Perspective Part 2 Right and Wrong

Howdy, with my university starting on Monday I guess this might be my last post for this holiday unless I write something tomorrow, so lets get to it.

One thing I have always loved, is how we all interpret right and wrong differently then others, what is acceptable for some is a crime for others, in some cases it literally is a crime for others, like for example polygamy.

Is this wrong?

Yet I'm not so interested in whats legal and what isn't, every place uses a different method of determining that, no what I enjoy is the human aspect of it, of how we come to the conclusion of whether what we are doing is in fact right or wrong, like cheating in exams or lying, is something wrong if it saves us from grief?

Firstly lets determine the common ways we judge is something is wrong or right.

Laws.

The law is the most common way to determine what is right and wrong, why? cause basically if you do something illegal, you're caught and will get some form of punishment, the law is somewhat effective as a way to determine whether you should or should not do something, Infact I'd say its very effective, what stops a lot of people from killing others is the idea that if they do, they will be in prison for the rest of their lives or worst be sentenced to death ( if they are caught)

However, the law itself is..... well odd to say the least, for one thing laws are not universal, whats legal in one country is not legal in another, in France you can get a license for prostitution, in Saudi Arabia you'll get an axe instead, so which one is right and which one is wrong?

Another thing about the law is it can be cruel, not all people are judged equally, the law may take into account the motives of the individual and while it usually does do a good job, it has its royal screw ups occasionally.

Aint life fair?

One thing that interests me most about the law is self-defense, I read a story recently about a man who was robed at gunpoint, but he wrestled the guy and got his gun, when the robber tried to run away he shot him. Three times.

Would that count as self-defense or murder? I mean the dude was running, he had no weapon and was no threat, yet he could have been going to call his gang mates to help him out, Hmm....

How would you judge him?

Religion

Ah religion, Where as the Law is based on what I consider large scale things, Religion is more towards everything in life including the Law.

In fact in some countries the law is based on the religion used, but is that the right thing?

Religion is a sensitive issue, since some people have their own religion and some people dont, saying more about it might offend.

However lets compare the law to Religion.

Where as people follow the Law because its either you do that or get imprisoned, Religion tends to be the other way, where as the Law can be summed up as " do this and get punished". Religion is more of " Do this and be rewarded"

So which one do you follow when love and duty come in conflict?

Naruto 546 Review

Hello and welcome to my review for the latest chapter for Naruto, adequately named "Clash of the Old and New Kage".

The chapter starts off differently from the last few weeks, instead of focusing on a main character, this week we start of by watching two members of the alliance fighting off one of Kabuto's edo tensei bodies.

The scene shows us how ninjas from different villages are working together, sharing intel on their former villagers and trying to save each other's lives, its not a huge thing, but its nice to see the Shinobi alliance letting go of its former ties and working as one true unit.

Toroi, from the Hidden Cloud can apparently use magnetic release, the same ability that the third Kazekage had, before he was killed and Sasori then was able to use magnet release, unlike the third though, this guy doesnt use magnetic sand but infuses his shurikens with his Chakra, and anything they hit will be under his control.

Its kinda like Pein's gravity ability, the only difference is Pein could do this anytime, while Toroi must have made previous contact with the enemy, either through touching them or through his shurikens.

Unfortunetly, our poor Sand Shinobi doesn't dodge the attacks but blocks them instead, getting some of Toroi's chakra on him, and Toroi's favorite way to kill seems to be to get the ninja and his shuriken to collide with each other, one of the coolest ways to kill anyone, Ever!.

But before we get to witness this awesome decapitation, who decides to show up?

 If you guessed Chuck Norris, you were almost right, but Naruto shows up instead in the nick of time to save them, he is picking up Kakashi's ability to show up and save people, but Kakashi still does it better.

Kabuto reacts to Naruto showing up ( at least that's what is implied) he seems genuinely surprised by his appearance.

However, what I want to know is did Kabuto see Naruto through his Edo Tensei? Or did he just notice one of his bodies suddenly die? if Kabuto is somehow linked to his summons then Edo Tensei seems very similar to the Paths of Pain, as both require a dead body and both are controlled by the user.

