Southwest Announces Merger with AirTran

Fee friendly airline Southwest announced today that  it is buying fellow low-cost airline AirTran. The price was 1.4 billion dollars however it will cost them somewhere around 3.4 billion in the end. The extra cost will come from paying off AirTran’s current debt.

This deal is a win not only for consumers but also for Southwest as well despite having to pay off AirTran debt. Southwest will now be able to have flights in places such as Boston, New York, and most importantly Atlanta. Their network will expand by 25%  from a numbers standpoint.

Flyers of AirTran will be graced with the lower fees and better service offered by Southwest. Southwest customers will have more options when flying.

The deal has already been approved by both companies boards and only needs to be approved by shareholders and regulators now.

Quran burning:Right to Protest or Just Plain Craziness?

As I am sure most of you have already heard, a Gainesville, Florida Pastor has planned a Quran( Muslim holy book) burning event for Saturday, September 11th to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Despite much controversy, the pastor has said he stands by his decision to burn copies of the Quran and feels that the Muslim religion is evil.

General Petraeus has asked for this event to be stopped as he fears it will put the troops in Afghanistan at risk with Muslim soldiers. I feel Petraeus is right in his fears, it would be very logical to think the Muslims would be angered at Americans for doing such things and being bystanders to such an event. Americans of any religion would be quite angry at people in another country of faiths other than our own burning religious texts such as the Christian bible or the Jewish Torah and we would want to retaliate.

This Pastor may have the right to Protest his hatred for the Muslim religion but burning the Quran is going way to far. not only is he possibly endangering the troops overseas, but he is also damaging the world’s view of America. In other countries, news outlets do not show every piece of good news from America, but bad news pieces, such as those of Americans doing something like burning holy books, will definitely be big headline news all over the world. He is also ruining the reputation of his church as well.

Salmonella Poisoning/Egg Recall Update

An NPR article reported that a federal investigation showed the Salmonella poisoning from recalled eggs was found in the feed for the chickens and manure at the Wright County Egg (one of the two farms responsible for the poisoned eggs). The strain found matches that in cases reported by consumers.

So far, about 1,500 consumers have become sick due to the eggs but no deaths have been reported yet. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) said the number of salmonella cases normally reported at this time of year has leaped from around 900 to 2,400. The CDC also said this is the largest outbreak of its kind since they started keeping track in the 1970′s.

FDA wants to use egg recalls to gain more control

The recent recalled eggs and salmonella outbreaks are causing the FDA to attempt to request more control in situations such as these. Current law limits the association from preventing events such as these and holding companies responsible in the case of an outbreak.

In an NPR article FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said they need better authority to be truly capable of having control in situations such as the egg recalls and salmonella outbreaks. Usually, I do not think the government should have as much control as they would like to, however in this case, I think a government agency in control of the situation would be a good thing.

Hamburg  advises to consumers to avoid eggs overly runny yolks for the time being. This is especially good advice if your eggs are from one of the two suppliers of the recalled eggs, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms in Iowa. The two farms actually share a chicken supplier.

Intelligence Agencies, are there to many?

This morning I heard a report announcing that investigations have revealed a large growth of intelligence gathering agencies in the U.S. since 9/11. But I wonder, are too many agencies of this sort a bad thing?

The Washington Post found during a two-year investigation that there are 1,900 private groups and 1,200 government run  groups working on things such as counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence at a total of 10,00 different places around the country.

The Post also said approximately 854,000 have top-secret security clearance. I don’t know how it is that “top-secret” if that many people can access but they say two heads are better than one and I guess 854,000 heads working together should prevent more large-scale terror plots from being carried out, at least I hope that is the case.

Keep in mind, that is just what they Post was able to find. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that there are so many intelligence agents and agencies it is hard to truly know about all of them. They may be more than what the Post discovered.

I think that as long as these agencies are getting the job done we should not worry about having to many of them in business. Can we take another 9/11?

Tea Party Defends Constitution as well as Disliking Taxation

The TEA party is not just people sick of taxes (Taxed Enough Already), they are also in defense of the United States Constitution, which they feel has been violated lately by certain government actions. While some of the government’s constitution violations have not gone through, others have.

They recently were denied in an attempt to ban guns for U.S. citizens, however the Supreme Court made one of it’s last moves of the recently ended session deciding that the second amendment still stands and Americans can still carry guns. Also, the feds are constantly trying to step on states rights.

