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Celebrity Chef Responds to Fish Fight Critics

Last week I reported that some folks were criticizing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight campaign for its lack of specific demands or goals . It was, said critics, a case of breaking “the first rule of campaigning”—namely knowing what constitutes success. But in an impassioned post over at Business Green, the celebrity chef is hitting back with a defense of Fish Fight and its objectives . He argues that there are plenty of competing plans for sustainable fis… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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The suicide bombers who killed 35 in Monday’s Moscow airport attack are thought to be from a “Black Widow” squad that trained in Pakistan. The female bomber was seen in the arrivals crowd before detonating the bomb, and her black clothes and veil indicate she was a “Black Widow” bomber…

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NYC crowns Rachel Sterne as Chief Digital Officer, we question her analog existence

CEO, COO, CIO, CFO — all TLAs that most folks would be proud to see blooming on their business cards. Get ready for a new one. It’s CDO, Chief Digital Officer, a position recently created in New York City and now occupied by one Rachel Sterne. She’s something of a social media maven and is the founder of GroundReport, an aggregator of user-created news stories. She’ll now be tasked with improving the city’s ability to leverage social networks and the internet as a whole to communicate with its residents. We’re not sure if this will actually entail the digitization of Rachel herself, but we’re wondering if maybe that’s already been taken care of . See for yourself after the break. [Image credit: meyers ] Continue reading NYC crowns Rachel Sterne as Chief Digital Officer, we question her analog existence NYC crowns Rachel Sterne as Chief Digital Officer, we question her analog existence originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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ShowBiz Minute: Oscars, Jackson, ‘Jersey Shore’

Actors celebrate their Oscar nominations; Michael Jackson’s doctor pleads not guilty in star’s death; ‘Jersey Shore’ headed to Italy for fourth season. (Jan. 26)

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Raw Video: Frenchman scales Hong Kong skyscraper

French “spiderman” climber Alain Robert completed another daring feat on Wednesday by scaling the 137-metre-high (about 450 feet) Hang Seng Bank headquarters in Hong Kong. (Jan. 26)