Back to the battlefield we see everyone got out of there alive, and the two Shinobi were part of F's group, who were all White Zetsu clones, seems like those two just escaped Zetsu and survived a fight with Kabuto's summon, how badass can two fodder nins be?

The scene shifts to Gaara and Onoki, a fight I think everyone has been looking forward to, apparently both of them have been retreating from a fight with 4 previous Kages, a Kage from each village except Konoha until they can retreat no more, they decide to start off by measuring the Kage's reaction to long range attacks, A valid tactic since both Gaara and Onoki have shown themselves to be long range fighters in the past, with Temari in their group I assume their whole squadron is skilled at long range combat.

One thing that has been shown by every Kage, is love for their village, and the dead Kages are no different, in the above picture all of them show that they do not enjoy the idea of killing their own villagers, but Raikage brings up another theme of Naruto, that the new generation will surpass the old one, and he wishes that the Ninjas he fights will be strong enough to defeat them, something the dead Kazekage agrees to.

Gaara starts the attack, showing off a massive technique, we haven't seen Gaara use something like this since his fight with Deidera, so while he may have lost the One-Tail, he clearly hasn't lost any offensive ability.

The only one of the Kages to react to this is Gaara's dad, he assumes this is the ability of Shikaku from his previous battles with it, whether these fights were when it was sealed into Gaara or before that we wont know, but he counters it effectively with his own style of Magnetic Release.

In one chapter, Magnetic Release went from being an ability that Akatsuki killed for, to something two villages had, and that's just the ones we know about, Hopefully this ability wont become spammed like the Sharingan is.

After the failed assault, Gaara and Onoki hit the Kages from above, they use an interesting strategy of distracting them with the sand from below so Onoki can use dust release and crush them from above, its solid teamwork to be honest, too bad Mu was not caught by the sand and is capable of counter-attacking Onoki.

It seems both Onoki and Mu are equal in power, so the blast just destroys the battlefield, but both sides escape unscathed, after this attack both Onoki and the 4th Kazekage comment on their foe's powers, Onoki by discovering that Mu's powers have not been reduced at all by Edo Tensei, and the 4th by noticing how much Gaara has improved since he died.

The final panel of this chapter is the living Kages flying over the dead ones, perhaps signaling how the new generation will soar over the previous one?

The 4th asks Gaara where Shikaku is and Gaara tell's him he is no longer the Jinchuriki he created, its a fitting cliffhanger and I hope the next chapter will focus a lot on their relationship.

Comments


I enjoyed this chapter, The fight between Gaara and his dad was brought up the moment we saw him as a zombie and so far it has not disappointed, both are sand users and so far it seems the 4th is stronger so it will be interesting to see how Gaara pulls of a win in this situation, that and the extra emotional layer should add up to an exciting fight.

Onoki's fight with his previous teacher should also be quite interesting, so far the old generation being surpassed by the new has been a repeated theme, yet Mu looks much younger then Onoki, so it will be funny if an old man defeats a much younger one and then talks about the new surpassing the old.

The art this week was splendid, yet no real panel stood out to me as being more amazing then the others, they were all very solid and very good, with perhaps Gaara's massive sand attack being the best picture this chapter.

Not really much to say here, it seems this chapter is a set-up for next where, where we will see the real fight starts.

Predictions?

Mu and the 4th will tell the other Kages to not interfere, it will be Gaara vs his dad and Onoki vs Mu, both will have flashbacks between them, probably to the time they were training together, I expect Gaara's figh to start first in the next chapter with Onoki being put on hold till their fight ends,.

And thats it for this review, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, till next week.

Debating Tips-Motions

Morning, seems like I havent posted here in a while, I just finished competing in the President's Cup, which is a debate cup my university competes in with 15 other campuses, we got 3rd place which is quite respectable I think.

So in this post I'll talk about what I've learned in my long Rather short career in debating, I'll write about the tactics and tricks my team used that got us so far and common pitfalls to avoid, experienced debaters will probably know all of this but if you're new and want to improve, I think you will find something useful here.

On to the first point.

Understand what the motion wants you to debate.

The first part of the debate starts the moment the motion is announced, when you know what it is you should focus on understanding what the motion wants the teams to argue about so no parallel debates happen.

