Political decisions that interest me include decision including taxes, foreign diplomacy, and the interpretation of the constitution. With taxes, the best type of data to determine what shapes this type of political decision needs to be surveys of people’s idea as well as previous data of how well the current taxes are doing with budgeting purposes. If you try and impose a new tax the citizen do not want then they will be furious and a good amount of the time taxes need to be approved by the citizens so you need a good reasoning for the tax which data can help back you up. If you try and impose a new tax change on a tax that has been shown as effect as is then data shows you would not need to change anything. With foreign diplomacy, most of the products we have in the United States are from other countries and without support of other countries there would be too many conflicts. Honestly, I do not know a way to use data to measure our foreign diplomacy other than just looking at past records of our allies and seeing the trend of how strong of allies we are with countries or which allies we have lost over the years through different presidencies. Lastly, interpretation of the constitution is a major political decision and we can all notice 
that. The easiest way to notice how people interpret the constitution is mainly through how people’s cultures were through the past. Supreme Court people used to say that segregation by color was legal until 1954 but now they deem it wrong due to the constitution. Up until just recently same-sex marriage was illegal but now due to people interpretation the constitution differently same-sex marriage is now legal. There is a ton of examples of how it has changed through what was the popular idea of the time which shapes how people interpret the constitution.
The most important political decision we make is our presidency since that one person controls 1/3 of our national government and is mainly in charge or foreign affairs which can lead to different things based on who is in charge at the time. As you have noticed, if Bernie or Trump is elected then the foreign politics will be drastically different. You need a president that other countries trust and like as well, but almost every country is talking bad about Trump and Trump does the same about every other country. We decide who is going to be in control of a huge portion of our country as well as the face of our country. A huge way of determining the data which is most important of determining this decision is popularity of a candidate, what they are wanting to do as president, and past decisions that candidate has made to see what kind of a person he/she is and if they are always following the same style or if the person flops to what people want even if it isn’t what the person stands for.
My political prediction is that the presidential elections is going to be Bernie vs Trump and Bernie is going to win. I feel like whoever wins the democratic Primary is the person who is predicted to win the presidential elections. Exactly a year ago on April 17, 2015 Bernie had a 4.3 rating while Clinton had a 59.8 rating; a difference of 55.5 points in the polls! Then, six months ago Bernie had a 23.5 rating while Clinton had a 43.8; a 20.3 difference on the points still! As of the latest polls (April 13th), Bernie now has 46 points while Clinton has 47.2; only a difference of 1.2 points! Bernie has been gaining supporters while Clinton has been losing supporters. Even though Trump has increased from 16.6 points in the last 6 months to have an overall rating of 40.4 points as the highest GOP candidate both Clinton and Bernie have higher ratings currently. Plus, six months ago Kasich had a rating of only 2.8 on the polls. Now, a 21 point rating! Who knows, he might even be a sleeper candidate and become the GOP candidate in the Presidential elections; only time will tell!
Workforce Equality
We have all known for the most part that men usually receive a larger salary than women for the same job and that needs to change. We need to have equal pay between gender to empower women and grant equal rights and treatment for each of us. Thanks to the technology we have today we are actually able to figure out how much more a man makes than a women within the same profession. Within the United States men on average get paid 17% higher than women do for the exact same job. One might think that that’s only an American thing and other countries in Europe pay equally but you would be wrong. In England, men actually get paid higher than women at a 19% increase in salary. “Information is Beautiful” did a comparison of 90 job categories that encompass most of the different types of jobs within England and found out that men get paid higher in 80 out of the 90 categories. The highest pay difference where women actually got paid higher than men was as a telecommunication director at about £3,100 greater annually. All except for three of the ten salaries where women were higher was less than a £1,000 difference. Comparing that to the men where the wage is drastically higher is unfair. For a senior officer a man gets paid an average £86,500 annually while a woman will usually only get paid £59,000 on annually; a £17,500 difference! That’s not even the worst pay gap between genders. Medical practitioners have a difference of about £33,100 pay difference based on 
your gender; which is a 42.4% difference! I can keep going on and listing all the examples found on this website but that would be pointless. If I have not already gotten my point across to you then no matter what I say will not change it. In today’s society we need equal pay between gender since that will result in a better community and equal rights. People should not be paid less, treated different, or act different around others based on their physical appearance. One reason why I loved growing up in Southern California was for the diversity. I came from a private high school where Caucasian was a minority there which diversified my school and gave me a better way of thinking. In Utah it feels like unless you are a white male you are going to be treated differently. Being a white male I cannot talk about any personal experiences but that is just how I feel through what I have noticed and what my friends have told me about. If you were to judge people based off their work and not their appearance then the work should be paid the same, so then why does it matter when you find out the person behind the work and decide they should be getting paid less than another for the same work? Simple, it does not matter. Everyone is equal, treat them so.
