Presidential Contenders 2008 Essay Example for Free

Presidential Contenders 2008 Essay Pre-election convention of the Democratic Party will pass on August 28 in Denver. The tensest conflict of the elections is between the candidates of the Democratic Party B. Obama and H. Klinton. The representative of Democratic Party will get the victory at the basic elections as Republicans have lost considerable support among the population because of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides, there is the crisis of crediting of a category subprime, which led to unemployment’s growth and to substantial damages of the companies. That’s why the results of the primaries are significant. Barack Obama won Wisconsins and Hawaii’s primaries on Tuesday, which extends his winning tendency and makes him hard to surpass in the remaining sixteen races. Clinton hasnt won a contest since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. On Wednesday Obama picked up the support of the 1. 4 million-member Teamsters, his fourth labor endorsement in a week. Union support is expected to be key in the upcoming Ohio and Pennsylvania races. Clinton is behind in delegates, and the gap has been growing. She has to win fifty seven percent of the remaining primary and caucus delegates to erase Obamas lead, a daunting task requiring landslide-sized victories. According to some information, up to primary elections in Wisconsin Obama had on the account 1281 voices of party delegates at main congress whereas Clinton was the second (1218 voices). In Wisconsin 74 voices were played. In total the candidate from democrats have to get support of 2025 party delegates for promotion. Therefore the basic struggle still ahead. Obama also won â€Å"the Democrats Abroad global primary† on Thursday, giving him eleven straight wins. â€Å"More than 20,000 U. S. citizens living abroad voted in the primary, which ran from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12. Obama won about 65 percent of the vote, according to the results released Thursday. † (The Daily Tribune Newspaper, Feb 21) Hillary Clinton is not paying much attention to foreign policy. Clinton is going to establish a deadline for the American troops in Iraq. She will begin dialogues with Iran and she will try to limit Chinese imports to the American market probably to avoid recession. The race for democratic nominee isnt over yet the future situation can not be predicted exactly. Bearing in mind the trend of Obama’s winning the primaries will continue to show the desire of the American people.

The Great Gatsby :: F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby: A timeless classic The Great Gatsby is a movie by F. Scott Fitzergald and is set in the 1920’s. On the outside, The Great Gatsby is a story of the disillusioned love between a man and a woman. However, the main theme of the novel comprises a much larger and less romantic extent. Though all of its events take place over a measly few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a limited geographical area in the area of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic reflection of the 1920s American life as a whole. The storyline illustrates the dissolution of the American dream in an era of unparalleled prosperity and material intemperance. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, shown in the films cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The recklessness that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music, shown in The Great Gatsby by the lavish parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night, resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the uninhibited desire for money and pleasure exceeded more noble goals. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a booming illegal industry designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among the rich and poor. Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as symbols of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cultural diversity and skepticism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties illustrate the greedy scramble for wealth. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging. As Fitzgerald saw it the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s, however, as depicted in the novel, easy money and laid-back social values have spoiled this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this judgment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their own social places, his resorting to crime to make enough money to make an impression on her, and the raging materialism that distinguishes her existence.

