Cloning, is it worth it?

Much hasn’t been said about cloning lately in the news since the first animal was cloned. Dolly the sheep made a revelation in science that genetics could be possible to enhance it. It’s not known how cloning will affect us or even the clones themselves, or if it will result benefit to us or unnecessary risks that shouldn’t be taken. I believe cloning is an immoral and risky choice to continue researching on or even testing on living beings. Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from adult cells, rather than an embryo. In the beginning of 1996 other sheep were being cloned using adult cells as have other animals. So when scientists at Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly only lamb born from 277 attempts, it was major scientific achievement. It was a complex and difficult task, to produce Dolly the scientists had to use the nucleus of an udder cell from a six-year old Finn Dorset white sheep. They had to fix the udder cells to keeping them alive but to stop them from growing in which they achieved by altering the growth medium. Then they injected the cell into an unfertilized egg cell from a Scottish Blackface ewe which had a nucleus removed, and made the cells fuse by using electrical pulses. Once the research team fused the nucleus from the adult white sheep cell with the egg cell from black-faced sheep, they needed to make sure the resulting cell would develop into an embryo. The team from the Roslin Institute had to do 227 cell fusions, 29 early embryos developed and were implanted into 13 surrogate mothers. But only one pregnancy worked and the ending result was a 6.6kg Finn Dorset lamb 6 pounds born after 148 days. What scientists hope will come out of this is that cloning technology will bring new ways to produce medicines and improving understanding of development and genetics. It also brings into question whether human beings should or should not be cloned. What we know today is that cloning animals, such as Dolly, had some risks. One risk is a high failure rate, that only 0.1 to 3 percent of cloning attempts are successful. This means that for every 1000 tries, only one to 30 clones are created. Also, this technology isn’t cheap-- it costs money and to get your own personal clone in the future might cost even more. Another risk is that Dolly was much bigger than the average Finn Dorset white sheep, so now scientists know that the clone is much bigger than the natural counterpart.  This is called Large Offspring Syndrome. Abnormally large organs could lead to problems breathing, blood flow, and other things. Also, abnormal gene expression pattern is another risk, which means the clone won’t express the right genes at the right time. Another risk is telomeric differences which is what would happen if the transferred nucleus is already old, this will shorten the lifespan. These risks show us what might happen when cloning animals—now, what if we clone humans? Is cloning a solution to ending diseases and getting to live a bit longer? In June 1998, President Clinton publicly condemned human cloning; he said that “any discovery that touches upon human creation is not simply a matter of scientific inquiry… Each human life is unique, born of a miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science.” The New York Times published an article in 1997 which discussed if cloning should be allowed. The article mentioned a survey, “ABC News asked people whether cloning of humans should be allowed. Ten percent said yes, 87 percent said no. O.K., but would it be 'morally wrong?' Eighty-two percent replied that human cloning would be morally wrong; 14 percent said it would be fine with them.” It proves the point that we’re missing around with something more complex than simple copying of genes. We are dealing with clones that might change the future in our stand point. Will these clones have the same rights as we do or who will have this technology? Today, we’re facing an economic crisis that many are being unemployed and in the future what will come for each of us if we clone more people. It’s just too risky to take the chance to have such technology. 

The United Nations: A failure of maintaining peace?

