Thursday, October 29, 2009

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Patricia Handschiegel: The New Power Girls: Influencers - Is The Company Your Company Keeps Hurting Or Helping Your Brand? Top
It's a chilly fall night at Hollywood's Roosevelt hotel as the 140 conference parties (three total!) go full swing poolside under the stars. Guests mingle and chit-chat as out of town revelers see familiar faces and catch up. Cabanas line the perimeter as wait staff deliver trays of cocktails. At a private suite to the side of the hotel's signature pool, some of the most influential people on the city's technology and business scene are gathered. A group of women, all friends, are perched on the outside chaise, laughing and talking business. The array of fashionable shoes proves it's not just about substance in this town, but style as well. They're bloggers, connectors, personalities, CEOs, founders, and execs that make business move here. As I sip from a glass of champagne, the words a friend recently said came to mind, "these are the most influential people you may not have heard of." It got me thinking. It seems real influencers don't need to hustle themselves constantly in the media and at conferences. Their work does the work for them. Take for example female founder and pioneering fashion media CEO Kathryn Finney of TheBudgetFashionista.com . Her reach into the market goes far past her more than 500 television and media appearances to a real, bonafide audience that respects and follows her advice. She's a soon-to-be twice author, an in demand speaker, and advisor who knows the business because she's done the work. She's had the ear of major brands for longer than any fashion blog in the business. A current campaign with TJ Maxx has been underway with enormous success. New Power Girls co-creator Meghan Cleary is another - ShopNBC tapped her for a shoe line because of her solid, real position and reach among shoppers and consumers, and saw one of the highest shoe sales to date with her on board. In a market where people can call themselves "experts" without even a formal job or real work history in the industry, or deem themselves "influencers" without a real audience, people like Kathy and Meghan are the people that brands should know. In fact, companies may need to be careful more than ever before. Traffic numbers can be gamed, media coverage is as easily attained through friendships and relationships and not necessarily real demand. Brands have seen backlash for selecting who they work with, how they present their products and worse. I know of at least three cases where it cost businesses their reputation, and at least five times where conference attendees complained about a panelist speaker having little or no experience in the industry. "It's easy for brands to be seduced by wanting to hire a celebrity (be it an actor or a well known web-brity)," said public relations guru Nicole Jordan , who has worked with some of the best brands in the market. "But the question I ask is - what does it really get you at the end of the day and does it equal credibility? Paying an 'influencer' to promote does not." With out a doubt, companies should do the homework when bringing influencers and experts, from Google search and requesting references to carefully evaluating whether or not someone's a fit for your brand. "If the social web has taught us anything," adds Jordan. "the people who can move mountains (aside of Oprah) are your natural evangelists who want to see you succeed, and are happy to help you." You'll know right away who that is. Hear what Meghan and I have to say about influencers here .
 
