Home » Posts tagged with » breaking news (Page 574)
Ed Schultz: Wall Street’s Hand in Causing the Food Crisis in Egypt

Click here to view this media Susie wrote about this Monday and Ed Schultz did a nice job of walking the viewers through how the hedge fund managers on Wall Street did their part in contributing to the riots we’re seeing in Egypt and across much of Africa by contributing to the severe spikes on the cost of food. Here’s Susie’s post if you missed it — The Era Of Cheap Food Is Coming To An End. Blame Wall Street Hedge Funds. . And here’s more from Democracy Now — The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It . It’s a shame it takes the kind of turmoil we’re seeing in Egypt and Tunisia and the possibility of the entire Middle East blowing up in protest for our corporate media here in the United States do finally be doing some of the reporting normally reserved for shows like Democracy Now or networks like Al Jazeera.

Continue reading …
Midwest Buckles Under a Snowstorm for the Decade

A massive storm billed as the worst in decades barreled toward the northeast Wednesday, leaving vast swaths from Chicago to New York paralyzed by snow and ice. (Feb. 2)

Continue reading …
Jon Stewart to Michael Steele: GOP Base Is ‘So Easily Ignitable’

On Tuesday's “Daily Show,” liberal comedian Jon Stewart flashed a smirk and wondered why the conservative base of the Republican Party is “so easily ignitable.” The comedian hosted former Republican Party chair Michael Steele, who recounted the story of how he had to go about “re-igniting our base” after the party lost the White House and fell further into the minority in Congress in 2008. “Why is it so easy to ignite your base?” Stewart asked with a smile. Amidst laughter from the audience, Michael Steele played along and quipped “they're an excitable bunch.” Stewart kept at it. “They are so flammable, your base,” he remarked, and added “so easily ignitable.” The remarks seem to echo Stewart's calls for civility in discourse, where he has focused much of his invective toward what he feels to be inflammatory political rhetoric. Earlier in the show, Stewart mocked “political hypochondriacs” on the Right who fear America will suffer the destructive fates of certain European and African countries; Stewart then lampooned Leftists who try to “cheer the hypochondriac up” by wishing America was in fact like certain European or Asian countries.

Continue reading …

The White Stripes split up today, ending a 13-year career that saw six studio albums and numerous world tours, PopEater reports. Jack and Meg White, who last released 2007′s Icky Thump , said there was no hard feelings in a statement posted to their website . “The reason is not due to…

Continue reading …
First ‘iPad’ Only Newspaper Unveiled

A daily newspaper designed by News Corp. exclusively for Apple’s iPad is available for $40 annually, comparable to what some big-city publishers charge monthly to deliver their print editions. (Feb. 2)

Continue reading …
Blood Vessels Grown From Muscle Cells

Scientists report that they have successfully grown and tested collagen-based tubes made from human donor tissue that can be used as blood vessel-like grafts.

Continue reading …
Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video)

HP and Palm aren’t being shy about hyping up next week’s big webOS event , and they’re following up on that nod to our leak and CEO Leo Apotheker’s comments with this “Think Beyond” teaser video. As is undoubtedly intended, we can’t make much of the product from these brief glimpses of tapered curves, elegant switchgear, and what appears to be a charging connector — but we’d like to think it’s a tablet, because we are fundamentally very hopeful people. In any case, we’ll see what Palm has in store for us next week — and whether it can live up to all this buildup. Update: We were just sent a longer version of the video, which we’ve swapped in above — it shows a rear-facing camera and what’s either a microphone or speaker grille. And is it just us, or is this think looking pretty chubtastic or what? Original Palm video after the break. [Thanks, Raphael] Continue reading Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video) Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Continue reading …

Anderson Cooper may have been the highest-profile journalist attacked today , but he’s far from the only one. (See the video gallery for CNN footage of the assault). Mediaite says reporters from the AP, the BBC, a Danish newspaper, and Israeli TV also were roughed up. Katie Couric had to cut…

Continue reading …
Right-wingers don’t care if Planned Parenthood video was already exposed as a hoax — they’ll do it live!

