On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of ending the death penalty for the crime of child rape. This is the second such ruling this year. Last September an unofficial national moratorium on the death penalty went into effect when the court agreed to hear two appeals to lethal injection arguing that the practice causes extreme pain constituting cruel and unusual punishment. The moratorium was ended when the court finally ruled on April 16th that Kentucky’s, the state in question, guidelines for lethal injection did not in fact constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The death penalty tends to be considered a “third-rail” issue along the lines of abortion. The sudden willingness of the highest court to rule on such cases seems to mark a shift in this regard. Anti-death penalty activists are hopeful that this current trend will end in an eventual ban on its usage. The United States is one of the few “western” countries to still use the death penalty.
In Other News:
Also on Wednesday, during a phone-in town hall meeting Presidential hopeful John McCain told a Floridian voter that only World War III would justify reinstituting a national draft. While this calms some fears, the fact that he failed to define World War III of course still leaves the issue a bit open to interpretation. Given the current ambiguous nature of the so-called “War on Terror”, it is unclear at what point a conflict would in fact obtain such a label. Read More »
This video about John McCain calling his wife the C-word should insult me. But it doesn't. Instead, it makes me laugh (if around others, listen to it with earphones ON)
Quickly, make a list of your top five least favorite celebrities, celebrities that you would go so far as to say that you really hated.
Now how many of those are women?
According to an article from BBC News, female celebrities seem to bear the brunt of the world’s popular culture-related displeasure. A British poll stated that four of the top five most-hated celebrities were female and the top five most-loved celebrities were all male (strangely, Simon Cowell showed up on both lists).
If this poll is an accurate indication of the way societies view celebrity, there seems to be a misogynist slant against females that is fairly representative of the way women in general are viewed by the world. That is to say, female celebrities are vilified for the same reasons that females are vilified by culture as a whole: they are catty, or overly ambitious and assertive, or bad mothers, or too sensitive, or greedy. It doesn’t need to be pointed out that many of these qualities would be applauded in a man.
But before this goes too angry and feminist, the saddest and scariest part of the article was that most of the anger directed at females in the spotlight come not from men, but from other women. Women no doubt influenced by history and society’s unrealistic expectations of them, but women nonetheless. Read More »
Meanwhile both campaigns continued their struggle on Monday to derail the others’ lead. In North Carolina, Barack Obama sought to spread his magnetism to working-class voters—who throughout the primaries have remained solidly in Hilary’s camp. He told a rally that he was going to take their questions rather than give them another party speech. “I want you to be able to lift the hood, and kick the tires, you know, take me out for a test drive a little bit”
The next democratic primaries will occur on May 6th in North Carolina, and Indiana.
It takes 2,024 delegates to capture the democratic nomination but as it stands now, neither candidate could capture that many from the remaining primaries.
With the infamous Iowa caucus and the first Primaries (in New Hampshire, if you haven’t been paying much attention) out of the way, the 2008 election is on. Not that it wasn’t really on before – I couldn’t open a web page or turn on the radio without hearing something about Obama, Hillary or Huckabee – but we have officially entered a new phase. And things are about to get serious.
Welcome to Primary Season, the time when we get out and vote for the candidate we want representing our party in the run for the Oval Office. This might seem completely boring/unimportant- ”who the hell is this Barack Obama character, anyway” to you, but it is quite the opposite.
There are currently a slew of Democratic and Republican candidates traipsing across the country in attempts to become our next President. Only one of each will have the opportunity to go for the gold. And only one will actually take it.
And, might I remind you, the man or woman who finally moves into the White House in 2008 is completely up to us. Yes, even you.
I know that discussing politics is not the top priority of many college students. What with more important topics like class, partying and reality TV, who even has the time? But it should be; especially now. Read More »
I must admit, I haven’t been paying all that much attention to the upcoming presidential vote. The main reason being, I stopped watching The Daily Show in college. And yes, at 10 a.m. Monday through Friday, I was lucky enough to be home watching Jon Stewart, and not in class. Hint: become an arts major, not a physics major.
But, thanks to RadarOnline, I now have a better idea of who our potential presidential front-runners are, and where they are in the race.
The presidential candidates have been using Myspace as a means to put their names and messages out there to the Wired Ones of America – the ones who are up on their technology, in with the trends, the bloggers, the “cool kids,” – you know…us. And what’s better proof of just how well they and their campaigners are doing? Their number of Myspace friends.
According to the site’s very helpful Saved By the Bell chart, it seems as though Barack Obama is the Zack Morris of ’08 candidates. I wonder if Barack can pull off sporting such “natural” blonde locks and a nifty cell phone quite like the Zack Meister? Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it right – he has over 100,000 Myspace friends. Almost as many as I have. Read More »
Quickly, make a list of your top five least favorite celebrities, celebrities that you would go so far as to say that you really hated.
Reality Shows We Miss
Comedy is So In This Season
New Round of Shops at Target!
Unscripted With MIB 3
Most Controversial Comedies
