Monday, April 13, 2009
Snopes.com gets fact-checked and receives an 'A'
... The FactCheck fact checkers found plenty of evidence that the Mikkelsons are serious if not obsessive researchers, not exactly a revelation to fans of the site. As for hiding their identities, the first of countless press mentions of Snopes dates back to a 1995 article in the Los Angeles Times that named David Mikkelson.
Bottom line: You can go on trusting Snopes.com as much as you'd trust any other source of information on the Internet (and, no, that's not meant to be back-handed).
Incidentally, the Mikkelsons make no claim to infallibility and insist that their highest objective is to help convince people to think critically about what they hear and read ... and to do their own fact checking. ...
Chinese electri car company on the rise
BYD is an amazing company. It was started by a chemist and government researcher named Wang Chuan-Fu in 1995 (same year as Yahoo) to make rechargeable batteries, which it learned to do very well. Within a few years, BYD's batteries were cheaper and just as reliable as those made by industry giants Sony and Sanyo. Then Mr. Wang, as he’s known, got into the automobile business by buying a failing state-owned carmaker. BYD's conventional gas-powered cars are selling well these days in China, and his electric plug-in electric model looks like it will come to market with a longer range and a lower sticker price than the new Toyota Prius much-hyped Chevy Volt. As if that were not enough, I'm hearing now that BYD is on the verge of a breakthrough in the solar power business and that the company has big plans to make rechargeable batteries at a utility scale to store energy from intermittent, renewable sources like wind and solar. Today, BYD employes 130,000 people in 11 factories, either in China and one each in India, Hungary and Rumania. ...
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Tent cities on the rise in the USA
Tent city populations are blossoming across America. Areas that have had particularly high foreclosure rates and job losses, such as Sacramento, California, where the ‘newly homeless’ rate rose 15% from 2007 to 2008, offer the most dramatic views.
The tent city along the American River in Sacramento is not new. Two years ago the population averaged about thirty chronically homeless individuals. Today residents of the makeshift city, also known as a shanty town, report that anywhere between 20 to 50 newly homeless people are showing up every week. ...
Republicans own FOX
On April 6, 2009, the University of Colorado hosted the 61st Annual Conference on World Affairs, which included a panel presentation entitled Rebranding Republicans: Don't Misunderestimate Us, recorded by and broadcast on C-SPAN. Among the panelists was Robert G. Kaufman, author of In Defense of the Bush Doctrine: Moral Democratic Realism and American Grand Strategy, published in 2007. In a ten-minute presentation, Mr. Kaufman posited five "core principles" that Republicans must embrace if they are to succeed "when Obama fails."
There is much to find disturbing in Mr. Kaufman's presentation, such as his assumption that Obama will fail and his assertion that "multiculturalism is a euphemism for the Balkanization of the United States". However, his "recommendation" that the GOP "acquire another television network" to disseminate its message in future elections is both an audacious proposal and a stunning admission.Read on...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Israel on trial
(New York Times. Apr 4. By George Bisharat) CHILLING testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses:
Click the link for the whole story.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Where are the New Democrat voices in our media
Indeed.
"To change the voting culture, you have to change the media culture. Without a bigger voice in the fourth estate, the left's chances of making a breakthrough are minimal. The Reform/Alliance party eventually hit pay dirt, becoming the dominant force on the conservative side, because big media promoted its religion.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Geek Pranks for April Fool's Day
BSOD screensaver, Firefox's Total Confusion Pack Extension, upside down web pages, and more. ...
Technology to detect other Earth-type planets is on the brink
Astronomers may be on the brink of discovering a second Earth-like planet, a find that would add fresh impetus to the search for extraterrestrial life, according to the US journal Science. Astronomers from six major centers, including NASA, Harvard and the University of Colorado, outline how advances in technology suggest scientists are on the verge of being able to detect the presence of small, rocky planets, much like our own, around distant stars for the first time. The planets are considered the most likely habitats for extraterrestrial life.
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