photo via flickr The Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual event where conservative politicians and activists get together in something akin to a pep rally, has come to an end. The event can be seen as a sort of a bellwether for the pet causes of the movement, and this year conservatives placed a target squarely on the back of the EPA. In fact, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is rumored to be a presidential candidate, doubled down on his call for shutting down and replacing the EPA altogether. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …John Boehner Still Pandering to the Birthers: It’s Not My Job to Tell People What to Think
February 13, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media On this week’s Meet the Press, after David Gregory played a portion of Frank Luntz’s focus group following President Obama’s State of the Union Address, John Boehner refused to take any responsibility for Republicans continuing to pander to the birther crowd. Boehner on birthers: ‘It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think’ : House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Sunday that while he believes President Obama is an American citizen and a Christian, Americans have a right to think otherwise if they so choose. “It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think,” Boehner said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” when asked about a recent focus group of Iowa voters shown on Fox News during which several said they believe Obama is Muslim. “The state of Hawaii has said he was born there. That’s good enough for me,” Boehner said. “The president says he’s a Christian. I accept him at his word.” Boehner rejected the suggestion that he and other Republicans were not forcefully denouncing myths about the president’s citizenship and religion because it weakens Obama politically. “I’ve made clear what I think the facts are,” Boehner said.
Continue reading …Derrick Crowe: On Anniversary of Marjah Push, Escalation Strategy Still Failing
February 13, 2011 No Comment
Exactly one year ago, on February 13, 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan launched the first major military operations enabled by… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Huffington Post Discovery Date : 13/02/2011 21:00 Number of articles : 3
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Image: VirtKitty The question of animal welfare shot straight into consumer awareness with the recent massive dioxin-contaminated egg scandal in Germany. Now, Germany’s Agricultural Minister, Ilse Aigner (CSU), has put the question squarely on the political table with the observation to Die Welt : “We must discuss what consumers expect and what best serves nature and the welfare… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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French designer Jean-Marie Massaud’s “Green Islands.” Image: Offecct . It won’t quite replace the feeling of lying on the grass underneath a big shade tree, but office workers and others needing a respite in the middle of the day would likely welcome a Swedish design firm’s concept for a “green island” that brings a bit of the great outdoors inside…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
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The New York Times has run an incredibly detailed piece about a feat of Google search engine gaming which seems to have been done by or for JC Penney. We won’t bore you with SEO basics — we’re pretty sure you’ve got those down already — but suffice to say that The Times noticed that the retailer was at the top of Google’s search results for many more terms than seemed possible or natural, so they started to do some digging. What they found was that thousands of links had been placed on what were essentially spam sites all over the web, resulting in the retailer ruling the Google juice for terms such as “little black dress,” and even super generic ones like “rugs” and “bedding.” This is one of the dreaded kinds of ‘black hat’ optimization that Google frowns upon, because it’s so obviously cheating, and it’s punishable by a massive sinking of the offending site’s ranking in results (which is, of course, not the desired effect). JC Penney unsurprisingly denies knowing anything about it, and no evidence exists to suggest it was directly involved, so on Wednesday, Google began ‘corrective action’ to bring Penney’s results back to planet earth. One example — before the action was taken, JC Penney held the number one spot for the search term ‘living room furniture,’ and after it stood at number 68 — is enough to show the awesome power Google holds over the results it delivers, but the story also serves to show how truly broken search is, as well as Google’s seeming nonchalance about the issue. Hit up the source link for the full story. NYT uncovers the tawdry, seedy tale of the SEO games of J.C. Penney originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 15:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Ron Paul may have won the CPAC straw poll , but Young Americans for Freedom apparently doesn’t care. The conservative activist group booted Paul from its national advisory board over a disagreement on national security issues and a dispute regarding Paul’s anti-war activities, Politico reports. “It’s a sad day in American…
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