What Happened to all the Twinkies!?!

Photo credit: Lee Saborío
Lee Saborío

So you go into the grocery store, just looking for some milk, when a thought passes through your head: I could really go for a Twinkie right now! You have been exceptionally good at sticking to your diet lately, so what’s the harm in one little Twinkie right? But as you walk down the snack aisle, you can not find any Twinkies! OH GOSH! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR BELOVED TWINKIES!

I’ll tell you what happened, Hostess went out of business! So you better stock up on of those wonderfully delicious baked goods that Hostess makes, or should I say made.

First off, do not fear that you will never see a Twinkies again! For companies are buying the Hostess brands, and they will continue to supply us with Twinkies and ho hos even while Hostess is in bankruptcy, and Hostess company officials are very optimistic that they will get through it.

So who is to blame for Hostess going out of business? 

A Short History of American Football

Since the Superbowl is coming up, I felt that is was appropriate to write about football. Even though football is the most played sport in America, many people do not even know the history behind it. American football was invented …

Tips for a Happy, Healthy Life

Photo credit: Imapix

Everyone wants to be happy, and you are happy if you are healthy, and you are healthy if you are happy!  So the question is, how do you stay healthy? Well here are 7 tips to have a healthy, happy life.

1. Get a good night’s sleep. Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to having a healthy life. A good night’s sleep can help you learn things, live longer, be more creative, and leading into the next tip, reduce your stress.

2. Reduce your stress. We all have stress, and we all know that stress can be, well, stressful. Stress can make you worried, sad, see only negatives, and have nausea. To avoid stress you can practice positive thinking, don’t procrastinate, and just take a breather.

3. Listen to music. Listening to music can really relax you. Music can also help you find your happy place where you are at peace with everything.

4. Read. Similar to music, reading can help you relax and figuratively transport you to another (hopefully stress-free) universe.

5. Eat dessert! Dessert is a small but very important part of being happy. If you think that you can’t eat that chocolate cake because you think you would look fat, then you’re wrong. When you eat dessert you’re happy. And trust me, you will be more fat when you aren’t happy then when you are.

6. Laugh. Laughter is the best medicine! Laughing can take your mind off of things and can let you have just a really fun time.

7. Relax.Sometimes, in this chaotic world of ours, we forget to just take a breather. Relaxing can just calm you down until you experience true happiness, which is the best feeling of all.

I hope this list will help you become a happier and healthier person.

Whistler Blackcomb

Whistler Blackcomb is the perfect mountain to make an adventure. Fresh tracks will never be difficult to find. These mountains combine to make the perfect place to have a difficult challenge. Whistler Blackcomb are two separate mountains made famous together.

Whistler is a beautiful mountain that stretches for as long as the eye can see. If you would like a difficult challenge then go on the Peak Express. On your ride up you can see what you dealing with on this mountain. The large open area of the Whistler Bowl will take your breath away. Behind you is the rest of the mountain this ride is a sightseeing trip. But you have to hurry because in this section of the trails visibility is very low and the ski patrol will shut the chairlift going up, down. The black diamonds here are very difficult, but if you like fresh tracks these are the trails to go on. On the other parts of the mountain are very exciting, but this excitement is sometimes quickly ended by slow zones and family zones. It is very difficult to get to the villages without going through these slow zones.

Blackcomb is smaller than Whistler, but is a lot steeper and even more difficult. The perfect home for intense skiers is 7th Heaven. This area has many difficult trials, Lakeside Bowl is far off to the side so it always has fresh tracks. Almost all the way down is a blackdiamond to follow until you get to 7th Heaven Express. This mountain has lots of difficult trials to experience such as groomed trails, moggle trails, bowls, and even just sight seeing trails. To get to 7th Heaven area you get a unique  experience on a T-Bar. 7th Heaven area also is frequently closed because of the bombs and avalanche control.

Whistler Blackcomb are my favorite mountains I have ever been to in my life. This is a place that if you want snow, then you will get it.   Each night it will snow an inch or two so fresh powder is nothing to worry about. Another breathtaking sight is Peak 2 Peak gondola. It is a record breaking gondola that stretches from Whistler peak to Blackcomb peak. They can boast the longest unsupported lift span of 1.88 miles the longest in the world and it also takes the record for the highest lift of its kind at 1,427 feet high in the air. So not only is Whistler Blackcomb a perfect place to have an adventure it also has its wonderful sightseeing views.

