PHIL 102(lesson5) issue

From information gathered in the last three years, it has become clear that the single biggest environmental problems in Russia - many times bigger than anything we have to contend with the United States - is radioactive pollution from nuclear energy plants and nuclear weapons testing and production. Soviet Communist leaders seemed to believe that they could do anything to hasten the industrialization process and compete with Western countries and that the land and natural resources they controlled were vast enough to suffer any abuse without serious consequence. The arrogance of the Communist leaders produced a burden of misery and death that fell on the people of the region, and the scale of that burden has only recently become clear. Nuclear waste was dumped into rivers from which downstream villages drew their drinking water, into the environment; and the seas around Russia are littered with decaying hulks of nuclear submarines and rusting metal containers with tens of millions of tons of nuclear waste. The result has been radiation poisoning and its awful effects on a grand scale. "A science advisor to former Russian president Boris Yeltsin said, 'The way we have dealt with the whole issue of nuclear power, and particularly the problem of nuclear waste, was irresponsible and immoral.'" - Adapted from the Washington Post

-Whether Soviet leaders made large-scale sacrifice of the lives and health of their people in their nuclear competition with the West -Whether communism failed to protect people from nuclear contamination as well as capitalism did -Whether nuclear waste problems in Russia are much worse than had been realized until just recently

Illinois state employees, both uniformed and non-uniformed, have been loyally, faithfully, honorably, and patiently serving the state without a contract or cost-of-living pay increase for years, despite the fact that legislators and the governor have accepted hefty pay increases. All public employee unions should launch a signature-gathering initiative to place on the ballot a proposition that the Illinois constitution be amended to provide for compulsory binding arbitration for all uniformed and non-uniformed public employees, under the supervision of the state supreme court.

Whether public employee unions should launch a signature-gathering initiative to place on the ballot a proposition that the Illinois constitution be amended to provide for compulsory binding arbitration for all uniformed and non-uniformed public employees, under the supervision of the Illinois Supreme Court

Let me tell you why Hank ought not to take that math course. First, it's too hard, and he'll probably flunk it. Second, he's going to spend the whole term in a state of frustration. Third, he'll probably get depressed and do poorly in all the rest of his courses.

Whether Hank ought to take the math course

This years's National Football League draft lists a large number of quarterbacks among its highest-ranking candidates. Furthermore, quite a number of teams do not have a first-class quarterback. It's therefore likely that there will be an unusually large number of quarterbacks drafted early in this year's draft.

Whether an unusually large number of quarterbacks will be drafted early in this year's draft

Letting your children surf the Net is like dropping them off downtown to spend the day doing whatever they want. They'll get in trouble.

Whether letting your children surf the Net will lead them into trouble

"Whatever we believe, we think agreeable to reason, and, on that account, yield our assent to it. Whatever we disbelieve, we think contrary to reason, and, on that account, dissent from it. Reason, therefore, is allowed to be the principle by which our belief and opinions ought to be regulated."

Whether reason is the principle by which our beliefs and opinions ought to be regulated

"The United States puts a greater percentage of its population in prison than any other developed country in the world. We persist in locking more and more people up despite the obvious fact that it doesn't work. Even as we build more prisons and stuff them ever more tightly, the crime rate goes up and up. But we respond, 'Since it isn't working, let's do more of it'! "It's about time we learned that fighting criminals is not the same thing as fighting crime." - Richard Parker, radio commentary on CalNet, California Public Radio

Whether reliance on imprisonment is an effective method of reducing crime

In pre-civil war Spain, the influence of the Catholic Church must have been much stronger on women than on men. You can determine this by looking at the number of religious communities, such as monasteries, nunneries, and so forth. A total of about 5,000 such communities existed in 1931, 4000 of them were female, whereas only 1,000 of them were male. Seems to me that proves my point about the Church's influence on the sexes.

Whether the Catholic Church's influence was greater on women than on men in pre-civil war Spain

In 2007, the Dominican Republic banned the sale of two brands of Chinese toothpaste because they contained a toxic chemical responsible for dozens of poisoning deaths in Panama last year. The company that exported the toothpaste, the Danyang Household Chemical Company, defended its product. "Toothpaste is not something you'd swallow, but spit out, and so it's totally different from something you would eat," one company manager said. The company manager was taking a position on which issue?

