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My United States Cabinet (2024)

So still sticking to theme of politics and with President-elect Obama nominating people to this Cabinet, I thought I would create a mock list of my Cabinet. Granted I will not reach the age requirement until 2024 – not that it makes a difference since I will never be a natural born citizen. Hypothetically if those rules weren’t in place, my Cabinet just might look like the one listed below.

The top set of nominees are listed in order of succession to the Presidency and the ones below are five positions that have cabinet-level rank, which allows these individuals to attend Cabinet meetings without being secretaries of executive departments.

Feel free to comment if you are listed below or think you should be listed but I just made this list yesterday and I know I am missing a few good people. Some of these people I haven’t talked to in quite a while but from what I remember left quite the impression. I think I did a pretty fair job of getting people with diverse views and not all left-wing nuts or right wing radicals.

Feel free to make your own Cabinet and feel free to share.

Office Nominee
Vice President and President of the Senate Krishna Hajari
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike DiAmore
President pro tempore of the Senate Pam Ahn
Secretary of State Katie Murray
Secretary of the Treasury James Kong
Secretary of Defense Mike Bocchinfuso
Attorney General Vivake Prasad
Secretary of the Interior Brian Feraudo
Secretary of Agriculture Jason Rowe
Secretary of Commerce Kate Kelliher
Secretary of Labor Joscelyn Chang
Secretary of Health and Human Services Mark Angeles / Alexandria Gamboa*
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shivani Chopra
Secretary of Transportation Joseph Sullivan
Secretary of Energy Chad Edwards
Secretary of Education Lauren Scala
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tim Stanoch
Secretary of Homeland Security Ronak Savla
Positions that are not part of the Presidential line of succession
White House Chief of Staff Stephanie Albright
United States Trade Representative Hao Yan
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Amanda Grimes
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Justin Eusebio
Director of the National Drug Control Policy Eric Abrahamsen
Ambassador to the United Nations Tanya Manifold

* – The one pick I couldn’t settle on was the Secretary of Health and Human Services… Mark and Alex can fight amongst themselves to see who wants it.

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Team On A Mission

This is an article I wrote for The Stute prior to the Final Four weekend and certainly I will be writing one about this weekend shortly, but here is the previous one.

“We are 5-3-2 in the NCAA Tournament over the past five seasons, so as a program we are looking to take the next step and reach the national semifinals for the first time.”

Those were the words of Men’s soccer coach Tim O’Donohue (7th season – 132-16-17) in the season preview release way back in August. The Ducks have gone 2-0-2, with 2 dramatic penalty kick wins two weeks ago here in Hoboken to reach that national semifinal for the first time.

Although the season is far from over with the Ducks still having the possibility of playing two of the biggest games in program history, they have already had quite a season. They started things off by defeating Redlands University from California, then ranked #8 in the country, by a 2-1 margin which would be the first of five consecutive wins the Ducks had to start the season. That start would push the team to a #5 ranking of all teams in D-III soccer but that would be as high as they would get as the Ducks because facing Swarthmore, a ranked opponent for the second time that week proved to be a little too much as they went down 2-0.

The loss stopped Stevens’ home unbeaten streak at 62 games going back to a October 2002 loss to United States Merchant Marine Academy. Since the loss on September 13th, the Ducks have lost only one game in their last 19 contests including a stretch of seven straight shutouts – six of which came in either the Empire8 Championship tournament or the NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Championship. To date, Stevens’ defense has allowed 1 goal in 400 minutes in the NCAA tournament.

Going up against Amherst in the semifinal, the Ducks enter the matchup with an impressive 18-2-4 record and have truly gotten here through a complete team effort. The first round was a lone goal by Todd Sheridan that put the Ducks past Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The following day it was two crucial goals by Nolan Sandberg that propelled the Stevens squad to the regional semifinals for the fifth time in six years.

Then came the weekend in Hoboken.

It would turn out to be “Pandemonium in Hoboken” as the play-by-play announcer for Stevens Athletics and Empire8.tv Matt Fitzsimmons would proclaim after senior captain Craig Moquin knocked home the final penalty shot against defending national champions Middlebury Panthers. The Ducks were still dancing and the fans had stormed the field on back to back nights in probably one of the most memorable sports weekends for Hoboken in recent history.

The Ducks scored 1 goal in 220 minutes of game time. After keeping the game scoreless and constantly battling off a relentless attack by Johns Hopkins in the sectional semifinal, the Ducks were able to advance on remarkable goalkeeping by sophomore sensation Zach Carr who saved four out of the five penalty shots he faced.