" This House believes that we don't need no education"

The above motion can basically be said as " Education is important" however the way is is phrased can cause people to be confused and the government can go out and say that they believe that education is not important, which is the opposition's case.

When the motion is given out, both teams will have time to prepare their arguments and points, The government will use this time to make the motion serve them by narrowing it down and making it easier for them to debate.

"This House would ban abortion"

Thats the given motion, now if the government first speaker goes out and says " This house would ban abortion, on to my first point"

Since he has stated no limits to abortion, the leader of the opposition can (and should ) reply with " Since the government states they would ban abortion, this means abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy" 

Thats why explaining the motion can make or break the debate, be very careful with how you describe the motion ( government) and try to find any loopholes in the given explanation (opposition).

Hard and Soft cases.

A hard case is a case where the motion would be allowed or stopped at all stages, where as a soft motion would be a weak case that wouldnt change anything, confusing right?

Here's an example to what I am trying to say.

"This House would ban abortion"

Soft example: If the government is weak and not confident enough in themselves, they will go out and say " We will ban abortion in the third trimester" 

Thats an incredibly soft case, why? because nobody aborts in the third trimester, its illegal everywhere so the government is basically saying OK to abortion in every stage except when it enters 28 weeks and after.

Soft cases are very detrimental to the government, while a Hard case can be argued with, a soft case is usually the government agreeing with the opposition.

Hard example: We will use the same motion as the above, but this time the government goes out and says "We will ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy Except if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother"

The above is a hard motion, where abortion is completely banned except in a logical situation where it threatens the life of the mother, that's a very logical safety net the government puts to stop the opposition from saying " What if the pregnancy can kill the mother?"

A hard case is many times more interesting then a soft case, and is easier to win as well since they are arguing on the motion, in this hard motion the points can be really varied, as they can talk about if the baby was the product of rape and the mother wants to abort it early, if the baby is found to be born with a birth defect that would kill it in a few years, all these are points both sides can argue on, and it builds to a fruitful debate in the end.

Thats what we mean by using the motion, the government has this advantage to set the motion how it chooses, usually though they will make a logical mechanism and work on that.

Remember to think about how the other side would approach this case, if you are stuck on points then imagine what their points are and use the opposite of that, if you are government then try to set a Mechanism that would kill the oppositions points.

And that's it for this post, I'll have more debate-y stuff up soon, hope this helped.

Naruto 545 review

Hello everyone, naruto's latest chapter came out today and i'll be reviewing it in 5

4

3

2

1

0.5

0.25

Sorry, that was lame of me.



Anyways, the chapter starts out with Madara musing over what kisama said in his last report before he died, that Naruto is now able to sense negative emotions, whats interesting is apparently so could the first hokages wife, as Madara didnt mention Kushina, it made me wonder if only certain people can use this ability with the Kyuubi ( implying Kushina just couldn't sense negative emotions) Or only people who can control the Nine-tails get this ability ( implying kushina never had the mastery of the nine-tails that naruto now has)

But moving on we get a glimpse of HQ, where Shikaku shows his faith in naruto again, faith he first showed back when Naruto convinced him to let him see Pein by himself and showing it again here when he states that they should just let Naruto go, Perhaps hoping he will end this war like he ended Pein's invasion.

Heading over to the medical camps we see the medic-nins examining Zetsu, Apparently the Zetsu that was killed at the 5 Kage summit was taken back ( to Konoha? that would be odd considering Danzo fled, but maybe which ever country that had him just released the body for the other countries to examine), The new Zetsu's are... Evolving perhaps? to be more like the first Hokage, the most important development there is that they can apparently use Mokuten, something we have yet to see but probably a foreshadowing of day 2 of the war.

I love this picture, its really quite amazing, with Madara in the middle, the sun shining behind him, signaling the start of day 2 of the way, with Madara personally gunning for the last two jinchuuriki.

His six paths are with him, a question was raised of just what are these 6 paths? will they be similar to Peins? and how do they move exactly?

I have a couple theories on why these paths dont have chakra rods like the original.

A)  Pein was always very far from his summons, unlike Madara, Pein would fight from miles away, and I think the chakra rods helped him focus his chakra on those long distances.

