RCDS Science Fair Audio Slide Show

H1N1 pandemic

Back in April it was almost impossible to turn on the news without hearing about the new pandemic flu, H1N1, formerly known as swine flu. Prevention tips were all over the news, and every confirmed case was being talked about. The Center for Disease Control confirmed the flu as an outbreak and the flu was at the top of the news.

However, today it is going under the radar. People began to say it wasn't a major problem, and now it has become yesterday's news. Today, I couldn't find almost any mention of the flu on any of the blogs. Because of the fact that the news about it has been around for awhile, it seems the media no longer wants to cover it, not even the blogosphere. Today, H1N1 claimed its 12th victim nationally in Queens, New York. It looks as though it will get worse due to the fact that without sufficient coverage, people will likely not focus on the prevention techniques as much. For some time, RCDS students were being reminded to wash their hands in morning announcements, yet today, as H1N1 spreads to more places than ever, a full outbreak that our immune systems haven't been exposed to may occur, and the country may be blind to it thanks to the fact that it is not particularly interesting news.

The Republican Inner Battle

By far the biggest news story of today was former Pennsylvania Governor and almost McCain Vice Presidential nominee Tom Ridge continuing the feud within the republican party by calling Rush Limbaugh "shrill" in an appearance on CNN's State of the Union with John King.



This comes after a feud between Collin Powell and Rush Limbaugh/Dick Cheney. There are many different views on this feud out there, and it is being written about all over the blogs. Here are some of the things that the blogs are saying:

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein said that the feud is getting much worse now and that both sides here think that the other can ruin the Republican party's future. He said that Ridge is now clearly on Collin Powell's side of the feud. The Daily Kos' Plutonium Page said that Dick Cheney is the prince of darkness and that is great that smart Republicans like Ridge are going against him. Political Animal's Steve Benen felt that Ridge was part of the "smart Republicans" and that Ridge and Powell are moving the Republican party forward, while Limbaugh and Cheney are moving it back. Over at FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver said that no one will speak for the Republican party with this feud going on and that they currently don't have a "leader."

Finally, on CNN's own Political Ticker, two different bloggers offered opinions. Alex Mooney said that the Republicans should be fighting with the democrats, but this infighting is increasing nonetheless. Steve Brusk talked about how Collin Powell says he is still a Republican and that the party needs to move forward and not be divided and figure out what they truly stand for.

This is an issue that will certainly not go away and will be interesting to follow as it continues on.

The Falling of Michael Steele

In January, the Republicans elected Michael Steele to become the chair of the Republican National Committee. After getting crushed in the 2008 elections, the Republican party needed a new direction. Michael Steele was their choice, the first ever National Committee chair for the Republicans. However, he was not vetted thoroughly and has been on a down-hill slide every since being selected.

Many people credited the selection of Steele to being solely because of race. Larry Wilmore, senior black correspondent on The Daily Show, said it best, "The Republicans are just copying the democrats. When the democrats had Hillary Clinton, the Republicans said 'here's your women', and gave Sarah Palin. When the democrats had Obama, the Republicans said 'here's your black, he's more black!' Though Wilmore is on a comedy show, his point was serious. Steele has been wounded deeply now, and many of the wounds have been self-inflicted.


Steele first got under attack for calling Rush Limbaugh "an entertainer" and then apoligizing the next day, allowing the democrats to say Limbaugh and not Steele was the leader of the republican party. Then he got in major heat for saying abortion should be a "choice" for a woman. This went against a fundamental pro-life belief for many conservatives. Steele has since been in trouble for many remarks including recently saying Obama was not vetted enough. It seems clear which of the two has really been the one who was not vetted enough, as Republicans now are forced to try to dissociate from their party's committee chair.

The Chess Class Prizes System: In Need of a Change

Today, in these harsh economic times, chess can be a very profitable game. Tournaments such as the world open (300 dollar entry fee) give out prizes of about 400,000 dollars. These prizes are given out in a big division, but they are given out every 200 rating point groups. A chess rating is defined as a projection of how a player will do in a tournament. Rating goes up and down based on a player's result and the rating of a player's opponent. For example, if 2 players with the same rating play, the winner goes up 16 rating points. The prizes are given out so that the top finisher within a rating group gets a large sum of money. For example, the Under 2100 rating class prize is 30000 dollars at the World Open. This leads to players who are much stronger than 2100 intentionally losing games at smaller tournaments to get their rating below 2100 and then winning the big tournaments and the big money. Also, tournaments are set up so that the higher rated players have an easier road to victory. Therefore, a player with a lower rating has the odds stacked against them to get as many wins as a higher rated.

