United States leading in Medal Count

For more than a week now Vancouver Canada has been hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. And as of today the United States holds a slim medal lead over Germany.

G S B Total
1, United States 7 8 10 25
2. Germany 7 9 5 21
3. Norway 6 3 5 14

Some of the highlights for the U.S so far

> Bodie Miller (DownHill Sking)finally takes the Gold after a dissapointing 2006 Torrino Olympic showing
> U.S Men's Hockey upsets heavily favored Canada 5-3 to take the number one seed into elmination tournament.
> Apollo Ohno wins winter Olympics record six medalsin Speed Skating.
> Snow Boarder Shaun White wins Gold again

U.S Hockey plays its next game Wednesday against an opponent yet to be determined. Among other events still ahead for team U.S.A lies men's arieals(free style skiing), couples and individual figure skating, bobsled, women's speed skating, and ski jump.

Macroeconomics and Microeconomics

Economics is a broad subject that can be divided into two areas: Macroeconomics and Microeconomics

Macroeconomics is the big picture. Its the study of the aggregate performance of the economy.

- Macroeconomists througly study the GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
- Inflation Rate
- Unemployment rate

Microeconomics is the study of decisions that people and businesses make regarding the allocation of resources and prices of goods and services.
- Supply and Demand
- Oppurtunity Cost

Microeconomists are concerned with the interaction between individual buyers and sellers and the factors that influence the choices made by buyers and sellers.

It is important to know that while these two studies of economics appear to be different, they are actually interdependent and complement one another since there are many overlapping issues between the two fields. For example, increased inflation would cause the price of raw materials to increase for companies and in turn affect the end product's price charged to the public.

Video

Erik H. Erikson's Eight Stages of Devlopment.

Erik H. Erikson believed that personality isn't just shaped during Childhood but throughout a person's life.

Stage 1 Infancy -The Challenge of Trust
Between birth and a year and a half infants face thier first challenges and begin to gain a sense that thier world is a safe place. Family plays a key part in this role.


Stage 2 Toddlerhood - The Challenge of Autonomy
From 2 to 3 Todlers learn skills to cope with the world in a confident way. The child will begin learning the difference between right an wrong. The child could also begin to try to asert it will. (such as telling the Parents NO!)

Stage 3 Preschool - The Challenge of Initiative
Between ages 4 and 5 learn to engage thier surrondings. They will begin to copy the adults around them. It also when they start asking WHY?

Stage 4 Preadolescence - The Challenge of Industriousness.
Between ages six and thirteen. Children enter school, make freinds, and strike out on thier own more. Parents no longer seem the complete authorities they once were.

Stage 5 Adolescence - The Challlenge of Gaining Identity
Teen Years, Almost all teens experience some confusion as they struggle to establish thier identity. Teen starts to identify with others but also begin to devlop thier own identities.

Stage 6 Young Adulthood- The Challenge of Intimacy
From 18 to 35 the challenge for young adults is to for and keep intimate relationships with others as well as balancing the need to bond with the need to have a seperate identity.

Stage 7 Middle Adulthood- The Challenge of Making a Difference
Middle Age, The challenge of middle age is to contribute to the lives of others in the family, at work or in the world at large. Failure could result in becoming self centered.

Stage 8 Old Age - The Challenge of Integrity.
At around 65 people will begin to reflect more on death, and look back on past acomplishments with a sense of integrity and satisfaction. Self asobrbed personalities could suffer from dispair over missed oppurtunities.

Georgia set to reform property tax system

Georgia state senators says thier striking back against the downturn in the housing market by a bill that they say would grant homeoenwers more power.

The author of the bill Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) says this bill will "bring fairness to an unfair system". Among the points purposed in the bill, is that homeowners will only be taxed only for the price of their home, Statewide uniformity of assessment notices and appeal forms and Year-round property appeals.

Copy of the bill

Ga. Assembly to Put Fourth Bill on GA. Dome.

