Sydney: The answer to this question is a resounding yes and it is heartening to hear that the President is keen to make changes. However, this is something easier said than done. The NRA is one of the most influential political lobby groups in the United States and they will not allow changes to the law without a fight. Their suggestion that all school Principals should be armed is a clear indication that the Sandy Hook massacre has not altered their views. The Republicans are also unlikely to support any significant changes to the law. Having said this it is possible that President Obama might be able to get agreement from Congress to introduce a law to ban the sale of assault weapons. This is a law that was passed by the Clinton administration but later expired as part of a sunset clause. Continue reading
Society
Are There Benefits of Higher Gas Prices?
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: Gas prices seem to be rising constantly, and historically are at high levels. If you asked most people if there were any benefits as a result the answer would most probably be a resounding no. And at a time when the economy is in a bad state and many people are out of work high gas prices ensure that American families continue to be squeezed financially. However the news is not all bad. It may seem difficult to believe but high oil prices do provide some benefits, and not just to the oil companies. In this article we will examine some of these benefits and see who is benefitting. Continue reading
Do We Have A Moral Obligation To Help Others (Part I)?
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: Most people, when considering this question, would form an image in their mind of helping an old lady across the road, or coming to the aid of someone who had fallen over. These are examples of situations that we might experience throughout our lives, either as the person helping, or the person being helped. Of course, the ‘others’ referred to in the title of this article may not just be friends, or people who live in our community. They may be other citizens of our nation who we may never even meet. In even broader terms ‘helping’ may refer to giving foreign aid in order to assist people living in other countries. Continue reading
Do We Have A Moral Obligation To Help Others (Part II)?
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: The second part of this article will examine the extent to which we should help our fellow countrymen and women, and those of other nationalities. This assumes that we have a moral obligation to help them. And based on the first part of this article I believe the answer is yes we do have an obligation. Continue reading
How Opinion Became More Important Than Fact and The Future of News (Part I)
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: Over the past 50 years or so, and more particularly in the last twenty, we have witnessed a shift in society which has resulted in the majority of us being more interested in, and placing greater emphasis, on opinion rather than the facts. This article will trace the development of this phenomenon from our focus on celebrity through the advent of the internet and the rise of social media and citizen journalism. Finally we will ask where this will all lead and what it will mean in a society that is embracing technological communication at the same pace that it is abandoning traditional sources of “news”. Continue reading
How Opinion Became More Important Than Fact and the Future of News (Part II)
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: The first part of this article touched on the fact that there are now many online celebrity news websites, and indeed the world wide web has been a fertile breeding ground for the growth of opinion and the decline of fact. Now every person with access to the internet can express their opinion on a blog, Facebook, or Twitter. Indeed ‘Web 2.0’ (the social web) was a phrase coined to describe the way in which people began to use the internet to connect to other people directly in the way they wanted rather than relying solely on programs and services directed by others. On the internet, unlike in the world of traditional media there are no defamation or libel laws so people can freely express any opinion they want and declare that it is news even if it contains not even the slightest bit of truth. Continue reading
Is There a Bigger Threat From Cyber Terrorism or Biological/Chemical Terrorism?
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: If there is one word that has been misused more than most over the past decade it is “terrorist”. After all one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Large scale and devastating terrorist attacks such as the one that occurred on 9/11 and high profile terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden have caused us to attach more baggage to the word terrorist than it deserves. Continue reading
From Thinking Outside the Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: The internet was developed by Bob Kahn and others as far back as the early 1970’s when it was known as ARPANET. Submission to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from the Cambridge Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Group The definition of the term “internet” was not however created until 1995. Of course even as recently as 1995 there was no way that people could have foreseen how the internet would evolve. Continue reading
Should We Clone Humans For Organs?
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent: For many years humans have been fascinated with the idea of creating new life. In fact Frankenstein (introduced by Mary Shelley in the eponymously titled book) was first published in 1818. This demonstrates just how old this fascination is. “Dolly” the sheep was the first mammal cloned from a single cell. She was cloned by Scottish scientists and lived from 1996 – 2003. Continue reading
What Is The Facebook Formula (Part I)?
From Thinking Outside The Boxe’s Sydney Correspondent
This extensive two part article will attempt to discover the ‘Facebook Formula’, the way in which Facebook can reach its potential by generating solid and sustained revenue growth. The first part of this article will discuss the IPO and examine what went wrong. The second part of the article will look for some creative, yet realistic, solutions.
Thinking Outside The Boxe 