Right to Life

The media source claims that CIA interrogators used illegal means to get information out of an al Qaeda prisoner. The report from the executive director of the ACLU stated that these means used were reprehensible and illegal As claimed by the author there have been several other cases in which the CIA have tries to scare prisoners into spilling out information by firing gun shots in a near by room to show that the other was being fired upon. The article also states that several cases of such misconduct have been taken up by the Department of Justice of which only one person was prosecuted. The point the article is trying to make is whether it is justified to use methods like scaring prisoners with guns and drills to get information out of them or is it necessary to do so.

I feel it is justified to perform such acts of people to get information, provided they have been convicted with evidence. Ethical and moral rights do not play a role here. If the interrogators would not create an atmosphere of fear into such prisoners, they would think that they are untouchable. The al Qaeda is a terrorist group, which has terrorized the world with their bombs and mass murder. I feel it is justified that they themselves face what the general public have faced when someone they know have been killed or injured because of the al Qaeda. The media clearly shows that it does not like the behavior of the CIA towards its prisoners, but it is also not looking at who the prisoner is. If the prisoner was falsely accused and the CIA guards were just getting pleasure out of someone else’s misery, then the CIA is wrong. However there is evidence that the prisoner who is being accused is from the al Qaeda. The al Qaeda are trained not to leak information otherwise all those who had been captured would have leaked out information, therefore the CIA were trying another tactic to get information- if words do not work, use fear.

The higher authority in the CIA was angry as hell when information of such acts reached them. They were thinking on the basis of logic rather than letting their emotions get in the way. However I feel that the higher people who got ‘angry’ were merely doing it to prevent humanitarians from protesting against them, since the information was leaking on the news.

This leak of information about the CIA will cause havoc in the department. The media themselves are not the ‘good people’. This article is biased towards the faction that claims the interrogation method to be unjustified. Had the media not intervened in the CIA’s private prisons, havoc might not be caused in the department. The media take a lot of matters into its hand without thinking about the consequences. Not only that but also they influence those who read their articles to think in a certain way. This shows the fact that if the media feel someone in the situation is wrong; they are wrong only giving selective evidence to support its claim.

I feel those who commit crime for the wrong reasons and are free to roam about and do the same thing again should not be dealt with ease. It is only through instilling fear in the world of terrorist that they in the future that they may think many times before they bomb another city. The information leaked by the media is a world wide phenomena that even the terrorist are looking at. They know now that such acts of scaring their captured people is just a show and they will never be killed in prison. The media have prevented the CIA from getting information out of the prisoner. However this will also affect future prisoners, as they will know what to expect in the prisons of the CIA.

In conclusion I would like to say that if the CIA are in fact treating all of its prisoners in such a manner, I will not support its behavior. The term every human should have human rights can be looked at in two different ways here. If the CIA give the prisoner his human rights, they would be taking it away from those people who will be bombed by the al Qaeda in the future. However if they take his human rights away they, would be saving millions of people human right. No one can make the right decision here because both are correct. However a better decision can be made from the two. I feel it is the latter one.

http://www.punemirror.in/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=3&contentid=2009062420090624012102651a019ba28&sectxslt=&pageno=1

Red Bull – one of indias finest energy drinks, favored by a many across India, is on the verge of being banned completely from India. Because of not following regulations of the maximum amount of caffeine per drink which is two hundred parts per million the Food and Drug Administration has confiscated Red Bull cans worth more than six crore rupees. This does not look good for those who cherish this drink and they must be very angry at the Food and Drug Administration. The Food and Drug Administration has sent a batch of the cans for testing for taking legal action against the concerned parties.

Should Red Bull really be banned from the country? People who do not want to drink it should not drink it but they should not prevent others from drinking it. That is unfair to those who want to drink it but are prevented by doing so because of others. It is stated by researchers that in the long run, high consumption of such energy drinks damages the bones and leads to osteoporosis and arthritis. Research has also cited that there are remote links between such energy drinks and cancer. However how much of this is fact and how much fiction. Each ones body has a different anatomy and their reaction to substances is different. Researchers cannot generalize that Red Bull is bad for everyone and everyone is likely to get osteoporosis by consuming Red Bull. Even though Red Bull may in reality affect the health of all those who drink it in the long run there are so many other drinks in the market that do not follow regulations and are even worse than Red Bull. However the FDA does not catch them. People drink Red Bull not only for pleasure but also for energy. Late at night when I need to study during my exams a can of the drink is very helpful for me. It gives me the required boost to study some more. This article is not taking into account the fact that there are people who need the drink in order to do well their daily lives.
the article is bias towards banning the selling and distribution of Red bull in the indian market. from this i asume that there is corruption somewhere since Red Bull does control a lot of the markets consumption. there should be further investigation involved in this issue-"The limit set forth by the PFA Act applies only to carbonated waters and not to energy drinks containing functional ingredients such as caffeine up to 320mg/L, taurine, glucuronolactone and B group vitamins,” said Vikaas Saxena, director, marketing, Red Bull India."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523581,00.html

abortion

abortion is the termination of pregnancy but after 28 weeks of pregnancy abortion is considered illegal. this doctor was performing late pregnancy abortions and because of that people protested against him. he was shot dead at a church. there were many protests against held against him but he stilled continued his practice. he was even shot earlier. the people saw his practice as illegal and unethical.

