http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/kotaku.com.png http://kotaku.com/tag/politics http://kotaku.com/tag/politics

Today's Play This features the flash game we covered yesterday that puts you in the shoes of a UAV pilot. From Evan's hands-on: More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5885680&view=rss&microfeed=true

No modern-day military practice comes under more fire than unmanned aerial vehicle attacks. Bombing by UAV gets called out as cowardly or as a morally indefensible method of waging combat. It's derisively been called video game warfare, a way of distancing the American public from the acts of violence done in their name. Fittingly, then, there's now a video game about it. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5885470&view=rss&microfeed=true

What might kill video games in Korea? The ice age. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5885248&view=rss&microfeed=true

If you've ever spent any time in Japan, you've seen them: big black buses blaring right-wing propaganda. And today, you're going to see an entire fleet of them. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5884552&view=rss&microfeed=true

Oh boy. The Family Research Council, acting in its role as wise counsel to all that goes into video games, hath finally noticedeth that BioWare intends to publish a game update to Star Wars: The Old Republic that accommodates same-sex relationships between player characters and NPCs. This didn't go over well with them, because he's a total canon fiend who says there can never be anything gay about Star Wars, ever. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5880185&view=rss&microfeed=true

Cosplay is a way for people to escape. It's a way for people to take on another personality and be something that they are not, whether that 's a game character, an anime character, or in Kumiko Hayakawa's case, a ring girl in a boxing match. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5879869&view=rss&microfeed=true

Herman Cain, whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination included bizarre references to both SimCity and Pokémon, is officially out of the race. He was still on the ballot for Saturday's primary in South Carolina, though, and made a joint appearance with TV satirist Stephen Colbert in an effort to gin up votes for Colbert's own joke campaign. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5878276&view=rss&microfeed=true

According to a report on The Hill, over the weekend it was arranged that a planned vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act would not go ahead "unless there is consensus on the bill". More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5876355&view=rss&microfeed=true

Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, has gamers upset. DanGlozier66 over at HotBloodedGaming sent out a mass of emails to a whole host of companies. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5875431&view=rss&microfeed=true

A U.S.-born man who appeared to confess on Iranian state television last month that he allegedly spied for America—actions that supposedly included doing work for a video game development studio purported to be a CIA front—has been sentenced to death by the Iranian government. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5874301&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Stop Online Piracy Act, currently a bill before the Congress, is utterly detested by the Internet, in case you don't read the Internet. Gamers don't think much of it either, as it would have some rather stupid ramifications for how they enjoy that lifestyle and consume its products. So it's of note that Nintendo, Sony and Electronic Arts have taken their names off the latest list of supporters of the bill. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5872230&view=rss&microfeed=true

Somewhere inside the Beltway today, copies of Just Dance 3 for the Wii and The Sims Plus Pets rode in a presidential caravan with the nuclear football. That, gang, is core game cred. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5870284&view=rss&microfeed=true

Kim Jong-il, who has ruled the Communist state of North Korea since 1994, has passed away. Which means 2011 shooter Homefront was only two weeks off making one of the most timely (if accidental) fictional statements in video game history. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5869207&view=rss&microfeed=true

I'm a world-class nerd. But that doesn't mean I understand the nuts and bolts of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an internet censorship bill on which the House Judiciary Commitee held hearings today. (You can watch the hearings live here.) More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5868545&view=rss&microfeed=true

Angry Birds don't just make good games, they're also great for formal dress, it seems. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5865674&view=rss&microfeed=true

Herman Cain delivered one of American politics' most bizarre WTF moments when he quoted the Pokemon movie during the press conference where he suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Host Jon Stewart and the writers at The Daily Show take that moment and make it more WTF-er by offering up a few other lines from the toyetic feature film that the CEO candidate could've uttered. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5865640&view=rss&microfeed=true

If one didn't know better, it would be easy to think one-time presidential candidate Herman Cain is a gamer. His tax plan seems to be ripped straight out of SimCity and his go-to inspiration quote comes from a Pokémon movie. What gives? More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5865031&view=rss&microfeed=true

Attorneys for the founder of infamous private military company Blackwater are threatening to sue a member of congress over statements she made during an interview about the PMC's bizarrely self-aggrandizing video game Blackwater. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5864100&view=rss&microfeed=true

To be clear, the legal sale of Battlefield 3 in Iran has never exactly been widespread. But as is the way of the world, "street vendors" had been selling the game anyway, and according to reports that's resulted in a crackdown from Iranian authorities More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5863290&view=rss&microfeed=true

Think of it as a very specialized version of SimCity; one that replaces UFOs, monster attacks and city-flattening meteors with political unrest and economic upheaval; and replaces charming tiny animated people with real-time charts and in-person advisers. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5862959&view=rss&microfeed=true

