Write Stripes

When researching current news concerning oil prices, I came across this article from Conoco Phillips. This article explains many of the frequently asked questions that are often associated with rising oil prices. For instance, the company attempts to explain why oil prices are fluctuating and why prices seem to be consistently increasing. Several reasons that they provide are: increase in demand, federal regulations forcing the replacement of common ingredients with environmentally safe ethanol, weather events (such as hurricanes), etc. They also attempt to put the price of gasoline in perspective, claiming that other goods (such as vision eye drops, beer, and distilled water) are much more expensive than gasoline when sold by the gallon. This article was very interesting and informative. However, it is important to realize the source of this article is in the gasoline business. A link to this article is listed below.
http://www.conocophillips.com/newsroom/other_resources/energyanswers/gasoline.htm

I found an article from CNN about Michael J. Fox campaigning for candidates. He is traveling around the country to support candidates who are in favor of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. In his speech supporting democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Fox addressed the criticism he had received for supposedly skipping his medication to increase his shaking during the filming of a commercial. Fox also had several children with diabetes join him onstage in support of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

The article I found is about a group of prominent Catholics in Missouri that are protesting the position of church leaders. The church leaders oppose stem cell research, but this group is challenging that position in favor of Amendment 2, which Missourians will vote on. The amendment would ensure that in Missouri any federally approved stem cell treatments would be available. The group of Catholics e-mailed a letter to fellow Catholics in which they argued against the bishops' claim that supporting stem cell research would be support for human cloning. This article shows what a highly controversial issue stem cell research is, because even members of the same faith have trouble agreeing on the issue.

I found a new article today from Google news about the oil crisis that was very interesting. It stated that new oil reserves were recently found under the Gulf of Mexico using a new deep drilling technique that goes down 30 thousand feet. This discovery could possibly contain 15 billion barrels of oil, increasing the US oil reserves by half, or it could end up to not contain that much at all; it will take time to see. The experts say to be cautious though, because this will not cause the price of oil to fall right now, because it will take at least three years before this oil gets into our reserve supply, but in the future, this could definitely be a great help and cause the US to have some security in not having to depend on foreign oil as much as we now do.

I just read an article concerning Microsoft and net neutrality. There was no information on net neutrality itself, however, the article discussed how Microsoft sought out the Security and Exchange Commission's permission to deny the Free Enterprise Action Fund's request to explain it's stance on net neutrality. While Microsoft has publicly supported net neutrality like other companies such as Google, Microsoft has never explained it's reasoning on why it supports net neutrality. The board allowed Microsoft to not explain their view. This is interesting because Microsoft has supported net neutrality, but they will not give a reason which to me throw a 'red flag.' Why doesn't Microsoft want to explain their viewpoint on the matter? It just seems odd that they will not give a reason behind their support after they have given it to net neutrality. If you would like to read the article you can find it here.

In this article, an interesting comparison of the Bush Administration’s views on health care in the U.S. and in Iraq is made. A contract was made with Abt Associates to provide universal health care service to Iraq, beginning with 25 million Iraqis. Representative Diana DeGette explained the health care situation in Iraq as “in shambles”. She believes that if a universal system can aid Iraqis despite the challenges they are up against (doctor shortages, low life expectancy, etc), than we should be able to do the same for the 44 million Americans currently without health care coverage. According to DeGette and others, it is wonderful we can aid Iraq and its health care system, but the current state of America’s and the steps for reform being taken are disappointing. They believe the problem is not Bush’s helping Iraq, but the fact that he is not aiding his own citizens in the same, positive way. Representative Sherrod Brown, an important member of the committee controlling Medicaid, says that Bush’s current plan has already led two-thirds of states to cut vital health services in order to contain rising medical costs. These cuts include a seven percent cut in Health Resources and Service Administration and a thirty percent cut in children’s hospital grants. The basic point of the article is that more focus on domestic issues, with an emphasis on health care reform, is needed for America’s citizens.
http://www.house.gov/commerce_democrats/press/108nr17.htm

In the October 4, 2006 edition of Communications Daily there was an article* discussing the current state of the net-neutrality legislation (which is part of a larger telecommunications bill). Senator Stevens, a republican from Alaska, is hopeful that some compromise for the bill might be worked out during the lame-duck session of Congress, even if one or both houses of Congress returns to the Democrats.

The two sides are at an impasse over whether or not to institute regulations ensuring net-neutrality. The Democrats feel it is necessary to protect against large near-monopolies in the telecommunications industry and the potential they might have to stifle competition. However, the Republicans feel that increased regulation is unnecessary as the companies are currently covered under anti-trust legislation.

The article does mention net-neutrality was considered by the full House and was very resoundingly voted down. Therefore, some politicians wonder whether the limited lame-duck session should be spent on a potentially dead issue.

*The article can be found using the “Factiva” database accessible from the Clemson University Library’s website. The name of the article is “Stevens to Resume Telecom Bill Push in Lame Duck Session” and was published in Vol. 26, Issue 192 of Communications Daily.

