*DATA* 

Seriously though, gas prices have become the hot topic, especially during summer vacation, spring break, and -most of- the holidays. However, gas is not the only essential product that has increased in price in the U.S. Of course, anything that is made from oil has increased as well. The price of milk has gone up. The price of paper products has gone up. The price of any typical services has gone up. So why have all of these prices gone up? OIL PRICES HAVE TOO! That’s why.

Our country is so dependent on foreign oil that we have little to no control over the prices of oil-based products in our country.

*CLAIM*

Our country needs to become more self-sufficient when it comes to oil. Our country can become more self-sufficient when it comes to oil if we would just drill offshore.

 *REBUTAL*

Now, many let’s-go-greeners say that “we MUST find an alternative cleaner energy source, and we MUST find it now!” However, let us be more realistic. Yes. We must find an alternative and cleaner energy source, and we do need to find it soon. Wind power, solar power, hydroelectric power, and biodiesel are all going to take time.

*WARRANT*

If we would start now, we might have everything converted where it would run on one or some of those powers in ten to fifteen years.

*QUALIFIER*

But, there is a more obvious and logical solution to our problem — offshore oil drilling.

*BACKING*

The U.S has perfect places for offshore oil drilling. The Outer Continental Shelf (OSC) has a record in the oil industry that is “quite astounding,” according to energy studies’ expert Kenneth B. Medlock. Although the drilling poses some threat to the ocean life, it has beat the challenges of recent hurricanes such as Katrina and Ivan.

Much of the OSC is off-limits for drilling (even areas that are not susceptible to extreme hurricanes), but if it could be drilled, then we could produce more of our own oil. In return, this would make the prices of our much-loved oil-based products decrease. So, while our oil prices our down and we aren’t thinking about how high they are, we could probably focus more on finding that alternative energy source that we are in desperate need of. We need to stop wlimiting our abilities that would help us to become more self-sufficient, and we need to grab our opportunities by the horns.

Examples of Rhetoric (all from Marley & Me by John Grogan):

• Anaphora; We were young. We were in love. We were rollicking in those sublime early days of marriage when life seems about as good as life can get.
• Epistrophe; The prior owners, a retired postal clerk and his wife, loved the color green. The exterior stucco was green. The interior walls were green. The curtains were green. The carpet, which they had just purchased to help sell the house, was green.
• Polysyndeton; Not a cheery kelly green or a cool emerald green or even a daring lime green but a puke-your-guts-out-after-split-pea-soup green accented with khaki trim.
• Parallelism; The literature was filled with glowing testimonials about Labrador retriever’s loving, even-keeled personality, its gentleness with children, its lack of aggression, and its desire to please.
• Simile; He quaked with joy as he burrowed his head into my stomach and nibbled the buttons of my shirt, his tail slapping the steering wheel like the needle on a metronome.

Just as the perfect shoe is hard to find, excellent rhetoric is also. However, it is out there, and it can be found if searched for hard enough. When it is found, the shopping trip has been worthwhile. But for the most part, rhetoric is everywhere, so go out and shop for some!

He gazed into the swollen river. He never would have left the house had he known the only bridge to town was demolished. Overwhelmed by his craving, he leapt onto a floating log and paddled across pulling himself ashore. He crawled up to the golden arches and cried, “Big Mac!”

At the time when I was writing this mini-saga, I had just got done eating McDonald’s and I was also thinking about being on the river. I have to admit that my mini-saga is a little odd, but I just got on a roll and could not stop.

I really did learn a lot by doing one of Pink’s suggestions. I might even try a few more in the future.

I read every piece of gossip from Katy Perry’s watermelon earrings to George Michael live with Dr. Phil. I bounced around in my Google Reader, and I read in depth only the titles that really caught my eye. The feed had enough content to keep me reading for hours on hand over a few weeks or so. While I was reading about the Jonas Brothers performance at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, I started thinking about all of the music I have liked in my life. I never really noticed how much I thought about things when I read. When I read, my mind wanders off into different random directions, kind of like I just did right now.

I really think that just reading anything helps me to think better and deeper into certain subjects that are usually related to what I am reading. I can only hope that reading enlightening subjects will help me to become a better writer.

I discovered that this feed really made me think about exercising, stress, and the people around me. I actually really realized the reason I love running so much. I love to run because I am stress-free when I run. However, I thought that the author could have added a little more information on how stress can affect kids in school from the pressures from themselves or their parents to do well. On the other hand, I did enjoy how the author was so factual in how all of the information was presented. The writing was enjoyable to me due to the fact that it was personal and factual and very persuasive at the same time.