Whether the Danyang Household Chemical Company did anything wrong by exporting its toothpaste

The defeat of the school voucher initiative was a bad thing for the country because now there won't be any incentive for public schools to clean up their act. Furthermore, the defeat perpetuates the private-school-for-the-rich, public-school-for-the-poor syndrome.

Whether the defeat of the school voucher initiative was bad for the country

YOU: So, what do you think of the governor? YOUR FRIEND: Not much, actually. YOU: What do you mean? Don't you think she's been pretty good? YOUR FRIEND: Are you serious? YOU: Well, yes. I think she's been doing a fine job. YOUR FRIEND: Oh, come on. Weren't you complaining about her just a few days ago?

Whether the govenor has been a good governor

The country has cut the library budget for salaried library workers, and there will not be enough volunteers to make up for the lack of paid workers. Therefore, the library will have to be open fewer hours next year.

Whether the library will have to be open fewer hours next year

From an editorial in a newspaper outside Southern California: "The people in Southern California who lost a fortune in the wildfires last year could have bought insurance that would have covered their houses and practically everything in them. And anybody with any foresight would have made sure there were no brush and no trees near the houses so that there wouid be a buffer zone between the house and any fire, as the Forest Service recommends. Finally, anybody living in a fire danger zone ought to know enough to have a fireproof or fire-resistant roof on the house. So, you see, most of the losses those people suffered were simply their own fault."

Whether the losses suffered by people in the fires were their own fault

It's clear that the mainstream media have lost interest in classical music. For example, the NBC network used to have its own classical orchestra conducted by Artuno Toscanini, but no such orchestra exists now. One newspaper, the no-longer-existent Washington Star, used to have thirteen classical music reviewers - that's more than twice as many as the New York Times has now. H. L. Mencken and other columnists used to devote considerable space to classical music; nowadays, you almost never see it mentioned in a major column.

Whether the mainstream medial have lost interest in classical music

Pollution of the water of the Everglades and of Florida Bay is due to multiple causes. These include cattle farming, dairy farming, industry, tourism, and urban development. So it is simply not so that the sugar industry is completely responsible for the pollution of these waters.

Whether the sugar industry is completely responsible for the pollution of these waters

In Miami-Dade Country, Florida, schools superintendent Ruby Crew was inundated with complaints after a police office used a stun gun on a six-year-old student. As a result, Crew asked the Miami-Dade police to ban the use of stun guns on elementary school children. Crew did the right thing. More than 100 deaths have been linked to tasers.

Whether the superintendent did the right thing by asking the police to ban the use of stun guns on elementary school children

Most people you find on university faculties are people who are interested in ideas. And the most interesting ideas are usually new ideas. So most people you find on university faculties are interested in new ideas. Therefore, you are not going to find many conservatives on university faculties, because conservatives are not usually interested in new ideas.

Whether you'll find many conservatives on university faculties

An animal that will walk out into a rainstorm and stare up at the clouds until water runs into its nostrils and it drowns - well, that's what I call the world's dumbest animal. And that's exactly what young domestic turkeys do.

Whether young domestic turkeys are the world's dumbest animal

The TV show The Sopranos might have been a pretty good series without the profanity that occurred all the way through it. But without the profanity, it would not have been believable. Those people just talk that way. If you have them speaking Shakespearean English or middle-class suburban English, then nobody is going to pay attention to the message because nobody will see it as realistic. It's true, of course, that, like many other programs with some offensive feature - whether it's bad language, sex, or whatever - it will never appeal to the squeamish.

xWhether movies with offensive features can appeal to the squeamish xWhether The Sopranos would have been a good series without the bad language #Whether The Sopranos would have been believable without the bad language

The winner of this year's spelling bee is a straight-A student whose favorite subject is science, which isn't surprising, since students interested in science learn to pay attention to details.

xWhether science students learn to pay attention to detail xWhether the winner of this year's spelling bee is a straight-A student xWhether learning science teaches a student to pay attention to details #Whether learning science will improve a student's ability to spell #none of the above