B)  Pein was hooked up to the Demonic statue, that must have taken its toll on him, I think perhaps Nagato was simply too weak to control all his paths without any assistence, and those Chakra rods amplified the Chakra he used to control the dead bodies, This makes sense when you remember how Nagato Stopped controlling all his other paths when he used Yahiko for his mass shinra tensei.

Back on course, Shikaku contacts Naruto and Bee, I dont like how these new abilities show up that just allow him to talk to them like that, seems way too convenient  for me but Anyways, he informs them first about the Zetsu's power before going into his real reason of contacting Naruto, to tell him to forget about talking to Madara and just bring him down, as Naruto is famous for Talking first and acting later, this is sound advice for him, but whats surprising is Naruto listens and says he wont go easy on Madara, Naruto is becoming more of a realist now and realizing some people cannot be changed ( Or maybe he just hates Madara for killing both his parents and corrupting his best friend)
We meet up with members of some division, I dont think any of them were shown before but one of them was Bee's old friend, Naruto sees them and stops to say Hi.

Informing Bee ( who he now calls uncle, which I find really cute) That all of them are enemies, Naruto charges forwards and We get to witness Naruto's new powers, he forms quite a few Rasengans to create a vaccum that apparently grabs all the Nearby Zetsu's, I think a picture would explain it best here.

Zetsu shows off a new ability as well, he can apparently fuse several bodies together to create a rather monstrous looking thing, but all that means nothing when Gamahiro is summoned, as in his first appearance Way way back during the Invasion of Konoha arc, he crushes something just be by summoned on top of it, thats a neat little call back to that event.

The chapter concludes with Naruto making several Shadow clones and going off to join each battle field and showing us that each clone still controls the nine-tails chakra, unlike before when the Kyuubi disrupted his shadow clones and caused them to disappear, this new chakra works with them, Perhaps we may never see Sage Naruto after this, as controlled Kyuubi chakra can both sense enemies and allow unlimited amount of shadow clones.


Comments


Awesome chapter with perhaps a bit too much talking, showing of the abilities of both Naruto and Zetsu, it reminded me of the times they almost fought, back when Itachi beat Sasuke and again when team 7 reunited and Zetsu appeared and challenged Naruto, now Naruto is the perfect foil to him, as he is able to turn his clones back to plants, a really cool idea which Kisi hinted to way back when the Kyuubi was mastered.

I dont really know much about art, but I thought that each page was beautifully done, Kishi doesnt ignore anything and I loved the little details he added here and there.

You can even see Bee in the bottom panel, wow!

I'm not one for Predictions I think most likely next week or very soon Naruto and Gaara will work together, thats really pretty much my only predictions but before I wrap this review up, I'll ask you guys a couple of questions.

1- How do you think Madara controls those bodies? Just pure chakra? or maybe those rods are hidden somewhere?

2- Will we ever see Sage Chakra again?

And thats a wrap, you can find reviews for older Naruto chapters on my blog, thanks for reading :D

Perspective Part 1 People.

Howdy, it sure feels like I haven't written anything in a while, even thought I just didn't write for... one day.

Anyways I'm planning on writing a series of posts about perspective and how we see things and why different people can interpret the same thing in totally opposite ways.

Firstly I'm gonna start by saying that we are all different, yes its obvious but some people seem to think that we all grew up in the same environment or something and thats not true, we are all so different, separated by beliefs, gender, race, colour, background, country, society, there are so many factors that come into shaping us into who we are and those factors are why we are so unique.

yeah I know what I just said is something we all know

As I said, we are all different people and we react differently to everything, this is perspective, its the way we see things, the way we judge what is right and wrong, what helps us decide to do things or leave them alone ,our perspective in life makes us who we are.

In this post I want to talk about how we can all view the same person yet come to different conclusions about them, ask 10 people about the same person, and each one can you give a different response, starting from " nice guy" and ending with " Complete asshole" and each one of them will think they know that guy best.

So how can one person have so many conflicting opinions about them?
I think there are Two reasons, the first is that we act differently depending on who we are with, Are you the same person with your best friend as you are with your grandparents? Probably not, we changed based on who is around us and we treat others differently, you don't treat each stranger alike, some are treated better then others while some are mistrusted and kept at arms length, three people you have never met can say "Hi" to you and your response can be extremely different to each.