Security is Destroying Privacy!
One may say that privacy and security could be used as synonyms for each other; just because something can does not mean it should. I strongly believe in the fact that privacy and security are not synonyms but two separate things. Mainly, if we lose some (or a lot) of our privacy for our general security and “safety” than that does not mean those two are the same thing. The government is monitoring every person’s phone records and internet usage. Do they believe each of us are potential terrorist? The tax payers are literally paying people to monitor the average person instead of spending their time more wisely with things such as concentrating their abilities to stop terrorist’s attacks or monitor people more specifically. If they declared that people that have bought anything more than a regular hand-held gun, work in areas that can obtain explosive weapons, have been to jail for crimes, or any other actual behavior that threatens the good of the people I would be fine with them monitoring those people until they deem them non-threatening. As I stated earlier, if they deem us all as perspective terrorists and do not trust us at all why should we be trusting them back at all? Ed Rooney explains my feelings perfectly with this quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day OFF, “I don’t trust this kid [U.S. Government] any further than I can throw him.” and with my back I shouldn’t be throwing anybody. The last time people monitored us and not allowed us to be free we decided to become our own country and established three unalienable rights which is bestowed on every human by their Creator which are “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” Liberty, the condition to where people are able to act/speak freely, power to do/choose what we want, and a political right. 
By monitoring our daily lives, those actions takes away our liberty which is affecting our daily life and our ability for our pursuit of happiness. We are allowed our pursuit of happiness along as we are not effecting other in a negative way are we are not so why should our unalienable rights be taken away from ourselves because the government feels they can do what they want. If you look at history and who has harmed the United States the most through things such as war, poverty, our $17 Trillion in debt, segregation, and much more examples throughout history it is not the average American, but the American Government. Instead of monitoring the average man to make our country better they need to do a better job monitoring their selves and making a better functioning government for tomorrow.
Carbon Footprint Walks Us to Disaster
How bad is our carbon footprint? Let’s take a look at exactly what has been happening in the world! From 1850 to 1999 we have released 1010 gigatons of carbon into the air. Since the year 2000 we have released about 500 gigatons of carbon into the air which is way more than any previous era. The worst part is that our carbon budget, which is the amount of carbon we can safely release into the air without serious effects, is only about 335 gigatons left. That amount of carbon is supposed to be added within the next eight years if our carbon footprint continues at a 2.5% increase annually. There is plenty of carbon left in the earth to extract since about 2,755 gigatons in the ground. Increasing the carbon released into their atmosphere means the warming of the Earth; a warming of two degrees Celsius is when we pass the “safe limit” to where we start seeing some major changes to our Earth. The article talks about how there is about a 20% chance of passing that safe limit temperature before the year 2050. With the increased temperature we will see catastrophic results like cities such as New York City drowning and being submerged in water, coral stops growing and other oceanic effects, longer and more extreme heat waves, loss of food production, and extinction of up to 40% of the total species if not more. Being a human I feel greatly responsible for the problems that will be happening since our carbon footprint not only affects humans but literally every other living species and plants on planet Earth. Our actions are killing others species and destroying our planet. If we want to have the generations after us experience a great life we need to take care of the planet while we are here. I am a huge believer in global warming and these statistics always hits me hard whenever I read these. Can you imagine two generations from now how little diversity of species will be here because of ourselves. The last time carbon levels were this high is estimated 3.5 million years ago. I am not looking forward to what our planet will look like in the next 30 years because of the damages that are predicted to occur by the data at hand.
article- http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-many-gigatons-of-co2/
Chances You Will Get Married?