NAFTA: Slowly Building Up or Tearing Down the Economy?

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Without NAFTA, where would our country be? NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, positively impacts Mexico, the United States, and Canada. NAFTA allows these countries to trade with each other, with minimal cost. Because NAFTA boosts the United States economy, it should stay in place.

NAFTA creates the largest free trade agreement in the world by removing most of the trade barriers in North America. Also with NAFTA, we obtain our goods from within North America, we don’t rely on war driven countries for necessities such as oil. When we trade within North America, we receive our goods more quickly, for less money and without the chance of starting a rift with a country halfway across the globe.

Without NAFTA, our country would have more debt. NAFTA also creates higher paying and more jobs, so how could you say no? It betters the exports, and grows the GDP. All in all, NAFTA rejuvenates our economy, and it will continue to strengthen us in the long run.

Was NAFTA a Good Idea?

NAFTA has provenly created more bad than good in our society today. So I ask, why don’t we repeal it? NAFTA has many aspects that are not beneficial and causing the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to suffer from its mistakes.

Does taking away jobs from the U.S. and moving them to Mexico help our own economy? That is like a teacher taking away your books but expecting kids to be experts in the material.

Photo Credit: Unknown

Our trade might be free and the initial cause was to save money, but in the end there are just fewer jobs and a quickly growing tax deficit for our countries. Wages are being lowered and no new jobs are being developed from NAFTA.

Is NAFTA actually acting as a useful problem solver? As you can see, it is clearly not. Now, all different people are troubled with the fact that NAFTA was a plan made for past and not the future. We are presently suffering over an unthought out mistake.

From Mexico to Canada to America, NAFTA is n serving the initial purpose to aid our citizens and making more problems for hard-working communities.

NAFTA? How about not-TA?

What’s going on with NAFTA?

It’s been getting rid of many jobs and quality wages for a long time.  It has also been making bosses make decisions that don’t help the general public and their employees.

In short, NAFTA is breeding both selfishness and poverty at the same time.

While NAFTA has removed a lot of previous trade barriers, it somehow manages to put barriers on the lives of immigrants.

Photo Credit: Unknown

Even though NAFTA does have some positives and negatives, the latter certainly outweighs the former.  Even though it has the potential to make new higher wage jobs, it still destroys other jobs or lowers wages for various reasons.

For example, when bosses or managers go the extra mile to completely relocate their company to Mexico, many American jobs are lost.

In fact, 500,000 to 750,000 American jobs have been lost as a result of NAFTA.

Honestly, NAFTA is just baiting company leaders to make bad decisions. Even though those decisions might help them make more money, they also make a lot of people upset.

In my opinion,  NAFTA is desperate for a good reworking or a complete abolishing altogether.

Come on America.

Do we really want an agreement that literally hands company managers reasons to relocate to a completely different location?

It is very easy to see how the pros outweigh the cons in NAFTA’s case.

Destruction of NAFTA

On January 1, 1994 NAFTA (National American Free Trade Agreement), a petrifying free trade agreement,  was established and put into action. NAFTA is an unsuccessful way of trying to create cheaper ways of trade between Canada, America, and Mexico. It was made to help all three countries in ways that would better them but as you will see, did the exact opposite.

There are many reasons why NAFTA definitely did not help the US, the most important being that it simply generated less jobs (hurt the economy).

Photo Credit: Bill Frymire 

NAFTA has constructed fewer for US citizens because it forces companies to move further North or South. As this is taking place, it becomes a complete mess for US employees because they don’t want to move with the company away from home. Because the companies prefer for their employees to work for a lower wage, they move to the borders of Mexico and Canada to hire more people from those countries who are willing to work for a rock-bottom paycheck. The fact of this taking place is a massive disgrace to NAFTA.

NAFTA may have been exceptional for Canada and Mexico, however  it clearly was a complete horrifying disaster for the US.