Currently viewing the tag: “News”

Written by Rezwan

Shahjahan Siraj is disappointed with the Bangladeshi and Western media who reported mainly the negative news on Japan after the devastating earthquake and Tsunami.

Global Voices in English

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Yahoo! Sports
Florida State Knocks out Texas A&M, 57-50
ABC News
AP Kitchen made it 48-40 when he drove by Naji Hibbert for a three-point play with 4:49 left, and the Seminoles remained in control the rest of the way. The Seminoles' leading scorer and rebounder, Singleton checked in with 7:35 left in the first half
No. 10 Florida State drops No. 7 Texas A&MHouston Chronicle
Defense lifts FSU to victory in NCAA openerMiamiHerald.com
Florida State beats Texas A&M with defenseChicago Breaking Sports – Tribune
SportingNews.com –ESPN (blog) –The Associated Press
all 514 news articles »

Sports – Google News

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The Left's panic concerning the defunding of NPR has become quite comical in recent days.

Take for example Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) who took to the House floor Thursday and said, "If my friends on the other side of the aisle want to strip funding from NPR because they believe — wrongly, in my view — that NPR is biased, then we should be given the same opportunity" and prevent taxpayer dollars from being used for advertising "on the partisan political platform of Fox News" (video follows with commentary):

According to FoxNews.com:

McGovern cited a Rand Study that found the federal government subsidizes media companies all the time and that the Pentagon alone spent more than $ 600 million in advertising in 2007.

McGovern did not cite any studies or statistics on how much federal advertising money is spent on Fox News. He did not return requests for comment submitted by FoxNews.com.

So let's think about this logically. Pentagon advertising is likely to recruit military members, correct? And members of our armed forces tend to be more conservative than the general public.

With this in mind, regardless of the actual dollars involved, it would make sense for the Department of Defense to want to advertise on a right-leaning news outlet.

If McGovern's amendment had cleared the House Rules Committee – which it didn't – and had been approved by the House and the Senate, we'd be needlessly hampering military recruitment efforts as a silly quid pro quo for NPR.

With regard to other federal government ads, these are likely from various agencies and departments such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service for example.

Should Fox viewers have such announcements withheld from them because the network slants in the same political direction as they do? If so, then shouldn't the government be prohibited from doing any advertising since every media outlet has a bias?

It doesn't appear that McGovern and his staff have thoroughly thought through all of the ramifications of this silly proposal, does it?

NewsBusters.org – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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The Left's panic concerning the defunding of NPR has become quite comical in recent days.

Take for example Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) who took to the House floor Thursday and said, "If my friends on the other side of the aisle want to strip funding from NPR because they believe — wrongly, in my view — that NPR is biased, then we should be given the same opportunity" and prevent taxpayer dollars from being used for advertising "on the partisan political platform of Fox News" (video follows with commentary):

According to FoxNews.com:

McGovern cited a Rand Study that found the federal government subsidizes media companies all the time and that the Pentagon alone spent more than $ 600 million in advertising in 2007.

McGovern did not cite any studies or statistics on how much federal advertising money is spent on Fox News. He did not return requests for comment submitted by FoxNews.com.

So let's think about this logically. Pentagon advertising is likely to recruit military members, correct? And members of our armed forces tend to be more conservative than the general public.

With this in mind, regardless of the actual dollars involved, it would make sense for the Department of Defense to want to advertise on a right-leaning news outlet.

If McGovern's amendment had cleared the House Rules Committee – which it didn't – and had been approved by the House and the Senate, we'd be needlessly hampering military recruitment efforts as a silly quid pro quo for NPR.

With regard to other federal government ads, these are likely from various agencies and departments such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service for example.

Should Fox viewers have such announcements withheld from them because the network slants in the same political direction as they do? If so, then shouldn't the government be prohibited from doing any advertising since every media outlet has a bias?

It doesn't appear that McGovern and his staff have thoroughly thought through all of the ramifications of this silly proposal, does it?

NewsBusters.org blogs

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He really thought he had something, too.

A congressman smarting over legislation to defund National Public Radio tried to take out his frustration with a ban on federal dollars paying for advertising on Fox News, but the effort was rejected in a party-line committee vote.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., offered an amendment Wednesday night that would have prohibited funds from any federal agency from being used to advertise on the Fox News Channel.

“If my friends on the other side of the aisle want to strip funding from NPR because they believe — wrongly, in my view — that NPR is biased, then we should be given the same opportunity,” McGovern told the House Rules Committee…

McGovern didn’t actually get around to saying how much money the military spends on Fox News advertising, purposefully so. As long as people of McGovern’s ideology continue to vilify the ROTC on campuses who receive federal funding, I see no problem with allowing them to place television advertisements. They have to recruit somehow. After the deregulation of the broadcasting industry in the 80s, station owners didn’t have to eat airtime to give free reign, literally, to PSAs. They cost.