Carl Pope: Stop the Hand-Wringing -- 20% Is NOT Hard Top
It's really quite amazing. The main response at Tuesday's opening hearing of the Senate Environment Committee on the Clean Energy Act was that its 2020 goal -- a 20 percent reduction in U.S. emissions of greenhouse pollution -- was over-the-top ambitious. Senators, both Republican and Democratic, expressed grave concerns that such a goal would somehow tank the economy. In fact, it's somewhat alarmingly unaggressive -- and won't do as much as it should to jump-start the clean-energy revolution we need for economic recovery. It appears that those who complain that 20 percent is too ambitious haven't been tracking our progress for the past three years. Every year the Energy Information Agency (EIA) forecasts how much carbon dioxide the U.S. economy will emit over time. At the end of 2005, EIA projected that the U.S. would emit 7,500 million metric tons (mmt) of CO2 in 2020 -- up from about 6,000 mmt in 2005. That's a big increase. But in the three years following that forecast, 100 coal-fired power plants were canceled, 24 states adopted renewable-energy standards (which collectively added up to about 10 percent of national electrical generation), and Congress passed a 35-mpg fuel-efficiency standard. So at the end of 2008, EIA issued a new estimate, which was that America's CO2 emissions wouldn't grow at all between 2008 and 2020 -- and that by 2020, we would be emitting only 6,000 mmt. Then this year, as a result of the Obama administration's stimulus package, its adoption of even more aggressive vehicle fuel-economy and emission standards for 2016, the cancellation of more coal-fired power plants  , and the economic downturn, EIA projected that by 2020 emissions would actually decline to 5,900 mmt. So, in four years we have reduced our 2020 emissions trajectory by 1,600 mmt. Is it now too ambitious to take another ten years to reduce those 2020 numbers by a further 1,200 mmt, which is all that the Senate Clean Energy bill would require? Is it possible that we've already taken all the easy, cheap steps we can to reduce carbon waste in our economy? No way. Not even close. To illustrate, I prepared a little chart. It shows the progress we made from 2005 to 2009. Then, out at 2020, it shows the impact on our CO2 emissions of a few simple, affordable improvements we could make in our energy sector -- things that would create jobs, enhance our national security, and clean up pollution while speeding the economic recovery. Not only did I find 1,200 mmt of potential "no regrets, good investment" savings that we could make but I also found a little more. That's why the bar on the right goes a bit above the "business as usual" line -- we've got a few extra emission savings. A few examples: just continuing to improve vehicle performance from 2016 to 2020 saves another 109 mmt; state energy-efficiency standards could yield another 401 mmt. This package of steps -- which is only illustrative -- requires no increase in our energy bills. The savings from the efficiency measures would easily make up for the costs of things like switching from coal to natural gas and cleaning up old power plants. So my scenario is actually short of what we can and should achieve. And yet, all the Beltway crowd can do is moan, "It's too hard." Hey, Washington?  It's time to join America.
 
Refugees International: Pakistan: Inconvenient Truths Top
By: Patrick Duplat, Advocate "When they realize you're a Mehsud, they treat you like a suicide bomber who's wearing an explosive jacket." -- A displaced Pakistani from South Waziristan, quoted in Dawn Pakistan is in the midst of an internal conflict with severe humanitarian consequences. Tens of thousands of civilians fled South Waziristan in the past few days, as the Pakistani army continues its offensive against the Taliban in the country's northwest. With the UN declaring that 1.7 million displaced Pakistanis from the Swat and Buner districts returned home since July, it's easy to forget that this crisis has been going on for more than a year, and will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Indeed, while I was in Pakistan in early October most aid workers insisted that their biggest challenge will be to sustain the required level of aid in the coming months. More than 700,000 civilians remain displaced, the families who've returned will need help to rebuild their lives. The army's operations continue to displace thousands. The humanitarian community is preparing to launch a fundraising appeal for 2010 based on projections of future large scale displacement. It's hard to fathom why, in the words of a high ranking UN official, the Pakistani government "thinks the crisis is over." Yet funding is not the only concern. As the Overseas Development Institute , Oxfam and Refugees International (Protect People First, published on 26 October 2009) have all highlighted in our respective reports, aid is politicized and is not reaching the most vulnerable. The Pakistani government is a party to the conflict and is at the same time coordinating the relief effort. The humanitarian community, led by the UN, has found it difficult to collaborate with the government while ensuring that assistance is given on the basis of need, rather than serving as a political instrument. The dilemma is particularly flagrant in South Waziristan, where the government has kept most aid workers and journalists out of the area. A major international aid organization was escorted out of D.I. Khan, South Waziristan's neighboring district, when it tried to conduct an assessment there. UN agencies are forced to operate via 'remote control' through Pakistani aid organizations, with little oversight on how aid is distributed. Population movements are controlled, with some areas cordoned off by the military. Tribal allegiances are being played out as aid is handed out to one group over another, in an attempt to create or deepen tensions. In the face of such violations of humanitarian principles, human rights abuses by the Pakistani army and discrimination in assistance, the international community is remaining mostly silent. To avoid disrupting relations with a key ally on the war against the Taliban, the U.S. and the European Union have failed to raise these sensitive issues. As the head of an aid group told us, everybody is "afraid to deliver inconvenient truths" to the Pakistani government. But treating civilians like "suicide bombers" is not going to earn their trust -- and the international community should understand that it would be a pyrrhic victory if winning against the Taliban meant losing the population. More on Pakistan
 
