PLN 28

In the article "Our boys are falling behind in education" by Dottie Lamm, it talks about how boys are achieving less for themselves through education, on the other hand women are excelling. Women are enrolling and graduating in college at a ratio 1.5:1 to men. Also, at a younger age girl's brains develop faster than boy's brains. the author of this article believes the role of man and woman may be switched to one another.

I believe this is natural and the natural course of things are not changing. I think this does not prove anything except boys need more academic focus at a younger age. Girls develop faster at a younger age than boys do which causes problems during the boy's education. I think it is important for our country to know the statistic that girls graduate from college at a huge rate, far more than the boys. This alarming statistic should be a shock to boys who may be falling behind and realizing that they should stay focused on their education. I don't believe the statistic is such a big deal that the role of men and women will change and be switched from one to the other.

PLN 27

In the article, Oil rig spill off Louisiana could threaten coastline from BBC News, it describes how an explosion ruined an oil rig in Louisiana. The oil rig went down in smithereens on Thursday, April 22nd. The cause of the explosion is unknown. The leak of oil, which was caused from the explosion, can possibly damage beaches, barrier islands, and wetlands across the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Over 100 workers were rescued but ten more 10 have gone missing or assumed they were killed. There was a search party but it was called off due to bad weather over this past weekend. Over 40 thousand gallons of oil per day are leaking into the sea and are harming aquatic wildlife. This is important because robot submarines have been dispatched to help contain the situation although matters can only get worse without direct human interaction towards solving this problem at hand. The severe weather is a problem but is also helping by keeping the oil away from the coastlines and causing damage to the beaches. I believe the oil companies should have stricter safety policies and stricter safety checks because of how dangerous this can become. The oil can harm more than marine wildlife, it can also cause problems along beaches and endangering humans as well. This is important to our country because it affects the amount of oil we produce for ourselves in a negative manner. This is also important to the world because the oil can continue to spill out of the rig and into the ocean killing tons of aquatic life and causing problems on the coastlines of every nation near water.

PLN 26

In this article, "Thai army 'ready to use live fire against red-shirts" by BBC News, is important because all protestors in Thailand are going to be shot by the military if they feel it is necessary. The Thai army will take steps to halt any protests such as using rubber bullets and tear gas, but if that does not seem to work then the military says they will use live rounds on the protestors. The protestors have organized and have become a group known as the 'red-shirts'. The military has used live rounds on their people and military officials admitted it. The bullets were used to break up a protest on April 10th which resulted in 25 deaths. The protestors want their current prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, to step down; they also demand for a new election for a new prime minister.

This is sending a strong message to the Thai people that the military is behind the prime minister and they will not let him retire. This could be evidence of a currupt government. The Thai military could be running the system behind the scenes of the public eye. This is important to the world because no one is taking action against them besides their own nation. This is also important to the Thai people because they will begin to fear their own government and they will stop revolting against the currupted system.

PLN 25

In the article, Inmates bilk Uncle Sam for millions, from CNN, it reveals a discovery from inside the jailhouse. An officer in Florida was going through an inmate's bed as usual checking of jail cell when he found papers, more specifically, tax forms. Not knowing what the officer was doing he turned in the tax forms to his supervisor and what he found out is that the prison inmates were planning on stealing over $1 million from the government. The whole operation was a tax scam and prison inmates were filling out tax forms with various social security numbers and birthdates. The inmates were also filling out the forms with jobs they have never had in order to get tax refunds from the government. I believe this is important for the government to be aware of because inmates are taking money from the taxpayers and the government. This could be a growing problem and could become even more serious because it is a becoming more common opon the prison inmates to fill out tax forms with false information. Investigators say this problem has been around for decades and it isn't a local issue. The prisoners would send the tax forms into the IRS and sometimes the IRS would send refeund checks straight to the jail. Usually, the prisoners get help from inside the jail to fill out the forms and to send them and promise thousands of dollars for whoever helped them.

PLN 24

"Chairman: Ship's paint brings instant death to Great Barrier Reef" from CNN

This article describes how a Chinese ship named 'Shen Neng 1' has an anti-fouling paint which has been scraped into the ocean off the coast of Australia. anti-fouling paint is paint that goes onto ships which prevents barnacles from sticking onto ships. The paint was scraped off of the hull of the ship from the Australian Great Barrier Reef which put the paint into the sea. Once the paint is into open water, it begins killing corals, affecting marine life. If coral is being killed in large numbers than it could affect the food chain long term. The coral obtains a lot of it's energy from photosynthesis and is eaten by fish in order to survive. If the coral population is decreased then this could affect the fish population and other marine life and so on and so on. Although anti-fouling paint can increase the speed at which a boat goes, it is not worth the potential risk it is putting on life in the water. Also this paint is supposed to increase the durability of the ship but ships are already durable enough. I believe this is evidence enough to the United Nations to do something about it. The United Nations should ban this anti-fouling paint because it affects marine life in an extreme way in which results are fatal. If China continues to use this anti-fouling paint, maybe in more quantities, then this could affect other marine life and not only coral. Overall, anti-fouling paint has more cons then it does pros which is why it should be unusable.

PLN 23

"Mobile app developers tackle Africa's biggest problems" from CNN

This article explains how African farmers are getting scammed by businessmen who are taking advantage of their ignorance to trade. African farmers are being taken advantage of by selling their crops to clients and their clients are selling the crops to consumers for a larger price, in turn making a extremely large profit. These people are ripping off these hard African workers and one person answered their cry for help, Gichamba. Gichamba has created a mobile phone app which matches up farmers queries with a database of information about local dairy markets and prices. This is making the least wired continent become more technological and more advanced than previous times of their own. Not only is this helping farmers but its helping the african people and economy. The economy could slowly rise since a lot of Africa's income comes from agriculture since they are so behind ,technologically speaking, crops take more time to grow and longer to harvest. Overall, if Africa slowly becomes more familiar with technology, they could interact with other continents, become more socially acceptable and require less help from the world.

PLN 22

"The Politics of Cowboys and Gun-Slingers" from: WorldNews.com

This article is about how Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compared America to a cowboy. When the United States has legal issues, it goes to it's guns. More specifically, the Iran president was referring to nuclear weapons. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated Iran will not back yield to a threat of nuclear bombings from the United States any longer. Some American politicians believe that America is still on a frontier to this day, conquering land across the globe. I think this matters to the world because one nation in the middle-east is standing their ground against American military threats and Iran is not the only nation being bullied by the United States. And this resistance could set off a chain reaction against America, resisting them and not giving into their demands even after nuclear bombing threats. A good example of numerous bombing threats from the U.S. to foreign nations would be the Cold War era (1947-1991). A revolt against the United States could make matters worse across the world for America. Resulting in trades being cut off with America from foreign nations, Political struggles, or possibly war.

PLN 21

"South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche killed" from World News

This article discusses how Eugene Terreblanche, a white supremacist leader in South Africa, has been brutally murdered. Hacked with a machete and beaten by a 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy. On saturday, these two were arrested facing criminal charges of murder. Terreblanche once was a South African police officer before becoming a white supremacist leader. Eugene had motives to create a white homeland in south Africa and campaigned it throughout the country. Terreblanche was known for his apartheid, or inhuman acts of one racial group to the next in an attempt to oppress them. This shows that to this day there is still racism going on and to a certain extent, racism hasn't been slowly drifting away, it has been hiding. There is some historic progress in which racism has been losing its popularity but things never seem to change as this man and his team of followers try to campaign for independent white homeland. Racism is a big topic in the world today and these two boys seemed to take matters in their own hands when they brutally murdered this white supremacist leader.