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Debating Debates [14 Oct 2015|12:15am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/debbie_wasserman_schultz_doesn_t_want_to_talk_about_the_number_of_debates.html

LAS VEGAS—It’s the day of the first Democratic presidential debate, and all anyone wants to ask Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is why there won’t be that many more debates.
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Lincoln Chafee Just Lost [14 Oct 2015|02:52am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/lincoln_chafee_lost_the_democratic_primary_debate_the_former_rhode_island.html

It’s mysterious why Lincoln Chafee is on the stage at the Democratic debate, and it’s unclear that he’ll make it to the next one. While people may disagree over who “won” Tuesday night’s debate, we should have enough information to determine that Chafee, the former Rhode Island senator and governor, lost.
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Who Won the Democratic Debate? [14 Oct 2015|02:54am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/democratic_debate_who_won_vote_in_our_poll.html

Now that the first Democratic presidential debate is over, pundits and politicos will be gabbing about what it all means for each candidate’s campaign. Who triumphed? Who floundered? Who will ride the debate to electoral glory, and who is fated to fizzle? But TV talking heads won’t decide this election. The American people will. And all of them read Slate. So we’re turning to you, Slate readers: Who won?
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Who Won the Democratic Debate? [14 Oct 2015|02:54am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/democratic_debate_who_won_vote_in_our_poll.html

Now that the first Democratic presidential debate is over, pundits and politicos will be gabbing about what it all means for each candidate’s campaign. Who triumphed? Who floundered? Who will ride the debate to electoral glory, and who is fated to fizzle? But TV talking heads won’t decide this election. The American people will. And all of them read Slate. So we’re turning to you, Slate readers: Who won?
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Worldly and Wise [14 Oct 2015|04:01am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2015/10/hillary_clinton_won_the_foreign_policy_debate_the_former_secretary_of_state.html

One impression from Tuesday night’s Democratic debate: Vice President Joe Biden has no rationale to step into the race. If he’s been waiting until after this first prime-time test to see if Hillary Clinton collapsed, he must have seen for himself that she crushed it.
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The Fighter [14 Oct 2015|06:02am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/clinton_won_the_democratic_debate_by_going_on_offense.html

LAS VEGAS—Hillary Clinton came into the first Democratic presidential debate as the front-runner, and for perhaps the first time in the campaign, she looked like one. She was commanding on the issues and attacked Republicans in a way that was pleasing to Democrats and deflected the attacks aimed at her. If Joe Biden needed Clinton to falter to create a further appetite for his campaign, her performance seemed to have the opposite effect. 
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A Good Night for the Cause [14 Oct 2015|06:19am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/cnn_debate_was_a_great_ad_for_the_democratic_party.html

LAS VEGAS—Democratic Party officials and representatives in Las Vegas expressed plenty of optimism ahead of Tuesday night’s debate, to the point that they seemed naïve. These Democrats viewed the debate as a branding opportunity, a means of distancing the party from the foaming beast that emerges whenever Republican candidates gather to debate. The Democrats would spar and elucidate policy differences, but they would do so respectfully and without the interpersonal animus that’s dominated the first two cluttered Republican stages. They would entertain, but through lively discussion—not through Trumpian suplexes or nativist bromides.
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Clinton Cool [14 Oct 2015|06:20am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/10/hillary_clinton_was_too_cool_at_the_first_2015_cnn_democratic_debate_video.html

For some presumed frontrunners, the first debate of the primary season might be trenchrous, or at least a bit of a dance. That was not the case for Hillary Clinton. Foreign policy, Planned Parenthood, awkward bathroom jokes—no matter the question, Clinton proved to be utterly at ease, at one point enjoying a roiling applause simply for one well deployed “No.”
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Clinton Cool [14 Oct 2015|06:20am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/10/hillary_clinton_was_too_cool_at_the_first_2015_cnn_democratic_debate_video.html

For some presumed frontrunners, the first debate of the primary season might be treacherous, or at least a bit of a dance. That was not the case for Hillary Clinton. Foreign policy, Planned Parenthood, awkward bathroom jokes—no matter the question, Clinton proved to be utterly at ease, at one point enjoying a roiling applause simply for one well deployed “No.”
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Hillary’s Debate Should End the Biden Talk [14 Oct 2015|06:43am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/hillary_clinton_s_debate_performance_should_end_the_joe_biden_talk.html

Since the summer, Democrats have asked one question about their presidential primary: Will Joe Biden run?
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The CNN Democratic Debate in 90 Seconds [14 Oct 2015|07:21am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/video/2015/10/cnn_democratic_debate_recap_all_the_hillary_and_bernie_action_from_the_first.html