House Report Reveals Details Of Investigations Into Lawmakers, Aides Top
House ethics investigators have scrutinized the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July. More on John Murtha
 
Danny Groner: Alan Grayson's YouTube Followers Don't Want His Copycats Top
Congress members Michele Bachmann and Alan Grayson have seized the power of YouTube to increase their mass appeal. At the same time, they've alienated themselves from others and even made some enemies. Yet that might just be the name of the game in politics today. If you can keep up with the Obamas on Flickr , there's no evidence of restrictions to the online reach of legislators. Social media has made an indelible mark on politics. Where once politicians and world leaders would escort the people into the future, social media sites are now propeling them forward. Left for debate, though, is whether these new vehicles to create a larger sphere of influence are actually shaping better leaders. As a Time Magazine story points out : "It's all theater," says South Carolina's James Clyburn, the House Democratic whip. "People have learned to speak in sound bites and look to generate headlines." Over the past few years (and seems like more in Internet speak), politicians have begun to build up their followings online. Now it may be a necessity in order to keep up with others who have developed smarter strategies. You simply can't ignore how Grayson and Bachmann have become household names in such a short period of time. If you search the most watched clips on YouTube on a given day, you'll find more videos from Congress, the Senate, and other legislative press conferences than ever before. Want to know the latest on the health option? Listen to Sen. Harry Reid talk about it. It makes sense. There's always been an expected narcissism that comes with politicians. The Internet, though, offers even more opportunities to put them on display. A;though C-Span has been around for quite some time, no one shined through as must-watch TV. That's changed with YouTube. Popular politicians like Al Franken run their own channels, posting their best moments for all to see, click, rate, comment on, and pass along to friends. And now everyone wants a piece of the pie. Visionaries who somehow meshed politics with social media for personal gain and attention are giving way to copycats a dime a dozen. In place are the next group of legislators hoping to replicate the success. Take Steve LaTourette, for example, a Republican congressman from Ohio. See what he did on the House floor this week: Fiascos like this one are only going to become more run of the mill. It's something that writer Chuck Klosterman mentioned the other night at a book reading at a Barnes and Noble in New York City. Klosterman said that once he spots cameras rolling in the audience - and pointed to the one held by the gentleman to my left - he could no longer be his real self. It makes him more careful about what he says, shares, and does once he consciously recognizes the inevitability that people outside that room will be seeing him. (He also pointed to this story as a cautionary tale.) He can't make the same joke at two different locations or run the risk of being labeled a fraud. As a result, Klosterman clams up and gives less of himself to his adoring audience. Usually it works the opposite way. When people know cameras are rolling, they crave the potential for media exposure. Moreover, if the newsmakers themselves have control over what gets posted, they'll do whatever it takes to manufacture a marketable moment. And that's what LaTourette does in that clip. We're speeding past a time when legislators can use their platform to deliver a rant, or a song, to drive support their way. Klosterman's caution is well-received and understandable. And so should our skepticism for LaTourette's antics. All of us know how to spot a phony. More on Barack Obama
 
Twitter Lists Go LIVE: See What Twitter's New Feature Can Do Top
Twitter is rolling out a new feature that allows Twitter users to sort the people they follow by organizing them into customized lists. Twitter's lists help filter some of some the chatter on Twitter so that you can follow specific people, topics, or groups. For example, if you're a Mac lover, you might want put together (or follow) a list that's made up only of people blogging about things Apple-related. The Huffington Post has already started building, using, and incorporating Twitter lists. HuffPost has curated a number of lists -- focusing on everything from yoga and baseball to health care reform and Iran -- and has been included in over 780 lists. (See HuffPost's lists here ) HuffPost has also launched a new feature that posts feeds from its Twitter lists directly onto the site, so you can get the news in real-time. Check it out! You can follow the World Series Game 2 live here --featuring Tweets from lists of sports writers, New York Yankees fans, and Philadelphia Phillies fans. Or follow the health care debate live, and from all angles, here , where HuffPost is streaming Tweets from republican reps, democrats, and more. CNET has step-by-step instructions for setting up a Twitter list. Check out HuffPost's lists, and follow on Twitter, here . More on Twitter
 
