Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all!
May 2009 have twice the blessings and half the bane of 2008.
May your dreams be clear and their paths be true.
We wish you all the best 
FactCheck – Year End Whoppers
This year, there were many times to be amazed and alarmed at the full out lies that spread so easily. We may disagree on the importance, envision different outcomes and suspect different causes for politics, problems, happenings and trends. But, we should always be able to agree on the bald facts of a situation.
When in doubt, be sure to check out FactCheck.org or Snopes.com. If it comes in a forwarded email, there is almost always some half-truths, exaggerations and spinning. Check them out and you will know the truth that is there and be able to dig through the rest.
Here is a great article on NewsWeek from FactCheck about some of the big year end lies that are flying around. Hope you find it interesting too.
-Amanda
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Year-end Whoppers
The bunk just keeps on coming.
Summary
We’ve often said that the spin never stops in Washington. And the weeks since Nov. 4 offer further evidence of that.
Consider some of the bogus claims we’ve debunked just since Election Day:
- It’s not true that unionized auto workers at Detroit’s Big Three make more than $70 an hour, as claimed by some opponents of federal aid.
- And no, 3 million workers won’t be tossed out of work if aid is not forthcoming, as claimed by those favoring a taxpayer bailout.
- President-elect Obama never promised to seek a ban on all semi-automatic weapons, as claimed by some fearful gun owners.
- And no, Obama did not propose a Gestapo-like civilian security force as claimed by a Republican member of Congress from Georgia and any number of overwrought bloggers.
- Democrats in Congress are not discussing any plan to confiscate the assets in 401(k) retirement accounts, another falsehood spread about by chain e-mails and Internet postings.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not demand a 757-size personal jet, a false claim resurrected when Democrats criticized Big Three executives for flying to D.C. on their own private jets to beg for aid.
- And Pelosi’s husband doesn’t own a $17 million stake in a food company that she may (or may not) have tried to help with an exemption from a new minimum wage law.
For details, plus bonus features including video of misleading TV spots by the United Auto Workers and by auto dealers, please read on to the Analysis section.
Watch our “Ask FactCheck” space for new items in the next few days. We’ll post the truth about a claim that the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to levy a tax on farmers’ cows and hogs. And we’ll give you the real story behind a widely circulating (and false) claim that the murder rate in counties that voted for Obama is six times higher than in counties that supported McCain.
Read Full Article on NewsWeek
Filed under Articles I Like | Comment (0)Net Neutrailty
“Net Neutrality” means that all web pages and content are treated equally. That no site is given preferential treatment over another at the ISP level.
Wikipedia on Net Neutrality
Every small business owner should care very much about Net Neutrality. Without it, large business could pay or negotiate for faster download or upload speeds. In other words, your ecommerce site would load like a dog while Wal-Mart’s opened immediately. Your videos would take forever to download and YouTube would be instant streaming. It would mean that certain players would start t have undue influence over web sites and content. There is no doubt, lack of Net Neutrality would make it more expensive for small business to succeed on the web.
There are other ramifications for your TV, video, cable and entertainment options which would bring the tyranny of the cable monopolize to the web. But, I think the chance of small business ending up on the “old road” while the big guys build a “super highway”.
But, from what I can tell, Google’s OpenEdge does not damage this concept. Allowing ISPs to cache content means that content that is loaded by multiple people will be saved at the ISP. It will load faster. Your internal proxy server works the same way. If one person loads it, the proxy gets it from the source server. The second person downloads it from the proxy and it loads faster. As long as you can get multiple people to load your content, your site will benefit too.
Filed under General | Comment (0)Friday
I haven’t been writing much in my blog. First, we had the holidays and then I caught the flu. Now that i am feeling back to my old self it was time to post again.
Things are going well at I-Tul, I have started my new weekly newsletter “The I-Tul Link”. If you are not currently receiving it, let me know and I will add you to the mailing list.
What are your internet/marketing plans for the new year? We are planning on releasing our new web site, expanding our internet marketing and continue to improve our online portal. If you are in the planning/budgeting stages, now is a great time to get together. We can help you plan your technology and internet marketing projects for 2009.
Have a good weekend and I will write more next week.
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