In most of the states, except for probably Utah, most likely follows the curve talked about in this article about the age people are when they get married. The article talks about the age of a person and the percent that had married at least once. Thankfully, from a public health student’s perspective, from ages 0-14 everyone haven’t been married yet. People also think about you need to be married at a young age but the data from 2014 shows that only about half the population is ever married before the age of thirty. That surprised me because I would had thought more than half the people would’ve been married by then. By the age of 50 one out every five people are still not married on average. The percent of people marrying at a younger age has been creasing over the years. It has dropped by 
almost 15% since 1980 which is an unusually high percent. Also, when comparing the level of education a person has obtain the statistics showed that the people with higher education would get married a couple years later on average than those of high school education or less but a higher percent would get married overall. Also, the role of gender plays a big role within marriage. By the age of 30, 50% of men were still single while 39% of women were still single; that trend of women being more likely to be married AT LEAST once was always higher than the chances for men. Lastly, they also had the breakdown based off a person’s ethical background. Let’s compare the percent still single at the age of 40 to the overall average of 28%. People of Asian descent had the lowest of 16%, then Caucasians at 19%, Hispanics with 24%, Native Americans were at 28%, and lastly, African Americans were all the way up at 41%. If you were to look at that chart from least to greatest does that not match the level of poverty by race from least to greatest as well? Maybe the support system of marriage plays a bigger role than the level of education a person achieves. I found this article very interesting for not only how interactive it was but for how someone can learn the information they want on their own instead of the website listing all the statics for you. I highly recommend checking it out and playing around with the statistics to find things out on your own!
The article for this interactive website is: http://flowingdata.com/2016/03/10/never-been-married/
The playoff “Predictions”
There was an MLB article talking about who is most likely to be in the playoffs if the season was to end today. First off, how could the MLB season end before it even starts? Secondly, all they did was base it off of last season stats and the new players each team has picked up. They did not really show any projections for the upcoming players or really account for the regression of the older stars. I just find it hard to believe that these will be the teams that make it to the post season. The thing that surprised me the most is the fact that the superstar team of Kansas City is not even predicted to go to the playoffs after winning the World Series the previous year and losing in the World Series the year before that as well. I just feel like this article is only showing a lot of favoritism and not real statistics. Sure it may show the Win above Replacements (WAR) of some teams but the Nationals had the 4th highest projected WAR for the 2016 season in all of MLB but then is not projected to make the 2016 playoffs according to bleacher report.
The article is also expecting the team that dominated MLB last year with the most amount of wins and is supposed to come back with a better roster than the previous year to barely make the playoffs. Also, they talk about how since this is an even year the Giants will win their division since any baseball player knows the Giants are the team to win the World Series if it is an even year. Even though the Giants did pick up Cueto and Samardzija both did not do as good as they did in previous years and the article is probably not accounting for that. Cueto had his worst Earned Run Average (ERA) since 2010 and had a losing record for the first time since his rookie year. Samardzija had his worst season ever in his career posting a 4.96 ERA as well. These two players are projected to get the Giants to the post season the article predicts. Unless they change complete and have good years again I highly doubt that. There was so many other examples I could use. The story of this is to just not pay attention to what people “predict” in sports for the season since most of the time a lot of favoritism is involved in their decisions and not hard statistics the year Billy Beane uses to find the projection of players to get the most out of them. These articles are made a good read and by no means have any statistics backing up their reasoning most of the time.
The Battle of the Current Best
Within Baseball, there has been a debate since the beginning of these two upcoming baseball stars who is better. Of course, I am talking about the battle of Mike Trout verses Bryce Harper. It all started four years ago when these two names were at the top of the preseason prospect list. Now, these two names were at the top of the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) category at over 9.5 games average between the two in the 2015 season. When you go to MLB statistics you can check through many categories and notice how both were in the top 5 in eight different batting categories together for 2015. These are some of the youngest players currently in the pros today. Since coming in as a rookie, 4 years ago, Mike Trout has won the AL MVP once and have come in second 3 times. Bryce Harper, battling injury for the first three years has not really been placed high until last year where he won the NL MVP. Since 2011, Mike Trout’s 162 game average stands as a .304 Batting Average, 35 Homeruns, 99 RBIs, and a .956 OBS. Bryce harper is standing at a .289 BA, 31 HR, 79 RBIs, and a .902 OBS. Even though Bryce Harper had a better batting WAR (9.93) than Mike Trout (9.39), Mike’s Defensive WAR was over .5 of a point higher than Harper. Looking at all these statistics, Harper and Trout have some of the best stats we have seen in a long time. The last time we saw statistics like these were players such as Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, and many Hall of Famers; we are seeing HOF in the making. Depending on the site you go to you will see the reasoning why one is better than another. In baseball, it is hard to compare players that do not compete against each other and could theoretically play together just fine. In any statistics you look at in the previous years you will find both of these athletes at the top of most, if not all, categories possible. Personally, being an Angel’s season ticket holder I love watching Trout hit amazing home runs and make thriller catches. I cannot wait to see how these two evolve as a player and become even better in the following years to come.
