AOW #21: 20 key findings of the Senate's CIA torture report

This weeks article of the week is on the 20 key findings of the Senate’s CIA torture report. This article is by far the worst and the most confusing. I seriously did not understand one bit of it. I guess some kind of Central Intelligence Agency that's in with the Senate was not giving accurate information out about the committee. The CIA’s group was really not a way for intelligence like they say.

The government and the CIA always lie’s about what is happening in the world with terrorism and threats from other countries. I think they just don’t want us to know because they have part in what is going on. The CIA holds information from us and won't admit that it is terrorism, they blow it off like nothing is going on. So shouldn't they get in trouble for releasing all the false information that they do? They have secrets in area 51 that no one is aloud to know about and if you work for them and spill information then the person ends up missing. We the people of the United States have the right to know all the details that are happening in our country just like the CIA.

As stated in the article “The people govern. And the people cannot govern unless they know what is being done in their name” (Keane 2). If the people governed the united states I don't think it would last long everything would be corrupt, But I think if we have a government then we should know everything about what's going on and at least have a say in it. The people of the United States don't need to be lied to about public events. We have the right to know what's going on and to know if its terrorist acts, but they will not admit that the stuff happening is from terrorist. I think everyone should be fed up with our government the way they treat us.

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AOW #20: The Dangers of Our Aging Nuclear Arsenal

I really did not understand one bit of this article. The past couple article of the weeks have been nothing but confusing and hard to get 300 words out of, but I guess i’ll try my best too. This weeks article is on problems going on with the nuclear enterprise according to the pentagon. The stockpile for the United States nuclear weapons have decreased rapidly over the years due to the end of the Cold War. The U.S went from 31,000 weapons down to around 4,800.

So I take it that after the Cold War the government has not tried to keep up with any of the arsenal.The United States stores and keeps their missiles and weapons in poorly run down buildings where things are rusted and falling apart. According to the article “The demoralized Air Force personnel safeguarding the weapons have been plagued by scandals reaching to the very top of the command structure-including drug missiles, mislaid missiles, and widespread cheating on readiness tests”(The Week 1). How crazy is that? If I understood this right, the Air Force people in charge of the weapons were caught with drugs?

That is real safe, no wonder are nuclear weapons and what not is falling apart. I think they better had be doing something about this, and keeping an eye on the personnel more. They should do frequent drug tests to ensure the safety of these people and our country. They are dealing with dangerous weapons, thats a big responsibility. The Air Force personnel and officers spend many hours underground working long hours in a small little hole 60 feet underground completing task after task for this stuff.

Supposedly missiles and some weapons have come up missing accidentally. Which I don’t believe one bit. The United States thinks they are going to keep the rest of the arsenal from falling apart, but really it doesn't sound like to me they have been doing a very good job keeping it maintained so what makes them think they are going to do a good job at it now? Something definitely needs to be done before it continues to get out of hand.

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AOW #19: Cuba and Uncle Sam: A Brief History

This article of the week was just really hard for me to understand, I didn't like it all. I cannot seem to make myself like history stuff with politics and such. Anyways, this weeks article was on a brief history of Cuba. I guess Cuba gained independence in the 19th century because the United States interfered. This caused us in the U.S to end up in war with the Spanish in 1898.

Our Military was so strong that it took all the Spanish out. As stated in the article, “In 1980, Castro suddenly let thousands of Cubans flee to the U.S”(The Week 2). This would not have happened if we would of just stayed out of it. The U.S always tends to put their noses in other countries problems. We need to learn to stay out of their conflicts and stop jumping in and forcing our ways of doing things in their country, It really does no good but to get more wars started.

Batista was good for Cuba, he was a brutal dictator but his ruling was great. He caused Cuba to grow even though they were still pretty poor.Honestly though what country isn't poor anymore, look at how bad the U.S is in debt. Batista left and came back and ran for office again and lost. I guess Castro was a pretty horrible person, he destroyed his rivals and was trying to destroy communism.

I think I understood that right. Anyways, They hired an ex lover to try and poison Castro, but it did not work and he ended up resigning because of being ill. He had Cuba’s economy run down and they were still desperately poor. Can we not just learn to leave this poor country alone? let them run their country how they want without causing them so much grief.

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AOW #18: Supreme Court Set to Decide National Debate on Gay Marriage

This weeks article of the week is on Gay Marriage, and how the Supreme Court set to decide a National Debate on it. This article really kind of made me angry, and any subject like this usually does. I do not think it should be illegal for same-sex marriage. You cannot help who you love rather it be the same sex as you or not, love is love. It really makes me mad when I see gay people being judged for it.

Why make them feel bad about themselves for being with someone that makes them happy? They should have the same equal rights as straight couples that get married. I do not see why the court feels the need to have to take so much time of their lives to argue over if they should pass same-sex marriage or not. According to this article they set aside 2 ½ hours last April just to argue over it. To me this is discrimination. I am by no means gay, but I do have quite a few close family members that are, and i love them to death.