Electricity – A Secondary Energy Source

A Secondary Source The Science of Electricity How Electricity is Generated/Made The Transformer – Moving Electricity Measuring Electricity energy calculator links page recent statistics A SECONDARY SOURCE Electricity is the flow of electrical power or charge. It is a secondary energy source which means that we get it from the conversion of other sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear power and other natural sources, which are called primary sources. The energy sources we use to make electricity can be renewable or non-renewable, but electricity itself is neither renewable or non-renewable. Electricity is a basic part of nature and it is one of our most widely used forms of energy. Many cities and towns were built alongside waterfalls (a primary source of mechanical energy) that turned water wheels to perform work. Before electricity generation began over 100 years ago, houses were lit with kerosene lamps, food was cooled in iceboxes, and rooms were warmed by wood-burning or coal-burning stoves. Beginning with Benjamin Franklin's experiment with a kite one stormy night in Philadelphia, the principles of electricity gradually became understood. Thomas Edison helped change everyone's life — he perfected his invention — the electric light bulb. Prior to 1879, direct current (DC) electricity had been used in arc lights for outdoor lighting. In the late-1800s, Nikola Tesla pioneered the generation, transmission, and use of alternating current (AC) electricity, which can be transmitted over much greater distances than direct current. Tesla's inventions used electricity to bring indoor lighting to our homes and to power industrial machines. Despite its great importance in our daily lives, most of us rarely stop to think what life would be like without electricity. Yet like air and water, we tend to take electricity for granted. Everyday, we use electricity to do many jobs for us — from lighting and heating/cooling our homes, to powering our televisions and computers. Electricity is a controllable and convenient form of energy used in the applications of heat, light and power. THE SCIENCE OF ELECTRICITY developed by the National Energy Education Development Project In order to understand how electric charge moves from one atom to another, we need to know something about atoms. Everything in the universe is made of atoms—every star, every tree, every animal. The human body is made of atoms. Air and water are, too. Atoms are the building blocks of the universe. Atoms are so small that millions of them would fit on the head of a pin. Atoms are made of even smaller particles. The center of an atom is called the nucleus. It is made of particles called protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons are very small, but electrons are much, much smaller. Electrons spin around the nucleus in shells a great distance from the nucleus. If the nucleus were the size of a tennis ball, the atom would be the size of the Empire State Building. Atoms are mostly empty space. If you could see an atom, it would look a little like a tiny center of balls surrounded by giant invisible bubbles (or shells). The electrons would be on the surface of the bubbles, constantly spinning and moving to stay as far away from each other as possible. Electrons are held in their shells by an electrical force. The protons and electrons of an atom are attracted to each other. They both carry an electrical charge. An electrical charge is a force within the particle. Protons have a positive charge (+) and electrons have a negative charge (-). The positive charge of the protons is equal to the negative charge of the electrons. Opposite charges attract each other. When an atom is in balance, it has an equal number of protons and electrons. The neutrons carry no charge and their number can vary. The number of protons in an atom determines the kind of atom, or element, it is. An element is a substance in which all of the atoms are identical (the Periodic Table shows all the known elements). Every atom of hydrogen, for example, has one proton and one electron, with no neutrons. Every atom of carbon has six protons, six electrons, and six neutrons. The number of protons determines which element it is. Electrons usually remain a constant distance from the nucleus in precise shells. The shell closest to the nucleus can hold two electrons. The next shell can hold up to eight. The outer shells cans hold even more. Some atoms with many protons can have as many as seven shells with electrons in them. The electrons in the shells closest to the nucleus have a strong force of attraction to the protons. Sometimes, the electrons in the outermost shells do not. These electrons can be pushed out of their orbits. Applying a force can make them move from one atom to another. These moving electrons are electricity. STATIC ELECTRICITY Electricity has been moving in the world forever. Lightning is a form of electricity. It is electrons moving from one cloud to another or jumping from a cloud to the ground. Have you ever felt a shock when you touched an object after walking across a carpet? A stream of electrons jumped to you from that object. This is called static electricity. Have you ever made your hair stand straight up by rubbing a balloon on it? If so, you rubbed some electrons off the balloon. The electrons moved into your hair from the balloon. They tried to get far away from each other by moving to the ends of your hair. They pushed against each other and made your hair move—they repelled each other. Just as opposite charges attract each other, like charges repel each other. MAGNETS AND ELECTRICITY The spinning of the electrons around the nucleus of an atom creates a tiny magnetic field. Most objects are not magnetic because the atoms are arranged so that the electrons spin in different, random directions, and cancel out each other. Magnets are different; the molecules in magnets are arranged so that the electrons spin in the same direction. This arrangement of atoms creates two poles in a magnet, a Northseeking pole and a South-seeking pole. Bar