My humorous argument comes out of the Skiff today. It compares the candidates to each other as stock. It shows all the fluctuations in Obama's campaign and how McCain has stayed steady throughout. I found it kinda funny especially the way people have been flip flopping in supporting his campaign.

What was this country founded on?
Op-ed by:
Justin S
Today, this country has a problem. Tomorrow holds the same. As I type this now thousands of young men and women are overseas fighting for your rights. Our rights to freedom. Our constitutional rights. Our rights to go to work, to go to school to love our families, to live.
In 2001 foreign terrorists attacked these freedoms in the most horrific attack on civilian lives this nation has ever seen. Yet we have been under a attack constantly for years prior to this by what can only be described as domestic terrorists. Elected officials. They are the people we have allocated our entire life’s work to and applied all of our faith in. Yet they continually fight against the promises they made to us to become elected.
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In 1607 the first settlers came to this country and founded the first permanent settlement at Jamestown. Prior to this a group of individuals risked there lives and set out on a voyage on a whim and a prayer. When they arrived they drew up a letter explaining what they had come for, this letter is better know to day as the Mayflower compact. In which this group of individuals explained they had come for Christ. They risked there lives to escape persecution and to actively peruse there creator. Some years later a man sat down and wrote a few letters of his own in which he explained that religious persecution would not be tolerated in this nation, he went by the name Thomas Jefferson and that document happened to be the foundation of this beautifully pathetic country we have worked ourselves into today. Out of that men gathered and wrote the Constitution in which The First Amendment promises protection to practice whatever religion you chose. There is only one problem with this. Today I see no religion.
This Country was founded by Christians FOR Christians. Fortunately for those who are not our God preaches on us to be accepting of everyone and that is why the 1st amendment still holds strong. Unfortunately for us as Christians our right have been violated. We have bent over backwards to accommodate everyone that we have in turn forgotten about ourselves and taken our own rights away. We can no longer practice our religion the way we are suppose to because the others are have taken all rights and space to do it.
This has led to one thing, a lack of religion in our American society. Secular politicians have taken the rights our forefathers gave us and contorted them into some hybrid word jumble that means nothing. They protect themselves and allow themselves to sleep at night by calling this separation of church and state, a phrase that never appears in the original constitution handed down by our forefathers. Yes the phrase is taken from a founding father but it has been taken out of context. Thomas Jefferson coined this phrase in a letter written to a New England minister in which he said there will be a separation of church and state I promise to keep the state out of the church. NOT I promise to keep the Church out of the State. They wanted the church and religion to be a part of legislation. Today all we see are politicians that have the moral character of well Satin. This began years before any of us were born yet we are the ones suffering the consequences. The question is why do we continue to elect people of this nature? Better yet why do we continue to let them get away with it? By this we are no better than them. This was truly seen during the Clinton administration were the head of our nation can commit adultery and all we do is shake our heads in disbelieve. This is an utter embarrassment to all of us. Do you know how stupid we look to other countries. I believe that there are no moral politicians or high ranking officials left in this nation. When the American public sits idly by and does nothing to stop it we are really saying we accept this behavior. We accept the fact that they lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, use drugs. We must seem to like it because we do not hold them accountable for there actions. When a poor man commits the same crimes he goes to the penitentiary for decades, but because they are rich they are above the law. Instead of persecuting the one with nothing to lose we must persecute the ones who do. We have things to lose and they are driving them from us. I want my kids to grow up and say a prayer in school if they want. I want my politicians to be sworn in on the BIBLE and MEAN IT. We have taken this mantra of well that’s there problem and they will have to answer for there actions yet we are to and doing nothing is the biggest action we can take. I call all of the Christian faith mainly or any faith really to take back what has been taken from us. Steal back this nation from sin and place it back in the hands of the Righteous. Hold your Politicians accountable, do everything in your power to bring these perpetrators to justice. They are not invincible especially against the millions of us there are. Do not fear persecution for fighting for what you believe. Don’t let they men and women overseas die in vain. Free this nation from its terrorists.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of there righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” MT 5:10
If our leaders led by example, followed this verse, and made there religious character know this country would see drastic changes.
Why are our leaders scared to disclose there own believes. They hold these believes for a reason because they think they are right. So do as the verse says and stand up for them and let God handle the ones who persecute you.

Definition please?

For my argument of definition i picked the song What is Love by Haddaway. The song is currently the ad campain for pepsi max and was basis for the SNL skit and movie A night at the Roxbury with Chris Kitan. I just heard the song and had it stuck in my head an thought it was fitting for this blog post. In the song this question is asked and answered by the things that he is claiming she has done to him. Sorry for the 90's flashback but im a closet SNL nerd.

Fact

My argument of fact came from MSN.com and msnbc news it is a short story saying how a Florida judge ruled that a law making saggy pants illegal was unconstitutional. I just found this case very interesting because i see both sides of the argument. I hate saggy pants. I don't mind pants that are baggy and loose fitting but I do not want to see any ones underwear or shorts. Civil rights activists say that the law is profiling young black men. Yes i believe this would acquire but there are also people in every other ethnicity that wear the same style. I think the way around this and the best option would be to change it from a law to a city ordinance. All comments welcome I'm interested in other opinions.