Is the goal of peace really possible? One of American President Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points was a plan to achieve a just and lasting peace. The Treaty of Versailles created the League of Nations in 1919. In the end, the League of Nations failed to preserve peace in 1930s in Europe, but Allied leaders became determined to create another more efficient international security organization. This organization is known as the United Nations, an international organization of sovereign nations. As its predecessor, the United Nations also has failed to bring about a just and lasting peace. In 1943, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (called the Big Three) met in Dumbarton Oaks, a Washington, D.C., mansion. They began the exhausting process of developing a new organization’s structure. Its purpose would be to maintain international peace, seeking to create a forum in which all nations can resolve differences peacefully. At the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, the three leaders continued their agreement on resolving the most controversial issues of veto power and UN membership. The Big Three agreed on the voting plans that would be used in the United Nations. The war was coming to an end, in which representatives of over 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to create a United Nations Charter. In June 26, 1945, the Charter was signed by those 50 countries and officially came into existence on October 24, 1945. The conference established six basic parts for the UN: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. Any nation in the United Nations is able to have one vote on issues. Self-governing states in the British territory- such as Canada- also have one vote. Nevertheless, the Big Three could veto any decisions made in what is called General Assembly. The five permanent members of the Security Council are France, China, the USSR, Great Britain, and the United States. The Security Council investigates any disputes that threatens peace and security, and recommends how to resolve the conflict in a rightful manner. Each Council member has one vote which decides on procedural matters. The decisions are then made by an affirmative vote of at least nine of the 15 members. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is responsible for: promoting higher standards of living, full employment, economic and social progress, identifying solutions to international economic, social and health problems, providing international education, and encouraging universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Trusteeship Council has the task of supervising the administration of Trust Territories placed under the Trusteeship System.                                       Major goals of the Trusteeship System are to promote the advancement of the inhabitants of Trust Territories and the development of their self-independence. The International Court of Justice, like any other court, has cases but only may entertain two types of cases: legal debates between States submitted to it by the States involved, and requests for advisory opinions on legal questions.  The Secretariat administrates peacekeeping operations that intervene in international conflicts, surveys economic and social trends, and prepares studies on human rights and sustainable development. Now with all these councils the United Nations has, why hasn’t the United Nations kept peace? “The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late,” said Republican White House Mitt Romney.  It’s due to fact that these members in each council are just human beings, meaning their goals are personal and maybe for their own greedy needs. Many of these leaders don’t want everlasting peace because they are still totalitarian or communist.  Today, the United Nations is considered the “solution” that has never worked for example its failure to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and testing. And Iran is keeping a close eye on what the world does to North Korea, since Iran has similar nuclear ambitions for their non-peaceful agenda too. There are many people out their that have the desire for peace, but that peace won't come until people change and our leaders. Leaders won't change, they all want to reach a goal never knowing what might even if ti gets worse.

 

 

 

The Holocaust: Non-Jew victims, why not recognized?

The Holocaust; a term that defines the cruelty, mass destruction, the epitome way of racism that one man can accomplish with absolute power. Truly, the holocaust was a living nightmare for the Jews due to Hitler’s convincing ways in which Jews were a problem for Germany and must be taken care of.  But is it true that it was only Jews who were the victims of the holocaust? The answer is no. Over 5-million non-Jewish victims were killed. Why isn’t the enormous quantity of non-Jews not even recognized? I believe that we were taught by the media that seems to focus on the 6 million to understand the other 5 million is important today.

A child of survivors’ talks about his parents’ stories of how their house was burned and his uncle shot in the head by a Nazi soldier because his own uncle’s family was hiding a Jewish woman. What shocked him the most, he said, “I realized that many people were not aware that millions of victims of the Holocaust were NOT Jewish. Outside the Polish community, I heard very little mention about the five million non-Jewish victims -- usually referred to as ‘the others’.” The Holocaust victims consisted in these groups: 3-million Polish Jews: 3-million Polish Christians, Catholics; and most of the remaining were from other countries such as Czechoslovakia, Russia, Holland, France, and Germany. Here are some statics that happened in Poland during the period of the Holocaust.                                                                

Non- Jew Victims in Poland
Non-Jew Victims:	Percentage of Killings:
Doctors	45%
Attorneys	57%
Professors	40%
Technicians	30%
Clergy	18%