Magnet A magnet is labeled with North (N) and South (S) poles. The magnetic force in a magnet flows from the North pole to the South pole. This creates a magnetic field around a magnet. Have you ever held two magnets close to each other? They don’t act like most objects. If you try to push the South poles together, they repel each other. Two North poles also repel each other. Turn one magnet around and the North (N) and the South (S) poles are attracted to each other. The magnets come together with a strong force. Just like protons and electrons, opposites attract. These special properties of magnets can be used to make electricity. Moving magnetic fields can pull and push electrons. Some metals, like copper have electrons that are loosely held. They can be pushed from their shells by moving magnets. Magnets and wire are used together in electric generators. BATTERIES PRODUCE ELECTRICITY A battery produces electricity using two different metals in a chemical solution. A chemical reaction between the metals and the chemicals frees more electrons in one metal than in the other. One end of the battery is attached to one of the metals; the other end is attached to the other metal. The end that frees more electrons develops a positive charge and the other end develops a negative charge. If a wire is attached from one end of the battery to the other, electrons flow through the wire to balance the electrical charge. A load is a device that does work or performs a job. If a load––such as a lightbulb––is placed along the wire, the electricity can do work as it flows through the wire. In the picture above, electrons flow from the negative end of the battery through the wire to the lightbulb. The electricity flows through the wire in the lightbulb and back to the battery. ELECTRICITY TRAVELS IN CIRCUITS Electricity travels in closed loops, or circuits (from the word circle). It must have a complete path before the electrons can move. If a circuit is open, the electrons cannot flow. When we flip on a light switch, we close a circuit. The electricity flows from the electric wire through the light and back into the wire. When we flip the switch off, we open the circuit. No electricity flows to the light. When we turn a light switch on, electricity flows through a tiny wire in the bulb. The wire gets very hot. It makes the gas in the bulb glow. When the bulb burns out, the tiny wire has broken. The path through the bulb is gone. When we turn on the TV, electricity flows through wires inside the set, producing pictures and sound. Sometimes electricity runs motors—in washers or mixers. Electricity does a lot of work for us. We use it many times each day. HOW ELECTRICITY IS GENERATED A generator is a device that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. The process is based on the relationship between magnetism and electricity. In 1831, Faraday discovered that when a magnet is moved inside a coil of wire, electrical current flows in the wire. A typical generator at a power plant uses an electromagnet—a magnet produced by electricity—not a traditional magnet. The generator has a series of insulated coils of wire that form a stationary cylinder. This cylinder surrounds a rotary electromagnetic shaft. When the electromagnetic shaft rotates, it induces a small electric current in each section of the wire coil. Each section of the wire becomes a small, separate electric conductor. The small currents of individual sections are added together to form one large current. This current is the electric power that is transmitted from the power company to the consumer. An electric utility power station uses either a turbine, engine, water wheel, or other similar machine to drive an electric generator or a device that converts mechanical or chemical energy to generate electricity. Steam turbines, internalcombustion engines, gas combustion turbines, water turbines, and wind turbines are the most common methods to generate electricity. Most power plants are about 35 percent efficient. That means that for every 100 units of energy that go into a plant, only 35 units are converted to usable electrical energy. Most of the electricity in the United States is produced in steam turbines. A turbine converts the kinetic energy of a moving fluid (liquid or gas) to mechanical energy. Steam turbines have a series of blades mounted on a shaft against which steam is forced, thus rotating the shaft connected to the generator. In a fossil-fueled steam turbine, the fuel is burned in a furnace to heat water in a boiler to produce steam. Coal, petroleum (oil), and natural gas are burned in large furnaces to heat water to make steam that in turn pushes on the blades of a turbine. Did you know that most electricity generated in the United State comes from burning coal? In 2007, nearly half (48. 5%) of the country's 4. 1 trillion kilowatthours of electricity used coal as its source of energy. Natural gas, in addition to being burned to heat water for steam, can also be burned to produce hot combustion gases that pass directly through a turbine, spinning the blades of the turbine to generate electricity. Gas turbines are commonly used when electricity utility usage is in high demand. In 2007, 21. 6% of the nation's electricity was fueled by natural gas. Petroleum can also be used to make steam to turn a turbine. Residual fuel oil, a product refined from crude oil, is often the petroleum product used in electric plants that use petroleum to make steam. Petroleum was used to generate about two percent (2%) of all electricity generated in U. S. electricity plants in 2007. Nuclear power is a method in which steam is produced by heating water through a process called nuclear fission. In a nuclear power plant, a reactor contains a core of nuclear fuel, primarily enriched uranium. When atoms of uranium fuel are hit by neutrons they fission (split), releasing heat and more neutrons. Under controlled conditions, these other neutrons can strike more uranium atoms, splitting more atoms, and so on. Thereby, continuous fission can take place, forming a chain reaction releasing heat. The heat is used to turn water into steam, that, in turn, spins a turbine that generates electricity. Nuclear power was used to generate 19. 