To stop this problem, I offer two solutions. For the sandbagging (bringing one's rating down) problem, there has already been a rule imposed that a person with a rating of 30 points or more over the prize section limit at some earlier time can only win 1/3 of the money. However this is not enough because 10,000 dollars is still a ton of money for someone to unfairly win. Therefore, a new rule should be implemented that is someone is 70 or more points above the section limit at some time they cannot win any money. This would decrease sandbaggers and make everyone's rating more accurate.

Second, prizes should be determined by performance rating, not score. Because higher rateds face easier opponents than lower rated within a section, performance rating should determine the winners. Performance rating is the rating that a player performed equal to at a given tournament. This way the players who played the best would get the prize they deserve and the deck would not be stacked against lower rateds because the amount of points scored (which is likely lower for them) would no longer be a factor

Computers in Chess

One of the top issues in the chess community today is the use of computers in chess. For the first 1000 years of the game, computers did not exist. Analysis was purely with a board and pieces. Famously, Frank Marshall sat in his house for 5 years in the early 1900s, only to come out and reveal the Marshall Gambit and win the United States Championship. Computers really came into the chess scene in around the 1950s, when the first digital computers were emerging. In the 1990s computers began to actually be a challenge to the top humans. Deep Thought premiered in 1988 with a rating of 2551. However, top humans had ratings of around 2800 and were still able to beat the computer. In 1996 the top supercomputer, Deep Blue faced off against world champion Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue beat kasparov 3.5-2.5, becoming the first computer ever to beat a human world champion.



Kasparov then claimed that a computer could not make some of the moves that Deep Blue made because "he knew how computers thought." He then tried to sue its operators saying one of the humans made the winning move and not the computer itself. Computers such as "Junior" and "Fritz" began to be sold in public and were able to at least draw with world champions. People suddenly were able to have the analysis of a world champion in their house. However there were many reprocussions.

Suddenly people were able to simply memorize computer moves. There were no more instancies of people like Frank Marshall figuring out new lines when computers could analyse 40 moves per second. Many people began to protest that these computers took away the "art" of chess because people could now just memorize moves. After every game, almost every player goes home and plugs the game into their computer to see where they made mistakes. This is considered a major money saver because it takes away some of the need for private coaching. Nonetheless, nowadays computers are a major part of chess that are here to stay. They currently out rate the world champion by over 700 rating points. They now have beaten every world champion since Karparov.

Health Insurance Reform

Today, clearly Health Insurance reform in the United States is needed. From the 47 million uninsured to the 2.4 trillion dollars spent per capita, it is clear that there are many problems with the system. The uninsured can be broken down into 25% "by choice," 20% who qualify for government problems, and 55% who cannot afford health care and do not qualify for government programs. The biggest problems with all of these can amount to cost. Calling the uninsured "by choice," is a misconception. The term refers to those who make 50,000 dollars per year or more and do not have have insurance. However, a 9,000 per person premium is still a significant portion of someone's annual. Therefore, it is likely that cost has an affect on those who are uninsured "by choice." The 20% who do qualify are an interesting question, though cost is likely also a key factor. Those on most government plans still have to pay some premium. Therefore, it is likely that people in this group also are affected by the cost of insurance. The other 55% solely cite costs in a Harvard Medical School Study.

The cost of health insurance has doubled in the past 10 years. It is the leading factor of uninsurance. The United States is the #1 in amount spent on health insuirance in the world per capita. The costs doubled in the past 10 years, while inflation only grew 30%. One of the main reasons for higher costs is profit (14% of what people are charged.

While these are both huge problems, the system is quite hard to fix. A universal plan would be very hard to fund. People could be mandated to join a plan, but that could be horrible to those who cannot afford insurance and are currently uninsured. A universal plan, such as Senator Clinton's proposal where taxes pay for plans would require a massive tax increase in an economic crisis, and it is proven to lead to much longer wait times in other countries with these systems. The plan of having everyone pay premiums to the government and the government take the 14% used for profit and use it to fund the insured, but that is not decreasing the cost and if the trend of people not able to afford insurance continues, the funding would go away as the number of people who need funding increased as people could not afford health insurance.

