Polar Bear Crisis Essay Example for Free

Polar Bear Crisis Essay Bear Crisis In May 2008, the U. S listed the polar bear as a  threatened species  under the  Endangered Species Act. The Arctic is one of the most discussed on climate change, due to the fact that warming is greatest there and because what happens in the Arctic has the can eventually impact the rest of the Earth. So far, not only has it affected the way the ice is melting and the weather is changing, but it is mainly affecting the animals that are living there (for example, polar bears). Although, there are many environmentalists, and companies tried to solve, or at least help the situation (like Coca-Cola and WWF), the problem is not getting any better. As sea ice is being reduced in the area, the polar bears basis for survival is being threatened, said John Laird, WWFs Nunavut regional conservation director. The sea ice is melting earlier in the spring which is sending the polar bears to land earlier without them having developed as much fat reserves for the ice free season. By the end of the summer they are skinny bears, which in the worst case can affect their ability to reproduce. Also, The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that, . . . extensive scientific studies have indicated that the increased observation of bears on land is a result of changing distribution patterns and a result of changes in the accessibility of sea ice habitat. It is crazy to think that all of these things are all being affected because we are not taking care of our planet; even though it’s happening thousands of miles away. Because we put trash on the ground, pollute the air etc. animals are being affected, especially the polar bears. Since bears use the sea ice to hunt for their main prey, seals, without the sea ice, their range are drastically reduced. On top of it all, the oil and gas development along the edges of the land mass and you have more problems. It has been said that two thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050.

Carnivorous Plants Essay -- essays research papers

Carnivorous Plants In a world where plants are at the bottom of the food-chain, some individual plant species have evolved ways to reverse the order we expect to find in nature. These insectivorous plants, as they are sometimes called, are the predators , rather than the passive prey. Adaptions such as odiferous lures and trapping mechanisms have made it possible for these photosynthesizers to capture, chemically break-down and digest insect prey (and in some cases even small animals.) There is no reason to fear them though. The majority are herbaceous perennials, usually only 4 to 6 inches high, and nothing like the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors". Almost all carnivorous plants have a basically similar ecology and several different species are often found growing almost side by side. They are most likely to be found in swamps, bogs, damp heaths and muddy or sandy shores. Drosophyllum lusitanicum from Portugal and Morocco is the one exception, it grows on dry gravelly hills. Like other green plants, carnivorous plants contain the organic pigment chlorophyll. This pigment helps to mediate a chemical process called photosynthesis. This converts light energy into the chemical bond energy of carbohydrate which is utilized as cellular energy, plant growth and development. Water, carbon dioxide, nutrients and minerals are also needed for survival. In wetlands, where stagnate water contains acidic compounds and chemicals from decaying organic matter many plants have a difficult time obtaining necessary nutrients. It is in these nutrient poor conditions that some plants evolved different ways of obtaining nutrients. The ability of carnivorous plants to digest nitrogen -rich animal protein enables these plants to survive in somewhat hostile environments. The evolution of carnivorous plants is speculative due to the paucity of the fossil record. It is believed that plant carnivory may have evolved millions of years ago from plants whose leaves formed depressions that retained rain water. Small insects would sometimes fall into these water reservoirs and drown, eventually being decomposed by bacteria in the water. The nutrients from the insects would be absorbed by the leaf. The deeper the leaf depression the more insects that could be drowned. This would have creat... ... as frogs and small rodents. Nepenthes are unique amongst carnivorous plants as the only dioecious genus, which means there are separate male and female plants. These plants are very endangered and several species or extinct. Some species of Nepenthes are sold for hundreds of dollars to collectors and are involved in illegal overseas trade. The growing of carnivorous plants has become very popular in recent years. Unfortunately the endangered status of many species does not stop collectors from risking high fines and field collecting them. This has had seriously impact on many species, but collectors are not the biggest problem facing carnivorous plants. In the USA and other developed countries wetlands are considered useless and are being drained and developed on. At present it is estimated that only 3-5% of carnivorous plant habitat remain in the US. Another problem is that fires are put out before they spread even though many plants, such as the Venus fly trap, benefit from periodic burns. Habitat destruction from slash and burn agriculture, however, does not benefit any of the carnivorous plants and is also causing a great deal of the extinctions.