4% of all the country's electricity in 2007. Hydropower, the source for 5. % of U. S. electricity generation in 2007, is a process in which flowing water is used to spin a turbine connected to a generator. There are two basic types of hydroelectric systems that produce electricity. In the first system, flowing water accumulates in reservoirs created by the use of dams. The water falls through a pipe called a penstock and applies pressure against the turb ine blades to drive the generator to produce electricity. In the second system, called run-of-river, the force of the river current (rather than falling water) applies pressure to the turbine blades to produce electricity. Geothermal power comes from heat energy buried beneath the surface of the earth. In some areas of the country, enough heat rises close to the surface of the earth to heat underground water into steam, which can be tapped for use at steam-turbine plants. This energy source generated less than 1% of the electricity in the country in 2007. Solar power is derived from the energy of the sun. However, the sun's energy is not available full-time and it is widely scattered. The processes used to produce electricity using the sun's energy have historically been more expensive than using conventional fossil fuels. Photovoltaic conversion generates electric power directly from the light of the sun in a photovoltaic (solar) cell. Solar-thermal electric generators use the radiant energy from the sun to produce steam to drive turbines. In 2007, less than 1% of the nation's electricity was based on solar power. Wind power is derived from the conversion of the energy contained in wind into electricity. Wind power, less than 1% of the nation's electricity in 2007, is a rapidly growing source of electricity. A wind turbine is similar to a typical wind mill. Biomass includes wood, municipal solid waste (garbage), and agricultural waste, such as corn cobs and wheat straw. These are some other energy sources for producing electricity. These sources replace fossil fuels in the boiler. The combustion of wood and waste creates steam that is typically used in conventional steam-electric plants. Biomass accounts for about 1% of the electricity generated in the United States. THE TRANSFORMER – MOVING ELECTRICITY To solve the problem of sending electricity over long distances, William Stanley developed a device called a transformer. The transformer allowed electricity to be efficiently transmitted over long distances. This made it possible to supply electricity to homes and businesses located far from the electric generating plant. The electricity produced by a generator travels along cables to a transformer, which changes electricity from low voltage to high voltage. Electricity can be moved long distances more efficiently using high voltage. Transmission lines are used to carry the electricity to a substation. Substations have transformers that change the high voltage electricity into lower voltage electricity. From the substation, distribution lines carry the electricity to homes, offices and factories, which require low voltage electricity. MEASURING ELECTRICITY Electricity is measured in units of power called watts. It was named to honor James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. One watt is a very small amount of power. It would require nearly 750 watts to equal one horsepower. A kilowatt represents 1,000 watts. A kilowatthour (kWh) is equal to the energy of 1,000 watts working for one hour. The amount of electricity a power plant generates or a customer uses over a period of time is measured in kilowatthours (kWh). Kilowatthours are determined by multiplying the number of kW's required by the number of hours of use. For example, if you use a 40-watt light bulb 5 hours a day, you have used 200 watthours, or 0. 2 kilowatthours, of electrical energy. See our Energy Calculator section to learn more about converting units. Last Revised: May 2009 Sources: Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2007, August 2008 . The National Energy Education Development Project, Intermediate Energy Infobook, 2007.

How Media Has Impacted Society - 1158 Words

Young and dumb, they say! Stable and old, I say? In their view, the people who are old enough to receive their retirement funds, find that too much television can cause brain damage and all these other horrendous circumstances and oh let us not start with cell phones†¦. In our view, teenagers and young adults, find no harm is watching â€Å"too much† television and relying on our mobile devices to often. Some topics to be discussed are: Sleeper Curves, realism, linguistics, and overstated context. The point of this paper is to reflect how mass media has effected society in a positive and successful way although many people do not believe it. They, as in editor and writer Steven Johnson in Watching TV Makes You Smarter, celebrate the fact that,†¦show more content†¦In this article the author mentions â€Å"bad textiquette†, meaning that how using these abbreviated/ slang words in texting that can sometimes be altered in the way a person perceives it. Communication is a part of living, so if the communication between people whether it be via text, call, email, television ad, or etc., is not understandable the message is taken to that person who is receiving it differently than what you expect them to take it as. Using numbers, single letters, or symbols to say a whole word can sometimes help especially if there is a word limit. Also, it saves time and effort using slang. It is true that most teenagers are lazy and sometimes use slang words to be funny, but the evolution of using slang now a days has lessened in my opinion. From what I have seen on social media and through text messages, I see people using p roper language and correct punctuation. Linguistics is learned through that persons’ social environment. Lastly, I do not recommend using slang in important formal documents. Is Pop Culture Actually Good For You? Graff, Birkensein, and