Emotional Appeal

Two words: Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy was a serial killer who admitted to the violent murder and rape of 30 women. However estimates of the number of women that he killed are anywhere from 26 to 100. One might ask, how did this man become a vicious killer? The answer to that question is violent media and violent pornography. This man, if you can call him that, said himself that (Put the exact quote here, found in wikipedia). When Ted Bundy stated that violent media and pornography were contributing factors to his killing spree, he was already convicted to death row. Ted Bundy had nothing to lose or gain by stating that violent media and pornography were to blame for his horrid behavior. Some may argue that he would say anything to stay his execution. However, regardless of anything he said, Ted was going to have an encounter with an electric chair in Florida. We must ask ourselves this question, is what Ted Bundy said true? Did violent media and pornography make that much of an ill impact in his life? Did it really largely contribute to him becoming a serial killer?

I am not saying that if Ted Bundy had not been exposed to violent television and pornography that he would have been a “normal” citizen of the country. However, if his grandparents that raised him monitored what he was watching as a child and young adult the outcome of Ted Bundy could have been a lot different. Research has found that “children typically witness 32,000 murders and 40,000 attempted murders by the time they reach the age of 18.”

Think about the parents and siblings of Lynda Healy, or Donna Manson, or Janice Ott, or Melissa Smith, or Susan Curtis. Imagine their grief and inner turmoil. Now, think of your child. Imagine that one day she vanishes. After months of searching for your child, and praying for her return you get a telephone call. On the other end of the line you hear that your daughter’s “bludgeoned and strangled corpse was discovered by road maintenance workers” as was the case with Suzanne Cooley. Or you are told that your daughter’s body was found. “She was raped, murdered and her body discarded in Suwannee River State Park, Florida.” As was the case with 12 year old Kimberly Leach. Your daughter or son mean the world to you and the scary thing is that “Ted Bundys” are still in the world. Your children are never completely safe. Wouldn’t you want the parents of future Ted Bundys to block out some media violence from him? Wouldn’t you wish that all parents would be a little more careful about what their children watch? Or, would you rather these children still be unrestricted in their television viewing now so that a serial killer can be made later?

Aggression and violence in children is due to violence in the media. Children, unfortunately, watch television a lot more than they should. Many parents use the television as a quasi-babysitter. This is detrimental to a child’s psyche because when an actor is ignored on the television, that actor usually will try to gain attention or “get back” at the person who ignored or excluded them by using aggressive behaviors. Coyne, Archer, and Eslea (2004) researched the link between the amounts of television that a child watches to later aggression. These researchers stated,
“Children are particularly susceptible to viewing violence on television, as their scripts for aggression are still developing at this age. Aggression in adulthood is predicted not only by the level of aggression in childhood, but also by the amount of violent television viewed in childhood. Thus, it is particularly important to examine the influence of viewing aggression on television during childhood” (Violence in the Media section, para. 4).

Points to Make
• Talk about the power rangers study
• Talk about the average amount of time that a student watches television a day
• Talk about how many times a violent act is portrayed on the television during the time that a child watches TV everyday
• Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Alturism
• The Influence of Violent Media on Children
• Effects of Media Violence on Viewers' Aggression in Unconstrained Social Interaction

There should be more restrictions for television programs and the rating system. Children should not be watching violent acts on television when they are young. The rating system is in place for a reason and yet children are still basically unrestricted in what they choose to watch through television programs and movies played on television.

Blog Post Two, Argument Two

Recently in the United States there has been a lot of talk by politicians and citizens alike about pollution and carbon emission made by companies into the atmosphere. Prominent individuals and leaders of the nation have gotten together and drafted a cap and trade law. This law would restrict carbon emission (the nasty, black smog that comes out of buildings) into the air and allow companies to trade their pollution permits (like baseball cards and Pokeman cards). While there are many aspects of the cap and trade law, I would like to focus on one part, the core, of passing the cap and trade law in the United States. Consider the following questions. Would a cap and trade law lower the world’s pollution level because it decreases pollution in the United States? Or would the United States’ high polluting companies just relocate to somewhere where they can pollute without restriction?

