Wednesday, September 25, 2013

UN Arms Treaty will be Menace to US for Years to Come

 The article named “UN Arms Treaty will be menace to US for years to come” claimed that UN Arms Treaty signed on Wednesday was a big mistake and would be harmful to the United States, because the Senate would have no real opportunity to reject the treaty. There was a loophole in the process of ratifying treaties, meaning that we have to obey the treaty that the Senate has never ratified. Since treaties today are not what they were yesterday, they are not just about international conduct but also about our daily life. The Treaty would be more troublesome because the administration will use all the powers to enforce the treaty. Relevant terms of the Treaty are “international humanitarian law” and “international human rights law.” By committing to these terms, the United States will give other countries new opportunities to affect the U.S. firearms market as well as domestic firearms market. Proponents of the Treaty are still seeking to protect their human rights, which will cause uncontrollable circumstances of the United States. Opponents of the Treaty are voicing their opposition in order to call for the president’s rejection on signing the Treaty and thus avoid the far-reaching menace for the U.S.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/25/un-arms-treaty-will-be-menace-to-us-for-years-to-come/?intcmp=trending

Article: “FBI Releases Video of Navy Yard Gunman Stalking Prey” - www.FoxNews.com



I read the Fox News article (www.FoxNews.com) who wrote about the latest surveillance videos released by the FBI in regards to the Navy Yard shootings last week by the hands of Aaron Alexis who killed 12 people.  Within the article, there were more details in regards to what the shooter was wearing, where the video was captured (both in hallways as well as parking facility) and how the shooter maneuvered the hallways with his own shot gun, purchased two days prior and a separate gun “…believed to have been taken from one of the victims”. 

Fox News reports that the head of the FBI office in Washington, Valerie Parlave, stated that Alexis had a “well-documented history of mental illness” and that he, Alexis, “held a delusional belief that he was being controlled by extremely low frequency waves or ‘ELF’ waves”.   There was also a video snippet tied to the article which showed a few images of the FBI video.  The article did not include any other claims or commentary except quotes from the FBI and their latest news conference, however feel they (Fox News) used fairly strong vocabulary/phrases (…”Talking Prey” and “stealthily hunting down victims”) for an increased dramatic feel.

Cereal Companies are Evil.

The Onion article entitled, "Cereal Commercial Completely Neglects Showing Numerous Life Problems Character Faces Beyond Breakfast" takes a look at the phenomena of cereal companies failing to show the hardships that characters in cereal commercials. The article claims that by cereal companies failing to show the rest of character's life, they are portraying an inaccurate lifestyle for the character. This portrayal misleads viewers by not showing the social and fiscal hardships experienced by the character. The claim is that cereal companies show an inaccurate life of the commercial's character. The grounds for this claim are that the rest of the life of the character fails to be seen by the viewer, as well as the unrealistic acts done by the character such as pouring the milk into the bowl for twelve to fifteen seconds. The warrant being that people have lives outside of breakfast, and anyone who poured milk for that long is crazy.

Matt Stemper, The 2nd Amendment


In this Article the author, Maxim Lott, discusses the debate regarding the 2nd Amendment. Does it mean the right to bare arms for any lawful reason, or does it mean to bear arms and maintain a militia. Well, that is what the senate webpage states. The author is very obvious on where he stands, he states that there is no debate, because the Supreme Court has looked over many of these cases and every time they have stated that people have the right to bear arms for lawful uses, such as self defense. The author clearly takes a stance when he states that the Senate website administrators are simple wrong, and need to revise their website. The argument was brought up that a Texas history book states that there has been a debate over the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, but that is debunked when the author writes that the book was made before the Supreme Court ruling, so it is irrelevant. 

 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/25/senate-website-gets-2nd-amendment-wrong-critics-say/

"Obamacare will question your sex life?"




       I looked at the link for The Tampa Bay Times which publishes a fact-checking piece called “PolitiFact Check.” Through the column researcher Becky Bower, analyzes the supporting data for the arguments made in the articles of other journalists. Her objective is to determine whether the facts they uncover are accurate. Rather than research the databases for accuracy I chose to analyze the claims of the original piece, which was a New York Times exposé that was published by former lieutenant governor of New York Betsy McCaughey, on September 15, 2013. In her composition entitled “Obamacare Will Question Your Sex Life,” McCaughey makes the blanket argument that Obama’s new health care guidelines will facilitate the prying of doctors into our private lives. However, she offers no supporting data to prove what specific healthcare questions will be imposed upon doctors nor if those responses must be included. The warrant for her claim is that our private information once obtained will somehow be used against us. The author supports her first claim with theoretical examples of questions that the doctors will ostensibly be asking. Among these are “are you sexually active, and “with how many individuals?” However, she goes on to back up her claim with an unrelated assertion that fails to connect to the first: Namely that that Obamacare also demands that doctor’s shift to online record-keeping.  Finally, she ties these premises together with the assertion that since Obamacare requires everyone in the United States to have health insurance or pay a fine, all personal data will be intrusive, the information will be public, and it will be available. This is where the argument breaks down. While McCaughey does offer backing to support the claim of online documentation she does not support her inferences of standard questions that will be required to be asked by physicians. Nor does she offer data to support the claim that the responses to questions about sexual behavior will be automatically placed in online files. Finally, she does not make an attempt to support the assumption that online files are unsafe or have a tendency to be used maliciously.     

















http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/sep/19/betsy-mccaughey/betsy-mccaughey-says-obamacare-will-question-your-/

World Cup preparations forge ahead in the middle of the Amazon

The article I read is named "World Cup preparations forge ahead in the middle of the Amazon", which claims the challenges of building a stadium in the rainforest and how this stadium benefits the city of the Amazon region.

At the beginning of the article, the author mentions 2014 FIFA World Cup first and then talks about the challenges of the stadium construction in the middle of the Amazon. The first challenge is logistics. It is difficult to get the material of construction to city surrounded by rainforest because the stainless steel is too heavy and large. Secondly, the rain is a challenge since crews have to install most materials before the rainy season, which may also cause the flood that threatens the construction. The third challenge is material should be used on the seats to prevent the damages caused by the sun. The author quotes from a former Brazilian national team player to explain that some people do not agree to build the stadium since it might not be used after the World Cup. Then the quotes of local officer argues that it is a good chance to show the city and the Amazon region to the world.


3D printing aims to deliver organs on demand

Since regenerative medicine has proved that the first three types of all four levels of complexity in building organs can be implanted into patience, scientist and researchers have the reason to look forward to that 3D printing can contribute to the widespread use of such organs. For printing an organ, one lab wants to use 3D printers to print both an artificial scaffold and living cells, while another lab uses 3D printer to situate the building blocks in layers to build tiny slices of organs. So far, no lab has succeeded in 3D-printing organs with the tiniest scales of blood vessels and organs, but bioprinting pioneers wish to make use of the smallest 3D-printed organs, and they believe the bioprinting revolution would happen in 10-15 years, which would change many patients’ life.




850 snakes found at New York animal control officer's house



This article addresses a contradiction that an animal-control officer, Richard Parrinello, was hiding numerous snakes for selling them on the illegal side. He committed an immoral business utilizing the animals at his private place even though he is an animal-control officer being involved in an animal rights group. There were Burmese pythons among the stash of snakes he had, which are illegal to have in the state of New York because the snakes can grow to thirty feet long and have potential to kill human. According to the author, it actually happened that there were two young boys who were eaten by a Burmese python in the state. In my opinion, Parrinello deserves an aggravated punishment since he was caught not only running a business at his house without a permit, but also owning the Burmese pythons which are illegal to have in the state of New York.