Close to the water’s edge Essay

When people are at a point in their life where they have to make important decisions that will form their future and identity, it is said that they are standing at a crossroad. Choosing a path can often be difficult because there are so many different ones to choose, and it only gets harder when somebody tries to influence you, such as maybe your parents. Parents always want the best for their children, but do they always know what the best is? Probably not. This is also the case in Close to the Water’s Edge, where the main character is struggling to find his own way in life while his mother is trying to force him to choose a future to her liking. Close to the Water’s edge is a fictional short story by Claire Keegan and it deals with many different themes such as identity development, oppression, social inheritance, money and love. It is told by a limited omniscient 3. person narrator. The limited omniscient narrator’s effect on the story is that it becomes a muc h more serious story because we only focus on his deep and almost melodramatic thoughts of life. Had we for example heard the stepfather’s thoughts he would probably have told us that the main character is just a spoiled little boy or something similar, but this is not the impression the author wishes to give us, she wants us to see the story from the main characters point-of-view so we’ll se the moral of the story. The language used in the short story is quite sophisticated and the grammar is mostly correct. There is no great use of slang or abbreviations, which is the same with the language used by the characters- an indication of a high class family. The story takes off in medias res as we’re not introduced to the main character but are thrown into a sequence where he is out on the balcony. The structure of the story jumps between the present and the past, as we’re given a flashback to when his grandmother went to the ocean with his grandfather, and then the story leaps back into real time when the family is eating at the restaurant Leonardoâ€℠¢s. Leonardo’s is a very fancy seafood restaurant by the bay, like every other setting we are taken to in the story. The stepfather is a millionaire so the general setting is very luxurious, like the fancy restaurant, the penthouse on the beach, and the references to Harvard University at which the main character is a student. It is made clear by setting that the family is very high class people, though some of them still have bad manners. The stepfather is a static  character, very rich, very arrogant, cruel and insensitive. He is also the antagonist of the story, and keeps picking on the boy for being gay by throwing degrading verbal punches at him: â€Å"Did you hear about this guy Clinton? Says if he’s elected president he’s going to let queers into the military† he says, â€Å"what do you think if that, Harvard?† (p. 3 l. 88-90). â€Å"Even so. The best and the brightest. How come you never bring a girl down?† (p. 4 l. 123 – 124). And the stepfather has arranged for the cooks to bring his stepson an embarrassing bright pink cake, like the one you giv e a girl for her first birthday (p. 4 l. 133-134). The mother is a beautiful hot tempered woman, a bit superficial and wears expensive clothes and lots of make-up. She is also a static character, we know she is supposed to represent the trophy woman whose only job is to look well. The main character is also our protagonist, a very sensitive, polite and intelligent young man, who feels crippled because of his parents of whom neither will accept him for how he really is: gay, and with no ambition of wealth (p. 1 l. 4-7). As stated earlier on, the main character is at a crossroad in his life where he has to make some big decisions, but he is not free do to so in the beginning, because of his mothers fierce attempts at pressuring him into choosing her lifestyle. In the first part of the story the boy is out on the balcony when his mother comes out to him and ties an â€Å"unnecessarily tight bow† (p. 3 l. 70). This bow is a symbol of how she is holding on to him, pressuring him. This thesis is supported by this quotation from the mother:† You play your cards right and this could all be yours someday. He’s god no kids. You wonder why I married him, but I was thinking of you all along†(p. 3 l. 76.78). But then later on he walks down to the beach and starts thinking about his grandmother, from whom we guess that he has been given the different outlook on life than the one his mother holds â€Å"the woman who embraced him to tightly she bruised him† (p. 5 l. 161). He thinks about how she lived a life of regret because she never stood up to her husband, and he realizes that that is not the way he wants to live. He wants to free himself of his parents- he loosens the knot around his neck as a symbol of losing their controlling grasp on him. He feels almost as if he had been dipped in his parent’s presence in a liquid form and is now all dirty, so he takes his clothes off, and swims in the sea as a symbol of rebirth. His grandmother never jumped into the water because she was afraid of how deep the water  was, but he jumps in, because he realizes that life is about taking chances and you will regret it if you fail to. The main character still doesn’t know what will happen if he stands up to his parents or tells the world that he is gay, but that is a part of life- it involves risks. The title is also the moral in the story; a way of saying that you have to make your own decisions. The main character is close to the water’s edge on the beach, and now he has to make a choice of either jumping in and taking a chance with his life, or staying on solid ground well knowing how the rest of his life will turn out.