Miss Tuesday’s Democratic debate? In the above recap video, we’ve trimmed the fat from the Anderson Cooper-moderated debate down to a much more manageable 90 seconds. 
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Mr. Pop [14 Oct 2015|09:52am]

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2015/10/denniz_pop_max_martin_and_cheiron_studios_the_man_who_invented_modern_pop.html

Excerpted from The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook. Out now from WW Norton & Company.
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Room [14 Oct 2015|01:02pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2015/10/room_reviewed_the_movie_adaptation_of_emma_donoghue_s_novel_stars_brie_larson.html

There are experiences the mind shies away from imagining too fully. Every few years one of those cases comes to light in which someone—and let’s be honest, it’s pretty much always a woman—has been held captive for years on end by a self-appointed jailer (a man, because, all due respect to the many men I love, what other subset of our species keeps coming up with this shit?). You know the kind of case I mean: the quiet loner who abducts one or more women and systematically isolates them from the outside world, using their bodies as he sees fit.
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Putin Can’t Stop the Internet [14 Oct 2015|02:13pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/10/putin_can_t_stop_the_russian_internet.html

In 1955 a young Soviet physicist named Vladimir Fridkin created something amazing: a boxlike machine, more than 3 feet high and 2 feet across, with two cylinders on the top and the high-current generator attached, that produced a very first copy of a photograph in the Soviet Union. Fridkin proudly named the device the Electrophotography Copying Machine No. 1. The authorities seemed happy—Fridkin was featured in a television show praising the Soviet achievements in science and received a small bonus for his accomplishment.
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Feeling Your Pain [14 Oct 2015|03:38pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/whistlestop/2015/10/bill_clinton_demonstrates_the_power_of_empathy_at_the_1992_presidential.html

Listen to Episode 18 of Whistlestop:
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Yes, Hillary Clinton Won the Debate … [14 Oct 2015|03:42pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/10/hillary_clinton_and_bernie_sanders_at_the_democratic_debate_she_won_but.html

Thanks to Bernie Sanders, Tuesday night’s Democratic debate included a brief argument about socialism versus capitalism that was completely without red-baiting. It was at the start of the event, when Anderson Cooper questioned the candidates about what he took to be their greatest weaknesses. “How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?” he asked Sanders, who launched into an unabashed defense of Scandinavian-style social democracy.
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The Democratic Presidential Candidates Declared War on Unfettered Capitalism [14 Oct 2015|04:31pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/democratic_presidential_candidates_have_a_strong_economic_message_their.html

Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate revealed much more than the state of the horse race. It didn’t just pit Hillary Clinton against Sen. Bernie Sanders, or affect Vice President Joe Biden’s decision about running, or introduce the other candidates. It framed the whole election. Democrats are putting together a case for jerking the leash on capitalism. It’s moral, pragmatic, and smart. It fits the spirit of the times. Republicans had better come up with an answer.
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I Watched the CNN Debate in Virtual Reality [14 Oct 2015|05:43pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/10/cnn_debate_in_virtual_reality_reviewed.html

The moral of the story you’re about to hear is that you don’t always have to pick between surreal and boring. Some things, like the VIRTUAL REALITY version of the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 cycle, can be both. As I learned on Tuesday night watching the debate in CNN’s chosen gimmick format, rather than focus your attention, VR’s weird angles encourage your eyes to wander into the audience or across the floor, so that you stop listening to debaters and start getting lost in the room’s hazy colors. Imagine being stuck in a kaleidoscope while you try to study for the SAT. That’s a little bit like viewing the first Democratic presidential debate in VR.  
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Florida Judges Can Kill You [14 Oct 2015|06:12pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2015/10/florida_s_death_sentences_face_a_dramatic_day_at_the_supreme_court.html

Predicting the result of any Supreme Court case is a fool’s errand—but let me play the fool for a moment and make a prediction: By the end of this term, Florida’s malicious, muddled, singularly screwed-up death penalty sentencing system will be no more.
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Israel’s Cycle of Violence [14 Oct 2015|06:20pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/10/mahmoud_abbas_isn_t_responsible_for_rising_violence_benjamin_netanyahu_and.html

The tragic upsurge in violence in Israel and Palestine over the past two months, which began with the August murder of a Palestinian family by Jewish settlers, followed by clashes on the Temple Mount and Noble Sanctuary, and over the past several days by a spate of horrific attacks by Palestinians against Israeli civilians, has been accompanied by the usual accusations and counter-accusations from politicians and pundits. It’s worth examining these claims for a moment to see what they tell us about the current moment, and why it’s likely to recur as long as the occupation continues.
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The Culture Gabfest “If Only Garfield Had Taken His Clothes Off” Edition [14 Oct 2015|06:59pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/culturegabfest/2015/10/slate_s_culture_gabfest_on_99_homes_wesley_morris_on_identity_and_dana_stevens.html

