Global
On October 15 in partnership with USA Today The Ohio State University (OSU) sponsored the third in a series of panels by the Bipartisan Policy Center's Commission on Political Reform. The Center intends to hold a series of town hall style meetings to build the appearance of national consensus around policy recommendations they intend to offer Congress and the President in 2014. The event took place on the same day that the Center and USA Today released a joint poll claiming that most Americans support the Center's conclusions.
The event featured two panels, each with a moderator who asked questions, and took written and vetted questions from the audience and the internet. Questioners were required to list their affiliation along with their name on the tiny question sheets. Unscripted questions from the press and audience were not permitted during the panels. Broadcast teams from C-SPAN and a Los Angles based media outlet that declined to identify itself covered the event. The Lantern, the OSU student paper with advertising and business departments operated by USA TODAY, also ran a story on the event.
The event featured two panels, each with a moderator who asked questions, and took written and vetted questions from the audience and the internet. Questioners were required to list their affiliation along with their name on the tiny question sheets. Unscripted questions from the press and audience were not permitted during the panels. Broadcast teams from C-SPAN and a Los Angles based media outlet that declined to identify itself covered the event. The Lantern, the OSU student paper with advertising and business departments operated by USA TODAY, also ran a story on the event.
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For a country that prides itself on the transparency with which it governs, the United States has suffered a few too many hiccups of late. Even by the standards of many politically unfastened observers, revelations concerning the data collection behavior of the National Security Agency were enough to raise eyebrows. No matter where one comes down on the timeless debate between civil liberties and national security, transparency was forfeited in the interim. Now, due to the vigilance of UN investigator Ben Emmerson, another spotlight will be directed toward a controversial American operation: drone strikes.
In a freshly released report, Emmerson outlines a demand for the United States to make its drone program more transparent as it relates to civilian casualties. A policy carried out by the CIA, drone strikes are not known for their propensity to operate in a transparent manner. Indeed, many in the international community have called upon the U.S. to make this shift in the direction of clarity before.
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Area dynasties look to keep playoff dominance going
As the shadows grow longer in October, high school teams prepare for their runs in the state tournaments. Certain schools’ names pop up again and again as the teams to beat in their prospective sports: Columbus Academy in field hockey, DeSales in football, Newark Catholic in girls volleyball, Upper Arlington in girls tennis and Worthington Christian in boys soccer to mention a few.
How are these teams able to make their mark in the postseason year after year?
The answer could be as simple as one word: tradition.
DESALES FOOTBALL
Last October seemed a little bit colder for coach Ryan Wiggins and the DeSales football team.
After finishing 5-5 overall, the Stallions were left out of the Division III playoffs, snapping an 18-year string of consecutive playoff berths for DeSales.
“It was very different when the playoffs are going on and your team is not in the discussion,” says Wiggins, whose team suffered two triple overtime losses last year. “We were knocking at the door but we didn’t get in.”
There have been seasons when a .500 finish could get the Stallions into the playoffs.
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Pokemon has been a mainstay for Nintendo's handheld video game systems since its 1996 Japanese debut. It may be single-handedly responsible for the company's domination of the handheld market against challenges from Sony throughout the last decade. For every new iteration of their portable consoles, from the Game Boy series to the newer DS series, they've always brought a Pokemon game (though never at launch). So it was inevitable that Nintendo would release a Pokemon game for their newest handheld system, the 3DS. Pokemon games are always released in pairs, and the latest iterations, X & Y, were notably released on the same day worldwide, a first for the Japanese-created series. Now that it's finally been released, does it live up to the legacy?
The popularity of the turn-based role playing game series owes a lot to its broad appeal. The monsters you collect in-game to do battle for you are mostly colorful and cartoonish, easily translated into anime movies and plush toys.
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It's rare to hear something nerdy and not have it be an insulting joke or at best a great parody. Austin Texas resident Damp Heat shatters the artifacts of old with his 18 track hip-hop album “The Lich.” The concept album recounts a fairly standard tale of a Dungeons and Dragons adventure from first meeting to final confrontation.
Listening to tracks on this album, which came highly recommended by my old Dungeon Master, one of the team at clawclawbite.com, it is clear this artist both loves and plays his D&D. Much D&D related media, even by players, is parody. The parody pandemic is so pervasive I can no longer cast magic missile without using “that” voice. If you play you know which one. Much nerd parody in media is fun, and full of inside jokes, but most of us don't live the life portrayed in Weird Al's “White and Nerdy.”
The Album begins with a joyous party track called Tavern. The track is fun and upbeat. It also has multiple voices raping from a first person perspective and they sound the way a group of adventurers would if adventurers meeting in a Tavern and embarking on a perilous quest actually rapped.
Before Fox News, there was the Daily Mail. If Fox News is a howling Tea Partier, the Daily Mail is his even more insane great uncle, the old master, the one who invented the game. For over a century they have printed stories to support their fantasy dreamland of ordinary white Britain being besieged by homosexuality, immigration, socialism, and, damn and blast, wind farms. Their incendiary covers, each a screaming declaration of impending doom for British society as we know it, are infamous. But for the last fortnight the senile, deluded grandpa of classic British misanthropy has kicked up an almighty fuss, just to remind us that he's still in the game, and that he's still got teeth.
Conference season has just passed, and Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour party, announced that if he was elected Prime Minister in 2015 he would freeze all energy prices for 20 months. This essentially 'won' the conference season for him; it shored up the left of his party after a difficult summer, overshadowed would-be damaging headlines about old party skulduggery in which Miliband was partly involved, and trumped the Conservatives' own offerings, which were either tawdry or bizarre.