Should the doctor who was shot be responsible for this or the women who come for the abortion be responsible. The women were the ones who got the abortion done, the doctor was earning a living by doing that. In retrospect the people acted because of rage, they should not have shot the doctor but tried him in a court of law. The women who had come in for the abortion should have thought about it before having intercourse. However the complete responsibility of the doctors death does not fall completely on the women but also himself.

is abortion ethical? how can another person decide whether a child or fetus lives or not. however on the other side is that that fetus does not even know it is alive. almost all governments around the world have made abortion of a fetus over 28 weeks illegal. this has come forth through public opinion. In USA abortion of the fetus below the age of 28 was legalized in 1970. However the abortion does not only depend of the age of the fetus but also the health of it. if the fetus may grow into a unhealthy baby abortion beyond 28 weeks can be considered legal but is still in debate for its ethnicity. Can the baby survive when it is born, this can only be known in the later stage of pregnancy, if not should it face the harsh world or should it be killed. Both ways are correct because the baby may have the will power to do it but if not, then one would be doing it a favor by killing before it is born. Abortion depends from person to person, one may not think of the fetus as a living thing but another may think of it a soul. Abortion is not a false dilemma where it is completey right or completely wrong. There are other factors determining the ethnicity of abortion.

Another question that arises is that even though there are so many campaigns held that try and teach the public about family planning and ways how to prevent unwanted pregnancy, the public does not seem to be learning anything. Is the government wasting away its resources when it can spend in other ways? Abortion is not just limited to the debate of whether a fetus can be killed or not, abortion is something that man has been doing for ages and can cause a lot of unwanted desire like the selling of the unwanted child, abandoning it or making him or her do labour work. Abortion is a big concept which requires one to not only have a medical background but also a psychological background to understand it.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iOegnahAFcEgwJZ4WKGkVz9Dgq5wD98PT6000

On May 31^st Air France flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed in the location known as the Bermuda Triangle. The plane was said to be ripped apart in mid air and the crash land in the Amazon Jungle. No passengers had survived and for some time it was a mystery why the plane had an accident. There were some theories involving the crash. Investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed monitors — called Pitot tubes — iced over and gave false readings to the plane's computers. The other possibility is the belief of some supernatural activity that had been occurring in the Bermuda Triangle zone. Here several plane and ships had mysteriously disappeared without and idea of how or why.

The Bermuda Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and ships are alleged to have disappeared in mysterious circumstances which fall beyond the boundaries of human causes like piracy or mechanical failure. These circumstances are said to be of supernatural or extraterrestrial causes. Even though this may think to be one of the causes of the crash of the plane there is still no physical evidence of these forces. There have been radio signals, which were transmitted just before the plane had crashed. These signals point out a fault of the rudder limiter a mechanism that limits how far the plane's rudder can move. The speculation is that if the rudder moved out too much while the plane was travelling at a high velocity the air resistive force could rip off the rudder sending the plane to plummet to the ground. However a industry official, said the error message pertaining to the limiter didn't indicate it malfunctioned, but rather that it had locked itself in place because of the conflicting speed readings.

The reason for the planes crash is not yet clearly known. There are several possibilities responsible for the plane to have an accident. It is necessary to know the reason for such types of crashes as then aircraft manufacturers can build better and safer plane in the future  

little prince

The Little Prince Chapter 2

The Little Prince even though written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was intended for children, is a novel, which has a hidden deeper meaning to it. By reading the book I found that it was very interesting and subtly brings out human nature and characteristics through various characters from the book the little prince meets.

This chapter appealed to me the most as it created a sense of questioning and awe in me. I was filled with these emotions as I could see that the Little Prince could connect with the author’s drawing while the adults could not. When the author drew the picture of a boa eating an elephant, no adult could say what it really was. All they could see was a hat. This shows how our minds are conditioned to think like the way we think. It is rare to find people who can think out of the box. Our perception is something unique to all of us. The author has tried to bring out a point through his drawing of the boa eating the elephant that a person does not see something even when it is in front of him, he looks at the picture as a whole and not through details. I feel that the author is showing that people in today’s time have prioritized things which are of consequences but do not look at something as important as their own child.

