Opinion

Dmitry Medvedev; Ralph Nader; John Kerry.

UCI Registrar Office raises fee for verification request; Craigslist moves to curb ads for sex services; Sudanese government censors newspapers; NYC mayor Bloomberg proposes six-cent plastic bag tax.

The clock strikes midnight, your forehead sweats and you slurp the last few drops of your energy drink. In eight hours your paper is due. You would have done it earlier, but there were those midterms, that party or maybe you just forgot. There's a business to help get you out of this situation.

"Hope" and "Change" have been the rallying cries of this election campaign. Now that the votes have been counted and the "Candidate for Change" Barack Obama is our president-elect, how much hope should we have that change is on its way?

Just this October, at a HIV/AIDS conference, South Africa's new Health Minister Barbara Hogan stated, "HIV causes AIDS." To an outsider, those words are unremarkable. They state the obvious. Of course HIV causes AIDS. The link between the virus and the syndrome has been a fact since 1983. Yet, these three words represent nothing short of a revolution. It has taken countless studies, relentless pressure from activists, doctors, scientists and foreign governments and finally the outbreak of political infighting to bring about acceptance of that statement.

Unfortunately, UC Irvine does not offer dental benefits as part of its student health insurance plan. In fact, it is one of only two University of California campuses whose mandatory student health insurance does not include or provide the option to add dental benefits.

Amidst the financial crisis, an imminent election and a dozen important state propositions, a proposition decriminalizing (but not legalizing) prostitution in the city of San Francisco is a rather small and contained issue.

Any activity can be an art, as long as it inspires. Lecturing is no different. Throughout one's experience as an undergrad at UC Irvine, one has the luxury of constantly being inspired by a lecture. Some lectures inspire learning and others a siesta. While inspiring mouthfuls of dripping drool can have its glory, the real heroes to any student are those professors who can make an abominable subject digestible.

Although much can be said about the problems in America's health care system, perhaps even more can be said about a huge road block in health care effectiveness the world over: pharmaceutical companies. Through a variety of minute techniques that the average person may not even think about, pharmaceutical companies are able to pluck the pockets of both the American poor and wealthy alike. Moreover, due to the citizens of some impoverished nations having no finances to sweep up, some pharmaceutical companies simply refuse to make their products available in some countries.

On our way back to our apartment after eating at Burger King, my roommate and I spotted the Irvine Republican headquarters. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to meet actual conservatives, we decided to pay a visit. As we pulled up to the headquarters, a nice old lady asked if we wanted to volunteer. We politely declined and smiled. She then asked where we were from, and we told her that we were students from UC Irvine. She paused and said, "You guys are Democrats then." Damn.

Physical exhibition of feelings not proper to Germans, survey says. Christians still crazy.

Florida still a swing state; Governator hits campaign trail; UC Davis researchers to curb horny squirrels with birth control program; Toshio Tamogami not up on 20th Century history; Kim Jong Il still crazy.