The General Environment

SUMMARY OF UNDERSTANDING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CHAPTER 2: The General Environment The external environment facing the organization consists of both: a. A general environment, often referred to as the macro-environment because changes that occur here will have an effect that transcends firms and specific industries. b. A competitive environment, consists of the industry and markets in which an organization competes. In order to scan and monitor their environment, firms require tools of analysis that will allow them to factor in the changes in the general environment and evaluate their impact.One such approach involves scanning the environment to detect signals that will act as a signpost for future changes in the organization’s industry. In addition, an organization must monitor its environment to discern patterns and trends that are beginning to form and try to forecast the future direction of these trends. a. Scanning the environment Scanning, therefore, is an opportunity for the organization to detect weak signals in the general environment before these have coalesced into a discernible pattern which might affect its competitive environment. The first is that the organization may fail to identify these signals.The second is that the organization may discern a pattern that is not there but is based on the assumptions and mental models that managers carry in their heads. b. Monitoring the environment * Monitoring can be seen as the activity that follows these initially disparate signals and tracks them as they grow into more clearly discernible patterns. * Monitoring allows an organization to see how these general environment trends will impact on its competitive environment. * Monitoring uses a finer brush stroke. * There is no focus for an organization’s monitoring activities. One way in which an organization might monitor weak signals is to set thresholds such that any activity which occurs above the threshold will be monitored. c. Forecasting c hanges in the environment Three main types of uncertainty (Van der Heijden, 1996): * Risks: where past performance of similar events allows us to estimate the probabilities of future outcomes. * Structural uncertainties: where an event is unique enough not to offer evidence of such probabilities. * Unknowables: where we cannot even imagine the event. Scenario planning is a disciplined method for imagining possible future.It is ‘an internally consistent view of what the future might turn out to be’ (Porter 1985, p. 446). A scenario can be seen as a challenging, plausible, and internally consistent view of what the future might turn out to be. They are not forecasts in the sense that one is able to extrapolate using past data. However, they do deal with the future and provide a tool of analysis for the organization to structure the surfeit of information that is contained in the present. In particular, scenarios help organizations recognize the weak signals that signpost changes in its environment. The benefits of scenario planning for Shell have been: More robust strategic decisions. * Better thinking about the future by a ‘stretching mental model’. * Enhancing corporate perception and recognizing events as a pattern (the recognition and monitoring of weak signals until they coalesce into a pattern is clearly important here). * Improving communication throughout the company by providing a context for decisions. * A means to provide leadership to the organization. A process for developing scenarios is as follows: * Define the scope. This involves setting the time frame and the scope of analysis. * Identify the major stakeholders. Identify basic trends. * Identify key uncertainties. * Construct initial scenario themes. * Check for consistency and plausibility. * Develop learning scenarios. * Identify research needs. * Develop quantitative models. * Evolve towards decision scenarios. PEST Analysis * PEST analysis is simply another tool to help the organization detect and monitor those weak signals in the hope of recognizing the discontinuities or fractures shaping the environment. * PEST analysis can be used to help detect trends in the external environment that will ultimately find their way into the competitive environment.It provides a link between the general and competitive environments in that weak signals in the general environment can become key forces for change in the competitive environment. SWOT Analysis Scenario planning and PEST analysis can help to identify the external opportunities and threats (OT) facing an organization. The firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses (SW) can best be determined following an appraisal of its resources and capabilities. SWOT analysis allows an organization