China Tightens Censorship of Electronic Communications

My blog is on a March 21st New York Times article about China disrupting Gmail services. The only intrinsic evidence was as follows;

"Google began receiving complaints from Gmail users and its own employees in China about a month ago, around the time anonymous Internet posts urged people unhappy with the government to gather every Sunday. Some Gmail users found their service disconnected when they tried to send or save messages."

The article then uses intrinsic evidence and examples of previous censorship to show that China's government likes to control its people. One of the more interesting facts in this article is that one of the spokespersons from China was quoted in saying that Google, Facebook and Twitter were instruments of the U.S government to cause disorder and chaos. To me, this seems outlandish. After all, American's are more exposed to those sites than other countries. It's comforting that China still respects the U.S enough to think of us as capable of such a diabolical plan.

Shrek, Dora Make Cereal Taste Better, Kids Say

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/shrek-dora-make-cereal-taste-kids/story?id=13083805&page=2

Yep. You heard the kiddies; popular characters on their cereal boxes make the cereal taste better. An article from ABC news posted March 8th discussed results from a study where children were given identical types of cereal either named "sugar bits" or "healthy bits" and either featured a well known cartoon character or no character at all. Although the kids seemed to prefer the cereal if Shrek was on the box, they did prefer the cereal named healthy bits over cereal bits. The author notes that although kids understand that eating something "healthy" is better than eating something "sugary", their line of reasoning is completely suspended when SpongeBob is telling them to eat it. This article uses mostly logical proof by showing the results of the study. Intrinsic proof is used when the author analyzes some of the possible causes for why the study went the way it went. This article confirms what we already know; advertising is more subversive than we care to admit.

Blogging's Not Dead, Say Bloggers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110221/cm_atlantic/bloggingsnotdeadsaybloggers7053

My blog is about an article from the Atlantic wire discussing whether blogging was becoming an obsolete form of communication. The article cites a New York Times article that features a study showing a negative trend in the amount of blogs. The writter's slant is that blogging is not really dead. She uses extrinsic proof from other studies and intrinsic proof from other peoples opinions to make her argument. The author writes for anyone who is interested in blogging.

 

Later in her article, the author makes the assertion that social networking cites are basically blogs and so blogging is stronger than ever. I think that is a wishy-washy way to make an argument. By changing the definition of what she is arguing she undermines some of the ethos of her arguments. The author did not leave me feeling convinced, although I have a slant in favor of not-blogging. Seriously this is torture.

U.S. unveils $53 billion in high-speed rail plan

My blog is on a February Reuters article, "U.S unveils 53 billion in high-speed rail plan". The article was about the governments plan to invest in infrastructure by building new rail systems. The article also talks about Amtrak decision to spend 15 billion on a railway from New York City and New Jersey.

The author argues that although this spending is a step in the right direction, we are still falling behind countries like China (who plans to invest $451 billion to $602 billion in the next four years). The intended audience are people who are interested in the way their governments spend money and people interested in railways. The author uses almost entirely logos, which should be expected in a Reuters article.

It is strange that for the most part, we have less railways than most developed countries. We seem compelled to compete with them and keep up with their technology but we rely more on our highways and auto industries. This is becoming less practical as time goes on.

New study: science teachers favor creationism

My blog is on a February 1st Fox news article called "New study: science teachers favor creationism". This title is a little misleading to the article because the study cited reveal that some high school teachers are still teaching creationism. According to the study, 13% of teachers surveyed actively advocate creationism in their classrooms. The argument is being made by Dennis Bodzash, a

Cleveland Astronomy Examiner. His bias is that he is a scientist and does not want creationism being thrown in with legitimate scientific information. He assumes that his audience shares his commonplace belief. I would say that there is an equal balance of pathos and logos in his argument. He proves that some teachers teach creationism by showing facts and then uses pathos to describe why this is not a good thing. The authors argument is summed up by his last few sentences, "There are many great things about religion, such as ethical principles, its function as a social bonding agent, influence on the arts, and many others. However, religion is not science and it should be kept out of the science classroom." Since I already felt this way it is hard for me to say if I was persuaded by the article or not.

For NASA, Longest Countdown Awaits

My blog is on a New York Times published January 4th called, "For NASA, Longest Countdown Awaits". The author argues that because of a lack of funding, NASA is scaling back their organization. They have cancelled the 2020 plans for a moon base and are retiring their shuttles this year. That means they will rely on Russia and "space taxis" (private industry) to get American astronauts to the international space station. For me, the author's ethos comes from the fact that he works for a reputable news organization. In his article, he intends to inform the reader of NASA's circumstances. He does not try to directly persuade the reader to any particular course of action, but his slant on the issue is that this is a disaster. He relies mostly on logos and fact to inform the reader about NASA's budget problems and murky future. The author’s evidence convinced me that this was an important issue. But, it seems to me that NASA’s problems come from a lack of purpose as well as budget. Did the European explorers seek out the new world just for the purpose of exploring? No. They were primarily focused on becoming wealthy. In order for space exploration to work, it has to be a money maker and not a money drainer. There is debate in our country about whether we should drill in Alaska and exhaust our own resources. If you widen the scope to the Earth as a whole, we are really doing the same thing by not using the available resources of the solar system. It is an honest fact of life that money runs the world. If NASA could become profitable then there would be a boom in space exploration.