Members of the Tea Party are right to defend the constitution. While there are times the old rules set in places hundreds of years ago may need to be changed or thrown out, the basics are things we need to hold onto. Such as the right to bear arms and individual states having control in their own states. If we lose these basics and let the government throw out the framework the country may truly fall.

Cap removed from Oil Well, New One to be Installed in a Few Days..

The latest news on the gulf oil spill is good and bad. BP has removed the cap they had over the well to try to contain some oil despite the fact that it only contained some of the oil. A new, hopefully better cap that should contain more oil from the well will be installed..but no one knows for sure when..hopefully in the next few days according to an NPR story.

Until then however, oil is spilling freely once again in the gulf. The new cap should filter spilled oil towards the cleanup ships on the surface and not out into the free water according BP Senior VP Kent Wells. That is what they are hoping to have happen. But they will not even know for sure how well the new cap works for about a week or so once it is installed.

This is not even a permanent solution yet. That is still in the works. I know it is probably a difficult problem for BP to fix and the pressure from the government, the people of the Gulf along with the rest of the country, and the media. They are planning on putting in two relief wells under the sea floor but when will that be done? If so, will it work? Do people still trust BP anymore?

U.S. Soldier Leaks Classified Video

CNN reported today that a United States soldier is being charged by the military for leaking video footage of a helicopter attack to WikiLeaks. The footage features the deaths of 12 civilians, two of which were Reuters Journalists.The video was said to be taken sometime in July of 2007.

The soldier in question, Pfc. Bradley Manning, is currently being detained in Kuwait and is being charged with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code for transferring the video footage illegally.Manning is Army Intelligence analyst and has been detained since sometime last month. WikiLeaks publishes videos and other information from anonymously but Manning has been identified as source of the video, which was leaked in April.

Manning allegedly confessed to a former computer hacker about leaking this and other pieces of classified military information in a series of online chats.

The footage going public forced the military to defend the troops in a report claiming the soldiers had no way of knowing the Reuters employees where in the crowd of “suspected” insurgents being targeted.The military has also said that they are assigning a presiding officer to Manning’s case, which is an Article 32 similar to a grand jury, and a decision on whether to court-martial the soldier will soon follow.

Here is the leaked footage shown on CNN

YouTube, iTunes hacked on Independence Day

On the Fourth, both iTunes and YouTube were hacked into separately. The hacking has been linked to the site Ebaumsworld and the online forum 4Chan, but it is said others may be to blame.

The problems where first discovered on YouTube by fans of pop singer Justin Bieber. Viewers got messages popping up saying that Bieber had died or a message trying to get them to go to hacking sites. It is said that the problem was in the comment system. To fix the problem, comments were temporarily disabled for about 3 hours while the problem was fixed.

On iTunes, it is said that book apps from a certain Vietnamese publisher where the top selling at the time and other rumors of accounts being phished and used to buy book apps  surfaced. But this still has not been confirmed. Also, the top book app list has not yet been fixed.

The iTunes issues do not sound as bad as the YouTube issues. I mean iTunes just had its top book apps list messed with. The YouTube issues could have led to viruses on viewer’s computers and broken hearts for millions of preteens and other Justin Bieber fans.

Larry King Live to End,CNN Starts Search for King’s Replacement

After twenty-five long years, CNN’s Larry King Live will come to an end this fall when King leaves the show.CNN has said they are looking for a replacement for the interviewer. King will not officially retire, he has said he still wants to do work with CNN on specials.

King himself has said he would like Ryan Seacrest of American Idol to be his successor. Others have expressed interest in CBS’s Katie Couric and America’s Got Talent judge Piers Morgan who is also a British interviewer.

An AP story suggested that it to is bad Conan O’Brien had already gotten another job. While Conan is a good talk show host and would be something new and different for the show I do not think it would be a job for him. While I believe he did a wonderful job taking over The Tonight Show (despite what Leno Lovers and NBC think), I do not think this would be his thing, even if CNN did want to shake the time slot up a bit.

If they want to shake things up they should go with Seacrest. He may be best known for hosting American Idol but he has filled in for King in the past so he knows the ropes. He would know how to do a similar show and retain some King fans if the producers kept it the same and he would still be something new and different to bring in new viewers.