Of course, McGovern surely can’t be so illogical to assume that government funding to pay for the production of bias and items like this:

is in any way similar to advertising for military recruitment on Fox. If McGovern wants to see more military ads on networks like MSNBC, perhaps encourage them to be friendlier to the cause and attract more of an audience that would see said ads. Advertising goes where they eyeballs are.

I have to wonder, too, if McGovern was also against President Obama using the public airwaves multiple times to push his unpopular health control law?

McGovern mentions possible presidential contenders as analysts, except purposefully omitted that Fox suspended Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as analysts until they made a decision whether or not to run.

If McGovern is so concerned about NPR financing, perhaps he should privately raise funds for a PSA campaign to encourage progressives to fund what they want to hear themselves.


Big Journalism

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Seattle Post Intelligencer
George Mason Tops 'Nova 61-57 in NCAA Tournament
ABC News
AP By DAN GELSTON AP Basketball Writer AP Luke Hancock hit a 3-pointer with 21 seconds left, capping the Patriots' comeback and keeping the one-time NCAA tournament darlings playing with a 61-57 win over Villanova on Friday. Villanova missed its last
NCAA tournament: George Mason surges past VillanovaWashington Post
George Mason tops 'Nova 61-57 in NCAA tournamentmsnbc.com
George Mason 61, Villanova 57USA Today
Philadelphia Daily News –Chicago Breaking Sports – Tribune –Washington Times
all 463 news articles »

Sports – Google News

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Seattle Post Intelligencer
George Mason Tops 'Nova 61-57 in NCAA Tournament
ABC News
AP By DAN GELSTON AP Basketball Writer AP Luke Hancock hit a 3-pointer with 21 seconds left, capping the Patriots' comeback and keeping the one-time NCAA tournament darlings playing with a 61-57 win over Villanova on Friday. Villanova missed its last
NCAA tournament: George Mason surges past VillanovaWashington Post
George Mason tops 'Nova 61-57 in NCAA tournamentmsnbc.com
George Mason 61, Villanova 57USA Today
Philadelphia Daily News –Chicago Breaking Sports – Tribune –Washington Times
all 463 news articles »

Sports – Google News

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FOXSports.com
Hansbrough, Irish Beat Akron in NCAA Opener
ABC News
AP Akron's Alex Abreu, right, drives around Notre Dame's Eric Atkins in the first half of a second-round NCAA Southwest Regional tournament college basketball game in Chicago, Friday, March 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Jim Prisching) Abromaitis then sank a
Notre Dame handles Akron in easy winSportingNews.com
Notre Dame holds off Akron, 69-56Los Angeles Times
Notre Dame Shot at NCAA Basketball Crown Lifts Football Team's GloomBloomberg
Chicago Tribune –SB Nation
all 143 news articles »

Sports – Google News

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Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan’s Trial by Fire

Despite assertions by its detractors that wind energy would not survive an earthquake or tsunami the Japanese wind industry is still functioning and helping to keep the lights on during the Fuksuhima crisis.

Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind facility damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm, located about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake “battle proof design” came through with flying colors.

Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country:

“Eurus Energy Japan says that 174.9MW with eight wind farms (64% of their total capacity with 11 wind farms in eastern part of Japan) are in operation now. The residual three wind farms (Kamaishi 42.9MW, Takinekoshirai 46MW, Satomi 10.02MW) are stopped due to the grid failure caused by the earthquake and Tsunami. Satomi is to re-start operations in a few days. Kamaishi is notorious for tsunami disaster, but this wind farm is safe because it is locate in the mountains about 900m high from sea level.”

The largest wind farm operator in Japan, Eurus Energy with about 22% of all wind turbines in Japan, is a subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Company (TEPCO) which operates the Fukushima nuclear facility. Right now, it is likely the company is very happy about its diversified portfolio:

While shares in the Tokyo stock market have fallen during the crisis, the stock price of Japan Wind Development Co. Ltd. has risen from 31,500 yen on 11 March to 47,800 yen on 16 March.

Wind represented 39% of all new electricity generation capacity installed in the U.S. in 2009. How can wind grab the rest of this $ 60B pie? [Greentech Media]

Wind power is cheap. At around 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), including subsidies, wind turbines can already compete with natural gas combined cycle plants that produce power at 6 to 9 cents per kWh. So why are utilities still building gas plants? In the U.S. in 2009, natural gas plants represented 43% of all new generating capacity installed, and wind represented 39%.