"Bye"

"Bye"

"Hello beautiful"

So thats the first point, that people themselves are very diverse and have many sides to them that they show to people. We should try to get to know more then one side before we judge them.

The other reason I believe we have different opinions of people is we tend to view others in our own way, whats cool for someone is arrogant for others, and whats nice to some may come of as being weak at the same time.

Cool or arrogant? 

In my university, I spend some of my time tutoring other people, they would have a problem in a subject and would ask me for help and usually I'd help them out, I mean why shouldn't I? 

Yet the other day one of my hostel-mates asked me " Why are you so weak ?" and I questioned him what he meant and he said " You spend all your time helping others, you're kinda like a doormat"

That's his opinion, that's what he thought, yet other people thought it was nice to help others, especially when you can make a difference between them passing or failing, if you aren't doing something for yourself, why not help others? at least that's how I think, some Interpret my actions as being right, others say I'm wrong.

We should all try to see things from other's perspective, we don't know people, we don't know what they have been through in life or where they are coming from, yet we instantly think they are wrong and we are right just cause their opinion opposes ours, we spend more time arguing with them and trying to prove them wrong then trying to understand why they think the way they do.

Its said that to understand someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoe, I think you just need to spend five minutes looking through their eyes.

Naruto 544 Review

Hello everyone, here's my second review for the latest chapter of naruto, chapter 544.

We start off this week by going back to HQ where shikaku is having a hard time with the Zetsu problem, since Zetsu can can copy anyone's chakra he has slipped into the alliance bases and managed to wreak havoc, a problem that shikaku has yet to solve.

In this scene you can find the difference between Shikaku and Shikimaru, unlike Shiki who listens to everyone, his dad cut of Katsuya before she could tell him something important, I don't know if this is out of character or not but its odd to find a leader who dismisses a report before its even said to him.

Back to back brothers.


Scene shifts back to last week's group, where Bee's lariat has beaten Raikage, A is amazed by Bee's strength and we follow a discussion about how a jinchuriki's power comes not from their tailed beast, but from a hidden power inside them and how Naruto has two sources of power inside of him.

I find it interesting how all throughout the series, Naruto's parents were supposed to be kept a secret from everyone, even most Konoha people didn't know the 4th was his dad, yet apparently the hidden cloud knew who his parents were and that Akatsuki ( at least Madara) also knew, you'd think that either one of those two powers would have tried to capture Naruto when he was just a kid and nobody protected him, odd but lets move on....

What follows is basically a summary of what we know, 4th fought Madara, thought he was too powerful, nine-tails was freed, was sealed into Naruto along with his mother's chakra to help him tame him, Nothing new here.

I did enjoy A calling the 4th the savior of the world, it shows again just how well informed Raikage is, he seems to know everything there is to know about the 4th, it also seems that Jiraya never really knew who the child of prophecy really was during his life time, as he called Minato, Nagato and Naruto all children of prophecy, but Since Naruto is the only one still alive, Its clear now who the child of prophecy really is.

This whole chapter might be summed up in one word: Faith, something that was brought up in the pain arc when Tsunada said they should all have faith in Naruto and the next generation, here she says the same thing again, Naruto also asks for A to have faith in him as Naruto reminds him how much his parents have sacrificed for him as well as how he is the Savior of the world.
Aside from Faith, this chapter makes many callbacks to former events, It seems like everything in naruto is coming together, is this leading to a conclusion? I wonder...

Raikage ponders all that was said, from his brother and Tsunada defending Naruto to his fight with Minato, and comes to the conclusion that if Naruto can do what his father did, maybe he really is a savior just like him, and with that we make a callback to another event that happened many years before.

Naruto dodging his fastest attack convinces A to let him go, Naruto has finally convinced and perhaps changed A to believe in in, something that Naruto couldn't do before when they first met, where A told him he is weak and shouldn't have come to meet him, the situation is reversed here with A believing in Naruto's strength and letting him to go on ahead.

