Friday, August 1, 2008

Practice

Recently, there have been a lot of arguments that are talking about marijuana. Some people think it is illegal and government should prevent people to smoking that. According to VU University Amsterdam (2002), people who use marijuana may rise using the risk drugs later. On other hand, some people prefer to make marijuana legal as cigarette. “According to a recent Time/ CNN poll, only 34 percent of Americans want marijuana to be totally legalized” (Roche, 2002, para. 56).

In my opinion, marijuana should be legalized.

First, marijuana is profitable for the government. People who use marijuana usually bought their drugs from sellers who sell the drugs at a high price. So, the sellers can be rich. In addition, the people would buy the marijuana even if it was expensive. Sometimes they may be sellers too, to sell some marijuana to get it for themselves. But when the government makes marijuana is legal, the government would make tax; and the government would save some money. Thus, the government can use that money to improve things such as education and health care (Marijuana Legalization Organization, 2007). In addition, the government can focus on other criminals such as murderers, rapists and thieves. So, the money which is spent on enforcement is wasted (Benna, 2005).

Second, marijuana is not too harmful to the health. Marijuana is like alcohol or tobacco. So, people can use it a little or abuse it. As we know, anything we abuse may cause bad results. “Marijuana, like tobacco and alcohol, can be abused” (Marijuana Legalization Organization, 2007). Even if the marijuana causes a little health problem, some people use it to give them some relaxation.

Based on the above, there are a lot of arguments that have happened and still are happening about whiter marijuana should be legal or not. So, I think it should be legalized because it is profitable and does not hurt the health.

References:

Benna, K. (2005, August 4). The case for legalization of marijuana . Kuro5hin website. Retrieved on July 29, 2008, from:
http://www.tinyurl.com/7tafl

Marijuana Legalization Organization. (2007, August 4). Why should marijuana be legal? Retrieved on July 29, 2008, from:
http://www.mjlegal.org/

Tashkin, D (n. d.). The medical dangers of marijuana use . Retrieved on July 29, 2008, from:
http://tinyurl.com/ysanqh

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Summary Response 2

Most of Transportation is important for our life. it helps us to move from one place to another quickly. These days, the price of gas is high. So, we should choose a kind of transportation that costs us less. Lena Sun (June 3 2008), in “Travelers turn to public transit”, says increasing of the gas price is making Americans take public transportation. In addition, the gas price is changing Americans’ behavior for riding transportation. Furthermore, people in the USA are still using transportation despite the fact that the price is high; and this is the first time that we have faced this price. There is a relationship between the price of gas and the number of people who ride public transportation. In addition, the second most popular kind of public transportation that is used is commuter railing. Furthermore, the increasing use of public transportation is not only in the USA, but also in other countries.

In my opinion, people should deal with the high price of gas.

First, people should use cars that consume less gas. As we know, there are cars that consume a lot of gas such as GMC. On other hand, there a lot of cars that consume less gas such as Japanese or Korean cars. For example, in my home country I had both a Japanese car, which is called Cammry, and an American car, which is called GMC. The American car cost me almost $120 a month, but the Japanese car cost me almost $50 a month. So, there is a big difference.

Second, people should move to the small cities. Living in the big cities means you need a highway, cars and other transportation. But in small cities you may not need a car at all. For example, in my home country, most people have their own cars. So, when I came here to Carbondale, I was very worried because I did not have a car, and I wondered, how I could move from my home to other places such as a Mall and CESL. But when I rode a bus for the first time I liked it and they were very useful for me.

Third, people should encourage their government to adopt new ideas. In my home country most people rely on their own cars. So, most of them are not using public transportation such as buses and train. This is a government responsibility. It can make rules and new ideas that encourage people to use buses and other public transportation like trains.

Increasing gas prices are the main reason to make people use public transportation. But we can deal with that by using cars that consume less gas, or moving to the small cities or finding new ideas that the government should use to encourage people to use public transportation.

Reference:

Sun, L. (2008, June 3). Travelers turn to public transit. The Washington post. Retrieved on June 7, 2008 from Lexis Nexis.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Oil

Oil is important for our lives. Some countries rely on oil economically as their basic income; others, especially industrial countries, rely on it to make their products. So, the price of oil depends on supply and demand. J. Murray (July 1 2008), in “Oil: A global crisis”, says Iraq war makes the oil expensive and costs the world $6 trillion. In addition, Dr. Mamdouh Salameh, who is the oil economist, says the oil should be not more than $40. On the other hand, there is prediction that the price of the oil would be $200. Furthermore, in 2000 the government of Iraq offered to open 10 new giant fields to produce extra oil, and Saddam’s government produced 3.5 million barrels per day but these days the government of Iraq is producing 2 million barrels per day.