This video is just one of many videos that compares Mike Trout Vs Bryce Harper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4CCv8xaZS4
Election’s Fundraising
With the Presidential elections coming up there has been a lot of fundraising in order to help get ahead in the elections. There has been a total of $486.9 million dollars fundraised so far in the elections. The person with the most money donated to his election campaign is Jeb Bush at $133.3 million while the second highest is Hillary Clinton at $97.8 million. You would think that means Jeb Bush is the people’s most popular choice for presidency, right? WRONG! In this article I read it talks about how candidates can receive small donation which are usually from the everyday person since a small donation is under $200. Bush has mainly been receiving large donations from places like Corporations and wealthy people. Only 5.1% of Bush’s donations (6.8 million) come from small donations. On the other side of things, Bernie Sanders who has had a total of $41.5 million donated to his campaign includes 76.7% from small donations ($31.83 million). Clearly, that shows that Sanders is the average person’s choice so why does that mean he might not win?
That might have something to do with the fact with super PACs are able to donate money directly to support a candidate such as telephone calls, Ads, and attack Ads. Bush has had 31.8 million of his total donations funded directly to supporting him; only four other candidates have raise more money than that in general. That is because Bush’s ideas go along with that of big business and not much with the average person. Clinton and Sanders, who both are big names in this election, agree more with the average person and not so much with the big business have had a combined total of around $700,000 dollars directly to supporting them. Clinton has $2.4 million spent by super PACs for advertisement to oppose her to try to get people to not vote for her. These statistics show who really is running the presidential elections; not the people but the big businesses. Just a friendly reminder to actually look into the people that are running in this upcoming election instead of just who you hear the most on Ads and to not listen to hate Ads that do not tell the truth!
Rich Vs. Poor
Is it right that the top 1% of the richest people in the world currently own 48% of the total wealth in the world? Personally, I do not think that is right. That amount has even been increasing and soon enough the top 1% will own more than half the total wealth in the world. The distribution of wealth with the remaining 52% is nowhere near evenly distributed as well. The top 20% of the wealth owners account for roughly 94.5% of the total wealth. The main problem with that is the fact only 5.5% of the total wealth is 
owned by roughly 80% of the population. The average wealth per person for the bottom 80%? A measly $3,851 per adult! How are we supposed to fight global poverty when the wealth is so unevenly distributed? Most of the 1% does not care about the lower 80% and is not going to spend a good portion of their money to help other since they are fighting for the rich to have more and more tax breaks so they can keep more of their money. The United States alone borrowed over 1 TRILLION dollars, between the years 2001 to 2010, to give wealthy taxpayers (income over $250,000) significant tax breaks. Yet, the poor rarely gets shown that kind of tax breaks. The 80 richest people on Earth have the same total wealth as the lowest 3.5 Billion people. In order to break the poverty barrier we need the wealthy to help the poor.
Article Reference- CCN wealth inequality
HIV loves every person equally
In the United States alone, there are 200,000+ cases a year. The ways a person is able to become infected is due to unprotected sexual intercourse (vaginal, anal, or even oral sex) with an infected person, transfusions of contaminated blood such as sharing needles, and the transmission between a mother and her baby due to events such as pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. Even though it is a treatable disease a person is never able to be cured. Just a friendly reminder to always be safe since the person you might become in contact with does not know if he/she has the HIV virus to infect you. Sex is Cleaner with a Packaged wiener!
Humans and Media 