to assess its current strategy in light of its changing environment and to help turn potential threats into opportunities and weaknesses into strengths.A key point to keep in mind is that it is the external an alysis that precedes the internal analysis of a firm’s resources and capabilities. SUMMARY OF RM-6 â€Å"Sustaining Competitive Advantage in the Global Petrochemical Industry: A Saudi Arabian Perspective† From a global perspective, the competitiveness of some firms arises from macro-economic phenomena directed by exchange rates, deficit of the national budget or interest rates (Passemard and Kleiner, 2000). Competitiveness also arises from factors other than macro-economic, such as availability of raw materials, cheaper work force or technological superiority.Porter (1980) is credited with being the pioneer in identifying factors that contribute to national advantage. Porter (1985) made valuable contributions in identifying important factors that contribute to national advantage, that is the factor conditions of a nation, such as infrastructure and the availability of resources; demand conditions in the home country; the presence or absence of related and supporting in dustries necessary for being competitive in the global market; the firm’s strategy, structure and rivalry with other ompanies that influence how firms are established, organised and managed; and the nature of the rivalry affects the competitive advantage of industries and nations (Porter, 1990). Saudi Arabia is well known throughout the world as a leading producer and exporter of oil. For many years prior to the 1970s, a large volume of associated gas by products which were produced in the process of crude oil production, had been flared into the atmosphere.However, in the early 1970s the Saudi Arabian government initiated a plan to utilize these precious hydrocarbon and mineral resources for the production of various petrochemicals, fertilizers, iron and steel. Saudi Arabia accounts for a little more than 5% of the world’s petrochemicals production. However, Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of MTBE (Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether) with a global share of around 15%. I t has also a big market share in the production of methanol (around 12%) and ethylene glycol (14%). Domestic consumption in Saudi Arabia is low, due to the small size of the market.The industry in general has therefore pursued an ‘export-orientated’ strategy, as a result of which more than 76% of its petrochemicals production is being exported. The two major markets for the Saudi petrochemical exports are the Middle Eastern and East Asian region. The strength & weakness of Saudi petrochemical industry: * Strength: Low cost due to economic of scale, initial cost, feed-stock, and utilities. Presence of efficient infrastructure * Weakness: Lack of management expertise, marketing approach, product development, and technology Main issue:From those strength & weaknesses above, we could see that Saudi petrochemical industry was depending on the comparative advantage rather than the support of competitive advantage to sustain in global competition. Analysis: Using Porterâ€℠¢s five force model above, we could analyze that: * The entry of competitors: raw materials controlled by many firms, new and high technology, large & complex operational, high investment * The threat of substitutes: concerns on biochemical substitution * The argaining power of buyers: find alternative market, focus on domestic and foreign customers * The bargaining power of suppliers: change the supplier with low cost, find reasonable price and obtaining credit facilities, no substitute of aluminum alkyls high threat * The rivalry among the existing players: zero differentiation, see the competitor like SABIC, Exxon, Shell, BASF, Dow, Mitsubishi in equal size and market power oversupplySolution: * Improve human resources department to develop the technical and managerial skills of local employees * Increase the effort in marketing, distribution Penetrated global market, and research & development division to modify manufacturing process which safe for environment * Increase product ivity and cut loss, merge small to medium firms to strengthen capital base. Lesson learned: Based on analysis using Porter’s model, it is illustrate that Saudi petrochemical industry environment able to help other firms to formulate the strategy, not only consider to the general environment and competitor analysis but also to the Porter’s model itself. * Realize that external factors will influence the firm, directly and indirectly. The firm also has to formulate their strategy based on the external factor (which couldn’t be controlled), how to match the next action with their capacity.

