Slouching towards Washington

By tomorrow morning we will almost certainly have heard that Barack Obama has secured a majority in the Electoral College and will begin a second term as president in January. Far less certain is whether Obama will secure a majority of the popular vote; five of nine national polls released today suggest either Romney winning or a statistical tie. One year after Occupy, such a split result might inspire a new, more negative, winter of discontent in the United States.

Sixty-seven years since Hiroshima

The first use of a nuclear weapon against people was sixty-seven years ago today, August 6 1945, when the United States Army destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. The city of Nagasaki was destroyed by another bomb three days later. Some two hundred forty thousand people, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, died from the attack and its aftereffects.

Better than disorganized dependents

In the wake of an NCAFC conference which I can firsthand tell you passed good policy but drained the batteries of its attendees, Edd Bauer, a sabb at Birmingham Guild of Students who was jailed and victimised last year for his anti-cuts activities, poses that "it is time the majority of independents got organised within NCAFC".

Edd is correct and the work must begin now.