I still think this is pretty cool after seeing it a few times…

By BONO
Published: July 10, 2009 NYT

On his visit to Ghana, President Obama has the chance to lead nations in building on the successes of recent efforts within Africa and to learn from the failures.

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President Obama today chose Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. (R) as his choice for ambassador to China, tapping a moderate Republican governor to be his envoy to the world’s largest country…

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Obama’s first 100 days in office, as told through his Facebook page.

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Amie Leavitt

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 04/22/2009 06:59:23 PM MDT

Amie Jane Leavitt fell into a writing career by accident.

While working as a schoolteacher, Leavitt and her coworkers discussed what their dream jobs would be.

“I wanted to write and tell people about places I have been or places around here,” said the Payson resident. “Then, two weeks later, I went [online to] AOL, and there was an ad that said, ‘Do you want to be a freelance writer?’”

She applied, and the Internet giant hired her to write travel articles.

Since then, she has written magazine articles and 37 children’s books. Her books include biographies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and ‘tween pop star Miley Cyrus; a children’s “translation” of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. She also has written gardening books geared to kids and took photographs to illustrate them.

The hardest book she’s written to date: A choose-your-adventure story about the siege of the Alamo.

It took Leavitt six months and four rewrites.  She had to research the 1836 battle from both the Texas and Mexican sides.

That work paid off when she got a request from a boy who was doing a book report about her book and her.

While Leavitt enjoys writing children’s books, she plans to expand into blogging and try her hand at writing her own stories.

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From Mint.com:

Everyone knows that China’s got more people & that its importance as an economic superpower has escalated in recent years. What you might not understand is how the differences btw our countries,in economic philosophy, in population, in geography and in how the military is built and paid for ultimately play into the entire economic relationship.

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Graphs depicting the differences between the economy, military, and natural resources of China and the United States.

Tim O’Reilly shares his thoughts on why Aneesh Chopra will make an outstanding chief technology officer for the United States of America.

Aneesh Chopra is a rock star. He’s a brilliant, thoughtful change-maker. He knows technology, he knows government, and he knows how to put the two together to solve real problems. We couldn’t do better. 

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@aplusk v. @cnnbrk

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The other day I was having a conversation with my friend that’s a reporter about the future of newspapers. We were in disagreement. She stated the ultimate demise of newspapers in the near future. I didn’t see how that was possible. Newspapers are an important source of information for society I insisted, they are too necessary to simply disappear.

As we delved further into each other’s positions it became clear where we were misunderstanding each other. She was referring to traditional print. Of course I agree with her. I don’t know how much longer traditional print will be with us, but it’s days as a primary distribution method are numbered to be sure. I rarely read a printed paper these days. It’s all online for me and often read off my Blackberry (I sympathize with President-Elect Obama).

Having this discussion a couple of days ago is what made the following article all the more fascinating. The rise of independent online new organizations would seem to be expected, but how good some of them have become so quickly is something I did not expect.

Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: November 18, 2008

As newspapers shrink, rival operations have arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow their lead.

Tags: Internet, New Media, Newspapers, Online