Jeff Danziger: Lieberman Top
 
Johann Hari: Fame Is Like Sugar -- A Little Is Great, Too Much Is Deadly Top
The great cliché of our age is that we are sinking into a lobotomized celebrity culture where we worship the worthless. We jabber on about Balloon Boy while carbon emissions soar; we yammer about American Idol while Afghanistan burns. The a new headline-snatching documentary Starsuckers , released today, expresses this view at great length: the West has been drugged by fame into a brain-coma, where our eyes can only follow the neon lights of Hollywood and the Big Brother house. But is it true? The two-hour film – with all its haughty polemic – helped me to figure out why I am so queasy about this argument, even though I agree with some of its specific points. Yes, I worry that my young nephews' first question about anyone I mention is: "Are they famous?" Yes, I fret that one of my friends is obsessed with Justin Timberlake, and seems to have a stronger imaginary relationship with him than with anyone she actually knows. Yes, I find the creeping of celebrity gossip into serious news broadcasts disturbing. But the sweeping, simplistic dismissal of celebrity culture misses some more deeper, tougher truths. Running through Starsuckers – and this wider debate – are two incompatible arguments about celebrity. The first is that this revering of celebrities is a new phenomenon, born with television, and intensified by the internet. With these new technologies, we have fallen under a form of electronic hypnosis. We stare numbly at our screens and imagine we are seeing something real, rather than a photo-shopped fiction. The second argument is more interesting. It suggests that we are hard-wired to seek out Big Men (or Women) and copy them. Think about the hunter-gatherer tribes that we lived in a few minutes ago (in evolutionary terms). Those ancestors of ours who identified the most powerful or abundant people in their group, worked their way into their entourage, and imitated their ways were obviously more likely to survive. Seeking out celebs had an evolutionary advantage – so they passed this instinct on to us. The people who thought it was dumb to act this way dropped off the human family tree. This seems more persuasive, because some form of celebrity-worship has always existed. In his terrific new book Fame – From the Bronze Age to Britney , the classicist Tom Payne shows how humans have always told lascivious stories about people they don't know. The ancient Romans made celebrities out of their gladiators, cheering when they killed and weeping when they died. Later, they made celebrities out of the Christian martyrs who were gored by them. The ancient Greeks gossiped about their gods' love affairs – and far from being wholly mythical, the gods appeared among them all the time. As Payne says: "You could invite gods to dinner. The god Serapis [or rather, somebody posing as him] would hold parties at which he was once 'host and guest'.... You could even have sex with a goddess." The tyrant Pisistratus typically found a gorgeous woman, put her in a chariot, and announced she was the goddess Athene. The crowd howled and whooped like anyone at Madison Square Gardens. And just as there has always been fame, there have always been people complaining that these days people get famous for nothing. In St Paul's letters to the Corinthians, he moans that people only become Christian martyrs nowadays "to obtain a corruptible crown" of celebrity. Here's Chaucer, writing in the 14th-century, giving voice to a crowd: "We have done neither that nor this/but spend our lives in idle play./Nonetheless we come to pray/That we should have as good a fame,/and great renown, and well-known name/as those who have done noble deeds." The Queen snaps: "What! Why should I serve/you the good fame you don't deserve/ because you've not achieved a thing?" If celebrity has always existed, the debate changes. When people jeered at the Japanese game-shows Clive James put on air, where men ate maggots and crawled through shit, he counseled us to remember: a generation before, these young men would have been using the same drive for danger to fly kamikaze planes into Allied warships. He wrote: "Civilisation doesn't eliminate human impulses: it tames them, through changing their means of expression." Our innate celebrity-instinct used to be directed in really dangerous ways – towards finding revering warriors like Achilles, who killed so many people that Homer ran out of names; or towards fanatics like the Catholic saints who believed God was talking to her. What were the the Jewish prophets, the Muslim martyrs or the Hindu gods but the celebrities of their day? They took this impulse and channeled it towards primitive superstitions, with all their cruelty, and all their backwardness. Compared to them, directing this impulse towards Zac Efron or Beyoncé or Robbie Williams – because they are hot, or sweet, or make pretty sounds – seems positively benign. Modern celebrity isn't a deterioration from a pristine past; it's a taming of an impulse that was once met in far more harmful ways. Better Madonna than the Madonna. Better the Heat of celebs telling you to buy perfume than the heat of martyrs telling you you'll burn in hell. It's only once you admit that celebrity has a place that you can keep it in its place. To a culture, celebrity is like sugar: fun in moderation, deadly if it's all you consume. We are letting one impulse – to vicariously enter the Big Man's entourage – over-ride the others, like the desire to enrich our minds. I have seen some of the best minds of my generation focus on nothing but discussing fame in ever more ironic ways, and they are left with a kind of intellectual diabetes. Whenever I see celebrity news bursting beyond its proper boundary, I remember Pauline Kael, the great film critic for the New Yorker and one of the first intellectuals to take trashy films seriously. When she was dying, she gave a final interview, and said sadly: "All that time I was promoting trash culture, I never imagined it would become the only culture we have." We need an unwritten Celeb Code of Hygiene about what they should do, and how we should respond to them. Celebrities can provide us with pleasure and titillation – within limits. There needs to be privacy rules to stop us stalking celebs to despair or death. Remember – Greta Garbo didn't actually say "I want to be alone." She said "I want to be let alone" – and there's a world of difference. And we should drop the mad idea that they should provide us with political guidance. The most effective part of Starsuckers is the exposé of how Bob Geldof and Bono hijacked the Make Poverty History campaign, defying the advice of the main aid groups to applaud political charades that later came to nothing. There's a more terrifying vision still in the film: in Lithuania, a "Celebrities' Party" ran for office, and became the second biggest party in government. The host of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire became speaker of the parliament. We will always have celebrities, and we will – if we are honest – always want them. If we rage against them Starsuckers -style, with an annihilating, snobbish superiority, we will lose the argument. The real struggle instead is to temper our instinct for fame – and stop it sucking up all the cultural oxygen.   Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here . You can email him at johann -at- johannhari.com More on Balloon Boy
 