President Obama's proposal is not without its flaws as well. It talks of great results, but its specifics in acheiving these results are very expensive. Obama proposes a subsidy on a sliding scale, but this would come at a massive price to provide this to so many americans. His plan would require a tax increase of some kind on the rich (about 4% needed), which although they can afford this tax is sort of spreading the wealth. He also mandates businesses to purchase health care which could hurt them financially

Health Insurance is clearly in need of reform, but every plan has its strings attached. It is impossible to have a perfect system and while universal plans fix the uninsured problem, they worsen the cost one. Obama's plan is probably the best one out there in terms of funding, but it definetely has its flaws. This issue will still be a major issue many years from now, but hopefully Obama's plan can at least cut costs of insurance and the number of uninsured.

Home court "advantage"?

At the Nanuet Debate First Round, my team went 3/4 and was in a great position to make it to the final round. To make the finals, we only had to go 2/4 in the next 4 rounds. However, the next four rounds were to be held at RCDS. This was a huge disappointment to be and at the same time very exciting. On the one hand, if I made a mistake, the school would be watching, but on the other side if I succeeded epically, I would be seen by everyone. The school cancelled all classes, meaning almost everyone in the high school would be watching my team's debate. I stayed up late preparing so as to succeed in front of everyone and make sure that my partner and I made the finals. I watched a series of political debates on youtube and was surprised on how vague the candidates were when talking about Health Care Reform (the debate topic this year).


I arrived at school and looked over my notes and felt ready to argue. In the first round I was up against two small girls. They were the youngest in the competition, but also two of the strongest. My partner proposed our problems with todays system and did a great job in her section of the debate. My debate was very different. I was worried about looking too aggressive and mean as the big bully yelling at the little girl, so I tried to be as polite as possible. I gave my speech and I was surprised at how nervous I was being in front of the school. It managed to go well enough and my nerves did not affect me in too noticable a way. When I was cross-examined, I struggled, but managed to not be too agressive. My team won and were able to get a spot in the finals.

By the next round, I completely overcame my nerves of speaking in front of the school. I spoke without fear and was able to be agressive. Throughout the day I came to love being around my schoolmates when debating because I felt that I was suported and motivated to succeed, rather than nervous and fearing a mistake.

Debate Meet Part 1

For the past 2 months, I have spent a large amount of my time working on debate research. This year our topic is Resolved: The Government should implement a national health care plan. This was a huge and complicated topic that took a ton of work. After countless after school meetings between me, my partner, and our school's other team of two, and with a binder full of research, we headed to our first debate at the Nanuet High School. It was my first year on debate and I came in very anxious and worried that the other teams would all be geniuses.

My team and I walked into the high school into a hallway cluttered with students. I had never seen a hallway like this, it was so hard to move. We then made our way to the library where many nervous, dressed-up teens were pacing about. The first matches were quickly announced and we were set to argue for the national health care plan.

My team entered our assigned room and found we had to debate in front of a classroom of about 20 students, which was a bit nerve-racking. We began our debate and gave our affirmative speech. The negative team, who was assigned to defend the status quo, came out with a prepared speech themselves about "the nature of the free market." I was shocked that they had a prepared negative speech when the whole idea of negative team is to adapt to what the affirmative is saying.

I had to give my first speech when I presented the plan. I had a speech written which I had practiced many times and the speech went wonderfully; I was very relieved. Against our speech, however, the team also had a prepared speech which was not the right way to go about it. They said something along th llines of that those who cannot afford health care don't deserve it. When asked directly bby me ,"Do you feel the poor deserve to be unhealthy," our opponent said "Yes."

I left the debate feeling very confident about how our team had done, but was surprised by the judges remarks. The judges said that my partner and I were being too agressive in our debating style and that they did not think our plan was an effective plan. They still gave us the win because the negative only read their prepared speeches.

It was a debate that was nerve-racking before-hand, confidence-building during, and humbling after. In a debate I thought my team had won easily in, we actually had a close call and would need to be careful in the upcoming ones.

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Poker

Poker had entered its second wind for popularity nation wide. Back in 2003, after amateur Chris Moneymaker won the first televised World Series of Poker Main Event.


