Australia Fights Tobacco With Taxes and Plain Packs

Australia Fights Tobacco With Taxes and Plain Packs; [Business/Financial Desk]
BETTINA WASSENER and MERAIAH FOLEY. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Apr 30, 2010. pg. B.9
link to article
The article I have chosen is about Australia taking control over cigarette companies. The Australian government is going to raise taxes on cigarettes, so more people will stop smoking. In the article it says, "The measures announced on Thursday also include a 25 percent increase in the excise tax on tobacco products, which was to come into force as of midnight. That will increase the cost of a packet of 30 cigarettes by about 2.16 Australian dollars, to around 16.70 Australian dollars ($15.40)." The extra tax money will be used to help their health care plan, as it says in the article, "The additional tax revenue, estimated to total 5 billion Australian dollars over four years, would be invested in the nation's health system, the government said." This article points out the governments side and the cigarette companies side. The government tells cigarette companies that they have to use plain packaging. The cigarette companies doesn't want to use plain packaging, as they tell the authors of the article, "Plain packaging would seriously harm our brands and infringe the intellectual property rights in which both Imperial Tobacco and its shareholders have invested."
This article has many quotes from the government and the cigarette companies. The authors do a good job at getting both sides of the issue. The article is recent and provides specific examples on time, like when they say "...announced on Thursday..." The article i choose seems to be more in the favor of the Australian government then the cigarette companies.
In my opinion the Australian government are taking good and helpful steps to reduce the amount of people that smoke and helping their health plan at the same time. This article helped me realize that our government would be able to make more laws for cigarette companies if they wanted to. I think our government should put more taxes on tobacco as well, it would help our economy and the health of everyone.

Smoking

Smoking is bad for you, every one knows that. But some people say that cigarets are good because they help stimulate are economy. This picture of the watch atached to the cigarets, looks like a bomb. The picture means that cigarets are a ticking time bomb, and I agree.
There have been so many law suites filled against cigarett company's because people die from thier product. You would think something would be illegal if it's side effects cause pre-mature death. But no cigaretts aren't illegal, and it probably never will be because it stimulates the economy.
Our government cares more about stimulating the economy than about peoples lives. Cigaretts cause hundreds of deaths each year, not just for smokers but for people who get second hand smoke. People who get second hand smoke can't help it, but the government can help them by makeing cigaretts illegal!

Gran Turino

Gran Turino is one of my favorite movies. Clint Eastwood stars in this movie as a grumpy old man who lives in a neighborhood that has been over come with Asian immigrants. He ends up helping his neighbors when they have trouble with an Asian gang. The gang controls his whole neighborhood by creating fear. But Clint Eastwood's character is not afraid of them, and stands up to them when they give him problems.
Clint Eastwood helps his neighbor, a teenage boy when the gang comes around and hassles him. His neighborhood starts to see Clint as a hero. The boy owes Clint because he tried to steel from him, so Clint makes the boy help him and the other neighbors do chores. Clint teaches the boy good manners, like helping an older lady carry her groceries.
In the movie the boy's older sister gets gang raped by the Asian gang. She can't go to the police because if she does her family will be killed by the gang. Her brother wants revenge and goes to Clint so he will help. Clint comes up with a plan to make sure the entire gang will go to jail. Clint locks the boy in the basement and goes over to the gangs house alone. He does not take any weapons. When he gets their he makes sure that every gang member See's him. He reaches for his lighter, and the entire gang open fire on him. Clint Eastwood knew he was going their to die. He helped the entire community by his sacrifice. I don't know any one who didn't cry during this movie. This movie opened people eye's to the hardships community's go through when they have gangs.

she lick me like a lollipop

Many songs and music videos degrade women. Lil Wayne's video has many women in it. All of the women in his video are showing most of their skin, and are dressed very sexy. This video is a perfect example of how many woman dress today. I don't think it is right to leave nothing to the imagination. Women need to respect themselves, and dress more conservatively. Men loose respect for women when they see her dressed really sexy, they will think she is easy, and they wont treat women the way they should. If women don't start treating themselves better than they can't expect men to treat them good either.

CRAAP website evaluation

The website I used, 4parents.gov I found very useful. The website had an “about us” page which showed me who was responsible for the website and who wrote the articles. Also the web site had a good list of all their sources that they used to write their article. All of the links were working perfectly so it was easy to use the website, and it showed that the website was kept up and not old.
The article I read was called Teen Mom and it was very useful for my research topic. I know the article was relevant because it showed when it was last updated, which was August 13, 2009. The article was short but it was helpful. Also it gave another website at the end that might be useful to my research topic. Overall I think the article will be useful to me when I write my research essay on teen pregnancy.

http://www.4parents.gov/sexrisky/teen_preg/teen_preg.html

Kanye West gets voted off the island!