The article I read, "Democrats: Medicare drug program bewildering, costly," was from cnn.com. In the article, Democrats were bashing Republicans for the continously rising cost of Medicare and the confusion it brings the elderly in America. The premiums are expected to rise to 93 dollars a month, which is more than most people can afford. Democrats argue that health care should be a right, not a priveldge and we are taking this right away from senior citizens. Also, Democrats think that the new Medicare laws are too confusing for the elderly. Senior citizens are forced to choose from many different plans and many of them don't understand their choices. Democrats plan to solve this problem by winning 15 extra seats in the House, which will allow them to become the majority.http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/16/dems.radio.ap/index.html

When I was conducting research in class on Tuesday, I came across an article that really grabbed my attention. This article was from the Washington post and it talked about the rising gas prices and there effects on other consumer prices. This article was particularly interesting because it gave percentage increases in consumer prices in relation to rises in gas prices, while also stating that normal income was staying the same. When trying to represent the changes in gas prices to our peers, we can use these percentages to put the things into perspective and give them actual numbers to look at. The link to this article is listed below.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/16/AR2005081600411.html

In the past week there was an article on CNN’s website (cnn.com) that seemed to give new hope to stem cell research. A number of Italian stem cell researchers determined that viable stem cells could be taken from embryos that were considered dead because they had stopped dividing. Some hope that the use of these cells could help ease other’s opposition to stem cell research by comparing this new practice to organ donation. Although this is most likely not the case, scientists agree that these newly derived cells could probably be used in conjunction with stem cells obtained in other ways. One scientist emphasizes a very important point by saying that these cells may not necessarily be the best research tools, because the fact that the embryo did stop growing may signal a problem with the stem cells themselves. Also, other contend that the stem cells which are “dead” may actually have become this way due to the procedures taken in the handling of the cells, including storing on the petri dish instead of implanting the embryo in a woman’s womb. Still others say that although the embryo as a whole stopped dividing, the cells which still remained viable may still represent human life which should not be used for research purposes.

When searching for a news article relating to net neutrality I was not able to find one real current, but I found one on news.com from a few weeks ago that relates to the last article review I posted. In this article, there is a clear sense that there are two sides of the net neutrality controversy and that not all 'tech' companies are for net neutrality, in fact the title of the article is "Tech manufacturers rally against net neutrality." This, however, is to be expected since some of these companies would profit from not having strict neutrality regulations. The article quotes a CEO of a fiber optic company saying "There is a lot of good in this bill" and that they should "not let this get tied up over the most contentious thing out there." At first this makes it seem as though tech companies may not favor the net neutrality bills, but after looking at what his company is (a provider of fiber optic cable) it is obvious that this bill will not affect his company as regardless of the regulations cable will be needed. In addition, the internet is reaching a point where new cables are going to be needed to increase speeds at which information is provided thus helping his company more. The article goes on to state that in response to all the advocates of the net neutrality, over 100 companies signed a letter to senators requesting a vote soon and not to worry about net neutrality regulation because it is too soon. In addition they feel that the "consumer bill of rights" and the FCC are sufficient in protecting consumers. Yet looking at the companies the article told signed the letter (Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Qualcomm) these are established companies who provide services that would not be affected by network neutrality. In fact, I feel that they could gain more profit by having to sell new hardware and systems to support a tiered internet system. The article does mention companies such as Google and Amazon in supported having net neutrality regulation, but the focus is on the 'tech' companies who do not support the legislation. The article makes it seem as though there are lots of companies who do not support the legislation and that the legislation is not needed as there is not a problem, yet I feel (as well as many other companies) there lies a big potential for a problem to occur without the legislation being put into place. When looked at the grand scheme of the issue, this article serves as a balance to the multitudes of pro legislation articles. The article can be found here.

My article came from CNN.com. Scientists have created a new stem cell line from human embryos that have stopped developing naturally and are considered dead. Scientists say this may help ebb some of the heat that is being placed on existing lines of embryonic stem cell research right now, saying that this is technically no different than organ donation. The existing method takes cells from human embryos that are a few days old, which in turn destroys the embryo. Many people have serious objections to what they consider the destruction of human life for this research.
Scientists found they could take the cells from “dead” embryos after experimenting with cells that had stopped dividing. The cells performed normally on stem cell tests. Although it may help ease some of the debate, it certainly won’t abolish it. In regard to the new extraction method from dead cells, some argue that the embryo would have not died in the first place if placed in a womb instead of a Petri dish. Some are arguing over the term “dead embryo”, saying that if the individual cells extracted from it are living, how do you classify it as a dead organism? This raises concerns and problems in regard to scientists’ limited knowledge of when an embryo is truly dead. There are also possibilities that the stem cells from dead embryos carry some risk or undetected defect. Overall, it is a promising new line or research.