In Drew’s blog Greater Omaha, which is based on one of his favorite songs, he talks about things that hardly ever catch the average person’s attention. When he speaks of the potholes in the road that his younger sister brings to his attention, he expresses a sense of wonder in how he had never actually seen what he had driven over at least twice a day since he could drive. Drew also has a great use of metaphors that he uses to relate the everyday normal things we see but do not really notice to certain aspects of our lives that we do not really notice either. When he relates driving over the potholes in his road to a video game and a action movie, the realization that the video game and the action movie are not really real and driving over the potholes is real should come to mind. He uses this and tweaks it in a way that makes people realize that we should pay more attention to what we are doing in life, because it will make a difference in the long-run. When Drew states that divorce is “a disease that is dissolving almost half America’s marriages and families,” once again he reaches out and grabs a person’s heart and makes them really realize what he is talking about. He certainly made me realize and feel the heartache that the disease of divorce has on way too many people in America. By reading the heartfelt writing of Drew in the Greater Omaha blog, I felt his emotions of the subjects that he wrote about jump right of the page and into my heart. His writing has left me with a sense of wonder and amazement at how a person can formulate words to fit into sentences so emotionally and heart-touching.

Although at first I had a bit of trouble figuring out my way around JM’s blog titled iThink, I finally figured it out and discovered what was hidden inside. I came to find that JM was a very straight forward, “this is the was it is suppose to be” person. In reading about his thoughts on abortion and the Mifeprex drug, I quickly discovered that he had strong feelings that there should be no abortion what so ever, and that was all within the first two sentences. He also speaks his mind when stating that it should be the parents that punish their kids for the indecent pictures and language they put and use on the internet sites, such as Facebook, instead of their school principals. JM definitely does not mess around when it comes to saying what he believes. When I read about the uncensored television “slip-ups” JM commented on, I knew exactly what he meant. Some indecent people these days do not have the respect for others that they should have. In no way was he afraid to comment that John McCain’s age just means experience, and that Barack Obama’s age meant inexperience. JM’s well thought out ideas and views on the hot issues that face our world today are what more younger people should think about to make our society better in the years to come.

When I read Halli’s blog entitled The Hamster Cage, I saw that she could be easily perceived as very sensitive. She expresses her compassionate feelings toward animals by telling how they have to skin the animals to get their fur that we end up wearing. Halli explains this in a way that makes me just want to go find those horrible people that skinned those poor little innocent animals and give them a piece of my little mind. As she talks about the “misunderstood land” of Africa, she expresses her sadness for all of the people that are affected by the diseases that have so harshly spread across the continent. Despite the diseases that lurk in the continent of Africa today, Halli says she wants to go to Africa because it is her favorite place on Earth. Halli seems to be an extremely compassionate person filled with a loving sensitivity towards animals and human beings. Since Halli has a great love for music, she feels that everyone should show their own unique personality in the songs that they write. Hallie is all about the feelings of people and how she feels about them.

Every blog I read made me feel a different feeling. In reading these particular three blogs, I experienced the feelings of wonder, seriousness, and sadness. I hope that I can take a situation and the way it makes me feel and put it into wonderful emotional words to make a another person feel the way I am feeling.

The human life, as defined by the Catholic Church, is said to begin at the very moment of conception in or outside of the mother’s womb. They believe that “all human life is sacred,” and they could not be more correct.Even though the Catholic Church and other pro-life activists are opposed to the study of human embryonic stem cells, they have no problem what so ever with the researching of the cord blood found in the umbilical cord. Cord blood is said to be just as helpful in researching for cures to what are today incurable diseases as human embryonic stem cells are. The cord blood contains stem cells that are the exact type as the ones in the human embryonic stem cells. After birth, cord blood can be extracted from the umbilical cord that links the mother to the child, while in the womb. During the time after birth, about fifty milliliters to one hundred milliliters of cord blood with stem cells usable for scientific research can be obtained from the umbilical cord.

Although different people have their own different opinions on the word “life,” their definitions of life are what is right in their own minds, and those opinions matter to them greatly. However, only one solution comes the closest to pleasing everyone in the dilemma of the word “life” in the human embryonic stem cell research issue. That solution is to use the core blood. Since the core blood does not actually involve altering the fate and future of a living human’s life, using the core blood is the best way in researching the stem cells. In reality, the word “life” will probably never have a true definition, or at least not for quite some time (Robinson, 2008; Totten, 2005). The true definition of life would have to take in consideration not only life on the planet Earth, but the life that has yet to be discovered that lives on planets other than Earth.