Solar powered battery charging station, photo: hiroo / Creative Commons . Some encouraging words coming from India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh : Speaking ahead of the last climate negotiations before COP16 next month, Ramesh acknowledged that India was now the world’s third-largest carbon emitter, and to… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …With the elections drawing closer, the oil company-funded Prop 23 campaign has kicked into full gear. The Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro, along with Koch Industries, a coal and oil conglomerate, have donated millions of dollars to finance TV ads and other campaigns in an attempt to overturn California’s groundbreaking climate and clean energy law, which was passed in 2006. That TV ad has recently been put into heavy rotation in major California markets — and, staying true to form for such political ads, it’s chock full o’ lies. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …This one is still very much a rumor, but PreCentral is reporting that it’s heard from a “very reliable tipster” who says that Palm is prepping a new phone codenamed “Mansion,” which may or may not be the same device that recently turned up in a certification database under the name P102. The real kicker, however, is that the phone is supposedly a touchscreen-only device, and that the screen is said to boast a fairly high 800 x 480 resolution — no word on screen size, unfortunately. Not much more than that to go on at the moment, but the “Mansion” codename itself does at least make a bit of sense — as a PreCentral commenter has noted, the Pre was originally codenamed “Castle.” Palm planning keyboard-less ‘Mansion’ with 800 x 480 screen? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Times Watch’s new study ” Supremely Slanted — How the New York Times Pounds Conservatives and Coddles Liberals When Nominated for the Supreme Court ,” was discussed by Fox News contributor Liz Trotta on “America’s News Headquarters” just before the one o’clock hour on Saturday afternoon. After some discussion of a Gallup poll showing Americans have little trust in the mainstream media, host Uma Pemmaraju shifted the discussion to the new Supreme Court study from Times Watch. (Watch the video here .) Fox News Host Uma Pemmaraju : “But there’s another poll, out right now that looks at media behavior as well and specifically how the media handles the Supreme Court nominees, how are those related?” Liz Trotta : “Exactly. Well, they’re related in this way, just to go back to the Gallup [poll] for one second. Forty-eight percent of the people who were polled said that they were, that the press was too liberal. Well, the Media Research Center has done a study on the New York Times coverage of Supreme Court nominees and this is where you can see that this has to be an example of why people don’t trust the media. What they did, is they looked at seven Supreme Court nominees from 1991 to 2010, that’s four Democrats and three Republicans. And they wanted to see how the New York Times treated them. Well, I can just hear you thinking out there, well, you could have told, you could certainly guess, because you read the paper or you’ve heard, and you know it’s a liberal newspaper. But the figures are interesting, because you can see that they have one figure tells us that they’re 10-to-1 more likely, that is the Times, to describe the Republicans as conservatives as they would describe the Democrats as liberal . And the intensity of the coverage, of the coverage and the glorification of liberal candidates really amounts to a certified chapter in advanced liberal media bias.”
Continue reading …Good Morning America on Sunday recapped the liberal One Nation rally held on the nation’s capital, Saturday, but skipped any mention of the socialist and Communist themed signs seen during the march. These are some of the signs that were featured during reporter Tahman Bradley’s segment: “”Peace, justice, equality, hope, change,” “Fair trade, not free trade,” “Educate every child,” “Full and fair employment” and “Silence GOP lies.” However, signs with the Communist Party USA logo, posters reading “Capitalism is failing, socialism is the alternative” and “Build a socialist alternative” were not. [Pictures can be found here . Video, here .] Instead, Bradley repeated Democratic talking points: ” Several speakers and people in the crowd noted the diversity at the rally. Their insinuation, the Tea Party movement has attracted only a narrow slice of Americans .” Individuals with books such as the Communist Manifesto and The Jewish Question were also avoided. Interestingly, on Saturday, GMA’s Deborah Roberts actually asked Ben Jealous of the NAACP about communist infiltration of the rally: “Now, Glenn Beck has said to some of his viewers and listeners on the radio, that among your organizers are Communist Party members and the New York City Democratic Socialists of America. What do you say to that?” Roberts also had no follow up to Jealous’ odd answer: “This is a big tent…You’ll see Jews, Christians and Muslims. You’ll see black, brown, Asians. You’ll see everybody here from both parties who believe that tax cuts for the richest one percent at this time is crazy.” People from both parties attended the rally? Were they socialist