Can Facebook Trademark the Word 'Face'?
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:12 am PDT
 The Atlantic Wire - Facebook lawyers are attempting to secure a degree of trademark authority over the word "face" as part of a company name. It may sound outlandish, but the social networking site has already had some success with the word "book." Facebook has successfully blocked other companies from building sites with similar-sounding names that end in "book," such as "Placebook." Now it wants similar ownership over "face" and is currently pursuing a trademark claim. But, as is so often the case with Facebook, the situation manages to get even stranger and more dramatic from here. Full Story | Top |
Can South Africa keep tapping World Cup spirit?
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:39 pm PDT
 The Christian Science Monitor - In 2007, the US State Department asked me to go to South Africa to meet with leading newspaper editors. With the 2010 World Cup looming, they wanted to hear the experience of an editor who had managed coverage of a major sports event, as I had in Salt Lake City with the 2002 Winter Olympics. Full Story | Top |
Will GOP Official's Self-Outing Help Gay Rights?
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:53 am PDT
 The Atlantic Wire - Ken Mehlman, a former Republican National Committee chairman and the manager of George W. Bush's 2004 campaign, has announced that he is gay. The news, reported by The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, has provoked strong reaction in gossip-hungry Washington and especially among liberals who are wondering why Mehlman worked so hard for a campaign and political party that have been less than receptive to gay-rights issues. Many observers write that Mehlman's sexuality was long an open secret. Here's what people have to say. Full Story | Top |
Price of August naps: history's rudest awakenings
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:16 pm PDT
 The Christian Science Monitor - The world sometimes falls asleep in August. And when it wakes in September it sorely rues the nap. Some of the most consequential events in modern Western history happened in August. Yet many people still think “not much happens†this month. Full Story | Top |
UN Report on Rwanda Genocide Shakes Africa
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:55 am PDT
The Atlantic Wire - A leaked United Nations report on the Rwandan genocide makes the explosive charge that the Rwandan Army, long credited with helping to end the infamous 1994 genocide of ethnic Tutsis, committed hundreds of acts of genocide against ethnic Hutu refugees in 1996-1997. The document, first reported by French newspaper Le Monde, states, "The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces." The report implicates much of Rwanda's current government, including President Paul Kagame, in joining with Congolese rebels to slaughter Rwandan refugees who had fled to the Congo. Rwanda is challenging the accusations, saying they only attacked members of the Hutu militias responsible for the 1994 genocide. The UN report risks seriously complicating the always-tenuous politics of Central Africa, where Rwanda has become a beacon of stability. Here's what reporters and Rwanda-watchers have to say about the report. Full Story | Top |
Rubio's Great Test Ahead
Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:00 pm PDT
RealClearPolitics.com - Marco Rubio's real test begins today. He is the GOP's great Cuban hope. A potential Republican bridge to Hispanic voters. The most likely Republican VP nominee in 2012. Even the presidency is attainable someday. It's all within reach for Rubio. Full Story | Top |
Do Democrats Deserve to Lose in November?
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:32 am PDT
The Nation - The Nation -- “The Democrats may deserve to lose in November,” Timothy Egan wrote provocatively on the New York Times’ Opinionator blog yesterday. “They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance.” Full Story | Top |
5 Best Sunday Columns
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:42 am PDT
The Atlantic Wire - What Glenn Beck's D.C. Rally Reveals About Tea Parties The Atlantic's Chris Good reports on Glenn Beck's rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, where neither Beck nor Sarah Palin said anything overtly political. "Surprisingly, Beck's rally wasn't a political event. ... If anything, this rally exploded the notion that the Tea Party is divorced from religious sentiment and social conservatism--as hard as it tries to be--and made plain the truth that Glenn Beck holds those two worlds together in a charismatic nexus. ... Everything Glenn Beck says during the rally has to do with the discovery of faith, American history, or some connection between the two."Obama's Failure in Sudan Risks Another Genocide The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof takes the Obama administration to task for their "incoherent, contradictory and apparently failing Sudan policy. There is a growing risk that Sudan will be the site of the world’s bloodiest war in 2011, and perhaps a new round of genocide as well. This isn’t America’s fault, but neither are we using all of our leverage to avert it. ... The problem isn’t that the administration is too busy to devise a policy toward Sudan but that it has a half-dozen policies, mostly at cross-purposes. ... Sudan’s on-and-off north-south civil war could resume soon. How bad could it be? Well, the last iteration of that war lasted about 20 years and killed some two million people. Mr. Obama’s former head of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned this year that the place facing the greatest risk of genocide or mass killing is southern Sudan." Kristof reticently praises Bush for his Sudan policy and urges Obama to finally take action.How Politics Are Sapping Economic Recovery The New York Times' Peter Goodman writes, "a sense has taken hold that government policy makers cannot deliver meaningful intervention. That is because nearly any proposed curative could risk adding to the national debt — a political nonstarter. The situation has left American fortunes pinned to an uncertain remedy: hoping that things somehow get better. ... Even after the November election, few expect a different dynamic. 'We’re already in a gridlock situation, and nothing substantive is going to change,' says Bruce Bartlett, who was a Treasury economist in the first Bush administration. 'Clearly, a weak economy in 2012 will be very good for whoever the Republican presidential candidate is. It’s hard to see how the Republicans lose by blocking stimulus.'"American Catholicism and the Mosque Madness Notre Dame professors Scott Appleby and John McGreevy write in the New York Review of Books, "As historians of American Catholicism, and Catholics, we are concerned to see the revival of a strain of nativism in the current controversy over the establishment of an Islamic center some blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan." They draw many parallels, from language to dress, between 19th century U.S. Catholics and today's Muslim-Americans. "It took Catholics more than a full century to attain their current level of acceptance and influence, and they made their share of mistakes along the way. ... But if the Catholic experience in the United States holds any lesson it is that becoming American also means asserting one’s constitutional rights, fully and forcefully, even if that assertion is occasionally taken to be insulting."What Israel-Palestine Peace Process Can Learn from Northern Ireland Ali Abunimah writes in the New York Times, "Success in the [1998] Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy." For example, he cites "the American refusal to speak to the Palestinian party Hamas, which decisively won elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006." But resolution in Northern Ireland involved talking to Irish political party Sinn Fein, which had "close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom." Also, "At times, the United States put intense pressure on the British government, leveling the field so that negotiations could result in an agreement with broad support. By contrast, the American government let the Israel lobby shift the balance of United States support toward the stronger of the two parties: Israel." Abunimah says the U.S. should follow its Northern Ireland model. Full Story | Top |
THERE WILL BE NO MISSOURI MOMENT
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 04:56 pm PDT
David Shribman - HONOLULU -- Later this week we pass two historic milestones. On Wednesday the American military mission in Iraq officially ends -- the last combat brigade left earlier this month -- or at least is transformed principally from war-making to peacekeeping. On Thursday we mark the 65th anniversary of the official end of World War II. Full Story | Top |
Glenn Beck keeps rally more historical than political
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 01:07 pm PDT
The Upshot - Glenn Beck talked a lot about American presidents during Saturday's "Restoring Honor" rally—just not the current one. He lavished praise on George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and even read a bit from the "Gettysburg Address." Beck, a conservative radio and television host, has long said the Lincoln Memorial event would be nonpolitical. So [...] Full Story | Top |
Glenn Beck compares ABC report to Nazi propaganda
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:43 pm PDT
The Upshot - Glenn Beck apparently doesn't buy into the adage that all press is good press. On Friday, the conservative host described a "Good Morning America" segment on the Lincoln Memorial rally he's holding Saturday — on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" address at the same site — as a [...] Full Story | Top |
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