Shutdown myths find home on social media

The article I read from the New York Daily News. This article explains that the government shutdown claims in social media are starting to get a little extreme. And for the twitter users, they placed two statements for this situation. The one is the Obama administration shut down the Amber Alert program because of the government shutdown, another one is the Obama administration shut down the ocean.Amber Alerts notify the public when a child has gone missing or is abducted. The alerts are put out by the Department of Justice and give information about missing minors. The public can then contact authorities if they recognize one of the children.The alert system appeared to be shut off over the weekend, due to the partial government shutdown. The shutdown of national parks has angered Republican lawmakers, who this week passed a funding measure to reopen the landmarks and memories but the Democratic-controlled Senate has refused to consider the bill.

There has more articles are related to this topic, 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/05/Feds-Try-to-Close-the-OCEAN-Because-of-Shutdown

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-updates-the-shutdown-2/?id=47d7c37d-039c-4eed-8f8d-7fa980a6d227

Traffic Shutdown? Truck Drivers Plan 3-day Protest on Capital Beltway

The article entitled “Traffic Shutdown? Truck drivers plan 3-day protest on Capital Beltway” addressed the claim that a caravan of truck drivers was looking to shut down traffic around Washington as a way of protesting. The grounds of the article were that truck drivers planned to clog the Beltway by driving "three lanes deep" for three days to attract participants for a demonstration on the Capital Beltway. Commuters who want to pass their block must have a sticker on their window showing that they support the group. The backing of the argument was that truckers were complaining about wages, gas prices, and federal regulations on the truck industry as well as the debt on the National Security Agency's surveillance practices. More than 50 thousand Facebook users declared their support for those truckers. Earl Conlon, who claimed to speak for those truckers, declared that congress members should be arrested.  As a rebuttal, Conlon was challenged by supporters of the campaign. They believed that the plan should be carried out peacefully. Actually, the truckers’ real purpose was to show complaints about crimes against the United States and unconstitutional executive orders nullity.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/08/traffic-shutdown-truck-drivers-plan-3-day-protest-on-capital-beltway/

Shutdown Proposal

Shutdown Proposal

            This article explains John Boehner stepping forward for the republicans and conveying to Barack Obama and the Democrats that they would like to enter talks about how they together could reduce chronic federal deficits. While Boehner claims that the proposal could be voted on by Friday, this clearly means that what they come up with will likely be a quick fix that opens up the government but is incapable of solving our nations debt issues.

            While opening the government after this ten day shutdown is clearly step one, I still believe that it is important that we get to the source of our issues and attempt to clean our government up before it forces itself into a shut down once again.

            Democratic lawmakers such as an unnamed person from CNN mentioned that these are all short-term deals to raise the federal borrowing limit. Yet again I just want to make it clear that this is nothing that will be sustained.  

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/10/politics/shutdown-showdown/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

6 Reasons We Share Too Much Online, According to Behavioral Scientists

I read an article called "6 Reasons We Share Too Much Online, According to Behavioral Scientist." It makes a value claim that there are 6 reasons to explain why people share too much online from a behavior perspective.

The author uses the quotes from Facebook founder Mark  Zuckerberg and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the start of his article. Their words tell the current situation that "people share too much online" to the audience. Here, because both Zuckerberg and Schmidt are experts in social media and internet communication, this using of ethos helps to build the credibility of the author at the beginning. Then the author provides a fact claim that only few internet users try to keep away from being tracked. The explanation of a behavior scientist gives one reason that people do not care much because people do not know much about how data is used by others. And the behavior economist answers this from the information asymmetry perspective. After that, the author gives the main value claim that this phenomenon occurs because people’s bounded rationality on privacy matters.

The first evidence is that according to a research, people who started with more privacy valued it much more than those who started with less. The second reason is people get used to accept the default privacy settings. Thirdly, based on study, people tend to share more when they feel they have the capability to control the way of sharing. In the fourth, fifth and sixth reasons, the author argues further. Every reason is a small value claim  and the author uses the research results to convince the audience.