ESPN's ratings went through the roof for this event. They televised it with personalities: the hilarious Norman Chad and straight-man Lon McEachern. They taught the game's rules before every episode and for the first time showed the players' cards, thus engaging the viewer. Poker went from a back room type of game to a huge online craze. Sites began surfacing all over the internet from offshore locations such as ultimatebet, pokerstars, partypoker, full-tilt poker, and absolute poker. These sites originally offered only gambling, but adapted free versions with "play-money" as well. Online poker flourished and poker was at an all time high. The 2004 Main Event tripled the number of the entries of the 2003 one with 2,576.

The poker players became celebrities. In his 2004 blog, poker-pro Daniel Negreanu said he is constantly harassed for autographs wherever he goes, even more so than his sports athlete friends. The online poker game continued to increase as did the world championship tournaments. In 2005, 5,619 people went to the main event, fighting for a top prize of 7.5 million dollars, the largest prize in television history. Then, in 2006 around 9,000 players entered for a top prize of 12 million dollars!

However, then poker seemed to have peaked. It suddenly decreased in popularity. Maybe it was the fact that the "stars" fans seemed to get to know on the TV became unnoticible within the giant tournaments always won by amateurs (a pro has never won the televised championship). Maybe it was that it just had to peak at some point; that poker could only get so high. Maybe it was a law in 2007 limiting internet gambling sites' ability to purchase championship seats. Maybe people got sick of losing money. Whatever the reason, the poker craze stopped. I stopped playing at around the same time. Poker was still played, but it was no longer huge.

Now, it has returned again. Many internet sites are booming again. At school a game including 10-15 players had started and is played daily. The 2009 World Series of Poker looks to be the biggest yet. I question why this has happened. Perhaps it is the recession and people seeing it as an easy way to get money in the case of the gaming sites. Perhaps it is the fun coverage of the 2008 World Series of Poker on tv that brought it back. At school it just seems to be that some people thought it seemed like a fun game. I do know for sure that it is back. I hear about it at school, at the Marshall Chess Club, even on the news now. Whether or not it is good for a failing economy (maybe good for Vagas'), poker is back and looks to stay for awhile, at least until another peak.

The Obama Inaguration

I watched the seconds in Spanish class until 11:45, hugely excited over the inauguration of Barack Obama. Finally I was able to anounce, "Necesitamos salir, es Obama tiempo!" (We need to go, it's Obama time). I walked into the gym and was expecting the speech of a lifetime from Obama. Almost immediately, Biden was getting sworn in. Then Obama was sworn in and I was hugely in anticipation of his speech. I then sat silently for a little over 20 minutes.



I felt sort of empty afterwords for some reason. I figured out that it was probably because I was expecting something like Obama's convention speech or Kennedy's acceptance speech. However, Obama's speech was very strong nonetheless. I was surprised by my feeling though. I liked the speech, but just felt empty somehow. When I got home, my mom said something very wise to me that changed my opinion, however. She said that it was time for us to "Stop looking to Obama for words, and start looking to him for actions." I then realized that I always looked to Obama's words of hope, and now need him to do actions that give me hope. I now no longer feel empty and am trying to not just focus on Obama's rhetoric going forward and to judge him on his actions most of all. Thus far, I have been very happy with Obama's actions for his transition team, and hopeful going forward that he will put his plans into action.

joe the war correspondent

After his 15 minutes of fame in the presidential election Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher, just couldn't keep out of the spotlight. He appeared in a cable commercial. He also hired an agent to potentially start a contry music career. Finally, he was even considering a run for Congress. He also continued to voice his political opinion, saying that he never agreed with McCain but that Sarah Palin was "The Real Deal." Now, after saying on the campaign trail for McCain that a President Obama would mean "The Death of Israel," Fox News has sent Joe "The Plumber" to become Joe "The Reporter."

He is now in Gaza covering the violence there. He first got into an argument with an Israeli reporter:

JOE: The story here is people are being killed and the media's slanting it and trying to make it Hamas is, uh, as far as, that Israel's being bad. Do you believe Israel is bad?
REPORTER: Do I believe it?
JOE: Yeah, do you?!
REPORTER: I'm Israeli, so...
JOE: So answer the question!
REPORTER: No, I don't think Israel is bad.
JOE: Do you think Israel has every right to protect itself?
REPORTER: Yeah.
[pause]
JOE: You do?!
REPORTER: Yeah.
JOE: Have you said that on air?
REPORTER: I'm just a reporter.
(Courtesy of the Huffington Post)

We will see what is to come, but one thing is for sure: we will definetely continue to see Joe the Plumber around whether we want to or not.