A year after appearing in NBA Jam (with Vice President Biden, and eight other political figures of both parties), President Obama will not cameo in January's NFL Blitz, one of the game's designers said recently. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5856218&view=rss&microfeed=true

According to the latest polls, businessman Herman Cain's currently the Republican most likely to get the GOP presidential nomination. (And, yes, it's early.) One of the reasons that Cain's appeared attractive to the electorate has been his easy-to-understand 9-9-9 proposal to overhaul taxes. Game-savvy political commentators noted that a similar scheme shows up in the classic SimCity games. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5854311&view=rss&microfeed=true

While BioShock Infinite is due for release next year, the game's story still is undergoing change, says the series' creator Ken Levine. And if nothing else, the Occupy Wall Street protests going on in New York (and elsewhere) serve as an affirmation to him in how he's scripted the motivations and temperament of the Vox Populi movement in Infinite's airborne dystopia of Columbia. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5854101&view=rss&microfeed=true

Don't get what's motivating Occupy Wall Street, or any of the Occupy demonstrations worldwide? Look to a video game, writes one blogger. He believes Animal Crossing supplies an allegory for the protesters' anger, and it involves being pressed into servitude by a debt you had little choice but to acquire. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5851904&view=rss&microfeed=true

If you only want to hear the video game part, skip to the 1:00 minute mark of this video of things Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney didn't really say. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5851918&view=rss&microfeed=true

While comparing Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax play to the default settings for a SimCity game was an amusing diversion, no one actually believes Mr. Cain borrowed his ideas from a video game. No one except the video game's creators, that is. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5850701&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Occupy Wall Street movement has gone global, and Taiwan is as upset about the division of power and wealth as the demonstrators in New York. To underline their anger, well, what better universal symbol than the Angry Birds, seen in posters throughout this Taiwanese news broadcast. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5850195&view=rss&microfeed=true

A court in Graz, Austria today cleared Freedom Party deputy Gerhard Kurzmann of charges brought following last year's release of anti-Muslim flash game Moschee Baba ("Bye-Bye Mosque"). More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5849882&view=rss&microfeed=true

One thing I've never understood is why people care what others do with their fellow consenting adults. Unless it, say, wrecks their home. Yet, people do care, especially who their politicians are bonking. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5849764&view=rss&microfeed=true

Herman Cain, the pizza baron who has risen to the top of the Republican Party's half-hour comedy hour of a preliminary presidential campaign, is getting a lot of truck from pundits for his catchy sounding "9-9-9" tax plan. It's basically a flat 9 percent levy on corporate income, personal income, and sales. That sounds familiar, say SimCity fans. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5849652&view=rss&microfeed=true

In Oregon, when I trade my games in, I'm required to certify there is no lien against them, like the IRS wants my copy of NCAA Football 11. It's one of the many fun-filled ways in which local ordinances regulate the sale of used games. Madison, Wisc., is scheming up another. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5843114&view=rss&microfeed=true

India's decision to take tough steps against political dishonesty may have had a little help from a flying, angry bird. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5839249&view=rss&microfeed=true

The New York Times this morning published an extensive look at the system of tax incentives and breaks exploited by games makers, concluding that their write-offs to research and development costs satisfy the letter, but not the spirit, of 50-year-old tax policies that by now defy common sense. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5839086&view=rss&microfeed=true

Poland Comes First, a political party in [GUESS] has made an advertisement that you may recognise. Especially if you like Fallout. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5838279&view=rss&microfeed=true

In the aptly named Tea Party Zombies Must Die players get a chance to mow down a shambling horde of conservatives and Tea Party politicians while hanging out in a baricaded court yard decorated with over-the-top, anti-Obama slogans. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5837928&view=rss&microfeed=true

Watching a supposed mobile camera capture from the ruins of the ousted Gaddafi regime in Libya, Dutch site InsideGamer spotted something strange. Seems Colonel Gaddafi's fifth son, Moatassem-Billah Gaddafi, might be the world's biggest Prince of Persia fan. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5836095&view=rss&microfeed=true

Nintendo is offering 3DS owners the chance to get the 39th President's cat, an offer made all the more macabre because our 39th President, Jimmy Carter, once killed a cat. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5835270&view=rss&microfeed=true

Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is as wholesome and American as they come. He believes in hard work, patriotism, faith in god, and good old American ingenuity, even if we have to import it from Canada. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5831092&view=rss&microfeed=true

You've gotta hand it to Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain. One minute the guy is proposing a three-page limit on bills in Washington, then he's calling Jon Stewart a racist, and now... well, now he's breaking out the inadvertent Pokémon references. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5830528&view=rss&microfeed=true

Justice Elena Kagan [back row, far right], whom Stephen Totilo said "did seem to get it" during oral arguments in Brown v. EMA, called the case the most difficult of the Court's most recent term, one in which she felt she was constantly in the wrong no matter her current state of mind. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5827961&view=rss&microfeed=true