In my opinion, the oil price is acceptable.

First, Iraq war encourages the price to be high. As we know, Iraq is producing less than what it produced before. So there is low supply. In addition, the location of Iraq is very important not only for the USA, but also for the world, because it is close to the countries that are producing at least 20 million barrels per day.

Second, decreasing of supply makes the price high. Recently, all countries that produce oil have made a group to control the production. They named the group OPEC. So, they control the production to make the price as they want. In addition, most of these countries rely on oil as the basis of their income.

Third, increasing of demands makes the price high. These days, there are many new industrial countries such as China and India that demand a lot of oil. In addition, the demand for oil is increasing, even in the developed countries such as the USA. As we know, if the demand is more than the supply, that leads the price to be higher.

Based on the arguments above, Iraq war, supply and demand, the price of oil is acceptable at least in these days; but maybe the price would reach $400 dollars in the next three or four years.

Reference:

Murray, J. (2008, July 1), Oil: A global crisis. The Independent. Retrieved on July 1, 2008, from:

http://www. Independent.con.uk/envviroment/green-livilng/oil-a-global-crisis-765876.html.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

EX1

Life has changed and the technology has too. In the past, life was difficult; everything took a long time and may not have been done perfectly. In addition, technology makes life easy and saves our time. For example, in the past, it was hard to move from country to another country; there were a lot of difficulties such as bad transportation and long travel times. Furthermore, education was hard, and it was tough to get the information they wanted. But these days, it is easy to get any information you want in any time. Technology supplies the best results in the medical field. It helps people to get successful surgeries. In conclusion, my parents’ generation missed the technology that we have today which make our life comfortable and easy.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Final

Wikipedia is the number nine site in the USA (Wolverton, 2007), because it has a lot of information that you want such as climate, math, and medical. Furthermore, this site allows you to add any information you want on it, and get any information from it. In addition, you can edit or delete your information any time you want. In general, you can say it is a free space in the internet for anyone. ”Approximately 38 million people visited the English language version of the site in December 2006. Wikipedia is also easy to find, it frequently appears at the top of many Google searches and access is completely free” (Byers, 2007, para. 3).

In my opinion, this site is a useless site for people.

First, Wikipedia may contain inaccurate information. As we know it is a free site and everyone can add to it. “It is not the number of articles available on Wikipedia that is up for debate, though. The argument amongst scholars is that information available on Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate and that the articles themselves are particularly susceptible to Internet vandalism” (Wolverton, 2007, para. 9).

Second, Wikipedia is not trustworthy site. The main problem for this site is anyone can edit any article. So, someone can edit the true information to make it untrue and the only thing you would find is last update (Lengel, 2006). “Now comes the Internet, which appears to be respectable source, but is in fact unmediated and clearly not all of it authoritative. And it is left to the Internet (Internet users) to separate the wheat from the chaff, to determine the respectability of each site. Our job as teachers is to prepare our students to make that determination” (Lengel, 2006, para. 6).

Third, some academic teachers do not accept Wikipedia as reference. If we agree that Wikipedia contains inaccurate information and is not trustworthy site, we totally agree that the site is not a reference.

Based on the above, the main purpose for any site is to spread right information or get right information or introduce a service for the people. Wikipedia contains a lot of information and you can get the information that you want, but the problem is the information that may you get would not be true. So it is not trustworthy site.

Reference:

Byers,M (2007 March, 8) Controversy over use of Wikipedia in academic papers arrives at Smith, Sophian, Smith College. Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2007/03/08/News/Controversy.Over.Use.Of.Wikipedia.In.Academic.Papers.Arrives.At.Smith-2765409.shtml

Wolverton, J (2007 Jan, 22) Wikipedia Wisdom, Valley Vanguard. Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
http://www.svsu.edu/clubs/vanguard/stories/1141

Lengel, J (2006, July, 2) Authority, Teaching with Technology.Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
hhttp://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=12

Bilodeau, E (2008, January 14) Weblog. Academic banning of Google and Wikipedia misguided. Retrieve on April 23, 2008:
http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/archives/003743.html

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Argument Essay

YouTube decides to close its site on January 1, 2009, forever. Imagine that is the truth; what is your feeling? Will you be happy or not? I find those topics about YouTube are very interesting to me. YouTube is “a service that lets anyone upload any video they desire, and makes it easy to share that video around the internet” (Tossel, 2006, para. 2). According to Tossell (2006), YouTube began online in May 2005; and it is hard to visit five websites without browsing YouTube. In addition he says YouTube receives about 35,000 submissions a day. On the other hand, some countries for their reasons blocked YouTube, such as Brazil, China, Morocco, Myanmar, Syria and Thailand. For example, China says YouTube is subversive, and Iran says it is immoral (CNN.com, 2008). So, some people say YouTube is the evolution of freedom and it helps people to upload or watch clips that they couldn’t watch or publish on TV; others say that YouTube is dangerous; and it affects people directly, and leads them to get bad results such as a bad attitude.