The intermittent nature of wind power puts it at a major disadvantage: gas plants can provide power 24 hours a day. Compressed air, batteries or other types of storage can offset this liability, but at around 5 cents or more per kWh, storage isn’t cheap. But if wind could get down to 4 cents per kWh, and storage continues to lower its cost, wind with storage could eventually dominate the electricity generation market.

So how do we get there?

Based on a basic cost breakdown for a traditional 2.5 MW turbine (see pie chart below), the most promising areas for shaving costs are the blades, gearbox, generator, and tower, which combined represent 53% of the total turbine capital cost.  Of all these pain points, the gearbox, and the potential for direct drives, has garnered quite a bit of attention. After all, 24% of the total turbine cost relates to the gearbox and the generator.

Small wind companies are going in a completely different direction, trying to deliver electricity at the point of use rather than at a large centralized farm that requires costly transmission. Another way to buck the trend is with vertical axis turbines that look more like an old-fashioned lawnmower turned on its side.

Can the current models be tweaked — or do we need a start fresh?

And if wind really wants to take the remaining 61% share of new electricity generation from natural gas and coal — how can storage be incorporated in an economical fashion?

Dems Blast Oil Speculators

… Democrats are turning to their own dual argument — one that links oil-futures markets to fuel costs and attacks the GOP for proposing to cut the regulation of “speculators.”

Pinning an increase in gas prices on oil speculation is not a new maneuver for Democrats, who made similar calls for stricter regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) when gasoline hit $ 4 per gallon in the summer of 2008. But the Democratic return to blaming pump prices partly on Wall Street comes as Republicans press to cut CFTC’s budget by one-third, giving Democrats a fresh pushback against the GOP message that reining in EPA would help drive gas costs down.

“There is no question” that speculation is playing a role in the rise in gas prices, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who empowered CFTC to crack down on oil futures traders in last year’s financial reform law, said in an interview.

The $ 56 million cut to CFTC included in the House GOP’s continuing resolution (CR), which passed Feb. 19, means the commission would “lose the ability to restrict that speculation,” added Frank, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.

Many in Frank’s party have hammered home that point in recent days. The House Democratic leadership circulated a memo last week that warned the GOP-backed CR would require CFTC to cut its staff by “about 2/3,” diminishing its power to “monitor the energy markets for fraud and manipulation, which could lead to higher oil prices.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a member of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee that has jurisdiction over CFTC, recalled yesterday that “even the threat of the specter of that kind of restriction several years ago brought [oil] prices down.”

The Pulse: Quinn Vetoes Plan to Build Pair of Coal-to-Gas Plants

Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed legislation Monday that would have allowed coal gasification plants to be built on the Southeast Side of Chicago and in Southern Illinois. “Our investments in clean coal must not come at the expense of consumers,” said Mr. Quinn, echoing critics who said the Chicago measure would result in an increase in gas bills by requiring that utilities buy substitute natural gas at a fixed rate for 30 years from a subsidiary of the Leucadia National Corporation, which wanted to build the Chicago plant.

The bill promised that the $ 3 billion project would save customers at least $ 100 million. Opponents questioned whether Leucadia could keep its pledge to capture and store 85 percent of the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions, the major driver ofclimate change.

Hoyt Hudson, a spokesman for the company, said the carbon dioxide would be pumped to the Gulf Coast, where it would be used to force oil out of depleted wells, or to sites in central Illinois where it would be stored underground. But no commercial-scale sequestration facility exists in Illinois, and the pipelines needed for either plan would have to be built — raising financial, political and environmental challenges.

A Texas company, Denbury Resources, has proposed a carbon dioxide pipeline from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, but that plan is stalled until other gasification plants are built.

“The veto was definitely a disappointment,” Mr. Hudson said. “But our supporters are still encouraging us to come back, and we’re contemplating that.”

Congress Emits Half-Truths in Spin War Over Mass. V. EPA

In the continuing political battle over the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, Democrats and Republicans rarely take aim at the most deserving target: the Supreme Court.

As Democrats are fond of noting, it wasn’t the Obama administration but the Supreme Court that decided in its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling that greenhouse gases could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The court told U.S. EPA to conduct the analysis that led to the so-called endangerment finding — in which EPA concluded that greenhouse gases were harmful — that triggered rules that Republicans in particular are now railing against.

Like other major Supreme Court decisions — including the 2006 wetlands ruling in Rapanos v. United States that still has lawyers and EPA officials befuddled — the justices gave little thought to the practical or political impact of the decision (Greenwire, Feb. 7).

As a result, how lawmakers interpret the ruling varies wildly, depending on the party and environmental predilections of the specific lawmaker.

“The Supreme Court gave EPA permission to act, but it did not mandate it to act,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), author of a bill that would strip the federal government of any authority over greenhouse gases, said in an interview. “I think EPA is overstepping what it should be doing in terms of impacting Americans’ ability to compete globally.”