Republicans? Considering how eager members of the media were to tout extremist signs at Tea Party rallies, Good Morning America should at least have shown a few of the socialist and communist signs, especially since Roberts raised the subject on Saturday. More on Tahman Bradley (see file photo at right): He interned for the left-wing People for the American Way . Reporting on the Glenn Beck rally for the August 29 GMA, he complained that the “crowd was almost all white, giving critics an open door.” A transcript of Sunday’s segment, which aired at 8:10am EDT, follows: DEBORAH ROBERTS: Liberals rally. Tens of thousands of people gather at the Lincoln Memorial to make their voices heard. But, will it be enough to energize voters and help the Democrats retain control of Congress? RON CLAIBORNE: And with election day less than a month away and Democrats struggling now to hold power on Capitol Hill, the left is trying to fire up its base, tens of thousands of people turned out for the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, D.C. yesterday. Tahman Bradley has the story. PROTESTERS: USA! USA! TAHMAN BRADLEY: In a campaign that seems dominated by the Tea Party liberals put on their own strong show of support at the Lincoln Memorial. Their message, they too plan to show up on Election D ay. ED SCHULTZ: One nation. We are together. BRADLEY: The One Nation rally came almost one month after Glenn Beck energized conservatives at the same location. GLENN BECK: For too long this country has wandered in darkness. BRADLEY: This time hundreds of progressive groups, organizations from labor unions to the NAACP let their voice be heard. AL SHARPTON: They say that we’re apathetic. They say we’re not energized. We got to go home and we’ve got to hit the pavement. BRADLEY: Several speakers and people in the crowd noted the diversity at the rally. Their insinuation, the tea party movement has attracted only a narrow slice of Americans. GERALD HUDSON (Service Employees International Union): I think the Tea Party does not represent America. I think this is America. Asians, African-Americans, Latinos, whites, we’re all coming here saying, give us the politics that matter. JESSE JACKSON: Don’t you give up now. BRADLEY: The issues they say matter, jobs, education and social justice. issues that help Democrats win big in 2008, issues that liberals hope can once again motivate progressives to stem what polls show could be a large Republican tide. For Good Morning America, Tahman Bradley, ABC News, Washington. Signs seen in the segment: “Peace, Justice, Equality, Hope, Change,” “Fair Trade, Not Free Trade,” “Educate Every Child,” “Full and Fair Employment,” “Silence GOP Lies.”
Continue reading …photo: Matthew McDermott With some new research on how even keeping global temperature rise to 2°C may not be enough to avoid some pretty catastrophic climate change effects, and the last round of international climate change talks prior to the year-ending COP16 summit in Mexico just opening in China, it’s particularly apropos that the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org have just released a short briefing on why we need to get CO2 levels back to 350ppm and, perhaps mo… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …CNN’s Abbie Boudreau omitted the left-wing ideology of discredited organization ACORN in her hour-long documentary on young conservative activists, “Right on the Edge,” which aired Saturday evening. Boudreau also labeled Ryan Sorba, one of the subjects of her documentary, ” anti-gay ,” and gave an overgeneralized account of an incident which Sorba took part in. The correspondent profiled Christian Hartsock, who “directs films with a conservative message;” author Jason Mattera; “anti-abortion activist” Lila Rose; Sorba; and Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, who “dressed up as a prostitute and a pimp to expose ACORN.” Seven minutes into the 8 pm Eastern hour, as Boudreau introduced Giles, she noted that “there’s a reason Hannah Giles became an overnight sweetheart of the conservative Movement. In September 2009, she and James O’Keefe used hidden cameras to expose ACORN.” The CNN correspondent then gave a very sparse and favorable description of the group: ” ACORN helps low-income people register to vote, find housing, and file taxes .” CNN has a history of such omission in covering ACORN. On October 9, 2008, anchor Kiran Chetry failed to mention the organization’s name during a news brief about the law enforcement raid on their local headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chetry referred to ACORN as merely a ” non-profit group ” that was ” disputing claims it committed voter registration fraud .” Three weeks later, correspondent Carol Costello used a label similar to Boudreau’s : ” a group committed to registering minority voters .” On CNN’s Newsroom on February 20, 2009, then-anchor Heidi Collins omitted ACORN’s role in sponsoring a rally against foreclosures in Oakland, California. Boudreau gave brief introductions to all of her subjects at the beginning of the documentary. For Sorba, whom she introduced last, the CNN correspondent described him as ” an anti-gay activist, not afraid to stir up controversy, and it seems to follow him wherever he goes .” Thirty-four minutes later, Boudreau began her segment on Sorba, again using the “anti-gay” label to label a conference he attended as a speaker. She played video clips from the conference, and highlighted an event where Sorba achieved some notoriety: BOUDREAU: At age 28, Ryan Sorba is the oldest young conservative we’ve met. SORBA: I’m Ryan- nice to meet you. BOUDREAU: He invited us to a Chicago suburb for an anti-gay event called ‘Americans for Truth Academy.’ UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A rising star at the conservative movement, and he hasn’t sold out on homosexual activism, Ryan Sorba. (applause) BOUDREAU: He’s one of the speakers, and wants to promote the book he’s writing, ‘The Born Gay Hoax.’ SORBA: It’s a psychological disorder, and a psychological- and what does psyche mean? Psyche means soul. It’s disorder of the soul- of the nature of man. BOUDREAU: Some in the movement tell us he’s extreme- yet, like the others, he’s not afraid to speak his mind and push his views, even if it offends people. SORBA: There’s absolutely no scientific evidence for this notion that people are in some way born- quote, ‘gay.’ BOUDREAU: He’s best known for this one-minute rant at a conservative conference. SORBA (from 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference): I’d like to condemn CPAC (booing from the audience) for bringing GOPride (sic) to this event. BOUDREAU: He denounced conservatives for allowing gays to attend . SORBA: I love it. The “anti-gay” label applied to both Sorba and Americans for Truth implies they’re driven by bigotry against homosexuals in general, when they are actually focused on opposing the agenda of left-wing homosexual activist groups , such as same-sex “marriage” and biased curriculum on homosexuality in public schools. Boudreau’s description that Sorba “denounced conservatives for allowing gays to attend” CPAC is also misleading. The activist specifically objected to how one organization, GOProud, was invited by CPAC’s organizers to be a co-sponsor and an exhibitor. Many other social conservatives also objected to this invite, as GOProud endorses the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy forbidding open homosexuals from serving in the military and opposes a federal amendment defining marriage as being between one man and woman. The CNN correspondent did give fair segments on Mattera, Rose, Giles, and Hartsock, and devoted a significant amount of time to how O’Keefe tried to “punk” her in an effort to discredit her network. But it’s not surprising that there was some bias concerning ACORN and homosexuality, given CNN’s past coverage of both issues, particularly in its own advancement of the homosexual agenda so far in 2010.
Continue reading …Sorry, it must be the cynic in me but when it comes to media sensitivity concerning signs at political rallies, there surely must be a good reason why they missed these beauties. h/t Americans for Prosperity
Continue reading …Not much of a surprise here, but Virgin Mobile has just officially announced that it’s now offering the Samsung Intercept — the carrier’s first Android handset. Running a reasonable $249 prepaid — and exclusive to Target for the next few weeks — the phone boasts a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, a sliding QWERTY keypad, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and all the basic Android amenities you’d expect (it’s shipping with Android 2.1 ). Of course, that $249 is quite a bit higher than the $99 it demands on-contract on Sprint , but Virgin promises you’ll save 25 percent or more in the long-run if you pair the phone with one of its prepaid plans, which run between $25 and $60 per month. Hit up the gallery below for a couple of bigger images, and head on past the break for the full press release. Gallery: Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept Continue reading Virgin Mobile rolls out Android-based Samsung Intercept: $249 prepaid Virgin Mobile rolls out Android-based Samsung Intercept: $249 prepaid originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …In a new study from the medical journal Pediatrics , researchers confirm what you’ve known all along: laptop heat is the greatest threat to mankind’s continued survival on this planet. In the report, researchers collected and analyzed various tales of woe from youngsters who’d been treated for exposure to extreme laptop heat, and discovered that prolonged periods of use can lead to a condition horrifically dubbed “toasted skin syndrome.” The effects of gaming (or, uh, studying) too hard can leave skin in a mottled, sponge-like state, can cause permanent skin darkening, and generally makes you less attractive to the opposite sex — from a lap perspective. When viewed under a microscope, the damage is similar to that of long-term sun exposure, and though unlikely in the case of laptop heat, prolonged skin irritation is linked to increased rates of some forms of skin cancer. Researchers suggest placing a carrying case or “heat shield” between you and your computer if you’ve got to keep it in your lap. At Engadget, the entire team has been issued Kevlar short-shorts — we suggest you take similar precautions. ‘Toasted skin syndrome’ caused by extreme laptop heat say researchers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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