As the chapter moves on, the author eventually draws three different figures of sheep. The little prince ha asked him to draw sheep but the author’s reason to not draw a perfect sheep was because he had never drawn a sheep before. I felt that the little prince was pestering the author to do something he had never done was perhaps because the little prince knew the authors potential and the author did not know it himself. This is relevant as one always thinks he cannot do something because he has never done it before, what one does not understand is that he is not going to lose anything by trying something new. One cannot be certain that he is going to a new task wrong. If he does go wrong in the new task, he learns a way that he should not use to complete that task. The author by the fourth attempt to draw a perfect sheep used lateral thinking. He drew a box in which he said was the sheep the little prince wanted. This was a clever thinking on the part of the author, as he knew he could not draw exactly what the prince wanted but knew the prince knew exactly what he wanted. The box symbolized the mind of the prince since the prince knew exactly what the sheep wanted to do at any point of time.

When the author was asked to draw a sheep while he was asleep, his immediate reaction was surprise as he was in the middle of a desert when he heard the voice. The author was also astonished to find that the prince could understand that drawing of the boa eating the elephant. On the first drawing of the sheep the prince said it was sickly, on the second one he smiled and simply rejected the third one. The little prince wanted the picture of a sheep but the author wanted to fix his plane. There were contradicting sets of emotions in the conversation in the chapter. This is also directed at the fact that in today’s time people have no time to look at new things, they are usually impatient and disregard the feelings of others. The author was at first complaining about the adults but now he has become what the adults were to him, to the prince.

Even though the prince claims to have come from another planet, he knows how to speak the same language as the author. The author knowing this befriends the prince. I feel the author is trying to show that however different we are, we can always live together. The author has also stereotyped adults as those who would not listen to him. However even after concluding that no one might get what his picture of the boa eating the elephant is, the prince broke his stereotype of the people around him. The author knew he could connect with prince, as the prince knew what the authors drawing was. The author had called what we think is a box, a box in which there is a sheep. Both the author and the prince knew what the author meant. I feel the author does not like conventions like calling a box, a box. He wanted to say that that is a box which coul have a sheep in it.

 

emotion reflection

When used without reason, emotion can create a world where everything a person says or thinks is based on what the person feels. He loses his sense of judging both the sides of a situation. His decision, without being reasoned out may not do him well in the future. This powerful emotion, which leads one to make a decision, creates a cycle, which in the end will enforce his emotion from the beginning. The person chooses to ignore everything other than what he wants to see or feel.

An example can be taken from the animal kingdom. Many snakes are poisonous and have the potential to kill its prey. There have been many incidences that snakes have attacked and killed humans, however studies show that snakes do not hunt down humans, they attack only when they feel they are threatened. A person who has a phobia of snakes will have a biased perception that all snakes are poisonous and kill everything in their path, not looking at the fact that snakes only attack when they are threatened or are looking for food. He makes a generalization that all snakes attack humans in order to kill them. In the end he concludes that he is right in fearing snakes because he reasoned out that they kill humans.

This is the cycle one follows when one does not question his emotion and does not reason out his decisions. One can only get out of this cycle by questioning his emotions.

emotion v/s reason

Choosing to live in a world without emotion or to live in a world without reason. This may seem like a simple choice to make but in reality it is not. For a person to choose either reason or emotion above the other is a foolish choice to do. In my view one should live a balanced life in which one should know when his reason should be driving him or his emotion. Using emotions may be a more common way of living life. A person does not question what his actions have caused until he has done it. For example if my parents do not allow me to go out on a Friday night, I will get angry and start breaking things to show my disapproval of their decision. However while I am performing the action of destroying things, I do not think for 1 bit that breaking things is not the right answer since my parents will still not let me go out. It is only after that I have broken several things that I say to my self I should never have done that. Here my anger has taken control over my body. Had I reasoned out before why my parents have not allowed me to go out I would have had a better chance of going out that night. Another example is on seeing a spider in the house one does get afraid and kill it. What that person does not think is that that spider is the cause there are not other insects in my house. The spider is the natural predator of the housefly and other insects. Had the person not killed the spider, there would have been less flies around the house.  However looking at emotion and reason from a different angle, I can say that many of the scientific discoveries are due to the fact that the scientists were inspired or frustrated that they could not get the correct theory or answer. Emotion was the driving factor that caused them to stay up day and night to get the correct theory. Gregor Mendel was inspired to study variation in plants. This inspiration caused him to study plants and inheritance. Due to him today we know much of genetic inheritance. Hence we need both emotion and reason in our daily lives and not just either one.