Who would have thought when we all made our first MySpace pages back in high school, complete with the ridiculous personalized backgrounds and theme songs, that we were leading a worldwide revolution? Yeah, it sounds cheesy, but it’s true; the development of social media over the past decade has transformed the world. From societal relations, to the way companies do business, and even how political uprisings are led (The revolution will not be televised, but it will be tweeted), social media is quickly becoming a defining part of societies and cultures all over the world. Today, it’s hard to imagine a world without social media; how many days do you go without logging onto Facebook, looking up something on Wikipedia, or watching a video on Youtube? Yet while all of us have helped lead this social media revolution, we oftentimes don’t realize just how influential it’s become.

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Two weeks ago, the New York Times published a report entitled “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” detailing how Apple went from manufacturing most of its products in the United States in 2002 to today, where virtually all manufacturing is done abroad, especially in China. The piece provides an in-depth look at the Apple supply chain and demonstrates how “‘Made in the U.S.A.’ is no longer a viable option” for many companies looking to compete in a globalized market.

Today, Apple employs a mere 43,000 people in the United States, and most of those jobs are in business and sales operations. Your iPhone is designed, marketed and sold here in the U.S., but the actual manufacturing and assembly of the device is contracted out to other companies, most of which are foreign. The biggest of these Apple contractors is Foxconn, a Chinese company that manufactures 40 percent of all electronic devices in the world and employs 1.2 million people! To put that into perspective, Foxconn’s army of workers is twice as big as the United States Army (560,000 active personnel). Foxconn employees work 12-hour shifts, over 25 percent live in company-owned dormitories adjacent to the factories and many are paid less than $17 a day.

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Last Wednesday, FC Barcelona eliminated Real Madrid from the Copa del Rey tournament and here at UCSB, I saw plenty of kids repping their Barça and Madrid jerseys and at least a few others streaming the game live on library computers in between classes. But even if you’re not a fan of fútbol, you have probably heard the names of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo thrown around. These soccer gods, who are considered the two best players in the world, are the biggest protagonists of the greatest rivalry in sports: Real Madrid versus FC Barcelona, El Clásico.

There’s Real Madrid’s Ronaldo, the powerful midfielder who punishes on counterattacks with his trickery and sound-barrier-breaking shots versus FC Barcelona’s Messi, a diminutive (5’6”), crafty player who seems to have the ball glued to his feet as he darts through opposing defenses. The differences between the two players exemplify the differences between their teams’ styles of play; Madrid loves the lightning counters while Barcelona breaks down defenses through dominating possessions. Yet there are plenty of other rivalries with similar contrasts in players and styles: Bears vs. Packers, Yankees vs. Red Sox, Lakers vs. Celtics etc. What makes El Clásico the greatest rivalry in the world is actually something completely unrelated to sport: politics.

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At first they tried Papa Bear Cain’s porridge, but it was a little too strange with that weird pizza-flavored aftertaste. Then they tried Mama Bear Romney’s porridge, but it was a little too watered down and had that disturbing, corporate smell. They even tried Uncle Bear Perry’s famous Texas porridge, but when they went for a second bite he accidentally knocked his bowl off the table. Oops.

Now they’ve tasted Baby Bear Newt Gingrich’s porridge and mmmm, mmmm! A delicious blend of fiscal and social conservatism, a brash personality and public and private sector experience to boot! Maybe Newt Gingrich’s porridge will be juuuuuust right. Little do they know that Newt’s secret ingredient is rat poison: The man is not electable in any way, shape, or form.

On Saturday, the Republicans made Newt Gingrich the landslide winner of the South Carolina primary. By doing so, they ensured that Mitt Romney will not coast to the nomination like he was hoping. But this is more than the usual flirtatious game of footsie that the Republicans like to play with any candidate not named Mitt or Romney; the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary has gone on to be the party’s nominee in every presidential election since 1980. That means that Republicans are seriously considering having Newt Gingrich go up against President Obama in 2012.

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Welcome back Gauchoans, and Happy New Year!  2012 is destined to be a doozy. Not only will it be the final year of our lives, but in November we will decide who the final president of the United States will be, to bravely lead us into the Armageddon and our impending doom.

Ah yes, election year in America, when the slightly irritating, yet somewhat humorous “Jumbaco” Jack in the Box commercials will be replaced by a barrage of hours upon hours of incredibly irritating political attack ads. Yet while the ads air all the candidates’ dirty laundry and scrutinize their political positions in an effort to sway undecided voters, some of the most important factors that decide who will vote for who on  Nov. 6 aren’t political at all. To a large degree, whom you will vote for this year has already been decided based on where you live, what your income is and how religious you are.

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Gather round, all ye children, for I haveth a tale for thee on why Ron Paul is oh so wrong…

Once upon a time (two weeks ago, actually), MF Global filed the eighth-largest bankruptcy in history, with debts leveraged 40 to one against its capital. That means that for every one dollar of capital MF Global owned, it was buying 40 dollars’ worth of debt. To put that into perspective, Lehman Brothers was leveraged 30 to one when it collapsed in 2008 along with the housing market, flushing our economy down the toilet. Yet while we lingered in that economic sewer, with the scent of Lehman Brothers’ crap still fresh in our nostrils, the jackasses at MF Global decided to pursue those exact same risky practices that got us into this mess in the first place.

