Recycle A Bicycle’s upcoming Youth Bike Summit is January 14th – 16th in New York City. The conference is a 3 day gathering geared towards students, educators, and advocates aiming to inspire people from different educational disciplines to explore, network, and learn how bicycling can be a legitimate and safe form of transportation for today’s youth. If you planning on actually biking to the event, given the snow on the ground here in NYC, you may need to put some
Continue reading …Don’t want to pay your dog tax? Then your dog will be executed—at least, that’s how one Swiss village is handling the problem. A Reconvilier official says the town—population 2,245 humans, 280 canines—can legally kill a dog if its owner doesn’t cough up the $50 annual…
Continue reading …Australia’s vast floods shut down the center of Brisbane today, sending thousands fleeing and others to stores in a panicked rush of food hoarding. Rescuers, meanwhile, combed the area for 43 people who have gone missing. Brisbane is the country’s third-largest city, home to 2 million people. Floodwaters are expected…
Continue reading …Click here to view this media [Side note: Be sure to catch the, um, startling segue at the end of the video. This came at the very end of Cavuto's show. It'll make you laugh. -- Ed.] Neil Cavuto has had enough, and doggone it, we should just quit the introspection and blame the crazy. Because you know, John Wilkes Booth didn’t have talk radio, or chalkboards, or Fox News, or MSNBC, but he still shot Abraham Lincoln. Yes, he really said that, which means to me that he also hasn’t cracked a history book in a long, long time. Forget Cavuto’s effort to make us think insanity happens in a bubble outside the world we live in. His John Wilkes Booth analogy falls on its face right out of the gate, because John Wilkes Booth may not have had talk radio, but he did have access to the Secret Service, and the high echelons of the Confederacy. John Wilkes Booth was a spy for the Confederate cause. As an actor, he had access to people and places others might not have and used his skills to shuttle information back to Confederate generals throughout the war. He wasn’t crazy; he was a traitor. This was what he believed : ” This country was formed for the white not for the black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point, as held by those noble framers of our Constitution, I for one, have ever considered it, one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation.” Not all that far off from some things we’ve heard in the past two years, is it? Booth’s association with the Confederacy was not recent, either. He had functioned as a double agent at the hanging of John Brown. He donned a militia uniform and assumed the role of guard, to make sure there were no attempts to rescue Brown ahead of the hanging. That was in 1859. Throughout the war, he was an ardent sympathizer and spy, and when he saw an opportunity, he aimed his gun and assassinated the President of the United States because he (violently) did not agree with him. Not because he was “nutcase.” This wasn’t an “isolated incident.” What an unfortunate analogy for Cavuto to make. I can’t think of one more inappropriate than that one, given Booth’s role and attitude toward Lincoln. Booth was as sane as the rest of us. He was simply angry that the North had prevailed — so angry he plotted and succeeded at assassinating Lincoln. And why did he choose Booth? Because there was talk radio and hate talk when JFK and RFK were assassinated? Because there is talk radio and hate talk now? Because there are many, many similarities between the toxicity of today’s airwaves and those of the 1960′s? But no. Instead he chooses one of the most sane and rational assassins in American history to argue his case that Saturday’s shooting was just another lunatic gone crazy.
Continue reading …How quickly golden-voiced homeless man Ted Williams went from celebrated comeback story … to scandalous Entertainment Tonight headline. Williams and his daughter went on the show last night to talk about Monday night’s run-in with the LAPD, which resulted in Williams being detained . Williams was in California for an episode…
Continue reading …A few months ago, three teams split $10 million in prizes, finally claiming the Progressive Insurance Automotive X prize . They’re all at CES, and we got a chance to speak in detail with one of the men behind one of them, Edison2′s Oliver Kutter, about the design of the car and, ultimately, what’s going to come next thanks to that $5 million in cash the company walked away with. Read on for the details from that conversation, including why this tiny thing could actually be safer than a traditional car, as well as a video walkthrough, and pictures of the winner of the two-wheeled X-Tracer too. Gallery: Automotive X-Prize winners Continue reading A tour around the X-Prize winning Edison2 Very Light Car (video) A tour around the X-Prize winning Edison2 Very Light Car (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press= KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Roadside bombs and an insurgent attack claimed the lives of five coalition troops Wednesday, NATO said, while the Taliban took aim at the Afghan intelligence services, killing four people and wounding more than 30 in a pair of attacks, officials said. The violence follows a surprise visit to Kabul a day earlier by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who praised coalition advances made against the insurgency while noting that the gains were “fragile and reversible.” Biden left Afghanistan for neighboring Pakistan Wednesday morning. Roadside bombs have been the most deadliest weapon in the insurgent arsenal against international forces in the…
Continue reading …Philadelphia’s mayor says the city has declared an end to its snow emergency. The city received about 5-7 inches of snow from Tuesday night into Wednesday, but no major problems are being reported. (Jan. 12)
Continue reading …New York City police released surveillance video showing an 81-year-old being thrown to the ground when a female suspect grabbed her purse while trying to enter the subway. The video sent to the AP was previously altered. (Jan. 12)
Continue reading …In what can only be called an amazing example of extremely coincidental timing, Verizon has announced that it’s throwing the switch on 16 new 3G Cells in the greater New York Metro area. Alas, they won’t be spreading the LTE love across the Empire State, but with such an added signal boost in the Boroughs we’d say the company is in reasonably good shape to handle a massive influx of customers. You know, just in case. There’s a full list of all the new towers in the PR below. Continue reading Verizon Wireless turns on 16 new cell sites in NYC, we can’t imagine why Verizon Wireless turns on 16 new cell sites in NYC, we can’t imagine why originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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