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/10/science-behind-why-nobody-cares-about-online-privacy

Alzheimer's and Slowing finding a Cure

According to the Fox News article "Scientists stop brain cells in mice from dying in potential Alzheimer's treatment breakthrough" we seem to have stumbled upon a drug that can reverse and prevent Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease -- in mice. Although they do seem to jump the gun on saying that it is a break-though and even the original source mentioned, "if only it was that straightforward" (SkyNews).  So I would also argue that it really isn't a "breakthrough". What the Fox News people did was that they kept throwing out "fact" claims, in were close to what Sky News was saying but not yet there. What the actually scientists involved with the study and Sky News were trying to get at was, realistically they found something that was essential but not necessarily a major major finding. Why? Because they still have about a decade and a half to go and make sure that the drug can be used specifically for humans. 
On top of that, the original source mentioned that the proteins in the neurodegenerative diseases are only similar to that of Alzheimer's. So FN again speaks too soon. That how I would refute them, they do seem to make the situation a little more hopeful.
I also think it is kinda funny that they provide the source of their information, and the source says something quite differently than what they do. 




http://news.sky.com/story/1152725/alzheimers-research-offers-no-quick-cure
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/10/10/scientists-stop-brain-cells-in-mice-from-dying-in-potential-alzheimer-treatment/ 

The Politics of Pot

In light of a recent effort made by a group of Florida citizens to collect signatures in favor of allowing a question about the legalization of medical marijuana on next years ballot,  politifact.com published an article this morning confirm truths and debunk myths about marijuana use. Politifact Florida writer Rochelle Koff uses this article as a space to fact check popular ideas surrounding marijuana, including marijuana is "less toxic" than alcohol, and one cannot get addicted to marijuana. Upon closer examination, Koff utilizes some logos to explain that there are enough statistics out there to support the notion that marijuana is indeed technically much safer than alcohol. This article does not argue for or against the legalization of marijuana in Florida, but rather does its best to be unbiased and present the facts. I can definitely appreciate the presentation of the truth over something obviously intended very persuasive in a purely informative article such as this one. Upon the completion of the article, I learned that both trips to the hospital and deaths are more likely to result from alcohol use over marijuana use, in fact, there are no documented deaths on record due to marijuana use. Koff does utilize the dreaded "one study suggests"type of reference which kind of takes away from her credibility when she claims that a study maintains marijuana is 100 less toxic than alcohol. What study and what elements of toxicity did the study measure to compare the two drugs? Koff also mentions the other side of the argument which is despite popular belief, you can actually get addicted to marijuana. Floridans are currently deciding whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, such the potential of addiction. I found a few spelling and grammatical errors in this article which also took away from the credibility for me. Over all I found to be a nice short informative piece that really should've sited more specific sources to enhance the credibility of the information being shared. 

Click here for more: The Politics of Pot

Obama's 37% Approval Means Something!

            In this article Rush Limbaugh argues why Obama’s approval rating is not being objectified. Why aren’t we taking anything from the fact that Obama’s approval rating is at 37%? Rush then goes on to argue that large sums of people are clearly against Obamacare and that most will not benefit from it. This is the reasoning for the low approval rating, and that it is fairly clear, whilst the analysts are claiming, “well the republicans aren’t doing anything right”. He is clearly angry and his reaction to the conversation was clearly negative. He believes Obamacare will help some, but that alone will make people unhappy. It is interesting to note Obama’s low approval rating in correlation to Obamacare and those who oppose it. They have a strong voice, clearly looking at the giant disapproval Obama has received.  

Sean Anisi 
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/10/10/obama_s_37_approval_means_something

Every day is a special day

The article I chose is a very touching essay from People Daily (a Chinese newspaper) and its name is Every day is a special day. The claim of this article is spending every day for achieving your dream.

This article is a typical patho-centric structure article. At the beginning of this essay, the author uses a short story as an introduction and then explains the relationship between the story and the argument. The story he used is very interesting and also appropriate for his topic. And the story is also the reason that the article attracted my eyes. After a the introduction, the author writes his own experience when he was a 20 years young man- he dreamed a lot, for example travelling all over the world, but the dreams were just left in his memory.

Then he raises two questions: what make us forget our dream? Why we only leave our dreams in memory? After the first question, he analyzes how we spend our every day and how we are pushed by the pressures of lives to state that we never really work for our dreams. For the second question, he uses another story to claim that every day is a special day. The story is about an old lady have a beautiful scarf, but she never wore it until she died because she always said she wanted to use it in a special day. I think this is a short but impressive story and make a good contribution to support that we should treat every day as a special day.

In the conclusion, the author reclaims his thesis and also develops a little- always remember you are in a special day when you think about your dream and spend every day for your dream. I think this conclusion is good. As the content included in Chapter 11, the one new topic we can discuss is about what further work needs to be done and this is exactly the article does.