But wait, it gets even better. Jon Corzine, the then-CEO of MF Global, is a former senator who has spoken out many times for the need for better regulation of Wall Street. In a speech he gave at Princeton in September of last year, just a few months after he joined MF Global, Corzine talked about how it was unacceptable that some of Wall Street’s biggest players leveraged their shareholders’ money at a ratio of 30 to one leading up to the crisis. Yet in the very next year, Corzine decided to go bipolar and take his own company’s leverage ratio to an insane 40 to one rate with a $6.3 billion bet on high-risk debt from countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal.

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Last week, Palestine officially joined UNESCO, the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural organization, as its newest member. The vote approving Palestine’s membership was overwhelming; 107 member nations voted for the admission while only 14, led by the United States, voted against. The decision was both monumental and controversial as it not only represented the first instance of a UN body officially recognizing Palestine, but also resulted in the United States withholding its payment to UNESCO and Israel announcing it would speed up settlement construction as punishment for the decision.

Palestine’s effort to join UNESCO is part of a larger effort to seek legitimacy through the United Nations, since it doesn’t see negotiations with the current Israeli government as a realistic path toward establishing an independent Palestinian state. The United States and Israel fiercely oppose this strategy and both view direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine — brokered by the United States — as the only viable path toward peace. Consequently, the Obama administration called the admission of Palestine into UNESCO “regrettable” and “premature” and said that it undermined the international community’s shared goal of a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” between Israel and the Palestinians. The administration also announced that the United States would discontinue its payments to the organization, payments that account for 22 percent of UNESCO’s entire budget.

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As I watched the brigade of mounted officers parading around Isla Vista this past week in preparation of Halloween, I could only think of one thing, and it didn’t have anything to do with public safety or projection of force. All I could think about was what an incredible waste of money it is to trot these guys around for a week straight. I am all for public safety and would never want Halloween to turn into a crazy, gang-fuelled riot or bank-burning festival, but I just don’t see the value in having these horse cops around. The truth is, nobody’s going to be rising up en masse against the police force when the streets are full of hot nurses and Spartans. Everybody’s mind is on sex, not revolution.

A 2009 Santa Barbara County grand jury investigation revealed that, in 2008, the Halloween celebration in Isla Vista cost the county an estimated $700,000. Of that amount, $432,000 went to law enforcement. While I understand the need to have a few more cops around due to the explosion in Isla Vista’s population during Halloween weekend, half a million dollars sounds a little exuberant. Spending public money on search-and-rescue crews to provide medical help for kids with toxic levels of Heritage vodka in their systems is understandable and necessary. Horse cops? Not so much.

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Two weeks ago, on Oct. 12, a man by the name of Scott Evans Dekraai killed eight people in a bloody massacre at the hair salon where his ex-wife worked in Seal Beach, California. Apparently, Dekraai snapped over a child custody dispute with his wife over their 8-year-old son, charging into the salon wearing a bullet-proof vest with guns blazing.

The shooting threw the issue of gun control into the national spotlight once again, with each side taking their predictable positions. Gun-control activists argued that if handguns were banned, this horrible tragedy never would have occurred, while gun-rights activists countered that such a ban would be a violation of federally protected rights and, if other people in the salon had been armed, it is unlikely so much blood would have been shed.

Both sides have legitimate arguments, but one thing is certain: More has to be done to limit tragedies like this from occurring, because deaths due to gun violence in the United States are far too common. While there have been approximately 6,000 American deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there have been 100,000 American deaths from gun violence here in the United States during that same period. That’s twice as many Americans deaths than there were in Vietnam.

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“We are the 99 percent.”

As you may or may not know, for almost a month now there have been thousands of people occupying a park near Wall Street in New York City as part of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. This is not a few hippies camping out in a park smoking dank and singing Kumbaya; this is thousands and thousands of people from all walks of life protesting on Wall Street every day against corporate greed, and around the rallying cry of “We are the 99 percent.” However, the mainstream media has paid little attention to the protests, and what coverage there has been typically revolves around the supposed “unclear aims” of the movement.

Take new CNN anchor Erin Burnett on her show OutFront, for example. In a segment she calls (be sure to use your best Valley-Girl accent) “Seriously?!” Burnett goes down to Wall Street in order to find out what, exactly, the protests are about since, according to her, “nobody seems to know.” After smugly characterizing the protesters as banjo-playing, bongo-drumming, designer-yoga-pant-sporting hypocrites, she tries to make a fool of a gullible, unemployed computer software developer named “Dan.” Dan is frustrated with the bank bailout, but instead of letting him explain why, Burnett condescendingly informs him that the banks paid back all their bail out money plus interest, so there isn’t any good reason for the continuing “unrest.”

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Think about this next time you sink your teeth into some deliciously fattening Mickey D’s: Medical school researchers at Harvard University estimate that artificial trans fats cause up to 228,000 heart attacks annually in the United States.

Although you may not notice it living in Isla Vista, where there are more gym rats than actual rodents, America is quickly becoming the not-so-glorious nation of “Get Fat, Die Young.”

The United States spends more money per person on its health care than any country in the world at $7,538 per person per year, and yet, according to the CIA World Factbook, the United States ranks 50th in the world in life expectancy at birth. Yeah, 50th. That’s behind not only the United Kingdom, Canada and Spain, but also Bosnia and Herzegovina, Puerto Rico, Bermuda and the Isle of Man.

Not surprisingly, we’re also the most obese country in the world at 34 percent, and obesity has just recently beaten out long-time champ tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. According to Health Affairs, increasing obesity in the United States accounts for 27 percent of the total rise in health care costs between 1987 and 2001. As of 2010, $147 billion per year is spent on obesity-related health care costs.

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