Obama personally caused Hurricane Sandy: It wasn’t global warming that made Sandy so intense; it was Barack. Alex Jones’ site reported the president engineered the storm using a Pentagon weather modification project. The mayhem caused by the hurricane would afford Obama the opportunity to score points by briskly managing disaster relief a week before the election.
via Chart: Almost Every Obama Conspiracy Theory Ever | Mother Jones.
By Jed Lewison (DailyKos) I knew that despite actively supporting the Vietnam War, Mitt Romney had taken several deferments to avoid serving in it—including spending time in France as a missionary—but until watching the above video, I’d never seen this quote:
Mr. Romney, though, said that he sometimes had wished he were in Vietnam instead of France. “There were surely times on my mission when I was having a particularly difficult time accomplishing very little when I would have longed for the chance to be serving in the military,” he said in an interview, “but that was not to be.”
What an amazing quote. I mean, he had ample opportunity to serve if he wanted to. He took four deferments—that’s four chances that he passed up—yet he said with a straight face that he “would have longed for the chance to be serving in the military.” That’s just pathological B.S. right there. What a fraud.
Note: The video has a typo in it, saying that Romney offered the quote in November 2012. It was actually November 2007.
By Beth Healy (Boston Globe) Over the past six decades, Republican administrations have produced median economic growth of 2.6 percent. Democratic administrations, meanwhile, have produced a median growth rate of 4.2 percent.
And for all of Wall Street’s angst about Obama, the market has done quite well during his administration. Since his inauguration, stocks have returned about 12.3 percent annually, in line with market performance under Democratic administrations going back to 1913, according to S&P Capital IQ, a New York Research firm that compiled the data. During Republican administrations, stocks have risen a median 5.1 percent annually.
Of course, Obama is partly benefitting from a good comparison: In the months before his election, the stock market endured one of its greatest slides ever, as the financial crisis exploded. Even now, stock prices are not back to the peak before his election.
One study says stocks do best if an incumbent president has won.
“The market actually does better under Democrats than Republicans, not just the S&P 500, but earnings and the economy,’’ said Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ.
via Economic data show more growth under Democrats – Business – The Boston Globe.
(BBC) The free-to-download app uses algorithms to process news stories into summaries which users can then swipe to see in full if they wish.
“We worked hard on an interface that looks like nothing else on iPhone,” he told the BBC.
“We merged algorithm with beautiful design. It’s summarising thousands of articles every minute.”
‘Big visions’
Mr D’Aloisio, who celebrated his 17th birthday on Thursday, has appointed Bart Swanson, who oversaw the roll-out of retailer Amazon in Europe, to chair the company behind Summly.
Nick D’Aloisio talks to Jane Wakefield about the app in December 2011
“I see big visions for the company longer term,” the teenager said.
“We can really become the de-facto format for news on mobile. People are not scrolling through 1,000-word articles – they want snack-sized information.”
via BBC News – Summly: Teenager launches top-selling news app.
By Sabrina Siddiqui (Huffington Post) From the Romney pool report:
TV pool asked Romney at least five times whether he would eliminate FEMA as president/what he would do with FEMA. He ignored the qs but they are audible on cam. The music stopped at points and the qs would have been audible to him.
A follow-up report noted the specific questions Romney ignored, as he was collecting hurricane supplies following his event:
“Gov are you going to eliminate FEMA?” a print pooler shouted, receiving no response.
Wires reporters asked more questions about FEMA that were ignored.
Romney kept coming over near pool to pick up more water. He ignored these questions:
“Gov are you going to see some storm damage?”
“Gov has [New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie invited you to come survey storm damage?”
“Gov you’ve been asked 14 times, why are you refusing to answer the question?”
via Mitt Romney Refuses To Talk About FEMA After Hurricane Sandy Event.