Click here to view this media It tells you just how degraded our national discourse has become — how utterly corrupted by the Fox Propaganda Channel it has been — that two of its leading anchors can run an entire segment legitimizing a hoax video tape, even though its contents were exposed as a hoax even before they were released. And no one even so much as raises an eyebrow. That’s what happened last night on The O’Reilly Factor, when Bill O’Reilly and Fox’s John Stossel devoted an entire segment to attacking Planned Parenthood as “disgusting” for the supposed behavior revealed in another Breitbartesque attack by video hoax on another liberal institution. O’Reilly and Stossel, however, then use the affair to launch into attacking Planned Parenthood for receiving taxpayer subsidies — and that really is what they’re on about. Interestingly, Stossel uses the logic that because some people see abortion as murder, they are being forced to underwrite murder in their views — a position O’Reilly ardently adopts as well. Peculiar that neither of them apply the same logic elsewhere: Many people see killing innocent civilians in the course of a war as murder too — something our tax dollars likewise heavily underwrite. But you’ll never see an O’Reilly segment attacking taxpayer funding for the DoD. But what’s truly disgraceful that they then dismiss the overwhelming fact that Planned Parenthood had already reported these “sex traffickers” to authorities — thereby exposing the hoax in progress. Here’s their release of last week: Last week, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) alerted federal authorities to a potential multistate sex trafficking ring. Over a five day period, visitors to Planned Parenthood health centers in six states said they were seeking information from Planned Parenthood about health services Planned Parenthood could provide to underage girls who were part of a sex trafficking ring. Subsequent to alerting U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Planned Parenthood learned the identify of one of those involved and believes these visits are likely a hoax by opponents of legal abortion seeking to discredit Planned Parenthood, which delivers preventive health care and abortion services to three million women each year. Media Matters has the full details of the hoax. Yet, in spite of all this, when Lila Rose and Co. published the video yesterday, it was widely treated through Unsurprisingly, the wingnutosphere ran whole-hog in embracing the video as legitimate, including the fine folks at National Review, RedState and Malkin’s Hot Air. Moreover, as Ned Resnikoff at Media Matters explored in some detail, Rose’s video actually pretty clearly demonstrates the falsity of what she claims it shows: In a so-called “sting” video professional hit artist Lila Rose claims to have uncovered evidence of systemic corruption within Planned Parenthood to cover up “child sex trafficking.” Not only do Planned Parenthoods recent actions flatly contradict that claim — so does the content of the video itself. In fact, even if we were to assume that Rose’s heavily edited smear job is accurate – and there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical – the video very clearly establishes that the alleged wrongdoing is counter to Planned Parenthood policy: the employee on Rose’s tape makes it clear that the actions in question would have to be concealed from others at the organization. You can judge for yourself. Here’s the video: Click here to view this media People for the American Way also has a terrific rundown of the facts: Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose, a photogenic young activist who Religious Right leaders hope to make the new face of the anti-abortion movement, claims that the video Religious Right groups are circulating “proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Planned Parenthood intentionally breaks state and federal laws and covers up the abuse of young girls it claims to serve.” False. In fact, far from proving a pattern of illegal activity, the Live Action project demonstrated that Planned Parenthood has strong institutional procedures in place to protect young women. When Live Action activists appeared at numerous facilities presenting themselves as seeking help with a child sex trafficking ring, Planned Parenthood wrote to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an FBI investigation. Live Action attempted its “sting” across the country; the one Planned Parenthood staffer who violated those procedures and is featured in Live Action’s video was fired. There’s a lot more on Rose’s background there as well.

Continue reading …
Finally! San Francisco is Considering a Ban on Unsolicited Phonebooks

Photo: withassociates , CC Letting People Choose?! What a Strange Concept! We’ve had some phonebook coverage recently (see the links at the end of this post) and it caused quite a reaction from you, our dear readers. It’s understandable: While phonebooks aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things, they are a very obvious and concrete (you can touch it, unlike wasted energy or CO2) example of waste for the people who get them and don’t need them. But the city of San Francis… Read the full story on TreeHugger

Continue reading …