The press, Google, its algorithm, their scale In their fight against Google, traditional media firmly believe the search engine needs them to refine (and monetize) its algorithm. Let’s explore the facts. The European press got itself in a bitter battle against Google. In a nutshell, legacy media want money from the search engine: first, for the snippets of news it grabs and feeds into its Google News service; second, on a broader basis, for all the referencing Google builds with news media material. In Germany, the Bundestag is working on a bill to force all news aggregators to pay their toll; in France, the executive is pushing for a negotiated solution before year-end. In the controversy, an argument keeps rearing its head. Last week, rooting for facts, I spoke with several people possessing deep knowledge of Google’s inner mechanics; they ranged from Search Engine Marketing specialists to a Stanford Computer Science professor who taught Larry Page and Sergey Brin back in the mid-90′s. Now, let’s consider the nature of searches.
Obama to Announce $2 Billion Plan to Get U.S. Cars Off Gasoline President Obama visits the Edison Electric Vehicle Technical Center in Pomona, Calif., in 2009. Credit: White House/Lawrence Jackson This afternoon, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to direct our cars, trucks and buses to a realm that doesn’t include gas stations. During a visit to Argonne National Laboratory, he will call for $2-billion energy security trust fund dedicated to research to boost automobile efficiency, enhance battery technology and expand the use of biofuels, among other clean-energy efforts. The ultimate goal: getting the country off oil. Obama had briefly mentioned the idea of an energy security trust in his State of the Union address in January, as a means of providing a long-term, reliable stream of money to researchers. Ahead of his March 15 announcement, White House officials offered a preview of the plan’s details. Weaning the nation off fossil fuels entirely for its transportation needs may not be practical or realistic.
David Koch Spokesman Tells Hurricane Sandy Victims To ‘Suck It Up’ In a week when this guy is almost universally panned as the country’s biggest asshole, a perennial contender managed to slip under the radar. The election is over, but David Koch is already threatening sitting Republicans with a hurricane of attack ads if they dare divert money from his pockets and into the pockets of the victims of Hurricane Sandy. From Lee Fong of (emphasis added): Earlier this week, AFP, which is chaired by Koch and believed to be financed by several other plutocrats from the New York City region, released a letter warning members of Congress not to vote for the proposed federal aid package for victims of the storm that swept New Jersey, New York City and much of the surrounding area in October. An announcement on the group’s website says that the vote next week for the Sandy aid package will be a “ key vote ”—meaning senators who support sending money for reconstruction could face an avalanche of attack ads in their next election. Are you laughing yet? Related posts:
Tsunamis in the Alps? Nearly 1,500 years ago a massive flood in Geneva reportedly swept away everything in its path—mills, houses, cattle, even entire churches. Now researchers believe they've found the unlikely sounding culprit: a tsunami-like killer wave in the Alps. The threat, they add, may still be very much alive. (Video: Tsunamis 101.) Spurred by a huge landslide, the medieval Lake Geneva "tsunami" (technically defined as a seismic ocean wave) swamped the city, which was already a trading hub, according to a new study. Far from any ocean, the massive wave was likely generated by a massive landslide into the Rhône River, which feeds and flows through Lake Geneva, according to a group of Swiss researchers. The team analyzed a massive sediment deposit at the bottom of the lake's easternmost corner and determined that the material had once sat above the lake and had slid all at once into the Rhône, near where the river flows into the eastern end of Lake Geneva (map).
Wharton's Entire San Francisco Campus Earns LEED Gold Certification Sited close to the Bay Bridge with views out over the water, Wharton’s new San Francisco campus is also conveniently located near public transit. The school offers up graduate level classes and an expanded MBA program in a high tech, digital learning environment. Rather than constructing a new facility, the school opted to renovate and adapt aa floor in the former Hills Brothers Coffee Plant, a 1920s Romanesque Revival facility featuring brick walls and arched walkways and doors. If it weren’t for the views of the Bay Bridge, you might think you were in a historic east coast school. The building and original sign are also national landmarks. Gensler designed the adaptive reuse of the 37,000 sq ft facility, which includes state-of-the-art group study rooms and amphitheater-style classrooms with HD video conferencing for broadcasts of networking events, speaker series and classes back to Philadelphia and across the world. + Gensler + Wharton San Francisco Images ©Wharton San Francisco
Eight Corporate Subsidies in the Fiscal Cliff Bill, From Goldman Sachs to Disney to NASCAR President Barack Obama is flanked by Vice President Joe Biden as he speaks at a news conference following the House vote, at the White House, in Washington, January 1, 2013. (Photo: Luke Sharrett / The New York Times) Throughout the months of November and December, a steady stream of corporate CEOs flowed in and out of the White House to discuss the impending fiscal cliff. Many of them, such as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, would then publicly come out and talk about how modest increases of tax rates on the wealthy were reasonable in order to deal with the deficit problem. What wasn’t mentioned is what these leaders wanted, which is what’s known as “tax extenders”, or roughly $205B of tax breaks for corporations. With such a banal name, and boring and difficult to read line items in the bill, few political operatives have bothered to pay attention to this part of the bill. So without further ado, here are eight corporate subsidies in the fiscal cliff bill that you haven’t heard of.
?So many people died? Pham To looked great for 78 years old. (At least, that’s about how old he thought he was.) His hair was thin, gray, and receding at the temples, but his eyes were lively and his physique robust — all the more remarkable given what he had lived through. I listened intently, as I had so many times before to so many similar stories, but it was still beyond my ability to comprehend. Pham To told me that the planes began their bombing runs in 1965 and that periodic artillery shelling started about the same time. And it only got worse. One, two… many Vietnams? At the beginning of the Iraq War, and for years after, reporters, pundits, veterans, politicians, and ordinary Americans asked whether the American debacle in Southeast Asia was being repeated. The same held true for Afghanistan. In those years, “Vietnam” even proved a surprisingly two-sided analogy — after, at least, generals began reading and citing revisionist texts about that war. An unimaginable toll Pham To was lucky.
Why It's So Hard For Scientists To Study Medical Marijuana Eighteen states (plus the District of Columbia) allow cannabis use for certain medical conditions. Despite that, scientists have a harder time doing research on the potential medical benefits of marijuana than they do on "harder" drugs like ecstasy or magic mushrooms. The public may think of pot use as no big deal, but federal laws make it difficult for researchers to obtain legal supplies. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed marijuana in the most restrictive use category, Schedule I, deeming it a drug with no medicinal value and high potential for abuse. "Marijuana is a linchpin in the War on Drugs," explains Brad Burge, the director of communications for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Research (MAPS), an organization currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the DEA over the right to establish a medical marijuana farm. The federal government's position on marijuana, according to a January 2011 document featured prominently on the DEA's homepage, is that
There Is No American Left Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (Photo: Iowa Democrats / Flickr)NOTE: This article originally appeared in Australian Options magazine. It is reproduced here with permission. In September 2012 Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel attempted to break the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) with a bid to privatize Chicago's public schools. The mayor's proposal was based on a plan to subject teachers (and schools) to performance measurement based on students' standardized test scores. Teachers whose students scored poorly would be fired. Do you support Truthout's reporting and analysis? The CTU went out on strike with the goal of maintaining public education in Chicago, America's third largest city. Under threat of a court injunction that might force them to return to work without a contract, the CTU ended its strike after just six business days. Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, is a Democrat. The Obama administration: Center-right Democrats Rahm Emanuel is not just any Democrat. What is Obamacare really?