I would never treat them any different because of who they love. Can you imagine how they feel having to fight to marry who they want to be happy with? Just let them have peace. As the article said “The outcome could be a landmark ruling giving gay and lesbian couples a right to marry nationwide under the constitution’s protections for individual liberty and equal treatment”(Savage 1). I think this is how it should have been all along.

Why are they just now bringing up the constitution's protections for equal treatment? Especially after all these years of nip picking and fighting marriage for gays. I know some it has to do with religion and Christians fighting it, but if you are anywhere near a christian or a religious person then you aren't suppose to judge people and should treat everyone equally.Why not just make it legal and let them live a happy life?

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AOW #17: Three Articles About Charlie Hebdo

This weeks Article Of The Week was really confusing to me. I guess Charlie Hebdo created a cartoon in a magazine making fun of Muhammad. So on Wednesday January 7th, three masked men came to the Paris office where the magazine Charlie Hebdo was and shot and killed 12 people and 2 of those 12 were police officers. I guess this is not the first time this has happened, about 4 years ago they were firebombed for making fun of Muhammad. Yes, everybody has “freedom of speech” but they should be prepared that if you are going to make fun of someone and put it in a magazine then you should be ready to suffer the consequences from your actions.

ISIS believes that no one should make fun of or talk badly about Muhammad. It was said in the article that a London based editor sent an email and said “It should be “the best it can be” but asked staff to question whether the terrorist attack was “really an attack on free speech” (Jenkins 1). I really truly believe that it most definitely was an attack on free speech, I mean they did kill all those people because of what Charlie Hebdo said in the magazine. I don’t blame them for being angry, but to kill someone over something they said is taking to the extreme.

That is insane! I agree, that the cartoon drawing was not that bad, it is definitely how they said it. When you make fun of people and say stuff like that you should be prepared to be attacked. It is good that they apologized for making fun and promised to never do it again, but it is a little too late for that since they already pissed them off. Now that these people are angry, they probably are not going to give up this battle. Obviously, they really hate being laughed at and if they knew that after all the other times then why continue to make fun of?

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AOW #16: Eating too much added sugar may be killing you

This weeks article of the week is about how eating too much added sugars in food could be killing people. We all know that all the bad sweets we love to eat is bad for us. Sodas, cakes, cookies, and any kind of candy you eat has so much unhealthy added sugars in it. People do not realize that when they go to the doctor most causes of diabetes, high blood pressure, and most commonly obesity is caused from eating too much of added sugars that's in food. It would not hurt for people in the United States to stay on a healthy diet and actually replace all these sweets with fruits and vegetables.

I can honestly see why obesity is so bad in the United States, just one can of the regular can of soda contains over 140 calories of added sugars. That is insane, imagine how many cans a soda a day just one person drinks? All Americans diets consist of anymore is sugar-sweetened foods like ice creams, cakes, candies, etc.. I think it all starts in their early childhood years because all you see is little kids walking around eating this kind of stuff anymore. I think that the companies that distribute and make this stuff should be made to make it with healthier alternatives besides all those added sugars.

Most people’s daily 2,000 calorie diet is taken up from all the added sugars, over 300 calories a day is just from added sugars in our food. If people would just learn to eat healthy, it would help get rid of all these unwanted added sugars in their body. As stated in the USA Today’s article “People who consumed seven or more servings a week of sugar-sweetened beverages were 29% higher risk of death from heart disease than those who consumed one serving or less”(Hellmich 2). I honestly believe it, when people are consuming all those added sugars and fattening foods they are taking away from their nutrients in their body. They have a higher risk of getting blocked arteries in their hearts from all these added sugars which will cause problems with your heart like heart disease. Eating unhealthy has become such a problem, not many people follow proper diets in this world anymore.

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AOW #15: On a Comet 10 years away, Philae Conks Out, Maybe for Good

This weeks article was kind of confusing to me.I guess it all started 10 years ago from scientist and NASA sending some kind of vehicle made for space to go up and transmit data and certain photos to earth to answer some of scientists questions and observe data from the comet. This “vehicle” is battery operated and ran by rechargeable batteries but the batteries only recharge by sunlight. I do not think this was a very good idea because what if there was not any sunlight near it for awhile, did they not think it wouldn’t get stuck and run out of battery? As of November, It went into idle mode from not having enough charge on the battery. Scientist think all their equipment and such they create to send up there is going to work what they don’t realize is they aren’t perfect. They can’t do everything to be sure that the equipment they send up to space is going to function properly or not. As scientist said in the article that it was supposed to have 7 hours of sunlight per day. How could they guarantee that it was going too? I would have made it with another back up plan when there was no sun around it. As stated in the article “The probe’s landing didn’t go as planned this week, after Philae detached from the Rosetta orbiter” (Brumfield 1). Now that it has detached from the orbiter, it has to run on its own now which caused it to go to the wrong spot and now has no direct sunlight to it. Without this it won’t work correctly to give scientist the information they need. So they have decided to try one last thing to fix it and that was to send commands that will supposedly rotate the “vehicles” body so that it can fix the solar panels. I think that it is going to take more than this to fix the problem.

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