Restoring sanity, with a chuckle
They were the nicest 200,000 people I had ever met. If you weren’t in Washington at the Rally to Restore Sanity and or Fear on Saturday, you probably saw pictures of the funny signs and the interviews with the random people.
The Politics Survey
College students, especially those in Cambridge, have a reputation for being left of center. Our results bore that out. Overall, 48 percent of MIT students thought the Democratic Party best reflected their views, whereas only 9 percent said the same of the Republicans. The Libertarian party put up a good fight, matching Republicans at 9 percent. A meager 2 percent identified with the Tea Party movement.
Flynn welcomes student opinions New UA and ASA adviser sees year of ‘listening and learning’ ahead
Leah Flynn, the new Assistant Dean and Director for Student Leadership and Engagement Programs, began work last week, planning for a year of “listening and learning.”
Where are all the political student groups on campus?
Where are MIT’s Campus Republicans and Campus Democrats? Two well-known groups are missing from MIT’s tremendous array of campus organizations, political or otherwise — College Democrats and College Republicans. Both organizations founded chapters in the late 1990s, but in only a little over a decade later, both are defunct. The website for MIT College Democrats carries a copyright of 2004, and the listed co-presidents of the club graduated in 2007. MIT College Republicans’ website has suffered a similar fate, last updated in February 2003.
A guide to campus groups engaged in political advocacy
If you’re interested in getting involved in politics, there are a number of groups on campus that focus on specific issues. <i>The Tech </i>highlights six of them.
SURVEY SAYS... The results are in
The economy. Health care reform. Iran’s nuclear program. Issues like these will determine the outcome of today’s midterm elections, when Americans across the country will vote for 37 Senators, 36 governors, and all 435 members of the House of Representatives. At stake are the Democrats’ control over both houses of Congress, and consequently, the direction of Barack Obama’s presidency for at least the next two years. With the increasing importance of science-related policy in America, and its relevance to MIT, <i>The Tech</i> wanted to know where MIT students stand on the important political issues of the day.
Attack on a Baghdad church <br /> strikes the country’s soul
BAGHDAD — Blood still smeared the walls of Our Lady of Salvation Church on Monday. Scraps of flesh remained between the pews. It was the worst massacre of Iraqi Christians since the war began here in 2003. But for survivors, the tragedy went deeper than the toll of the human wreckage: A fusillade of grenades, bullets and suicide vests had unraveled yet another thread of the country’s once eclectic fabric.
American colleges sound warning on ‘Four Loko’ drink
Packing several drinks’ worth of alcohol and a jolt of caffeine into a single container, Four Loko is a potent and increasingly popular brew, known on college campuses as “blackout in a can.’’
Decision on Boston Councilman Chuck Turner won’t be rushed
Boston’s City Council will wait a month before it decides the fate of Chuck Turner, the six-term councilor convicted Friday of accepting a $1,000 bribe in his district office from an FBI informant.
Tonight’s excitement: Races to watch for signs of political trends
WASHINGTON — Even for a nation that is, by now, used to drinking in political news through a fire hose, election night Tuesday could be a difficult one to absorb.
Shorts (left)
A federal appeals court will allow the military to continue enforcing the law restricting the service of openly gay men and women in the military while a lower court decision that struck the law down as unconstitutional is being appealed.
Early packages shipped to U.S. <br /> were viewed as dry run by al-Qaida
WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials in September intercepted several packages containing books, papers, CDs and other household items shipped to Chicago from Yemen and considered the possibility that the parcels might have been a test run for a terrorist attack, two officials said Monday night.
Shorts (right)
For $150 billion, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration could have sent astronauts back to the moon. The Obama administration judged that too expensive, and in September, Congress agreed to cancel the program.
Calm, then rain on Fri.
A vast high pressure system will take hold of the northeast United States for the first half of this week, resulting in calm, sunny conditions for our area. In fact, there will likely not be a cloud in the sky today, as the high pressure system slowly approaches from our west. However, the same system is currently causing cold air to be advected from our north, meaning temperatures will likely not break 50°F for the next two days.
The intimate civic duty
The Declaration of Independence states that man is endowed by his Creator the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This recognition of universal, sacred, and unalienable rights defines us as the American people and dictates what functions the state should provide. Further, the Declaration orders these rights: without life one cannot exercise liberty, and without liberty one cannot pursue happiness.
The case for Iran: moving toward mutual diplomacy
Both the historic diplomatic accomplishments that took place this spring between Brazil, Turkey, and Iran and this summer’s imposition of strict economic sanctions upon the latter nation signal a dire need for a new diplomatic strategy between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The fundamental right to life
In his article “Abortion: A question of values,” Keith Yost arrives at the conclusion that an embryo is a human life and has a right to life, but that the mother’s right to liberty may supersede the embryo’s right to life. We find his logic deeply flawed, and condemn the fundamental disregard for human life introduced by the application of relativism to human rights.<b></b>
Don’t vote!
Your vote doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. You can do the math yourself — imagine a close House race in which each voter has a 51 percent chance of voting for one candidate, 49 percent for another, and around 300,000 voters are expected to turn out. What are the chances that the marginal vote matters, i.e. without your input, the race would split exactly 150,000 to 150,000?
Letters to the Editor
I read your article about the redevelopment of the 181 Mass. Ave. Analog Devices by Novartis with great interest. This site had a sophisticated microfabrication facility that easily could have been transformed into a new nanofabrication facility for MIT’s use. Having a state of the art nanofabrication facility is essential to achieve excellence in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
Sports Shorts
Three-time defending champion MIT had five runners finish in the top eight — including a pair of freshmen — and the Engineers won their fourth straight New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) women’s cross country championship on Saturday afternoon at Moore State Park.
Volleyball ends season with win
In the regular-season finale of women’s volleyball on Saturday, MIT fell to NEWMAC rival the U.S. Coast Guard Academy before sweeping Johnson & Wales University in a non-conference tilt.