Back at HQ shikaku realizes their only way to find fake Zetsu is to use Naruto who is not allowed to join the war, this time katsuya makes sure to inform him what happens.

Most interesting development

While he only makes one page of this chapter, Madara knows how to make things interesting, he has brought back the 6 paths of pain, but this time he isn't just using normal shinobi, oh no, Madara has brought back all the Jinchuriki they have captured, from the 2nd Tails to the 7th Tailed host, all these will make up Madara's paths of pain.
However its interesting to see that unlike the original 6 paths, they don't have two Rinnegan, but their eyes are made of one Sharingan and one Rinnegan, this brings up a question about the six paths, are the bodies eye's replaced with those new eyes? or do their eyes somehow morph to match the user's eyes?
At first I thought it was the latter, but considering how many eyes Madara has in stock, its not impossible for it to be the former, I mean there could be other people with the Rinnegan, or does this sound like nonsense to you?

Conclusion


Decent chapter, it shifted the focus from B to Naruto nicely and showed the heart and soul of a jinchuriki as well as their powers, both of them managed to brawl with A and arguably both won and convinced him to let them help in the war.

I didn't feel these last 3 chapters have moved the story forward much, A spent pretty much the whole night talking and it felt as much when I read it, Still, its good to show how the war isn't just people fighting during the day, but strategy and techniques being thought out to be used the next day.

Madara's 6 Paths of pain will be interesting to watch, will they all be like the original 6 where everyone has only one ability? will they have the same powers as they did when they were alive? will they share vision and just how powerful is this Sharingan/Rinnegan combo? Its what I am looking forward to the most.

Well, till next time and hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did :D.

First Impressions

In life, no matter who you are every few years you're going to go to a new and totally different environment, when you first start school, high school, when you move to another place, when you enter university, when you start working, In all of these situations you'll probably be alone with no one you know there and making a good impression will be.... well not really that important but better then making a bad impression.

First impressions and how our first meeting with people could set the tone for the whole relationship, I know we all wish we had made a better first impression with certain people, and how better our relationships would be if they started out on the right foot

When we meet people for the first time, a lot of factors come into our head that help us categorize them as good or bad people, friends or potential enemies, nice or arrogant.

A lot of how we judge people when we first see them comes from past experiences with people, if you've been robbed by a french guy, then french people will probably make a bad impression on you.

The media also has a subtle effect on us, they show us images of say a black guy robbing a store or an Arab guy, then they switch to scenes of an explosion, I wonder if they are hinting at anything?

I wonder what they're trying to say...

Yes I'm such a racist....

Although I think I moved a bit off topic, back to the main issue, when we first meet people we don't know what happened to them before they met us, we could see them with their hair messed up, and a torn shirt and think that they are slobs, because that's what we see that's how we judge, its the very first time I see you, and you cant change that first impression, its for life.

They could have just finished a football game, but we don't know that, so we judge, and as we are judging them, we are giving them a first impression of ourselves as well, we see a guy who looks like he just sweated a bucket and is now raving like a lunatic, and we don't say anything to them, and he would see some cold guy who is giving him a disapproving look, its a two-way thing, as people make first impressions on us, we make first impressions on them.

How accurate are our initial feelings? that's hard to tell, but generally if you're a good judge of character, you'll be able to tell who is and isn't worth your time just from the first meeting.

Almost 10 years ago when I was in school, my class played football with another class, and one of the people on their side was to put it bluntly, being a dick, he was showing off and insulting every person within earshot. I disliked him from the moment I saw him.

Fast Forward 10 years, and I met him again, this time though he was going to be my room mate :/

Although he might have changed during the the last 10 years, this was my first time meeting him since then, and my only interaction with this guy was a football game long ago, but it was enough to make me feel defensive around him. that, and the fact that we don't get along at all.

Would our relationship be different if we had met in better circumstances? I don't know, but I think not, as even if we had a good first meeting, eventually his all around asshole behavior would show up anyways.

I believe first impressions are usually quite accurate, but that's what my experiences have taught me, when I meet new people I tend to be quiet and observe them, see how they respond to me before i judge them, anyone worth anything will try to get to know you even if you don't say anything, while the less-then-useless people will just dismiss you, and that's a good basis to know who is and isn't worth your time.