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Inhofe Warns of Global Warming Laws
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2007 Comment (20)GOP Sen. James Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, faulted Democratic Chairwoman Barbara Boxer's leadership of the committee this morning in the most recent of a series of attacks on her handling of global warming legislation.
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Morning Buzz: Oct. 23, 2007
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2007 CommentSouthern California is still ablaze. Thousands more are being ordered to leave their homes, and at least 270,000 people have been evacuated. The flames of a dozen fires have lapped 700 houses and left 384 square miles charred. Experts believe this might be just the beginning; the weather forecast predicts hotter temperatures and even windier conditions today.
As astronauts at Cape Canaveral prepare for a difficult shuttle mission in which they will haul bulky equipment up to the International Space Station, scattered showers threaten to delay the launch. The shuttle Discovery is scheduled to take off at 11:38 a.m. this morning. Along with the seven crew members, the shuttle will carry the original lightsaber used by Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars film.
Parrots are known to be masterful at mimicking sounds, and the ability of one Amazon parrot in Indiana to imitate a fire alarm may have saved his owner's life during a house fire. Peanut the parrot started chirping like a fire alarm after he heard a smoke detector go off nearby, signaling his owner, 33-year-old Shannon Conwell, and her 9-year-old son that their house was ablaze. The people and the parrot escaped the fire unharmed.
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Bolton Raps 'Democratic' State Dept.
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2007 CommentJohn Bolton, the recent recess appointee as ambassador to the United Nations, ends his new tell-all book, Surrender Is Not an Option , with a scathing review of the State Department and the foreign service, which he says lean Democratic and often operate independent of the White House.
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Southern California Burns
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2007 Comment (1)Malibu is burning. So is San Diego. And as more than a dozen wildfires rage on in Southern California, caused by bone-dry weather and fierce desert winds, at least a quarter million people have been evacuated from homes, jails, hospitals, and nursing homes. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency as fires licked the suburbs of San Diego and downed a historic home that resembled a castle in Malibu.
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Senate to Take Up Spending Bills
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2007 CommentAfter last week's Capitol Hill drama over children's healthcare, in which House Democrats came 13 votes short of overriding President Bush's veto of the SCHIP program, this week in Congress looks to also be lively with several other spending measures up for debate, some of which the president has threatened to veto.
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Morning Buzz: Oct. 22, 2007
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2007 Comment (20)Turkish military vehicles headed to the Iraqi border after an attack yesterday by Kurdish rebels left 12 Turkish soldiers dead and eight missing, infuriating an already agitated public. While officials in the United States, Iraq, and Europe are pleading with Turkey's leaders not to strike, demonstrators across the country are calling for immediate action against Iraq's rebel bases.
Out-of-control wildfires are raging in parts of Southern California, causing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency last night. The fires continued today as thousands were evacuated. One person was killed in a fire near San Diego, and at least 14 others were hospitalized. Malibu was one of the worst-hit communities; a church, homes, and a castle burned there.
Sandisk Corp., known primarily for making flash memory sticks for computers, is introducing a new product today that tries to bridge the gap between video played on computers and video played on television sets. The Sansa TakeTV video player is a USB flash drive that can carry television programs and videos from a computer and allow users to play the video on their television sets. Sandisk has also developed an online video service called Fanfare for downloading video.
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Thompson Woos 'Values Voters'
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2007 CommentIn a speech to 2,000 conservative evangelicals at the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" in Washington, Republican Fred Thompson made some headway with conservative Christians who've been left uninspired during the desultory days of his first month on the presidential campaign trail.
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GOP Campaigns Want Bush on Sidelines
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2007 CommentAdvisers to the major Republican presidential candidates are developing a consensus on what role President Bush should play in the 2008 campaign—little or none.
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Morning Buzz: Oct. 19, 2007
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2007 Comment (21)Lt. Col. William H. Steele, the former U.S. military commander on trial on several counts including aiding the enemy by loaning prisoners his cellphone to make unmonitored calls, was found not guilty on that charge. But Steele, who worked at the same prison where Saddam Hussein was held, was found guilty of other charges, among them behavior unbecoming an officer for having an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter.
Cough and cold medicines should be labeled so that parents don't administer them to children under the age of 6, the American Academy of Pediatrics told government health advisers today. Earlier this month, U.S.News health writer Nancy Shute confessed in a story that she gave her child over-the-counter cold medicine and explained why kids shouldn't take it.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan and was met by two suicide bombers who killed up to 136 people; she was unhurt. Bhutto, whose return was forecast to be politically tumultuous, had been warned that bombers had been dispatched to kill her. Blame was placed on the Taliban, al Qaeda, and another group. Her security detail found a third man with bombs strapped to his body but prevented more carnage.
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Anatomy of a Viral Video
Tweet Share on Facebook October 18, 2007 Comment (18)There's a special place in the Internet Hall of Fame for Miss Teen South Carolina, whose bumbling, incoherent response to a question about American education is currently 27th on YouTube's all-time most-watched list. Or at least she definitely features prominently in the hame of fame's blooper reel. The video of her blunder, viewed 17 million times, is a textbook case of a "viral" video--one that spreads exponentially through the population in a short time.
To help decipher the complex dynamics behind these videos, the online demographics company Compete.com broke out the video's viewership by state and by day. It then created a slide show, below, that maps the video's growth and decline over seven days. (The image automatically scrolls through the days, beginning on Aug. 25, 2007.)