Conference season has just passed, and Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour party, announced that if he was elected Prime Minister in 2015 he would freeze all energy prices for 20 months. This essentially 'won' the conference season for him; it shored up the left of his party after a difficult summer, overshadowed would-be damaging headlines about old party skulduggery in which Miliband was partly involved, and trumped the Conservatives' own offerings, which were either tawdry or bizarre.
Google Inc. is now aligned with the notorious ALEC.
Quietly, Google has joined ALEC -- the American Legislative Exchange Council -- the shadowy corporate alliance that pushes odious laws through state legislatures.
In the process, Google has signed onto an organization that promotes such regressive measures as tax cuts for tobacco companies, school privatization to help for-profit education firms, repeal of state taxes for the wealthy and opposition to renewable energy disliked by oil companies.
ALEC’s reactionary efforts -- thoroughly documented [1] by the Center for Media and Democracy -- are shameful assaults on democratic principles. And Google is now among the hundreds of companies in ALEC [2]. Many people who’ve admired Google are now wondering: how could this be?
Quietly, Google has joined ALEC -- the American Legislative Exchange Council -- the shadowy corporate alliance that pushes odious laws through state legislatures.
In the process, Google has signed onto an organization that promotes such regressive measures as tax cuts for tobacco companies, school privatization to help for-profit education firms, repeal of state taxes for the wealthy and opposition to renewable energy disliked by oil companies.
ALEC’s reactionary efforts -- thoroughly documented [1] by the Center for Media and Democracy -- are shameful assaults on democratic principles. And Google is now among the hundreds of companies in ALEC [2]. Many people who’ve admired Google are now wondering: how could this be?
The government shutdown engineered by the Republican tea party zealots in the House of Representatives is headed into its third week. The damage is spreading. Infants go without nutrition. Children are locked out of pre-school programs. Scientists are losing support and locking up labs.
The people taking the biggest hit, of course, are public employees — the workers who serve the American people. Some 800,000 of them were initially furloughed without pay. Ironically, those deemed the most essential are paying the highest price.
“Essential” government employees are now, as Jeffrey David Cox, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told me on my radio show, essentially “indentured servants.” They’re forced to work without pay. About half of AFGE’s 670,000 members are deemed “essential.” They are required to work, and face disciplinary action if they don’t. But they aren’t getting paid and won’t be until the shutdown ends and Congress decides to vote them retroactive pay.
The people taking the biggest hit, of course, are public employees — the workers who serve the American people. Some 800,000 of them were initially furloughed without pay. Ironically, those deemed the most essential are paying the highest price.
“Essential” government employees are now, as Jeffrey David Cox, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told me on my radio show, essentially “indentured servants.” They’re forced to work without pay. About half of AFGE’s 670,000 members are deemed “essential.” They are required to work, and face disciplinary action if they don’t. But they aren’t getting paid and won’t be until the shutdown ends and Congress decides to vote them retroactive pay.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Saudi Arabian court sentenced four men to
prison for up to 10 years, plus up to 2,000 lashes with a whip, after
they were convicted in what the local media dubbed as the "naked
dancing" case, Al-Sharq newspaper reported.
The four were charged with "dancing on a vehicle in public and posting a video online, encouraging vice, defying norms of the society, and violating public morals," Arabic-language Al-Sharq reported on Oct. 3, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"In a video posted on YouTube, several men appear dancing atop a vehicle in the ultra-conservative province of Qassim. None seemed naked," AFP said.
According to a Google translation of Al-Sharq's website, the men's performance included "dancing and striptease".
The court in Buraydah, Qassim's provincial capital, sentenced one defendant to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes, and another man to seven years in prison plus 1,200 lashes.
Each of the other two men were jailed for three years and 500 lashes.
The four were charged with "dancing on a vehicle in public and posting a video online, encouraging vice, defying norms of the society, and violating public morals," Arabic-language Al-Sharq reported on Oct. 3, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"In a video posted on YouTube, several men appear dancing atop a vehicle in the ultra-conservative province of Qassim. None seemed naked," AFP said.
According to a Google translation of Al-Sharq's website, the men's performance included "dancing and striptease".
The court in Buraydah, Qassim's provincial capital, sentenced one defendant to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes, and another man to seven years in prison plus 1,200 lashes.
Each of the other two men were jailed for three years and 500 lashes.
This article is excerpted from the new book War No More: The Case for Abolition.
In the late eighteenth century the majority of people alive on earth were held in slavery or serfdom (three-quarters of the earth's population, in fact, according to the Encyclopedia of Human Rights from Oxford University Press). The idea of abolishing something so pervasive and long-lasting as slavery was widely considered ridiculous. Slavery had always been with us and always would be. One couldn't wish it away with naive sentiments or ignore the mandates of our human nature, unpleasant though they might be. Religion and science and history and economics all purported to prove slavery's permanence, acceptability, and even desirability. Slavery's existence in the Christian Bible justified it in the eyes of many. In Ephesians 6:5 St. Paul instructed slaves to obey their earthly masters as they obeyed Christ.
In the late eighteenth century the majority of people alive on earth were held in slavery or serfdom (three-quarters of the earth's population, in fact, according to the Encyclopedia of Human Rights from Oxford University Press). The idea of abolishing something so pervasive and long-lasting as slavery was widely considered ridiculous. Slavery had always been with us and always would be. One couldn't wish it away with naive sentiments or ignore the mandates of our human nature, unpleasant though they might be. Religion and science and history and economics all purported to prove slavery's permanence, acceptability, and even desirability. Slavery's existence in the Christian Bible justified it in the eyes of many. In Ephesians 6:5 St. Paul instructed slaves to obey their earthly masters as they obeyed Christ.