Male and Female Spatial Ability Essays

Male and Female Spatial Ability Essays Male and Female Spatial Ability Essay Male and Female Spatial Ability Essay One theory developed by psychologists working within the biological approach is the idea that males have better spatial ability than females. Spatial ability is the ability to mentally manipulate 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures. One way in which spatial ability can be operationalised is in the form of mental rotation test. A mental rotation test requires participants to identify rotated versions of a target stimulus. Mental rotation usually takes place in the right cerebral hemisphere, in the areas where perception also occurs. Mental rotation can be separated into the following cognitive stages (Johnson 1990): 1) Create a mental image of an object 2) Rotate the object mentally until a comparison can be made 3) Make the comparison 4) Decide if the objects are the same or not 5) Report the decision. See below for an example. Shepard and Metzler (1971) have identified sex differences in performance on mental rotation tasks. Males perform better than females (faster and making less mistakes). For this piece of research a quasi experiment is conducted because the variable that makes one group different from the other is gender i. . one condition will be male and the other condition will be female. Since gender is something that cannot be altered, the groups are pre-determined by their biological sex, therefore making it a naturally occurring variable. Any experiment that involves the investigation of a variable like the effect of gender on behaviour is called a quasi experiment because the conditions to which p articipants are assigned is based on a natural phenomenon. In a quasi experiment the independent variable is decided by something beyond the experimenter’s control. The aim of this study is to conduct a partial replication of Shepard and Metzler (1971)) research in order to investigate whether sex differences exist between males and females for spatial ability. The research question is: ‘Do males have better spatial ability than females? ’ Based on previous research the experimental one-tailed hypothesis is: ‘Males complete mental rotation tasks more quickly than females’. A one-tailed hypothesis of difference is predicted because of previous findings. The Null Hypothesis is: ‘There will be no difference between the performance of males and females on a mental rotation task’. Operationalising the variables The independent variable is naturally occurring and is simply whether the participants is male or female. Spatial ability, the dependent variable, will be operationalised using a simple mental rotation task. Participants will be required to mentally rotate pictures of objects in order to match each picture with one of six other pictures that show objects mentally rotated in a different position. Participants (10 males and 10 females) will be required to choose the correct match from a selection of six different possibilities. There will be ten separate trials. The ten trails of each participant will be timed, in seconds, and an average time calculated for the completion of each trial. See figure 2 before for an example. Participants: 20 participants took part in the study. They were recruited using an opportunity sample. This method of sampling simply involves asking people to take part who are easily available at the time of study. In this case it was a collection of year 12 and 13 psychology students from three different classes. 10 females and 10 males took part ranging in age from 16-18 year. To follow ethical guidelines full informed consent was obtained from each participant. This detailed the purpose of the study and explained that all results would be kept entirely confidential and participants could withdraw from the study at any point. Participants could withhold their results from the mental rotation task if they wished. Controls Because the study is a laboratory experiment, controls can be put in place to prevent confounding variables affecting the results. It is therefore possible to be more confident that any difference between the results of the males and females is only due to their gender. Controls in this experiment included ensuring that all participants undertook the task in silence. All participants took the test in the same school computer lab and at the same time of day (Between 1:00 and 2:00pm). All participants were of a similar age and all participants did exactly the same task. Participants were seated a desk apart so they could not copy each others answers. Design As there are two groups of different participants, one male and one female, to compare times between groups the research design is an independent groups – each participants is only in one group (condition). Procedure A pilot study was conducted with 5 students not taking part in the study. This enabled the researchers to check the timings involved in administering the mental rotation test and also to check that everything ran smoothly. The study also enabled the researchers to perfect the wording of the standardised instructions. For the main study 10 male participants sat at separate desks in the computer room with the mental rotation programme loaded. Participants read and signed a consent form. The experimenter then read from a standardised set of instructions explaining the procedure and giving permission for participants to begin the 10 mental rotation trails when they were ready. Sitting next to each participant was a research assistant on hand to time the task. In their own time participants began the task – matching a 2D object with one of six other mentally rotated objects. This was completed in silence. After all participants had taken part a full debrief was read out to all participants, explaining the details of the research. All participants were told they could review the findings when the data had been analysed. Results The mean score (measured in seconds) for each participant can be seen below. The mean is one measure of central tendency. If a sensitive value because all scores are taken into however this may cause the value to be skewed if there are outlying values. The mean time to complete each mental rotation trial for males was 5. 