Monkey see, monkey do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103100409.html

http://wii.ign.com/articles/831/831257c.html

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=051129223726.dqn74ka0&show_article=1


What if I were to say to you that there is a program designed to turn someone into an aggressive, and brutish, yet intelligent, and flawless killer? Should such a thing that could cause someone to turn to a life of violence, be destroyed? And what if I were to tell you that this new breed of killers, were children? Would you blame the children, for making such bad decisions, or would the blame be cast on the parents, for not paying better attention to their child’s issues?
Movies, television, and last but not least video games have all attributed “supposedly” to causing violence in people younger than the age of 18. Everyday there is a new report of some crazy kid who played a mission on grand theft auto, then went outside and started shooting at cars with his dad’s hunting rifle. School shootings are usually thought of to be brought on by the child not fitting in at school, then going home and popping some Marylyn Manson into their ipod. However what if the destruction was so bad, that it could even be considered an act of terrorism?
Something that bad did in fact occur, in California when 21 homes, spread out across 38,000 acres were consumed by fire. As of recent a young boy under the age of 13, stepped forward to the L.A. County Sheriffs Department and admitted to using some matches to start the fire. I personally find it funny that it was only a child, since Governor Schwarzenegger had just said in a press conference “We are going to hunt down whoever did this, and make them pay.” If I were that little boy I would have been scarred to death knowing the terminator was out to get me, in fact I find it admirable for him to come forward and have the bravery to take blame for it. Yet who should we be mad at, the boy, his parents, or some videogame he picked up?
Hillary Clinton has put out a new legislation that would make it illegal and punishable as a crime, for anyone to sell, or rent an M rated game to someone under the age of 18. Everyone knows the typical gaming type, titles such as Grand Theft Auto which are renowned for their language, sex, and violence, are probably not going to change. However the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) has gone after any other games they see as to adult oriented.
The latest game is called Manhunt 2. I myself have played through Manhunt 1, and I can tell you that the reason why this game would frighten parents is because of the gruesome ways you are allowed to kill you’re enemies with. Things like putting a plastic bag over their face and suffocating them, or putting a syringe through their eye were all possible and easy to do in Manhunt 1. For Manhunt 2 however, there are still the same options of execution, however during the actual killing process the ESRB took the game down from an AO (Adult Only game) to an M (Mature) by adding a blur effect during the game killings scenes. You still hear the bone crunching noises, and you can possibly make out shapes, but it is now difficult to make out what is actually going on.
This of course has infuriated the videogame audience who are now boycotting the game buy not purchasing it. I for one think their intentions are good, as if they just let this slide the ESRB would just tally this as another victory against the war on videogames. However by not purchasing the game, you are hurting the wrong people, you are hurting the makers of the game, who never wanted the ESRB to add the damn blur effects to the O so satisfying kill scenes.
I for one would enjoy coming home at the end of a hard day, and being able to simulate through a videogame beating up the guy who cut me off on the way home. Yet that is OK for me because I am 19 years old! These little kids nowadays should not be doing such kind of things because their minds will register it improperly and they may go out and do it. So to end my commentary, my point is this. The parents instead of wanting to just get rid of violent videogames all together should just have the courage to tell their children, “NO you cannot have this because you are not ready for it”. When the kid reaches 18, let them play whatever they want, but until then use the best judgment possible in what they can have as entertainment. All because they are still young and new to the world and may like SO many other children copy what they have seen in a movie, or game. Monkey see, monkey do.

Peace on Earth

http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101200364.html?hpid=topnews

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/13nobel.html?ex=1207800000&en=a09d6d4a2d4bb2ed&ei=5087&excamp=GGGNalgorepeaceprize&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=GN-S-E-GG-SEM-KP-1055490488-S-NA-al_gore_peace_prize