Letter to the Editor

Justin Stayton
Eng.20803
A. Patrick
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor, I read the article that you presented on Wednesday September 10th, 2008. I am deeply concerned with the information in this article. You reported that thirteen employees in the Denver office of the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service were allegedly were accepting “gifts” such as golf and ski trips from oil companies. The report you mention also alleges that Gregory W. Smith the former head of the Denver Royalty-in-Kind office “used illegal drugs and had sex with subordinates.” According to the article “Between 2002 and 2006, nearly a third of the 55-person staff in the Denver office received gifts and gratuities form oil and gas companies.”
This arises many questions in my mind. First and foremost how does a situation like this occur for as long as it did. How come in four year no one seemed to care enough to look at the income of these government officials and notice that one was working part time for an oil company. Well I know some may claim that this would be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy but I disagree if you work for the U.S. government dealing with such contracts as they do it should be public record and checked at least on a yearly basis to prevent such crimes from accruing. This problem is an apparent lack of supervision from our government in Washington. I and the rest of the country would like to know who exactly is responsible for this supervision.
Second, What action has been taken against these 13 men? Aside from the apparent sexual assault and drug charges, what these men did was a crime. It is a textbook example of white-collar crime and resembles everything wrong with this country. We as the citizens of this country are sick and tried of seeing our elected and high ranking officials go unpunished for these types of crimes. All to often it is these crimes that often go unnoticed by the general population. The media in this country which is also fed by the “generous handouts” of such industries to keep these crimes out of sight. It is crimes like this that do the most damage to this country. Just because there is not a physical victim in these crimes does not mean that these crimes are victimless. When government contracts like these are swayed one way or another the taxpayers and blue-collar hard working Americans pay, our economy suffers and we lose power in a global market.
You also explain that these “charges also come as lawmakers and both presidential candidates weigh giving oil companies more access to federal lands, which would bring in more money to the federal government.” We now have a answer to the prior two questions if the federal government is going to profit off of these same persuasive contracts are we really to suspect that they would do something to stop them? I would like to know exactly were the candidates stand on this issue. If either one supports this issue we might as well pack up and head for the hills because this will be the candidate the oil companies support and back financially and this is the exact problem we have with the current president. And yet congress passes legislation to stop the deposition of oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to allow for more on the market which is suppose to lower gas prices. Yeah ill believe that when I see it, which doesn’t seem to be anytime soon.
Authors Note: I claim this as a first draft and welcome any and all suggestions to polishing and revising. All the content I would like added is here but I am still undecided as to whether it is arranged to strengthen my argument.

My chosen topic for unit one is going to be oil and energy use and the trouble between it and the government. I was sent to me in an email today about a breaking news on msnbc and it is not yet complete but it sure was interesting. allegedly U.S. Government officials in Denver and Washington have been taking sex, trips, and numerous other gifts from oil companies for rights to drill on federal land etc. Which is a big topic of the upcoming election. It is arguing that our politicians are corrupt and that us as citizens are to pay for it. I chose this topic because for years my dad worked in the oil industry and he knows how much the government is screwing us on gas prices and lying about the amount of oil we have. I just thought that it was a good topic to think about with the up-coming election and how this will affect out children.

What We Need!

I am looking for a candidate that is going to help the majority of this country's population. For far to long the focus and resources of this country have gone to both extremes only benefiting the rich or the poor while us in the middle float the bill for each of them. We need someone in office that is going to fix the economy and the growing national debt. Gas prices are still outrageously high when there is absolutely no reason and the price gauging that is going one needs to stop. I would like to see our boys come home but not before we get the countries back on there feet. leaving now would be immature of us and would only make this country look worse. Health care in this country is getting out of hand. We need to put a stop to the lobbyists in Washington. But if there is change in the public health system it needs not to come from the pocket of the middle class. Being a criminal justice/soc major I must mention that the correctional system also needs to be updated. We continue to spend billions of dollars to build new prisons but do nothing to help offenders upon release there for they hit the revolving door and return right back to prison. I would like to see some significant change for offenders when released, this country needs places to house offenders and help them adjust back to society. Finding housing is the biggest issue for offenders being released from prison and with 10 million going to be released in the next few years i believe this would significantly reduce the rate of recidivism in this country. The list of broken ideals in this country go on exponentially from here but for time and sanity sake i think i will stop here. This are the most important problems i see this country facing and i would like to see a candidate address them.

My sample of logos is the U.C.R. or Uniform Crime Report complied by the F.B.I. The UCR is a compilation of crime statistics from cities across the country. Each police department that participates sends the crime statistics from there city to be compared and annualised by the F.B.I. and investigate crime trends. The UCR is broken down by year and category of crime. It also is sectioned by some individual crimes such as hate crimes and assaults on law enforcement. The UCR uses the statistics to make whatever argument the F.B.I. has deemed part of its political agenda. Lately the UCR mainly focuses on violent crime and inflates the statistics to look like crime is more rampant than reality suggests. It also has flaws in that the participation is voluntary and statistics reported are often edited to make departments look more effective.

The sample argument I have for class today is an add for DW Drums. It uses ethos for its argument. The add consists of Tommy Lee the drummer from Motley Crue sitting on and standing on a DW drum set. There is also a whole article that goes along with it. The agreement made by the picture however is made by saying that DW Drums are the choice of Tommy Lee. This is a form of ethos because they are implying that throughout the years as a world famous drummer he has had the opportunity to play lots of different kinds of sets yet this is the one he likes the most. They are using his experience to make a claim that DW is the best and to chose them over any other drum manufacturer.