84 seconds compared to 7. 73 seconds for females. This means that males completed each on average 1. 89 seconds faster than their female counterparts. This data is represented in a visual form in the graph below which shows an observable difference between males and females. Inferential statistics To test whether there is a significant difference between the sets of scores an inferential statistical test needs to be undertaken. This tests the probability of whether the difference between males and females is due to chance or whether the difference is due to the independent variable. An inferential statistical test is used to test the significance of the results, which will indicate whether to accept or reject the null hypothesis. Inferential statistics will indicate the probability that the results are due to chance. If the probability of the results being due to chance is high you cannot reject the null hypothesis and must assume that there is no difference between the spatial ability of males and females. However if the probability that the results are due to chance is very low (say 5% or P lt; 0. 05) you can reject the null hypothesis and therefore accept the experimental hypothesis and thus assume that there is a real significant difference between the spatial abilities of males and females. When doing an inferential statistical test on the data one must select the appropriate test. To do this you must look at: 1) the type of data collected (level of measurement), 2) the research design of the experiment and 3) whether the research is looking for a difference or a relationship (correlation) between sets of data. For this experiment the correct test to use is a Mann-Whitney test because 1) the data gathered is ratio data, 2) the research design is independent groups and 3) we’re looking for a difference between sets of scores for two different groups of participants. The results of our Mann Whitney Test produced a U value of 19. 5. Because this is less than the critical value (23) from the statistical table the results are significant. Therefore the null hypothesis is rejected and the experimental hypothesis is accepted. This means that we have found support for the idea that males do have better spatial ability than females, but it does not prove it. The results are due to a real effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Conclusion One can conclude from the above research that males perform mental rotation tasks more quickly than females. The experimental hypothesis is accepted ‘Males complete mental rotation tasks more quickly than females’. However this conclusion should be considered in light of the issues described below. Issue of Validity The mental rotation is not really a true reflection of how we normally use spatial information in everyday life e. g. when driving, writing and many other everyday activities. As such this experiment may be considered to be low in ecological validity. The test is not a particularly realistic test of spatial ability as the mental rotation task is only looking at one very specific type of spatial ability. Validity may also be questioned because of the controlled, artificial setting used. Participants knew that their performance was being monitored and this may have influenced their behaviour. Males are possibly more competitive when they know they are being watched which may explain why males performed better than females. (There may be more of a social facilitation effect for males compared to females). Other threats to validity may come from demand characteristics i. e. males may respond more to demand characteristics that females or males may respond more to experimenter effects than females. All these alternative explanations as to why males may perform better than females threaten the validity of the study. Reliability Each person who took part in the study had their spatial ability measured using the same test scored in exactly the same way, so the internal reliability (consistency) is good. The findings are externally reliable in the sense that they produced a consistent finding to that of previous research. The fact that the study can be easily replicated, partly because it is a laboratory study, means that the reliability can be tested. Generalisability Only having 10 participants in each group all of whom are between 16 and 18 years of age and from Enfield, is not a broad enough sample to make generalisation about populations beyond the sixth form where the study took place. A larger more representative sample is needed to be able to make more confident generalisations to a wider population. Since all students are studying A-levels they do not represent the academic abilities of all students and hence the sample is not fully representative. Credibility The overall credibility of the experiment may be questioned as the research took place in an artificial setting and the results could have been the result of where and how the experiment was conducted rather than the result of the difference between males and females in terms of spatial ability. Because the experiment may have validity issues plus problems with generalisation caused by the limited and unrepresentative sample many psychologists would argue that the results lack credibility. More evidence may therefore be needed to support the hypothesis that males have better spatial ability than females.