In Its Crusade Against EPA Climate Rules, Has the GOP Gone Too Far?

Lately, the amount of time House Republicans have dedicated to crying over spilled milk would make even the casual observer suspicious.

Fortunately, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is savvy enough to detect that particular brand of crocodile tears unique to Capitol Hill.

However, she still might have to consider changing her title to chief EPA mythbuster if representatives keep using congressional hearings as a forum to boo-hoo to her about cooked-up regulations they know are fallacies yet continue to insist her agency is preparing to promulgate.

Though she sometimes cracks a knowing smile from the witness chair, Jackson is always her gracious, measured and down-to-earth self when she patiently explains to one committee or another that the Environmental Protection Agency does not now — and will not in the future — regulate cow flatulence, farm dust or milk spilled on dairy farms.

Those familiar with the hearing room-as-theater scenario in the nation’s capital are accustomed to these sorts of ploys. But even hardened veterans are questioning why Republicans are persisting with this sideshow act when they have created a serious firestorm on center stage by trying to slash EPA’s budget by one-third for the remainder of the fiscal year and threatening to prevent Jackson from deploying the Clean Air Act to curb emissions from heat-trapping gases.

Climate Progress

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Former WDIV news director heads to…
B&C – Breaking News

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Former WDIV news director heads to…
B&C – Breaking News

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Following the March 8 release of an undercover sting video of NPR executive Ron Schiller calling Tea Party members "racist," CBS initially gave no coverage to the ensuing scandal and resignations of him and NPR President Vivian Schiller. However, it turns out that the controversy was covered by a CBS News broadcast, the barely-watched 4 A.M. Morning News.

On Thursday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric did a news brief on House Republicans voting to de-fund NPR: "Republicans say NPR does well enough to fund itself, but Democrats say a cutoff of federal money would cripple some 600 public radio stations." She failed to make any mention of the scandal that preceded the vote.

On the March 10 CBS Morning News at 4 A.M. ET, anchor Betty Nguyen did only a slightly longer news brief on the release of the sting video:

4:11AM ET
                
BETTY NGUYEN: National Public Radio is under renewed fire from conservatives this morning following the release of hidden camera video of an NPR executive deriding Tea Partiers. The same video prompted NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller to resign on Wednesday. Now, in the video, NPR's Ron Schiller, no relation to Vivian, is fooled into believing he is speaking to representatives of a Muslim group about Tea Party conservatives.

RON SCHILLER: They believe in sort of white, Middle America, gun-toting, and it's – it's scary. They're – they're seriously racist, racist people.

NGUYEN: He goes on to say NPR would be better off without federal funding, a goal conservatives have sought for decades. Ron Schiller also resigned from NPR.

So CBS clearly new about the scandal, but felt it was only worth a 4 A.M. news brief rather than a full story on one of its more-watched newscasts. Something both NBC and ABC found time to do.

— Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

NewsBusters.org – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Seattle Post Intelligencer
Michigan St ends disappointing season
Deseret News
AP Chris O'Meara, AP Michigan State coach Tom Izzo gestures during the second half against UCLA in a Southeast regional second-round NCAA tournament college basketball game in Tampa, Fla., Thursday, March 17, 2011. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo says
Michigan State's furious rally not enough to defeat UCLASacramento Bee
Fitting End For MSU In NCAA TourneyWDIV Detroit
Michigan State UniversityMichigan State Athletics
Los Angeles Times –San Jose Mercury News –FOXSports.com
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Sports – Google News

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Seattle Post Intelligencer
Michigan St ends disappointing season
Deseret News
AP Chris O'Meara, AP Michigan State coach Tom Izzo gestures during the second half against UCLA in a Southeast regional second-round NCAA tournament college basketball game in Tampa, Fla., Thursday, March 17, 2011. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo says
Michigan State's furious rally not enough to defeat UCLASacramento Bee
Fitting End For MSU In NCAA TourneyWDIV Detroit
Michigan State UniversityMichigan State Athletics
Los Angeles Times –San Jose Mercury News –FOXSports.com
all 1,319 news articles »

Sports – Google News

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Kansas City Star
Two Cents: MSU basketball team's legacy for 2011 is a bit of a wreck
The Saginaw News – MLive.com
The Michigan State University basketball program has established some high standards, so it isn't easy for each year's team to leave a legacy. Unfortunately for this year's Spartans, the best they can claim is that
Drew Sharp: Spartans' disappointing year ends in fitting wayDetroit Free Press
Kalin Lucas' iconic run with Spartans endsESPN (blog)
It's nervous time as UCLA defeats Michigan State, 78-76Los Angeles Times
FOXSports.com –San Jose Mercury News –CBSSports.com
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Sports – Google News

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