In my opinion, YouTube should control its clips before they are released.

First, YouTube should control its clips by making a fee for subscription. Many sites around the world get some money from users for joining their sites. These fees are not strange to people because they know this kind of site is for profit. In addition, they should make extra fees for people who want to publish or release clips. The extra fees would be very useful because the people who pay money will be more careful to upload any clips. Thus the number of people who want to publish will decrease. In addition, the best way to control YouTube is by paying a fee via credit card. By this method, YouTube would have the real information about the person who publishes or spreads any clips. Thus, those people would take care and be careful while publishing any clips they want. 



Second, YouTube should control its clips by making a partnership with many companies to manage clips. As we know, there are a thousand clips that are published every day. So, there are hard work for YouTube to control those clips without hiring a hundreds of employees or making a deal with partnership with many providers around the world. For example, Saudi Electricity Company SEC was a very big company in Saudi Arabia, and it was hard to manage it. So, it was divided into three sections based on their work; it made partners to help it for much of its works such as digging and distribution. The past example shows us, if YouTube does the same thing, I believe that will help it to manage its clips, as it wants.



Third, the governments should have some degree of control over YouTube. Many people will disagree with governments having control over YouTube. But what I want to say is that governments should control the only big cases, which contain redlines such as religions and threats the best interest of the country. For example, imagine that someone made a movie that presented Jesus as a bad person. So, this kind of clip will make a gap between cultures, and may cause riots. 



Based on the above, most people rely on YouTube as a site that provides them nice or useful clips. But there are a lot of clips that may hurt people. So, YouTube should organize their work to make it easier to manage, and maintain their site as a useful and funny site. In addition, if there is cooperation between people, companies, and government to manage this site, I believe most people and their governments will fulfill the purpose of this kind of sites.

Reference:

CNN.com. (2008, February 25). Pakistan move knocked out YouTube. 
Retrieved on March 27, 2008 from: 


http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/25/pakistan.youtube


Tossel, I. (2006, March 24). YouTube is my tube. The Globe and Mail (Canada). Retrieved on March 24, 2008 from Lexis Nexis

Monday, March 31, 2008

EX2

Life has changed and technology has too. So we should follow these changes and deal with them, but we have to make sure that what we follow is legal. Ivor Tossell (March 24 2006), in “YouTube is my tube”, says it is difficult for us to use the internet without browsing YouTube. But the big problem is that there is no controlling for submitting. That means it is easy to use; and you can submit any video that you want, such as an episode of a series, at any time you want. In addition, the author says, YouTube doesn’t make money for profit.

In my opinion, Google should remove bad video as soon as it can.

First, some videos contain hurtful situation videos. For example, imagine that you had an accident and you got hurt and bled. One month later, when you browsed the internet and visited YouTube, after that you remembered your accident. Then you said to yourself “Let me watch a funny video accident,” then you wrote “accident” and pressed search. What will your feeling will be when you watch yourself with a bad situation? How that will affect your feeling?

Second, some videos contain private lives. For example, imagine that you and your wife had a nice trip; and the best time that you spent was relaxing in the swimming pool. After that trip, your friend calls you and says to you, “ Hi Aziz I saw you in the Youtube; you were good, I will send you the link”. Then, you log to on your PC; and you got your friend’s mail; and press the link; and you find you and your wife in the pool. The problem is not that only you and your friend watched the private video, but also that many people around the world watched that video too.

Third, some videos contain violent attitudes. For example, when you browse YouTube, and write “Violence”, then press search, you will find thousands of violent clips such as killings, bombings and cutting hands or legs. This kind of videos teaches some people to do what they watch. So, some people think the killing is good and makes you a hero. Thus, some people think the bombing is the only way to get what they want.

I completely agree that YouTube is a good site. It contains a lot of
useful and funny videos. But unfortunately it contain bad video too. So Google should be serous with bad videos by removing them from their site and making some responsibility for their site and people.

Reference:

Tossel, I. (2006, March 24). YouTube is my tube. The Globe and Mail (Canada). Retrieved on March 24, 2008 from Lexis Nexis.