I found an article that came out on the web today from a news organization in China that talked about how oil prices have been falling in the past few weeks. This is very interesting to our project group because this seems to be going against what we are saying in our report. However, in the report it states that one of the reasons for the declining oil price is the temporary decline in demand as the world uses less oil in the fall than in the summer, but of course this is a cycle and demand will rise again next summer as people begin traveling more. Also, the total world demand is only going to rise in the future as industrial countries continue to need more oil. Also, one reason for the price drop the article gave was that fears of a drop in supply from Venezuela and Nigeria were allayed, and this caused the price of oil futures (in New York for light sweet crude) to drop 1.88 dollars to 61.03 dollars per barrel. This was one aspect of the oil issue that our group wanted to understand more, and this article helped me in this way.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/03/content_5165839.htm

In order to not let my opinion seep into my project, I will try to stick with the facts. I will do enough research to understand both sides fully. But I will only present the facts to the public so that they can make their own decision about the issue.

I read an article today from the Albuquerque Tribune ("Senate race livens up over border bill" by James W. Brosnan, Saturday, September 30, 2006) about a bill for building a 730 mile fence between the U.S. and Mexico. Senate voted 80-19 Friday to send the bill to President Bush to sign. The bill calls for a double layer of fencing between Columbus and a point west of El Paso in New Mexico. Several New Mexico politicians appose the bill because of the high cost (more than $6 billion) and some believe that Border Patrol officials, not Congress, should decide where fences should be built. Yet, some New Mexico politicians believe this would be a good move for increasing border security against illegal immigrants.

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/sep/30/senate-race-livens-over-border-bill/

It is going to be hard to keep our personal opinions out of the election issue documents. Ali and I both feel like people from other countries should be welcome here (if they are upstanding, good people, of course). When we see pictures of children who suffer even more than there parents do in countries that are very poor with unfair governments, we feel sorry for these people. It's difficult to not feel compasion for people who want to get out of a terrible situation to come live in our wonderful country.

Yet, we must try to inform people without appealing to them with too much pathos or ethos. Our own emotions and ethics need to stay out of our documents in order for people to take them seriously. We will try to rely mostly on the logos side of things. By offering facts that are backed by reputable organizations (such as the U.S. government reports and news sources) we can create a good display of information, from which people can then form their own opinions. We might want to stay away from using documents that make people feel sorry for these people or feel like they are intruding in our lives. Any bias could make the documents too subjective. Using statistics from both conservative and liberal viewpoints is a good idea, too. If we can show a broad spectrum of facts, people will be able to form their own realizations about these issues and be informed for the next election.

When it comes to the issue of immigrants and border security, I have different thoughts. On one hand, I believe that this country should be welcoming and a place of refuge for people escaping bad ways of life. It is important to live up to the things that this country was based on. People came here to start a new life and be free. America should hold that ideal as our biggest goal. Yet, it is difficult to do this sometimes when the U.S. is threatened by foreign nations and when so many people are living in this country that there is poverty and chaos. I think that this country can find a balance between letting everyone in no matter what and keeping very strict border controls. It's true that there are so many people here that things get chaotic at times, but we still need to be the welcome home to people who truly need it and love the idea of a free land.

Net neutrality is an issue where you can quickly loose yourself in buzzwords. The terms, and more importantly the sides, are no where as clearly defined as either side would have you believe. Because of this, it will be critical to reduce any information we use to the underlying facts and sources to determine any potential slant.

Within our group we have a mixture of people adamantly for net neutrality and people somewhat hesitant about the legalities of the issue. This in-of-itself is an invaluable asset – we have a built in protections against bias leaning either way on the issue.

One place our group is having difficulty is in being able to find humorous presentations for both sides of the issues – one side is predominantly old businessmen and lawyers while the other side is a mixture of young and old businessmen. Thus the pro-net neutrality side (the young and old businessmen) has an advantage of relating better to our audience.

I hope to ensure the voter guides that I am creating are unbiased in a number of ways. Stem cell research is a fairly difficult topic to be unbiased on due to the fact that there really is no good scientific information which is not biased in one way or another. Hopefully, I will be able to proportionally display both sides of the issure, not giving presidence to one side or the other. Also, in regards to images and graphs used, I hope to not use ones from one side of the argument, but instead, use images that are either neutral in their depiction of the topic, or balance two opposing images with eachother. I really feel like I have a good point of view to work from on the topic because I really do not have a stong opinion going either way on the stem cell research debate, and I am currently using this research to form my opinion as well, so I will hopefully be able to use only the unbiased information which I would like to be informed with, and present it in a similar way, without regard to whatever opinion I do finally form on the topic.

To ensure that the voter guides we are creating are successful, I must remain unbiased on the issue of health care reform. First of all, Candice and I passed out surveys to a sample of Clemson students. This was a good start in developing an unbiased presentation, as we were able to understand more about their viewpoints on the steps being taken to improve the US health care system. In order to produce voter guides that will educate but not offend, we can look at their opinions and try to find sources that would fit with all the different views, or provide opposing sources that can balance the opposing ideas. By providing different opinions, we can also further their knowledge of the opposition so that they can strengthen their own arguments. Research and a full understanding of our audience will be key to a successful and unbiased outcome.