Daniel-- Give Us Toys, Not Money.

In Sunset Valley TX, which is actually in South Austin, people don't have to pay money for going over the speed limit, instead they can donate toys; unless you where driving recklessly, then you would have to pay the ticket. If you only drove 5mph or less, over the speed limit, you can donate a toy for needy kids. So you can go 5mph over the speed limit, 100 times, and all you have to do is donate 100 toys.

  

 source is from kvue news

Real Live "Furbys" Found

Pygmy tarsier, also called Tarsius pumilus, were "extinct" but some scientists found three of them. They have claws instead of nails on their fingers. They can even spin their heads 180 degrees around! It must have been very exiting for the scientists when they found and trapped an extinct animal! Pygmy tarsiers sound very cool.                                     -Ivy

The Crash!

In San Diego, a fighter jet crash-landed while trying to land on Monday (last Monday). The pilot ejected before the F/A-18 crashed on 11:55 am last week. 2 homes were destroyed but nobody knows if any casualties were taken. An aerial video shows smoke billowing from a large cluster of homes. I personally think that was very horrible, don't you?   

The LHC has problems of it's own

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the biggest particle accelerator in the world. On 9/19/08 the magnets developed a spot of resistance and started to heat up. Their intended temperature was 2 C above absolute zero (0 K, -273.15 C, -459.67 F). As the heat grew the magnets vaporized. Later, when people went in to fix the LHC they found out that a spark might have punctured a cushion of cooled Helium that was keeping the magnets cool. Dr. Gillies has an easy word for all of us,"It's a mess." The incident wasn't tragic. It would have had to shut down in 2 months to save electricity. I am not saying that you shouldn't worry. To fix it, 53 superconducting magnets would have to be brought up 300 feet, fixed or replaced, brought back down 300 feet and after THAT they would have to be cooled to 2 Kelvin! Source: NYTimes 

Elizabeth- Many are Jobless

The government’s report of a giant job loss in November, the biggest monthly decline in a generation, puts more pressure on Congress and the administration to move quickly on a stimulus package, mortgage relief and perhaps financial aid for Detroit’s big automakers.
The nation’s employers cut 533,000 jobs in November, the The Bureau of Labor Statistics. reported Friday. Not since 1974, toward the end of a severe recession, have so many jobs disappeared in a single month — and the current recession, far from ending, appears to be just gathering steam.

“We are caught in a downward spiral in which employment, incomes and spending are collapsing together,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist for IHS Global Insight.
“With private spending frozen, we have no choice but to rely on a stimulus package to revive the economy.”
The unemployment rate rose to 6.7 %, up just two-tenths of a percentage point from October, but up six-tenths over the last three months. More than 420,000 men and women who had been working or seeking work in October left the labor force in November.
More significantly, the unemployment rate does not include those too discouraged to look for work any longer or those working fewer hours than they would like. Add those people to the roster of the unemployed, and the rate hit a record 12.5 % in November, up 1.5 percentage points since September.
Noting that 1.9 million jobs have been lost since the start of the recession a year ago — two-thirds of them since September — President-elect Barack Obama (He-He, I still think that that's funny) invoked public spending as the best way to get a "dead-in-the-water" economy moving again.
“This painful crisis,” he said in a statement, "is an opportunity to improve the lives of ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children, and by investing in clean energy projects. "

Also, I believe Daniel alluded to this but like he said, many of the people in America think that we are going in to another Great Depression.
(That's why we voted for Obama, CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!)

--NYTimes(source)

Jobs Rates Gone Down

Gradually over the past 14 years the unemployed record reached its highest at 6.5%. As of October of this year (when the government reviewed unemployment records) 1.2 million people had lost their jobs. President-elect Barack Obama said, "It's not going to be quick, and it's not going to be easy to dig out of the hole that we're in". Some people think that America is headed towards another depression. Lets hope that Obama can bring us out of these dark times as President Roosevelt did during "The Great Depression".     

An Unlikely Cure: Nature for Lack of Attention

Today I felt sick of politics so I chose to blog about nature. My result for a was about a small test about how different types of nature could affect kids' attention. The kids took 3 walks and between each one they took a test. During the test the kids repeat a sequence of numbers in backwards order. One walk was in a park, another in a residential neighborhood, and another downtown. They did the walks in an order that varied from kid-to-kid; I hope they were days apart because they don't know how long the effects would last. Besides location, no other variables changed. The person they walked with, medications, noise level, time of day, etc. stayed the same. Some things that my source didn't list were elevation and number/size of hills. I hope that they stayed the same too. Many participated but only 17 results were flawless. They didn't list the exact result but their conclusion was that the park worked the best. It worked not only better than the other walks but also better than medicine. Some people such as me don't find this difficult to believe, but people who don't believe in chiropractors probably believe in this either. I would appreciate more evidence because it might contain a few flaws. How do you feel about hearing this?

Please visit my source:
nytimes.com then seacrch nature. Find, A 'Dose of Nature'...

Marine Life in Jepordey

Marine life is in danger! Every breath we take is putting Carbon Dioxide in the air which gos to the sea and when it hits the sea it makes some kind of acid that kills all marine life except acid-tolerant algae. That is very bad because algae takes over.      -IVY

The Idealist

Before the first Gulf War, there was an attack on the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, who was using bombs, bullets, and gas. An idealist tried to get the Reagan Administration to punish the terrorist who was attacking so horribly. You can see a picture of the refugees here. Survivors described, "blinding, burning clouds of poison gas that dropped people in their tracks". Personally, I'd say that it's quite terrible, wouldn't you?