Georgia Legislators are getting set to extend the tax collections that pay for the Georgia Dome. (GA Dome is owned and operated by the state). The bill, however is contingent upon keeping the Falcons in house. And that is not a guarantee. Built over 18 years ago (1992) the venue is fast becoming one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL.

A few opponents of the bill point out that a new stadium could bring future sites of the Superbowl back to Atlanta ( haven't hosted a SB since 99') and many other events that could generate tremendous revenue for the city.

The current contract with the Georgia Dome expires in 2020 and while that is still a good 10 years away it can take several years to build a stadium (and that's after you can agree on who's paying for it). Its often a long negotiation.(the Dome has yet to pay off $214 million dollars used to pay for it; And is not expected to till 2017.)


The Georgia assembly expects to have a desision by late this week

Late Night Wars

Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien,. . . .Jay Leno (again)




As has become a well documented incident, The NBC has quiet the conundrum on its hands. After replacing Jay Leno with Conan O'Brien as the host of The Tonight Show, NBC is once again replacing it's host, (not even a year in) with the guy whom they had already replaced. That's right, Jay Leno.

It all began back in the Fall when Jay Leno and NBC decided that while Leno would retire as host of the tonight show (already promised to O'Brien) he would stay on at NBC and be given his own show at 10:00, never before heard of in Prime time television.

Many people thought this was a terrible idea. The show would have to compete with 10:00 local news and pimetime dramas of other networks. I was with NBC on this one. I thought the idea of dropping a variety show one hour earlier would be gold for Leno and NBC. My thought was that not everybody would want to stay up past midnight to watch a late talk show and that this show could potentially tap into a brand new audience. What else were people watching at 10 anyway? There was a reason that the drama's that came on and 10, well, came on at 10 and not 8 or 9 (a much better primetime viewing slot)

Well they (that is the critics) were right and I was wrong. While neither the Jay Leno Show or O'Brien's Tonight Show flopped in the ratings category they did not get the expected ratings boost and Local NBC affiliates began to complain that Leno's show was a poor lead-in to their local news programmes. And since the local NBC's were a prime source of income for the Network, what the affiliates wanted they got.

NBC immediately announced that they would move both comedians back to their old slots and O'Brien immediately announced that NBC could go to hell. Well not in those words. But in a matter of days Conan made it clear he would rather quit than have such a humiliation forced upon him.

It seems kind of childish on the surface but you have to remember that the Tonight Show meant alot to O'Brien. He grew up a big fan of Johnny Carson and after writing for both the Simpsons and SNL O'brien was also a writer for the early years of Leno's Tonight Show. The Tonight Show itself is more than half a century old, had already gone through several hosts, but none were forced to to give it up after only 6 months to the guy whom had already retired. It was a public humiliation.

But don't feel too bad for Conan he and his writers ended up with a pretty nice 45 million dollar seottlement with NBC and thats a pretty nice parting basket. And NBC made a nice bundle as well. The last Month also saw some of both show's highest ratings, as auidences just couldn't get enough of the two commedians taking both jab's at each other and NBC.

But the questions still remain. What will happen to the Tonight Show once Leno returns? Where will Conan go?

Social Networking.

I've always had mixed feeling about social networking (meaning I'm gonna ride the fence on this one).


Facebook (and before it Myspace) is great way to keep in touch with old highschool classmates (sparing us the akward phone calls of trying to look them up), metting your freind's freinds, and coamparing vaction photos with an old sweetheart. Sites like Twitter give us an insight into the daily lives of our favorite athletes and celebrities, often getting the news before even the major 24 hour news networks can get it.

But these tools do raise an intresting question of where socalilizing is going in society. Now I'm not saying that the Internet is going to completly terminate human contact as we know it, but in these days of Online gaming, shopping, dating even colleges it does seem like we are just one step closer to having our lives dominated as much by online obligations as we do in the matieral ones. (The idea of how popular 2ndLife and World of War Craft have gotten almost makes me want to cringe)