Blackbeard the Pirate Biography for Kids

Blackbeard the Pirate Biography for Kids Kids are often interested in pirates and want to know the history of people such as Blackbeard. They may not be ready for the adult version of the  biography of Blackbeard  but can have their questions answered in this version for young readers. Who was Blackbeard? Blackbeard was a fearsome pirate who attacked other peoples ships a long time ago, in the years 1717–1718. He enjoyed looking scary, making his long black hair and beard smoke while he was fighting. He died while fighting ships sent to catch him and bring him to jail. Here are the answers to all your Blackbeard questions. Was Blackbeard his real name? His real name was Edward Thatch or Edward Teach. Pirates took nicknames to hide their real names. He was called Blackbeard because of his long, black beard. Why was he a pirate? Blackbeard was a pirate because it was a way to make a fortune. Life at sea was hard and risky for sailors in navy or on merchant ships. It was tempting to take what you learned serving on those ships and join a pirate crew where you would earn a share of the treasure. At different times, a government would encourage ships captains to be privateers and raid ships from other countries, but not theirs. These privateers might then begin to prey on any ships and become pirates. What did pirates do? Pirates sailed where they thought other ships would be. Once they found another ship, they would raise their pirate flag and attack. Usually, the other ships just gave up once they saw the flag to avoid a fight and injuries. The pirates would then steal everything the ship was carrying. What sort of stuff did pirates steal? Pirates stole anything that they could use or sell. If a ship had cannons or other good weapons, the pirates would take them. They stole food and alcohol. If there was any gold or silver, they would steal it. The ships they robbed were usually merchants ships carrying cargo such as cocoa, tobacco, cow hides or cloth. If the pirates thought they could sell the cargo, they took it. Did Blackbeard leave behind any buried treasure? Lots of people think so, but probably not. Pirates preferred to spend their gold and silver and not bury it somewhere. Also, most of the treasure he stole was cargo rather than coins and jewels. He would sell the cargo and spend the money. Who were some of Blackbeards friends? Blackbeard learned how to be a pirate from Benjamin Hornigold, who gave him command of one of his pirate ships. Blackbeard helped Major Stede Bonnet, who didnt really know much about being a pirate. Another friend was Charles Vane, who had several chances to stop being a pirate but he never took them. Why was Blackbeard so famous? Blackbeard was famous because he was a very scary pirate. When he knew he was going to attack someone’s ship, he put smoking fuses in his long black hair and beard. He also wore pistols strapped to his body. Some sailors who saw him in battle actually thought he was the devil. Word of him spread and people on both land and sea were scared of him. Did Blackbeard have a family? According to Captain Charles Johnson, who lived at the same time as Blackbeard, he had 14 wives. This probably isn’t true, but it seems likely that Blackbeard did get married sometime in 1718 in North Carolina. There is no record of him ever having any kids. Did Blackbeard have a pirate flag and a pirate ship? Blackbeards pirate flag was black with a white devil skeleton on it. The skeleton was holding a spear pointing at a red heart. He also had a very famous ship called the Queen Annes Revenge. This mighty ship had 40 cannons on it, making it one of the most dangerous pirate ships ever. Did they ever catch Blackbeard? Local leaders often offered a reward for the capture of famous pirates. Many men tried to catch Blackbeard, but he was too smart for them and escaped capture many times. To get him to stop, he was offered a pardon and he accepted it. However, he returned to piracy How did Blackbeard die? Finally, on November 22, 1718, pirate hunters caught up with him near Ocracoke Island, off of North Carolina. Blackbeard and his men put up quite a fight, but in the end, they were all killed or arrested. Blackbeard died in battle and his head was cut off so the pirate hunters could prove they killed him. According to an old story, his headless body swam around his ship three times. This was not possible but added to his fearsome reputation. Sources: Cordingly, David. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1996 Defoe, Daniel (Captain Charles Johnson). A General History of the Pyrates. Edited by Manuel Schonhorn. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1972/1999. Konstam, Angus. The World Atlas of Pirates. Guilford: the Lyons Press, 2009 Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Mariner Books, 2008.

What is India Philosophy is there India Philosophy Essay

What is India Philosophy is there India Philosophy - Essay Example General opinions are that just as prohibition was ineffective through rebellion, so is likely to be the case with prohibiting use of such recreational drugs as the marijuana. The exercise of imposition of such an amendment is definitely much high and this would caution ratification for the impending likelihood of inefficiencies as people would reason thus supporting the legalization of the same. Among pointed out arguments in support to the legalization of these recreational drugs is increased government income through tax and the likelihood of controlling drug abuse. Reasons against the success of the prohibition revolve around the likelihood of the ban to lead to increased drug abuse besides heightened crime, as was the case with the 18th amendment. There have been heated debates within the US in support of or against legalization of such drugs as marijuana, which are considered recreational. According to Swift (para 1-7), the support to legalization of Marijuana has increased substantially to double since 1970. The boost to the increase in acceptance comes with the flexibility exhibited by the current administration under president Obama who shows high flexibility on the topic. Swift points out the increased acceptance in the use of marijuana for medical reasons as a reason enough to support the benefits that would be derived in the legalized use of the same. However, he also points to the shortcomings that are pointed out from the medical perspective in increased use of the same. It is argued that increased use of marijuana has the potential of increasing health problems such as through respiratory complications, memory problems and increase in heart rate. These are arguments that would be raised to counter the presumed benef its that would be derived from the legalization (Swift, para 1-6). It is worth noting that