Kanye West is a horrible person in my point of view. Just because he is famous he thinks he can get away with being a jack ass to every one and anyone. For example when Taylor Swift won an award at the VMA's he got up on stage and took the mike away from her, and said how she didn't deserve the award. To defend him self he just says "I only speak the truth," well no one asked for his opinion so he should have kept his moth shut!
If Kanye West was removed from the public view all award ceremonies would be better. The people receiving awards wouldn't be worried someone was going to come up on stage and dis them. Even though he is a jack ass he still makes good music, so we would loose his music, but that would give room for other artists to emerge!
I choose Kanye West to be removed from the public eye because he is a bad example for people. He shows people that he is rude but he gets away with it, and people still buy his records. Kanye shows that its okay to treat other people with dis-respect, but it's not okay and their should be higher consequences!

Topic Ideas!

1. Teen Pregnancy:
I think too many girls are becoming pregnant at a young age. My best friend, and cousin Katie got pregnant last year, she was only 16. She kept her baby, but she can not support it herself, and the father isn't around. I think to many children are being brought into this world where they don't have a stable environment.
2. Gun control:
In our city's there are to many drive by shootings, and other gun related problems. Too many family's loose their children, or dad's, or mothers to drive-by's. there are to many gun's on our streets, they can make a whole city feel unsafe.
3. Abortion:
I believe abortion is wrong. If you don't want to have a kid then you should give it up for adoption, and give it a chance to live. I think the only exception for abortion is if you were raped, and got pregnant from the rapist. Otherwise it's your own fault for getting pregnant, so you need to live with the consequences.
4. cigarettes:
Some people think cigarettes should be made illegal. I don't think they should, but I do think they should raise the age limit for you to be able to buy them. Too many people die from lung cancer because of cigarettes, but cigarettes employ many people. If they were made illegal it would hurt our economy.

Jessica vs. Bella

Running with wolves and kissing vampires; Bella Swan from the Twilight novel saga leads a mythical and mysterious life. Though I do not run with wolves or kiss vampires, I find that I relate to Bella on a more personal level. Every person can relate to a fictional character based on personality and lifestyle; my personality, lifestyle, and interests resemble many aspects of the character Bella Swan, but there are certain aspects of my life that make me unique.

Bella’s personality is one of the many reasons that made the Twilight novels so appealing to me. In the book Bella is very independent and mature for her age. She took care of her mother emotionally, and when she moves in with her dad she takes over the cooking and cleaning. Growing up my sister and I had to take care of my mom, as she dealt with depression and a bipolar disease. After my parents separated, I took over the cooking and cleaning in my house. I had to grow up fast and learn life’s lessons early, because of my family situation. I find myself more mature than other people my age, which makes it hard to find people to relate to. In the novels Bella is shy around people she isn’t close to. She doesn’t reveal much about her personal life. I find that I am quiet and reserved around people I don’t know, but my close friends can’t get me to be quiet. Bella and I are different in a way that makes me jealous of her. Bella is a lot braver then I. She isn’t afraid of having a vampire boyfriend (Edward) and a werewolf best friend (Jacob). She takes risks, like riding motorcycles and cliff diving. When I was growing up even though I had to deal with a lot of issues that were beyond my age, I had a sister who tried to shelter me from evil. My sister would scare me into not doing things, and I just never grew out of being scared of things that are perceived to be dangerous. I wish I were brave and took risks like Bella. While reading the Twilight series, I was turned off by Bella’s selfish attitude that would arise. For example; she wanted to keep both Jacob and Edward around even though it was hurting them. I always think of others first. I don’t expect to have my cake and eat it too. I spend more time thinking of others then myself. Even though we have many similar personality traits our differences makes us unique.

Do nothing without a purpose!

If I had to create a bumper sticker that modeled my philosophy for life, it would be do nothing with out a purpose! Life can be short, so I don't want to waist my time doing things for no reason. I believe my purpose is to help people and to teach. I only do things that are necessary to reach my purpose. I think it's important for everyone to try to reach there goals and purpose in life.

To reach my purpose of teaching, I am going to further my education. It's important for people to further there education so they can see what they want to do with there life if they don't already know. But if people just take college classes for no reason then they wont get anything in return; therefor waisting there time. College should be taken seriously, you shouldnt go if you don't lmow what you want to get out of it.

If everyone did things without reason, then no one would have any desire to do better. Having a purpose or goals, make you stay on track. So I set small reasonable goals for myself that lead up to my main goal and purpose. There is no point to do things that wont help you get to your purpose.