Imposing a cap and trade program to deal with carbon emissions in the atmosphere will only cause high polluting companies to move to a different country thereby not decreasing the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. Through the cap and trade law, high polluting companies become like felons fleeing the country in the middle of the night. If there is a company in the US that pollutes substantially there is no reason for that company to stay in the United States and pay a lot of money to buy and trade permits to emit carbon when all they have to do is relocate to somewhere that they can pollute without punishment or without a high cost to pollute. Aaron Renn, an independent writer about urban affairs, firmly believes that even if the cap and trade law is passed in America, it would not influence carbon pollution for good but rather for worse. In his insightful article, Mr. Renn says, “An American manufacturer could escape cap and trade simply by moving production to China. Given China’s massive coal-based electricity infrastructure and other notoriously polluting practices, carbon emissions would likely only get worse as a result…” China and its potentially rising pollution level are only a plane ride and a cap and trade law approval in the US away.

However, some New York Times authors argue that the cap and trade law on carbon emission will prove successful because one cap and trade program is currently present in the United States therefore major companies will remain in the US like they did under the first cap and trade program. The supporters of this cap and trade law argue that because the cap and trade program that exists for sulfur dioxide is successful, likewise a carbon cap and trade law would also be successful. However, in an article written by two prominent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lawyers, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel discuss the reasons for why the sulfur dioxide cap and trade program succeeded: the switch to reduce emission was easy. Unlike the carbon cap and trade program, the sulfur dioxide cap and trade program mostly only required a switch of fuel to a more inexpensive, available, and low-sulfur coal. A carbon cap and trade program would not be so simple. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina acknowledges this and states that, for the time being, the cap and trade law is not very company friendly. Because the carbon cap and trade isn’t as simple and inexpensive for companies to make efficient, important changes, high pollutant companies will move to other countries and produce pollution freely. Just because a cap and trade program has been successful does not mean that all cap and trade programs will work well. Once companies see how costly carbon cap and trade will be to them they will be on the red eye flight out of the US on the way to anywhere but here: trading their baseball cards and orange jumpsuits for black suits to match the tons of carbon pumping out of the company’s roof.

Blog post one for argument two, simple

Recently in the United States there has been a lot of talk by politicians and citizens alike about pollution and carbon emission made by companies into the atmosphere. Prominent individuals and leaders of the nation have gotten together and drafted a cap and trade law. This law would restrict carbon emission into the air and allow companies to trade their pollution permits. While there are many aspects of the cap and trade law, I would like to focus on one part, the core, of passing the cap and trade law in the United States. Consider the following questions. Would a cap and trade law lower the world’s pollution level because it decreases pollution in the United States? Or would the United States’ high polluting companies just relocate to somewhere where they can pollute without restriction?
Imposing a cap and trade program to deal with carbon emissions in the atmosphere will only cause high polluting companies to move to a different country thereby not decreasing the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. Through the cap and trade law, high polluting companies become like felons fleeing the country in the middle of the night. If there is a company in the US that pollutes substantially there is no reason for that company to stay in the United States and pay a lot of money to buy and trade permits to emit carbon when all they have to do is relocate to somewhere that they can pollute without punishment or without a high cost to pollute. Aaron Renn, an independent writer about urban affairs, firmly believes that even if the cap and trade law is passed in America, it would not influence carbon pollution for good but rather for the worse. In his insightful article, Mr. Renn says, “An American manufacturer could escape cap and trade simply by moving production to China. Given China’s massive coal-based electricity infrastructure and other notoriously polluting practices, carbon emissions would likely only get worse as a result…” China and its potentially rising pollution level are only a plane ride and a cap and trade law approval in the US away.
The United States has a Pollution Prevent Act which companies currently have to regulate how much pollution they emit into the air (link to webpage for the full act found here). Under this act, companies are given a rule to govern pollution. If the cap and trade law, a more costly rule to companies about pollution, was to pass companies would flee United State’s boarders, just like a felon fleeing the country before he can be arrested. Once these felons/companies escaped the US, pollution would skyrocket.

