Is the media in the right?

Its something that is overlooked all the time. Is the media providing a false impression on today's society? Are we focusing too much on the gossip of the world instead of reality? Is that what the viewers want? The media today, print and television, avoid the reality of the world and promote the entertainment industry. Whether it is through the news or cartoons in the newspaper, the entertainment industry is getting all the attention. The general media foundation, which is built up by major corporations across the country, is promoting the entertainment over the wars and the bloodshed happening overseas, and even in this very counrty. Sure we hear about the war, and the loss of lives every day, but it is only a small fraction of the newscast, or a small portion of the newspaper.
The question really comes down to why?
I think the answer to this is simple... people don't want to know the truth. They don't want to hear about the things going on overseas, they don't want to hear about all the negative things going on in the world and in their own back yards. They want to take the gossip of the entertainment world, and turn it into their own form of entertainment and become turn that into their world.

Is torture the right thing to do?

Ok, so I apologize for being a little behind, but my life is back in order and here I go. For my last blog on torture (for right now), I want to touch upon whether torture is the right thing to do in any situation.
I think there has to be certian things in line and in order, along with certain situations occuring in order to permit torture. I am not saying torture is the morally correct thing to do, however, I do believe when it is the last option in "crunch time" it is a necessity. Sometimes in life we need to put what is necessary in front of what is morally correct. If it is a ticking bomb situation, where information is needed immediately to protect a nation against imminant danger, then I would have to say torture is necessary, if all other steps have been taken and all other attempts to get the necessary information have failed, and torture is the absolute last resort, then it ought to be permitted despite the lack of moral corretness. I don't think torture is a necessity when it is not a situation in which a nation is in imminent danger and there is no proof what so ever that the person that is going to be tortured has no information. In order to torture someone in a ticking bomb situation, I think it has to be put out there that it is believed beyond no doubt that that is the person with information. If it is not believed beyond no doubt, then torture can not be done.

Torture

Torture is vaguely defined as intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering in order to break a person's will. But what about mental suffering, and what is the definition of extreme?

Isn't the severity of "extreme" up to the individual person committing and receiving the torture. According to dictionary.com, extreme is defined as "utmost or exceedingly great in degree," or it could mean "going to the utmost or very great lengths in action, habit, opinion, etc..." So needless to say even the definitions allow room for interpretation. What I might assume to be extreme someone else might feel that it would be no more than a normal occurrence. An example of torture is water boarding, and for someone that is deathly afraid of drowning it could seem extremely torturous on the first dunk in the water, while someone that loves to be in the water and can hold their breath for a long time, might not find it torturous right away or ever at all. Also one form of torture may break a person's will, while that same form of torture may never break a different person's will.

In all the definitions of torture, there is nothing about mental torture. Take something like the "chinese water torture" method, according to the definition of torture, being strapped down and having a drip of water dripping on your forehead for hours on end, until your will breaks, is not a form of torture, because it is not inflicting physical suffering. In my own opinion if a will is broken in a forced way, then it is in some form a way of torture; whether it is physical or mental.

Just Cause

Pick a side, for or against the occupation in Iraq. Is the occupation just? Was it just in the beginning and now its not? or were we led to believe that it was just in the beginning, and there were really alternative motives behind the occupation in Iraq. Again I think this is one of those topics that it all depends on what documents you read, and who you talk to. I believe in the beginning, the occupation in Iraq was given a just cause. It was given a reason for the U.S. to invade Iraq to protect the United States and therefore that's what we did. We may have pre-maturely invaded without the UN finishing their inspections, but we invaded under the notion of find Sadam and weapons of mass destruction and rid the country of both. We have yet to find wmds to this point, but we did find Sadam, take him out of power, and execute him.
Many people today, still critize the occupation, because we are still in Iraq. There is really no reason beyond that, but we are still there and people don't like it. Nonetheless we can't just pull out, after all that we have done to that country. The American Soldiers have done a lot of good in Iraq and they are over there doing their jobs.

Posing a Question to the next topic...

Where is the line drawn for supporting the troops fighting in Iraq and what they are doing, and whether or not the war is just?

Back to the Use of Animals... for one second...

Ok, so back to the use of animals in unethical ways. How about the use of animals for consumption. This is for all of you meat eaters out there. I am 100% totally a meat eater, and that will probably never change. I don't agree with the surplus of meat we have or abusing the system by killing more animals than we need to eat at one given point in time, however, I do not oppose eating animals as a source of nutrition. I don't believe it is a murderous act that is unlawful. It is something that we need for survival. Not everyone can survive on a vegetarian diet. Some people really need the proteins and minerals meat can provide. So I guess what I am trying to get across hear, is that I don't believe meat eating and the use of animals is an unethical issue, I just believe that it should be limited to the amount we need to eat, and that we don't necessarily need a surplus in meat. If we eat, we kill more to eat more. If we don't eat it, then we don't have to kill to get more.