The Green Zone

Even though we haven't finished this movie, i have a vague idea of what is to happen in the following scenes. There is a big conspiracy at first and all the misconceptions about terrorist and Arabic people were shown in the film. One of the key moments that showed this is when the Iraqi named "freddy" went to the site where the US soldiers where digging up the WMD but then he was tackled down for trespassing and they immediately thought he was a threat when he was actually trying to help out the soldiers with the Intel he got when he saw officials of the Iraqi army going into a meeting. Another is when they actually thought that the Jack of Clubs general Al Rawi was holding WMD when actually he was trying to run away from the US government so that we would not talk about the whole operation.

The movie has levels of conspiracy within the US military and the thing i hate about most and what i usually don't get is that people in the US military have their own little agenda. They seem to be in the same team or in the same side but they don't actually act upon it. I can reflect on this with our own government and military with their own agenda going on and getting us now where in the process. I have yet to watch the whole film but i think this film looks promising.


Image taken from google images

The 11th Hour

        

The movie starts with leonardo dicaprio narrating on how the earth is slowly decaying and we all need to watch the documentary in order to know the truth and to know what to do about it. The movie is basically a documentary about how the earth or the world we live in is about to deteriorate and the sole reason of this is because of human greed. Greed, as the movie states, is the start of all evil and suffering of the earth, and ironically, also the start of human development. We are continuously using the earth’s resources and we are depleting it fast without any room for replacing all the resources that we used. The movie also talks about how we started out with the sun as our primary resource and then it moved into another form which is wood. This goes on and on until we discover fuel to power our machines and vehicle. We are also running out of fuel, we are now burning fossil fuel to sustain or fuel shortage and the gas emissions that fossil fuel burning gives off is highly dangerous. 

The gas that fossil fuel burning gives off contains green house gasses which is slowly making the ozone hole bigger every second. The video shows many scientists and other people who know a thing or two about how the planet works and dies. The video is an awareness type of video that tells people that the earth has no more time for screw ups and for slow paced change. Now is the time for change, go hard or go home.    

   

Images taken from google images

SOPA/PIPA ACT

We made a group paper on the SOPA/PIPA which is a law that states that internet should have censorship and the act did not just caused uproar to the Americans who wished to stop the bill but also to the billions of people around the world. Most of the internet sites that were affected of the bill are American owned internet sites. Among the internet sites were: Tumblr, Mozilla, Techdirt, 9gag, Google and Wikipedia. The internet sites Google, however, did another approach to act upon SOPA/PIPA.

Google allegedly made an online petition to its site that collected more than 7 million signatures from the United States alone. Numerous internet companies protested on November 16 to act against the SOPA/PIPA act. Most of these internet companies displayed on their site logos black posters that had the words “STOP CENSORSHIP” in the front. These sites protested by participating in the American Censorship Day.

In an article on the internet displayed that Recording Industry Association of America or (RIAA) spokesman Jonathan Lamy made a statement saying,  "It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users and arm them with misinformation", (Lamy, 2011). They fear that the SOPA/PIPA act was being misunderstood and misrepresented in a way.

Most of the bill’s supporters are aware the most of the public are being tricked by the same anarchistic gimmick that every protest that appears viral to the internet. As the sites protested against the bill, they called it the biggest Internet Blackout in history. Some news ads tell that SOPA and PIPA are wholely unnecessary.

This is shown by the recent action of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of shutting down the Site, Megaupload and imprisoning its owner. The action of the SOPA/PIPA act gave rise to the protest group called “Anonymous” or “Anon” that is very popular and viral in various sites. Anonymous stated that their recent action is to be their biggest assault with over 5,635 people contributing in the DoS (Denial-of-service) assault by means of Low Orbit Ion Cannon or LOIC.

LOIC was thus was only partly effective because of the reason that it is exploited by numerous aggressors, in spite the fact that a network firewall may possibly with no trouble filter out the traffic of the network. Anonymous made a threat to shut down or “blackout” 60,000 facebook servers in retaliation to the SOPA/PIPA act on Jan 28. The whole operation orchestrated by anonymous was called “operation global blackout”.

"Bill Killed: SOPA death celebrated as Congress recalls anti-piracy acts" was said on the CBS news on January 21, 2012. “It was the biggest protest in internet history with over 115 thousand sites altering their webpages” (not exact words) said another company who opposed the bill, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a rights advocacy non-profit group.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57360665-503544/sopa-pipa-what-you-need-to-know/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Impact_on_online_freedom_of_speech

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/

World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only existing organization that deals solely with the laws and also the regulation of trade between all nations. This was not the first time I have heard and learned about the WTO. Last term we actually made a presentation about the World Trade Organization and its components and its purpose for the field of trade. The ultimate goal of the WTO is to help out and assist manufacturers of goods and services and also exporters, and importers perform their trade.

"The WTO agreements are lengthy and complex because they are legal texts covering a wide range of activities. But a number of simple, fundamental principles run throughout all of these documents. These principles are the foundation of the multilateral trading system.

·        Non-discrimination

·        More open

·        Predictable and transparent

·        More competitive

·        More beneficial for less developed countries

·        Protect the environment" 

(taken from the WTO website)

Although WTO is an organization to “help” people with their businesses, there are people who think otherwise and there have been also editorial cartoons and news cutting that depicts the WTO as an organization that is an enemy to the people. Examples of editorial cartoons:

(Pictures taken from Google Images)

UNICEF (International Organization)

In class, we were asked to go to our groups and pick an International Organization to present in front of class. We eventually picked Unicef as the International Org to present. From what we researched, UNICEF is the organization that specializes on the rights of children everywhere in the world. They believe in making the world where every kid’s rights is recognized and is listened to. Unicef started out in the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946. It’s sole purpose was to provide food and healthcare to kids in places that had been devastated by World War 2.

 

“We believe that nurturing and caring for children are the cornerstones of human progress.  UNICEF was created with this purpose in mind – to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path.  We believe that we can, together, advance the cause of humanity.” (Taken from http://www.unicef.org/about/who/ index_introduction.html)

Unicef believes that they a supporter and a promoter every children’s start in life to be the best. They also believe that the strongest fundamentals are always made at the earliest age of a children’s life. Unicef in the Philippines focuses on street children and. Street children are very eminent in the Philippines, kids are also being trafficked in some places which we researched on last term as our final paper in our majors class. Philippine Unicef Ambassadors such as Gary Valenciano thinks tha child’sprecious and it must be taken care of. Unicef Philippines is based in Manila and Cotabato.

 

Sources of Data: http://www.unicef.org/ http://www.unicef.org/about/who/index_introduction.html

Pictures taken from google images.

Supranational Organizations- European Union

In our discussion about the European Union as a supranational organization, we found out that it is a partnership between 27 European countries. The EU is a very special and one-of-a kind political partnership. It is said in the EU website that “it has delivered half a century of peace, stability, and prosperity, helped raise living standards, launched a single European currency, and is progressively building a single Europe-wide market in which people, goods, services, and capital move among Member States as freely as within one country.” (taken from the EU website)

It’s description says that it has delivered half a century of peace and it continues to develop the 27 countries. From the news I’ve seen in the EU website, It is said that one of the millennium goals have been met, the Developmental Goal on safe drinking water. In the article, it says that the EU successfully helped over 32 million people that are part of the European Union to have safe and improved water supply. Examples like these are indicators of continuous achievements and accomplishments by the EU and also it shows that there is a bright future for the EU. 

Sources: http://europa.eu/news/index_en.htm, http://europa.eu/index_en.htm.

Photo taken from google