http://http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/

The Nobel Peace Prize was recently awarded to former Vice President Al Gore. Al Gore was given the Nobel Peace Prize, for his strong work on ending the plight of global warming. Al Gore’s work can be noted in his recent documentary movie titled “An Inconvenient Truth”. This movie although I myself have not had time to personally view it, has been noted by critics to be a massive eye opener on the past, present, and most importantly future conditions of the earths atmospheric issues. However despite its success, conservatives here in the United States have dismissed this film, and labeled at as exaggerated and alarmist.
From the information I have gathered from Al Gore’s website the current facts are that of statistical value. These facts include the number of hurricanes doubling recently, animals migrating closer to the polar caps, and the disease Malaria beginning to reach out to epidemic further cities. Also there are things such as the possibility of the Artic Ocean having no ice in it by the year 2050. Along with this for the year 2050, would come the extinction of many animals. From this statistical basis it is quite apparent as to why the conservative (namely Republican) Party would label a movie such s this to be alarmist. However I see no reason for Al Gore’s cause to be dismissed completely. His cause is obviously Noble, since he did win the NOBEL Peace Prize (lol), but his problem is, well, he came on a little too strong.
My opinions on the subject vary from detail, to detail. Do I think that Global Warming is a serious problem? Yes I do. Also I believe that when you are faced with a problem you should do something about it. Yet one way to go about it should NOT be to scare the crap out of people. Then on the other hand sometimes when something is very wrong, we tend to dismiss it and say to ourselves “Well its not a problem right now, so I will just wait until it gets bad, then I will deal with it.” In this case, the strongest recommendation is a good scare, just to give our system a swift kick to our rear, so that way we will realize how dire the situation is, and do something to fix it.
Al Gore does indeed deserve the Nobel peace Prize. For the longest time I have considered him as a good candidate. Also I hope that now that he has this honor, people will finally start paying a little bit closer attention to his film. We not as Americans, but as human beings should do something to take care of our Earth. I have heard numerous excuses for people not caring about the environment. Things like “Well the Earth wont end for like a billion years so who cares about what we do now.” Or “Well we could always abandon Earth and live on Mars. It is time for someone to do something about the problem, Al Gore is that someone, and I support him.

C.I.A. Interrogation Endorsement

C.I.A. Interrogation Endorsement


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?hp


In December 2004 it looked like the bush administration abandoned its usage of brutal interrogations in the central intelligence agency. However when Alberto Gonzalez became the attorney general in 2005, he gave out his own opinion, except that this was kept secret from the public. His opinion was that it was entirely necessary to use vicious methods of extracting information, such as placing their head underwater , and removing it before they drown, or hitting the terrorist suspect repeatedly in the face until the desired information

For the last two years, Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened constantly to ban the use of violent means of interrogation. However the opinions issued by the Justice Department are still going strong. This was until the head of the office of legal counsel Jack Goldsmith withdrew the memorandum set to give the Central Intelligence Agency the right to use harsh torture methods. After he withdrew the memorandum, Mr. Goldsmith gave his real opinions against torture techniques. Six months after he gave his statements, the Justice Department came out with a new opinion, this time stating “Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.”
However, as of today October 4th, 2007, The White House denied reports that a secretly issued Justice Department opinion in early 2005 cleared the way for the return of painful interrogation tactics that the Bush administration had earlier seemed to renounce. In a nutshell, Bush basically said it never happened. As stated by White House Secretary Dana Perino that it is a policy of the United States that we don’t torture people. Then when Dana Perino was asked about the opinion issued by the Justice Department regarding harsh torture methods he would not comment.
Honestly in my own opinion I could see why the Central Intelligence Agency might be gun ho on using torture methods. It’s because maybe, just maybe, one of these so called terrorists, may actually be capable of providing us with crucial information that may win us the war. Also I can plainly see why the White House administration would want to cover up anything remotely having to do anything with torture. That is because they are trying to improve the public approval rating (which is already bad), and they would be considered hypocrites if they came out and said they sued torture methods, when they said they wouldn’t.
HOWEVER, although I am all for the use of information extraction techniques to extract vital information, I do not see the need to use overly violent means of torture. Some people may criticize this and say that “torture is torture” there is no good torture, and bad torture. Well these people need look no farther then Senator John McCain, who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He is not even able to raise his arms above his head because he was struck with the butt of a rifle in his shoulder, while a POW. It’s sad to say that we are not to far from this same thing in terms of torture. The virtues of our methods can present long term physical problems; It's things like this which consist if torture can me considered morally reprehensible.

Instead I think we should use purely psychological based methods of extracting the information we desire. There are many more subtle ways of extracting information psychologically such as the placement of guilt into the interrogation subjects mind, or instilling fear into their mind so that the mere thought of pain will cause them to break down into a confession. Even the mere child’s play of trick questions can be used as an effective tool for extracting information. This by no means would I ever consider a method of torture. Even if it was, it would not be nearly as bad, as just taking someone into a room and beating them into a sense of honesty.