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17 Dec 2009 22:23

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Tech, U.S.: One place the stimulus is helping: More broadband in more places

  • $7.2
    billion
    in funds is headed for communities in need of better broadband Internet access
  • $183 million is headed to 17 different states starting right about now (hooray rural states!) source

17 Dec 2009 21:13

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U.S.: Was @military_mom right to tweet about her son drowning?

  • Please pray like never before. my 2 yr old fell in the pool.
  • Blogger @military_mom (a.k.a. Shellie Ross) • Regarding the drowning of her son. Many are up in arms about the fact that she tweeted about the incident half an hour after it happened. He died a few hours later. Our feeling? Twitter is just a communication mechanism like any other. It’s as easy to use as texting or phone calls, or any other mechanism you use. Twitter isn’t a faddish thing – Twitter is a communication mechanism. People can and will use it for this. Are we wrong? Let us know. (Either way, and let us be clear – this is a sad story and that doesn’t take away from that one bit. We actually find the New York Post story that brought up the issue to be quite disrespectful.) source

17 Dec 2009 09:58

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U.S.: Thirsty? You won’t be after you see this photo

The NYT has a pretty interesting feature about how tap water is really, really dangerous and relatively unregulated. Stick with the bottles, kids. source

17 Dec 2009 09:16

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U.S.: If they can make a climate change deal, the U.S. will help – big time

  • $100 billion in U.S. help to fight global warming source

15 Dec 2009 23:13

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U.S.: Immigration: Hey, let’s throw another thing on Obama’s plate, OK?

  • Couldn’t this battle wait for now, guys? Today, Democratic Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez introduced a bill to reform immigration. Now, obviously, this battle needs to come up, especially considering how heated it got during the Bush years. But let’s play devil’s advocate here. You have a president who is dealing with these things (among others), in order of importance: Unemployment, health care, the economic crisis, Afghanistan, Iraq, closing Guantanamo, gay rights and making sure Bo the dog gets kibble. And now we want to throw immigration on top of all of this? This seems like it could wait until year three. We’d rather see Obama deal with all that other stuff the right way. source

15 Dec 2009 21:09

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U.S.: Let’s recall a bunch of swine flu vaccines and see if people PANIC!

  • 800,000 piggies got recalled source

15 Dec 2009 09:00

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U.S.: The White House generates a lot of e-mail, apparently

  • 94 days the span of time the 22 million missing Bush e-mails spread over, according to Gawker
  • 234,042 the number of e-mails they would’ve had to send and receive every single day source
 

15 Dec 2009 00:56

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U.S.: Thomson, Illinois is looking a lot like Guantanamo Bay right now

The rural town, 150 miles south of Chicago, will reportedly house some of the detainees being vacated from Gitmo. People will complain … soon. source

14 Dec 2009 21:32

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U.S.: Know all those missing e-mails, Bush? We found ’em. Right here.

  • 22 million e-mails probably hidden in a bunker somewhere source

14 Dec 2009 21:24

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U.S.: Bad kind of irony: The thing that detects your cancer might cause it

Apparently, a single CT scan – often used to detect cancer in some people – can cause cancer in some people. Get your tinfoil hats on. source