Some people, mainly debaters in NCFCA, have taken the position that the U.S. should institute a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India. They give the reasons that we need this FTA and they say that the only reason it is not going through now is that India has problems with agricultural parts of the deal. The proposition is simple; pass the FTA with out the agricultural section. But I would argue it is not so simple, and it won't work. There are two main reasons that this plan will fail and many disadvantages to implementing a FTA with India.

The first reason that the FTA won't work is because of the incredible small impact it will have on India. With Exports increasing by just 1.14% and Imports increasing by a mere 1.84%. A US-Indo FTA is obviously not going to do any good.

The second reason is that the issue of agriculture is not the only thing hindering these FTAs. In negotiations with the EU over a FTA the issues of Intellectual Property Rights, competition, agriculture, public procurement, market access and transparency were all hindrances, not just agriculture.

Disadvantages of this plan include, an increase in the sex trade, economic meltdown, increased environmental impact and promotion of international crime. All these spurning from globalization which is a result of increased Free Trade.

Clearly now is not the time to initiate a FTA between the U.S.A. and India.

Orwell's Message

In the book 1984 George Orwell uses the lives of his two main characters and their outcome to covey a warning of what may come to be in the year 1984. In the book there are many contrasts between Winston and Julia, the main characters, yet in the end the result is the same.
Orwell's characters have different views of the Party even though they manifest themselves in the same way. Hate of the Party. Julia, since she hadn't lived before the Party she knew, “nothing else, accepting the Party as something inalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against it's authority but simply
evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog.” Winston, however, was older, although he did not remember much, he did remember that there was a time before the party. His memory carried with it the hope that party could be destroyed and drive to assist in it's destruction. Winston put it into words by saying,
“I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence remains. The only evidence is in my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being share my memories.”
More evidence of this difference of their difference is seen when Winston is reading “The Book”, an Illegal book written by a underground network of rebels, to Julia. Winston, who is throughly engrossed in every detail of the book, finds that Julia has fallen asleep, obviously not interested. Again, Julia's mentality is contrasted to Winston's. Winston wants to understand the truth, and he wants to know the “why” of things. Whereas Julia is not interested in such things, she wishes merely to dodge the Party and live life. It does not matter to Julia whether the Party is telling the truth or not when it has no impact on her. These different mannerisms go a long way in determining how they live their lives. Although both Julia and Winston are both party members that hate the party, they differ in how they live their lives. Julia is a mischievous individual who likes to have “fun”, this is seen by the many times that she sneaks away from the telescreens to be with Winston during the book. Julia puts up a very convincing act that removes all suspicion from her while she sneaks out with Winston when no one is looking. Winston on the other hand lives a life of hope. He tries to make it look like he participating in things such as the Two Minutes Hate everyday hoping that someday the party would be destroyed by either the mysterious group called the “Brotherhood” or the lowest social group in Oceania, the proles. Another example comes from the time when Winston brings up the idea that, “we
are the dead.” He submits to Julia the idea that they are going to die no matter what, whether it is sooner or later, they are going to die. When Julia hears it, however, she brushes it off, tells him to forget it, and moves on to planning their next meeting. This shows how Winston is a deep-thinker, who wants to destroy the Party, whereas Julia is a schemer, who believes that the Party in unalterable, living life for the sake of evading the Party and living to see another day, she has no desire to find the truth. The only similarity between them is the fact that they both hate the Party and they both hate Big Brother.
In the end both Winston and Julia were “converted” my the party, they denounced each other and the party had won. Orwell used his two different characters to show that some people will fight and some people will evade, but the end result will be the same. His warning was that a Government similar to Ingsoc could arise and take over in such a way that they could destroy all hope and wipe out history no matter if you fight or dodge, you will be overcome by it.

Paul and the Toilet

It was a mild winter day. Cold, but not cold enough to stop Timothy's mom from undertaking the task of assembling her team of daughters and searching the woods for a small rusted stake that indicated the property line. In the meanwhile Timothy, who was in the house diligently studying his math, heard the grating of porcelain on porcelain and then a crash. For a split second there was silence. The next thing he knew Paul, who had been playing with his legos and roaming the house up until this point, shot out of the bathroom like Luke escaping the exploding Death Star and there was a loud roar as if a small jet was taking off. Timothy rushed into the bathroom to find it was already starting to flood. As is happened Paul had just gone to the bathroom and found that the toilet would not flush after he had used it. It had been having problems recently and Paul had seen his mom take the back off of it and fix something in the mysterious black of the back of the toilet. Half moved by the necessity to fix the toilet and half motivated by a curiosity to know what was in the back of the toilet, Paul slid the heavy cover off of the back of the toilet, not thinking ahead far enough to know what he was going to do with it. With a crash it fell to the floor conveniently shearing off the pipe that brought water into the toilet at the same time. As soon as it fell Paul panicked and ran and hid as Timothy rushed into the bathroom. After he had established that the bathroom was very wet, getting more wet by the second, and that the valve had been sheared off the wall along with the pipe he went out and yelled for his mom not knowing what else to do. His mom got there a minute or two later. She then quickly assessed the situation and immediately went to the breaker panel and and flipped all of the breakers, knowing that one of them would shut off the water pump. Within 30 seconds the water had completely subsided and we began to clean up and repair the damage. Needless to say their dad, who happened to be in Sudan for a week was not thrilled to find out that his recently redone bathroom was soaked, along with insulation that had just been put up under the house.