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Between the growing acceptance of geek culture and an emphasis on a player-friendly style, the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons brought in a lot of new players with its 4th Edition books and carved out an even bigger niche for itself in the pop culture consciousness. Now, after a couple years of playtesting at conventions and going online for feedback, Wizards of the Coast has released a 5th Edition of the classic game.

The 4th Edition, while very newbie-friendly, was also controversial among older players who complained that it changed too much. A newer game called Pathfinder, heavily inspired by earlier versions of D&D, became a serious competitor. So with the 5th Edition D&D has taken a step back. It feels much more like 3rd Edition (or 3.5) than 4th. This does mean that once again certain classes — magic-users, primarily — are more complicated to play than others, but there are fewer temporary buffs and debuffs to track. Combat in general has been simplified and in the games I’ve played it goes faster, even with a lot of players at the table.

Tom Engelhardt keeps churning out great books by collecting his posts from TomDispatch.com. His latest book, Shadow Government, is essential reading. Of the ten essays included, eight are on basically the same topic, resulting in some repetition and even some contradiction. But when things that need repeating are repeated this well, one mostly wants other people to read them -- or perhaps to have them involuntarily spoken aloud by everybody's iPhones.

We live in an age in which the most important facts are not seriously disputed and also not seriously known or responded to.

Jacob George’s suicide last month — a few days after President Obama announced that the US was launching its war against ISIS — opens a deep, terrible hole in the national identity. George: singer, banjo player, poet, peace warrior, vet. He served three tours in Afghanistan. He brought the war home. He tried to repair the damage.

Finally, finally, he reached for “the surefire therapy for ending the pain,” as a fellow vet told Truthdig. He was 32.

When New York Times report James Risen published his previous book, State of War, the Times ended its delay of over a year and published his article on warrantless spying rather than be scooped by the book. The Times claimed it hadn't wanted to influence the 2004 presidential election by informing the public of what the President was doing. But this week a Times editor said on 60 Minutes that the White House had warned him that a terrorist attack on the United States would be blamed on the Times if one followed publication -- so it may be that the Times' claim of contempt for democracy was a cover story for fear and patriotism. The Times never did report various other important stories in Risen's book.

No single review or interview can do justice to “Pay Any Price” -- the new book by James Risen that is the antithesis of what routinely passes for journalism about the “war on terror.” Instead of evasive tunnel vision, the book offers big-picture acuity: focusing on realities that are pervasive and vastly destructive.Published this week, “Pay Any Price” throws down an urgent gauntlet. We should pick it up. After 13 years of militarized zealotry and fear-mongering in the name of fighting terrorism, the book -- subtitled “Greed, Power, and Endless War” -- zeros in on immense horrors being perpetrated in the name of national security.

As an investigative reporter for the New York Times, Risen has been battling dominant power structures for a long time. His new book is an instant landmark in the best of post-9/11 journalism. It’s also a wise response to repressive moves against him by the Bush and Obama administrations.

“...we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the Pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you. That's why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.” 
― R.J. Palacio

Climate scientists warn that continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic climate change. A report released in September by Food & Water Watch, The Urgent Case for a Ban on Fracking, shows how huge amounts of methane are released during the fracking process, which traps 87 times more heat pound for pound than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. 

Participants in Global Frackdown will organize events in their communities united around a common mission statement that calls for a ban on fracking and investment in renewable energy.

The mission statement reads:

Will precinct-by-precinct, 15 minute-by-15 minute election night results that are available only to the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, compromise the security of the statewide election?

In Ohio’s notorious 2004 presidential election, called by pollster Lou Harris “one of the most corrupt in U.S. history,” one of the signs of election tampering was the impossible results flowing from precincts in Republican rural Ohio. In Cyde, Ohio they initially reported 130 percent voter turnout.

In Perry County, one precinct came in at 120 percent, another at 114 percent. In Miami County, the Concord Southwest precinct claimed 679 out of 689 voters cast ballots overwhelmingly for Bush. They later admitted to The Free Press that only 549 people signed into the polls and that the other votes had been the result of bad computer tallies.

Now with Ohio’s new election night reporting system it is easier than ever to stack the deck and bring in the cybervote at the precinct level.

Secretary of State’s strange secret software patches suspected purpose to steal election