Blog Two

WATCO: Passing Cap and Trade in the United States and the impact on world pollution.

Claim: Passing the Cap and Trade law in the United States does not significantly cause less pollution in the world.

Reason: Passing the Cap and Trade law in the United States does not impact countries, like India and China, which have the most output of pollution into the atmosphere and only allows high pollutant companies to relocate to a different company.

Assumption: Whatever does not have an impact on the output of pollution in countries that release the most pollution in the air and allows high pollutant US companies to move to these countries does not significantly decrease pollution in the world.

Points to support my argument
• Companies with high pollution rates will move to other countries which will eventually cost United States citizens more for their goods because there will be an added tax because goods are being imported into the country.
o Middle class Americans will pay more for their goods and the goods they buy will be low quality goods and less quantity goods.
o Middle class Americans will suffer more because the rich can go to other countries and buy goods whereas the middle class Americans will have to buy the goods that are imported into the United States. Again these goods will be low quality goods and Americans will get less quantity of goods.
o China, Mexico and other third world countries will become the America of tomorrow because that is where all of the businesses will move to and where all the valuable goods will be.
• Cap and Trade would overrule the pollution act of 1990 in the United States and so the companies that were limiting pollution according to those standards will move to a different country and pollute as much as they want with no limits, in some countries’ cases.
o Some third world countries have never had to worry about pollution laws or regulations. If large polluting companies move there, pollution will increase substantially.
 It is the same compared to a child eating cake. Before a child’s first birthday, when cake is served they are only given a very small piece, maybe even just a bite or two of cake. The bite or two of cake would be the Pollution Act of 1990. However, on the child’s first birthday, they are given a cake with no limits of how much they can eat. This is the companies that move to other countries without limits or pollution regulations. What happens now? The child devours the cake and eats as much as they can. Likewise, the companies that move to other countries will pollute to their hearts content.
• Even if a country does have a pollution regulation and it is a third world country, without an international law, which is years away, these countries can change their pollution regulations in order to get big businesses to move to their country and make them become a powerhouse.

Argument One Post One

Argument One, Post One
WATCO: Passing the Cap and Trade in the United States and the job market.
Claim: Passing the Cap and Trade in the United States will create more jobs for US citizens.
Reason: Passing the Cap and Trade in the United States will decrease the unemployment rate in the country.
Assumption: Whatever decreases the unemployment rate in the United States also creates more jobs for US citizens.
To pass, or not to pass; that is the question. The United States of America should pass the Cap and Trade law because it will create more jobs for American citizens.
Passing the Cap and Trade law will create more jobs for Americans. The Cap and Trade law will put a restriction on the amount of pollution that companies can emit into the air. Companies will be monitored by a team of experts that keeps track of each companies output of carbon dioxide. Companies will also need to hire more accounts and lawyers to negotiate prices and trade pollution permits between them and other companies.
If every company in the world hired only one man or woman to deal with trades under the Cap and Trade law, the unemployment rate in the United States would plummet. Unemployment percentages would fall drastically just by passing the Cap and Trade law creating more jobs. Finding a job, though still difficult, would not be impossible. The economy would be stimulated because more people would be employed and more people would be spending their money. This occurs only through creating more jobs under the new Cap and Trade law.
Unemployment rates for all citizens would increase. Accountants and lawyers that had to take jobs that they were overqualified for would quite those jobs and take up jobs under companies because of the Cap and Trade law. Because these overqualified individuals would be quitting the jobs that they are currently working in, other people who had little or no college education could work in the jobs that the accountants and lawyers had. Less people would be unemployed and living on the street. With the job market currently how it is, if you don’t have a college degree it is hard to find any job let alone a decent one; especially if those with more formal schooling are applying for the same jobs. The Cap and Trade law would change this fact because it would take the competition of accountants and lawyers out of most lower paying jobs or jobs that don’t require a college education.

Stone Soup Video

Here is Lamb Chop's version of stone soup. The story Button Soup is a variation of the Stone Soup story.