PLN #6

I chose to read an article about Micheal Vick being indicted for a second and third time over his recent dogfighting charges. A Virgina grand jury brought two new charges against Micheal Vick and three others, one of them being unlawful torturing and the other being killing dogs and supporting dogfights. Each of these charges could result in five years in prison each. Vick already faces 12 to 18 months jail time after pleading guilty to federal conspiracy charge of bankrolling in dogfights outside of his home in Virgina. Vick's lawyers replied that they will work aggressively to make sure he is not charged with these charges. One of Micheal's "companions" in the dogfighting faces three of those charges while Vick faces one. All four of them are going to be arraigned on October third and will be faced with a tentative trial on November 27th. In this article the main thing that sticks out and really seems to matter is the fact that someone(s) could torture an animal like that and makes me wonder whats going through they're mind when they're watching/participating in it. I cant come to see how someone would enjoy it the only thing i can think of is the betting and winning money but why did they have to do it on dogfights, why not football or baseball?

PLN #5

For my 5th PLN entry i read an article called "Bridge to Nowhere" by Ted Stevens. Recently in
ketchican, an Alaskan south-eastern island to Alaska and it's main airport. The bridge was estimated to cost somewhere around four hundred million dollars but Friday it was announced the project was three hundred and twenty nine million dollars short of funding. The republic governor said that Alaska will continue to look for more options but that they won't be anywhere close to a 400 million dollar budget. Some say that the best option is to continuesly upgrade their ferry system that takes fifteen minuets to get to on the ferries. The town the bridge would connect to was called Gravina which is seven blocks wide and eight miles long and has a population of fifty and researchers say the bridge is needed for the economical and town growth. What matters from this is that we quit half way through the project and it doesn't sound like they were very prepared financially wise or economically wise and if the bridge is going to built we need to be 100% on the project and really go for it. It relates to me because I've actually been on an Alaskan cruise in which we stopped in several Alaskan towns including ketchican where we zip lined and went on a whale watch on the exact same place that they tried to build the bridge. While whale watching one of the crew members talked about how they were trying to get a bridge built and even said that in support of building the bridge one man swam the whole length which took him about 2 weeks to complete.

PLN #4

I recently read an article called Cold Neptune has Warm Spot in which the planet Neptune one of the coldest planets in the solar system has a newly discovered hot spot. An international team of astronomers say that Neptune's south pole is a lot warmer then other parts of the planet. They say the south pole is as much as 18 degrees warmer than the rest of the planet where the average temperature can get down to 320 degrees below zero. The reason that the south pole is warmer is because it has been in the sunlight for the last 40 years estimate scientists. Although 18 degrees may not seem like a lot it's a pretty significant change since Neptune is 2.8 billion miles away from the sun. A Neptune year is equivalent to 165 earth years. Also, Neptune receives only 1/900th of the sunlight that earth does. "Like earth Neptune's south pole is tilted in the summer to the sun in the souther hemisphere"- said astronomer Glenn Orten. Despite it's distance from the sun Neptune's atmosphere is still a scene of great activity. How I believe this matters is that all of the planets are changing over time like earth with it's ozone layer deterioration over time and I don't think it can be very good for our world and universe. I can't see a real way of stopping or changing it but we defidentley don't think its in our best interest to continue to let all of these changes occur.

PLN #3

Men less likely to wash hands.

After reading the article about how men are alot less likely to wash their hands after going to the bathroom then women are i can honestly say I'm grossed out about all of the stats that were given throughout the article. Last monday researchers that spy on people in the bathroom reported that one third of men don't bother to wash their hands after going to the bathroom compared to one out of ten women didn't wash their hands while going to the bathroom. Compared to the survey taken ten years ago only one fourth of men didn't wash their hands. The survey was based on over 6,000 people in four major cities: Atlanta, New York, San Fransisco and, Chicago. Doctors say simply washing your hands is the number one best way to prevent form getting sick and getting the flu. Even after the results show only 66 % of males wash after going 92% of males say they do wash their hands after using the restroom. Atlanta was the worst: only 57% of guys there washed their hands compared to 95% of women did. Chicago was the best followed by New York and then San Fransisco. Other hand washing facts include: three fourths of Americans wash their hands after changing a diaper, 78% after eating food, 42% after petting a cat or dog, 25% after handling money, and 34% after coughing or sneezing. What i believe matters from this story is the fact that so few few Americans wash their hands when it only takes about thirty seconds to a minute at most but so many neglect it when it could easily prevent you from getting the flu or getting sick. I wonder if you did a survey on other countries what percent of people would wash their hands. If i were to guess i would say that in other countries the percentages would be a lot higher.

State Uses Electric chair

While reading the article "State uses electric chair for first time since 1960" I continuesly wondered what would drive a man or human being to kill his four children. In Nashville, Tennessee Daryl Holten, a 45 year old man kill his four young boys and one girl. Holten said he killed his children because his wife wouldn't allow him to see them. He said his plan was to soon after kill his ex-wife and then himself but instead, turned himself soon after committing the crime. Holten, a gulf war veteran said he lined up his children in his uncle's repair shop and shot them with a shot gun. He was given the choice of whether to go in the electric chair or have a lethal injection. For some reason he choose the electric chair and soon after a group of attorneys petitioned it saying it was cruel and unusual punishment. I would have to disagree with this group of attorneys because i think killing four children is pretty well deserved after he himself gave out cruel and unusual punishment. In my personal opinion what i believe matters from this story is the fact that someone could actually kill their own children and then(even though it was deserved) wanted to go in an electric chair. The only reason/excuse his lawyers could come up with is that he may have suffered traumatic experiences from the gulf war but i still don't see how that would make you kill your own children. I cant think of any particular way this relates to any of the stories in class. I think it relates to the world around us in some ways i mean there are alot of weird people like that all over the world and it's really misfortunet that people die every day and its not even close to their fault.

2 cents worth reading.

During the reading of "2 cents worth" I found myself extremely intrigued in what the author had to say in his points during the story. One interesting thin i found was that within 20 years we could easily have life and civilization on other planets. Right now scientist are taking spectroscopic readings of other planets atmospheres and continuesly finding more and more small planets that human life might soon be possible on. So far 246 small planets(not major ones) have been discovered that we might be able to live on and more and more are being discovered every day. Scientists have recently found large amounts of oxygen that can be produced by living organisms just like they are produced on earth today. If however pure oxygen is found on a planet there are other substances which can be combined on certain planets that will allow living life. What I believe matters from this article is that the possibility of having life on other planets could change the world as we know it and going to other planets would just be like taking a bus downtown and the technology we would adventually get it could take minuets just to go to another planet. As for all the construction of the buildings and civilization for the other planets we would need alot of people in charge of it all with alot of disagrement and options available. A lot of those discissions will be hard to make like in lady or the tiger the queens lover has to make a hard descision. So, with all of this information you can hopefully see that life on other planets probably and hopefully isnt to far off.