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 369 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner:
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Was the Shooting of Tamir Rice “Reasonable”? [14 Oct 2015|07:05pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/10/tamir_rice_shooting_were_officer_tim_loehmann_s_actions_reasonable.html

Almost a year has passed since the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was playing with a toy gun in a public recreation center in Cleveland when he was shot dead by a rookie police officer. Whether or not the police officer, Tim Loehmann, will face criminal charges for shooting Rice will be decided by a grand jury once the office of Cuyahoga County prosecutor, Tim McGinty, completes an investigation into the incident. When that will happen is still unknown, but this past weekend, McGinty took the significant step of releasing a pair of reports by outside law enforcement experts arguing that Loehmann was legally justified in using lethal force.
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Less Guilt, More Action [14 Oct 2015|08:16pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/10/history_of_slavery_what_i_learned_from_a_year_studying_slavery.html

Last November, I went to the library and took out a shelf of books, getting ready to plan our first Slate Academy podcast series, on the history of American slavery. We—myself, my co-host Jamelle Bouie, and the editors at Slate Plus—conceived of the academy as a way to present a historical topic in a finite podcast series. The end product would be a “class” that listeners could pick up and listen to whenever they felt like it. When pitching topics for possible coverage, I thought about the courses I wished I’d taken in undergrad or grad school, when I had the chance. A comprehensive history of American slavery was at the top of the list.
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The Democratic Debate Was Kind of Fun. Also, Aliens? [14 Oct 2015|09:56pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/today_in_slate/2015/10/the_democratic_debate_on_cnn_was_fun_and_aliens_might_exist_newsletter.html

Slate-erson Coopers,

The Democratic debate was more fun than expected, right? Way outside the 2016 contest, we find more fun: There might (might!) be another race out there we should know about—an alien race.

Hillary dominated, Bernie set the terms, and Jim Webb killed a guy.

With Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb all polling at bupkis percent going in, we knew Bernie vs. Hillary would be the main concern. After Hillary’s strong night, the logic for a Biden candidacy lost some luster. She won, particularly on foreign policy, but Bernie can take comfort in the fact that he set the terms. Both had off moments: Clinton really misrepresented her climate record by touting the failed 2009 Copenhagen summit as a success. And Sanders’ defense of his pro-gun past was unconvincing; it also had unfortunate racial undertones. The other guys struggled: Jim Webb bragged about killing a man; Martin O’Malley couldn’t forcefully defend his Baltimore legacy; and Lincoln Chaffee sounded worse than previously thought possible. I really enjoyed it; I don’t often say this, but good job, CNN. And good job, Anderson Cooper. Finally, two big questions remain worth watching for: how Republicans will respond to the Dems’ platform against unfettered capitalism and how the Democrats will capitalize on a night that made them look civil and competent—a stark contrast to a Trump-centered circus. Good thing we have 13 months to learn the answers.

ALIENS?!? OK, probably not. But still, this star is pretty weird.

A paper by a team of astronomers describes a star so strange, they’ve floated the notion that it might—might!—be explainable if aliens are nearby. We should all cool our little green heads and not get too starry-eyed with the idea; the scientists are very skeptical and approaching this as more of a logical thought experiment. What makes the star so weird? Well, the scientists watching it have seen dips in light coming from it usually seen when planets orbit a star. But normal dips are usually pretty small, pretty infrequent, and pretty regular. This star? Its dips in light can be huge, frequent, and highly irregular. Whatever’s causing these dips can’t be a planet. Instead, the dips might be caused by a planetary collision, by a series of comets orbiting the star, or just maybe—by advanced alien activity.

Might be the best, might never leave, might never hide.

And it opened up my eyes,
Seth

If you like what you see, please encourage a friend, family member, or enemy to sign up for the Today in Slate email newsletter here.

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Baaaaaad [14 Oct 2015|10:26pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2015/10/dear_prudence_my_boyfriend_practiced_bestiality_as_a_teenager.html

As a member of Slate Plus, you’re reading this Slate story before anyone else can! This story is exclusive to Slate Plus members until Thursday morning.
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The Clinton Cadence [14 Oct 2015|10:31pm]

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/gist/2015/10/the_gist_maria_konnikova_on_wrinkles_and_sagging_hillary_clinton_s_vocal.html

Listen to Episode 356 of Slate’s The Gist:
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