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Monday, December 02, 2024

Opinion

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

McCutcheon ruling hurts US democracy

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court hammered a new nail into the coffin of American democracy with its ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court eliminated restrictions on the total amount of money individual donors can give to political parties and candidates in a given election cycle.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

News shows we are united by human experience

The recent, tragic developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict are always front-page news. The struggles of the European Union offer promising articles. And for some reason, the media seems to be getting a kick out of the fact that all undergraduates in North Korea must cut their hair like that of their supreme leader, Kim Jong Un. I guess that’s what it takes to sell papers these days.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

Scott relies on half truths in gubernatorial race

As the November gubernatorial election looms on Florida’s horizon, the Rick Scott and Charlie Crist camps are neck and neck in the polls. However, a Voter Survey Service poll commissioned by the Sunshine State News released Monday revealed Scott has pulled slightly ahead of Crist. As it stands, Scott leads with a 45-percent poll ranking, and Crist is lagging at 44 percent.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Accent should invite more alleged criminals

Accent Speakers Bureau announced its sponsoring of Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, before he abruptly canceled the visit on April 1. I find myself defending Accent’s decision to bring the ex-Israeli prime minister. This might strike you as odd, considering Olmert’s dark side, but let me explain.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Don’t feed the trolls: a new class of cyber bullies

The Internet has given us so many beautiful and fantastic things. We can communicate with others in far-off lands, we can research almost anything within the span of a minute, and we can create and share information instantly. But it’s also bred a new class of web users that almost everyone with an Internet connection has experienced: the troll.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Rush’s vampiring ways are not the issue

A lot of hoopla was made last week over the revelation that congressional candidate — and UF graduate  — Jake Rush participated in various role-playing games, typically starring as a vampire. The story quickly went national, as various political blogs and news outlets wanted to discover more on the vampire who wants to role play as a congressman.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Marijuana rips lives, families apart

DENVER — In what will go down in history as the biggest national overdose since America died of alcohol poisoning once Prohibition was lifted, the entire state of Colorado has overdosed on marijuana.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Embrace the dad jeans: Normcore is in

Spring is abloom, but ignore the flower prints and bright colors: What you should really be digging out of your closet is the pair of dad jeans you bought months ago at the thrift with the intention of turning into distressed cutoffs.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  DARTS LAURELS

Darts & Laurels 4/4/14

Is it just us, or was this week not totally hellish? Most of us are in that comfortable lull between midterms and finals, the weather is gorgeous, and McDonald's will be giving away coffee for the next two weeks.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Government seeks to destroy privacy

The rapid growth of technology’s capabilities is cause to reflect on what privacy means in the 21st century. But the U.S. government is not concerned with such reflection. In the post-9/11 world, the government has made it a top priority not to redefine but destroy the idea of privacy.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Accent blunders suggest tokenism

On Monday, I was surprised to learn that Accent Speaker’s Bureau had to cancel its event featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after he backed out of the interview. I assumed it was an early April Fools’ Day joke. The news of the cancellation came the same day that Olmert was convicted of bribery in a Tel Aviv court for taking $160,000 in bribes to speed along government permits to build the Holyland housing estate while he was the mayor of Jerusalem.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

Get-the-flunk-out-of-my-inbox: FERPA needs revamp

As we reported Wednesday, students have noticed a sudden influx of emails from a website called ClusterFlunk advertising networking services. Although junk email plagues everyone, Webmail’s spam filter usually catches them. However, as in this case, messages occasionally trickle through, reminding us that personal data — such as students’ university email addresses — are public knowledge.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

Defense against the dark LARPs: a Jake Rush story

Jake Rush caught the attention of websites like Gawker when reports surfaced of the Alachua Republican lawyer’s involvement with live-action role-playing games. During his undergraduate years at UF, Rush was part of The Camarilla, the UF chapter of an international gaming society. Around 2009, under the name of his gaming alter ego Chazz Darling, Rush posted messages in a gaming forum with violent and sexual threats, according to Gawker.



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