The national semifinal on Saturday, December 5th against Amherst is scheduled to start off at approximately 1:30 PM following the 11 AM matchup featuring Messiah College and Loras College – both of those teams advanced to the national semifinals in 2007. The NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Championship Final is scheduled for the following day.

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Higher Education Act Loan Forgiveness

For those of us who are studying/graduating after concentrating in the field of applied science, technology, engineering or mathematics along with plenty of other fields that can be found at with the entire text of the amendment and extension the Higher Education Act of 1965 – more specifically pages 160 to 162.

I have quoted some of the text from the Act that shows that you are entitled to no more than $2,000 in loan forgiveness per academic or calendar year and a total amount of $10,000 over the years as long as you are a full time employee in one of the fields.

Just something useful to note as many of my classmates are reaching graduation this year along with those reaching it in the few years or even the recent graduates.

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph (2), for each school, academic, or calendar year of full-time employment in an area of national need described in subsection (b) that a borrower completes on or after the date of enactment of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, the Secretary shall forgive not more than $2,000 of the student loan obligation of the borrower that is outstanding after the completion of each such school, academic, or calendar year of employment, respectively.

‘‘(2) MAXIMUM AMOUNT.—The Secretary shall not forgive more than $10,000 in the aggregate for any borrower under this section, and no borrower shall receive loan forgiveness under this section for more than five years of service.

‘‘(14) STEM EMPLOYEES.—The individual is employed fulltime in applied sciences, technology, engineering, or mathematics.

Thanks to my buddy Joseph Sullivan for pointing this out to me earlier in the day (yes it’s 9 AM and I said earlier in the day).

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Re: Academy Soccer

So I got relatively good responses from those that read my “Academy Soccer: Tradition Never Graduates” post and I had even submitted it into Mastermind Media and was awaiting a response because I do not think they had ever published an article written from an alum before. Well if they hadn’t, they have now. I have been told that it is in the November 2008 issue that I have put up scans of below and I even have the entire paper available if someone wants to read it.

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The Lions’ Chase For Immortality

So every Thanksgiving, the Detroit Lions manage to make their way on the television sets of so many people at home with their families but this year, watching them is just going to be awful.

The Lions coming into this week are 0-11 with an average margin of defeat at 13.9 points per game. 4 out of their 5 losses at home have come by 18 points or more (lone close game was vs. Washington by 8 points). On the other hand, 4 out of their 6 losses and more specifically their last 4 road games have been decided by single digits.

They get blown out by an average of 20 points at home (5 games) while its only 8.8 on the road. Maybe it’s the pressure of being consistently being barraged by the home crowd and even the late acquisition of Daunte Culpepper didn’t help where they built a 17-0 lead IN THE FIRST QUARTER only to get outscored 38-3 the rest of the game.

This is where really awful teams need luck. It is really hard to go 16 games without winning one. The Miami Dolphins (1-15) proved that last year with an overtime thriller against the Ravens. The final 5 games for Lions are against the Titans, Vikings, @ Colts, Saints and @ Packers who are a combined 34-21 with Packers being the only team under .500 at 5-6.

I don’t think there’s anyway Titans lose tomorrow night after the beating they took against the Jets. The Colts who are still fighting to secure a playoff spot will not take the Lions easily and will look to dismantle them early. The Saints offense has looked explosive at times this year and they can easily outscore any team to win a game. That just leaves it to the two divisional games with Minnesota and at Green Bay. The Vikings is a home game where the Lions have done awful so I wouldn’t expect that to change this late in the season so I’ll mark that at a loss.

That puts them at 0-15 going into the final week of the season in Green Bay. This could be a vital game for the Packers as they are in a fight for the playoff lives with a 3-team race in the division. You know the Lions play tough on the road, Lambeau just doesn’t have the mystique and intimidation factor that it once did for the Cheeseheads and no player, on any team wants to go 0-16. I am just afraid with the up and down season that Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are having that they are going to slip up week 17 against a winless team and end up missing the playoffs by a week.

It is very hard to go 0-16 and even though no one deserves to go an entire season without winning a single game, I wouldn’t mind seeing it this year… although I’m quite afraid that the Packers just might ruin that for me.

So here’s the breakdown that I have for the Lions’ final five games:

Tennessee – Loss (14-31)
Minnesota – Loss (17-21)
at Indianapolis – Loss (14-28)
New Orleans – Loss (14-35)
at Green Bay – Win (21-20)