            These doctors, Journalists, and so forth weren’t even Jews, they were only innocent people. Why did Hitler do this to people? Poland was the first target, a very weak and agricultural country. Hitler promised to the German populace that success and military action will put Germany in a position of power in Europe. As a result, Hitler thought the Germans as the Master Race that would control Europe. What about around Europe or even Germany? Well, there were some groups, religious groups, who refused to cooperate or didn’t believe in this Nazi ideas and practices. One group in particular, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hitler felt particularly threatened, because they refused to recognize any God other than Jehovah. They refused to sign documents of Nazi ideology and thousands were imprisoned as traitors. Other general groups such as the Roman Gypsies were chosen for annihilation just because for their race. Men and women of courage from all nations against the Nazis, Priests and Pastors died for their beliefs. Homosexuals from all over Europe were persecuted, tortured and executed. Nazis believed it was a waste of time and money to support the disabled.                                                                                                                              In the end, it comes to face our real fears though what if this happens again? In our modern times, our country is dealing with an economic crisis; what if it gets worse that it opens a door for a leader who promises relieve for power? Hitler sure proved with all these deaths that dictators maybe focused as Hitler, but go after anyone who challenges them. I truly believe that people don’t recognize that Holocaust wasn’t just Jews, rather than the vast number of religious, political, social groups persecuted by the Nazis and a warning to us all.                                                                                                  

Stalin's Five Year Plan: Was it necessary or not?

Stalin, the man of steel as his last name references to but what he did wasn’t at all heroic and especially his idea of a five-year plan. Did this five-year plan was truly necessary or was it just an uncalled for? The Stalin’s Five Year Plan were to change the underway for food production, Stalin turned his attention to industrialization of the USSR. Stalin felt that a threat of Western nation, and the inability to produce weapons necessary to defend the nation. This where his series of five-year plan comes to play, its simple goal is to provide the economic base for ideal society. This idea wasn’t created by Stalin himself but by a State Planning Commission, named Gosplan. They were an agency who drew up the first real plan but nothing was mentioned about as it continued that Stalin as he was proven worthy for the plan. “On the Directives for the Establishment of a Five-Year Plan for the economy” (Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 5 vols), the establishment of a pit of work just to die for. The people were required or better yet forced to work in these new industries and jobs that would need education and training. All this also forced peasants to move off their farms and into the factories as so called collective farms. These had to force up grain from farmers to the government and nothing was hidden from the government. Though a resistance of was formed that were known the kulaks, who were a wealthy class of farmers. These farmers would rebel of the idea of Stalin’s ideas of the collective farms. Stalin decided that this collectivization was necessary about embracing seven or eight million families in 1930 alone. Stalin announced the drive to ‘liquate the kulaks as a class’. However, indeed it was a good plan succeeding to make a more industrialized Russia. Also, it contributed to major establishment of industries, agriculture, energy, railway, construction and the education of peasants. Here are some numbers on the output of heavy industry: Before Five-Year Plan; oil 11.7%, steel 4%, coal 35.4% and after Five-Year Plan; oil 21.4%, steel 5.9%, coal 64.3%. In the end to what cost of the Plan? Here’s an article called Hindsight that talks about this of how the five-year plan was a failure. “Stalin blamed for the failures of the first Five Year Plan. They were accused of sabotage and there was a series of trials in 1930-31. The purging escalated rapidly: 1.) In 1932 more than 800,000 members of the party were expelled, but the real purges began with the murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934. He was the Communist Party leader in Leningrad and he was probably murdered on Stalin's orders because he was a rival. 2.) The Purges lasted from 1934 to 1938; at least 7 million people disappeared. Bolshevik leaders, poets, writers, artists, kulaks and musicians were all targeted for holding to ideas which Stalin did not like. 3.) Millions of ordinary Soviet citizens were also purged, often not even knowing what they had done to anger Stalin.” In my evaluation, Stalin a truculent dictator in which implied all use of his power to make to kill many as to prove himself as a god, the one that can do as he pleases. Many might say his childhood could’ve been the problem but what I say is a piece of garbage. Reason why? Parents educate kids as they want to but the choice is up to the kid as in Stalin’s case his choice was to become a totalitarian dictator.

References>>>

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,742787,00.html

http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/history20/unit2/sec.1_05.html