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Click here to view this media I think Jeremy Scahill summed this up pretty well on Twitter tonight. He suggested that SNL could just run Bachmann’s “Tea Party” response to the State of the Union on its own, unedited. I couldn’t agree more. Our own Bluegal said someone else on Twitter thinks there are going to be a lot of GOP women using Sharpies as eyeliners now. And Susie Madrak thought she sounded like a librarian reading to her kids at story hour. I await the fact checking on her nonsense by others that have the time to do it, but for now, here she is in an appearance I hear was so rushed that they didn’t even get her set up properly to be looking into the right camera for the CNN viewers. And here she is preparing for her tea party response to the SOTU. Click here to view this media UPDATE: It appears our friends over at Media Matters Political Correction had some time to fact check Bachmann’s speech. Fact Checking Rep. Bachmann’s “Tea Party Response” To The State Of The Union Go read the whole thing since it looks like they put a lot of work into it including one of the first things that came to my mind when watching her which is The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen’s bikini chart on jobs compared to Bachmann’s chart tonight. And here’s more from Salon’s Joan Walsh on both Ryan and Bachmann’s responses tonight — Why does the GOP hide its agenda? . CNN has the transcript . Good evening. My name is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota’s 6th District. I want to thank the Tea Party Express and Tea Party HD for inviting me to speak this evening. I’m here at their request and not to compete with the official Republican remarks. The Tea Party is a dynamic force for good in our national conversation, and it’s an honor for me to speak with you. Two years ago, when Barack Obama became our president, unemployment was 7.8%, and our national debt stood at what seemed like a staggering $10.6 trillion. We wondered whether the president would cut spending, reduce the deficit and implement real job-creating policies. Unfortunately, the president’s strategy for recovery was to spend a trillion dollars on a failed stimulus program, fueled by borrowed money. The White House promised us that all the spending would keep unemployment under 8%. Not only did that plan fail to deliver, but within three months, the national jobless rate spiked to 9.4%. It hasn’t been lower for 20 straight months. While the government grew, we lost more than 2 million jobs. Let me show you a chart. Here are unemployment rates over the past 10 years. In October of 2001, our national unemployment rate was at 5.3%. In 2008, it was at 6.6%. But just eight months after President Obama promised lower unemployment, that rate spiked to a staggering 10.1%. Today, unemployment is at 9.4% with about 400,000 new claims every week. After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money that we don’t have. But instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt. It was unlike anything we’ve ever seen before in the history of the country. Well, deficits were unacceptably high under President Bush, but they exploded under President Obama’s direction, growing the national debt by an astounding $3.1 trillion. Well, what did we buy? Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which lightbulbs to buy and which may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama’s health care bill. Obamacare mandates and penalties may even force many job-creators to just stop offering health insurance altogether, unless, of course, yours is one of the more than 222 privileged companies, or unions, that’s already received a government waiver under Obamacare. In the end, unless we fully repeal Obamacare, a nation that currently enjoys the world’s finest health care might be forced to rely on government-run coverage. That could have a devastating impact on our national debt for even generations to come. For two years, President Obama made promises, just like the ones we heard him make this evening, yet still we have high unemployment, devalued housing prices, and the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing. Well, here’s a few suggestions for fixing our economy. The president could stop the EPA from imposing a job-destroying cap-and-trade system. The president could support a balanced budget amendment. The president could agree to an energy policy that increases American energy production and reduces our dependence on foreign oil. The president could also turn back some of the 132 regulations put in place in the last two years, many of which will cost our economy $100 million or more. And the president should repeal Obamacare and support free-market solutions, like medical malpractice reform and allowing all Americans to buy any health care policy they like anywhere in the United States. We need to start making things again in this country, and we can do that by reducing the tax and regulatory burden on job-creators. America will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Think about that. Look no further to see why jobs are moving overseas. But thanks to you, there’s reason for all of us to have hope that real spending cuts are coming, because last November, you went to the polls, and you voted out the big-spending politicians and you put in their place great men and women with a commitment to follow our Constitution and cut the size of government. I believe that we’re in the very early days of a history-making turn in America. Please know how important your calls, visits and letters are to the maintenance of our liberties. Because of you, Congress is responding, and we’re just beginning to start to undo the damage that’s been done the last few years, because we believe in lower taxes, we believe in a limited view of government and exceptionalism in America. And I believe that America is the indispensable nation of the world. Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle. Who can say that we won’t see a miracle again? The perilous battle that was fought during World War II in the Pacific at Iwo Jima was a battle against all odds, and yet this picture immortalizes the victory of young GIs over the incursion against the Japanese. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor. Our current debt crisis we face today is different, but we still need all of us to pull together. But we can do this. That’s our hope. We will push forward. We will proclaim liberty throughout the land. And we will do so because we, the people, will never give up on this great nation. So God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

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With Keith Olbermann’s departure, MSNBC needs a new high-profile host—and its top choice is none other than … Alec Baldwin. Sure, he currently has a gig on 30 Rock , but that just makes him an even better fit: “He’s already part of the NBC family, has a huge fan…

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Will Public-Private Partnerships Save Our Crumbling Water Infrastructure?

Photo by don.wing45 via Flickr Creative Commons CNN recently reported that an average of 700 water mains break each day nationwide. While 700 might not seem like a lot when looking nationwide, the fact that that number occurs every day turns it into a big problem. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the drinking water system in the US a grade of D- in its 2009 Report Card of America’s Infrastructure. It’s a sign that our country’s water infrastructure is outdated and crumbling, and is in major need of an overhaul if we’re … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job

Wondering where your HP Slate has been all these weeks since you ordered it? Well, at least one of those precious Windows 7 tablets has taken a little detour from its supposedly enterprise-centric destiny to make a cameo appearance… as a dashboard infotainment system. HP, in its inimitable wisdom, has decided to grace the opening of its Vancouver store last month with a customized GMC Yukon Denali truck, which is where we find the company’s Slate casually showing off its Acrobat Reader and other big boy OS advantages. We wouldn’t really say embedding the Slate into your dash is the worst idea in the world, though the rest of the characterful customizations to this Denali just might be. [Thanks, lmwong] Continue reading Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Philippines looking for 2 suspected bus bombers

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine police were searching Wednesday for two men they suspect remotely detonated a bus bomb that killed 5 passengers and were trying to determine whether the explosive pointed to the involvement of al-Qaida-linked militants. Metropolitan Manila police chief Nicanor Bartolome said investigators had recovered parts of an 81 mm mortar round and a Nokia cell phone used in Tuesday’s bombing that wounded 13 other people in Makati city, the capital’s financial district. The bombing could deal a blow to President Benigno Aquino III’s effort to project an image of stability after coming to power seven months ago and attract foreign investors to fund an ambitious package of…

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