the “giant iPhone (or iPod Touch).”

Many think that Apple is holding out on this release of the iPad in order to release a second generation iPad with camera, faster speed, and whatever else people are asking for. One thing they could be waiting for is the development of 4G/LTE. This could be why the rumored Verizon announcement didn’t happen, since they may be waiting for the second generation to do this, or the June “International Edition” could have CDMA iPhones/iPads, with AT&T ‘s exclusive iPhone contract ending around the same time.

My recommendation on this is to wait. While it is still a cool device and can prove quite useful, it still seems crippled and that a refresh, similar to what they did with iPod Touches (where they added a speaker, side volume controls, Nike+, and it seemed to run better), will make it better. Who knows, maybe the iPhone OS 4.0 will bring multithreading to the iPad and solve at least one concern. I’d give the iPad (with 3G option, otherwise it really is just a giant iPod Touch) a 7/10 for being useful and relatively inexpensive for an Apple product, but it has its flaws and shortcomings, and left a lot of people a bit disappointed.

Design has always been my weak point. I could judge a design on its quality, usability, ease of use, etc., but I don’t possess the creative spark to make my own design for a website. This had been a crippling point for me in my quest to remake my website. I didn’t want simple, childish colors I had in the past (red and blue were dominant on my old websites), and I like my school colors (Black and Gold!), but they, too, wouldn’t make too great of a design, at least in my mind. When I attempted to make a stylesheet on a basic website skeleton, I was getting the technical stuff right, but the colors never worked for me. I tabled the project so many times until now, when I sucked in my pride and went with a WordPress blog.

The result is surprisingly smooth. Any holes on the backend user experience I can fill in with my own technical knowledge, so I don’t feel too frustrated, but I don’t feel like I have more “stuff” than I need. I didn’t need a bloated CMS that had 800 plugins built in, with forums (that nobody would use), wikis, member blogs, complex organizational schemes, etc. I had Drupal before, but upgrading it to the latest version was so complicated, it made installing an OS look much simpler in comparison. WordPress even lets me publish articles at a later date, which will come useful as I plan to release articles weekly, on different days depending on the category.

Being able to focus on content, rather than the layout, control, and inner workings, I can focus on the real purpose behind this website: to share information.  I no longer have to worry about reinventing the wheel, I can now use the wheel to carry the information out to the world.