Bankers Expect Rising Bonus Pay To Break Records Top
In Washington and on Main Street, politicians and voters are railing against Wall Street's multi- million-dollar pay packages. In the financial world, most executives expect their bonuses to match or exceed last year's, with 1 in 10 predicting their best-ever payout. More on Financial Crisis
 
Tara Lohan: 5 Things You Need to Know About the Big Climate Meeting in Copenhagen Top
This story originally appeared on AlterNet . There's a lot of buzz about COP15, the big climate-change meeting coming up -- what exactly is all the hype about, and why should you care? Here's a simple breakdown. 1. What the heck is it? COP15 is the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties, the highest body of the United Nations Climate Change Convention, and it will take place this year Dec. 7-18. There will be 192 countries participating and a whole bunch of nongovernmental organizations, as well. The event will be in Copenhagen and is hosted by the Danish government. COP14 was in Poland last year. One of the most well-known COP meetings was COP3 in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, which resulted in the Kyoto Protocol , a document now signed by over 180 countries and put into action in February 2005. The protocol set binding emissions targets for greenhouse gases (GHG) for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union, committing them to reducing their GHG emissions an average of 5 percent against 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. "Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibilities,'" explains the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change . The U.S., which contributed over 30 percent of global GHG emissions in 1990 never signed the Kyoto Protocol, and the country's reluctance to commit to international climate change negotiations has long stymied the process. Until, perhaps, now ... 2. What are they trying to accomplish? The goal of the COP15 is to get as many countries as possible (and particularly big emitters like the U.S.) to enter into a binding agreement to reduce GHG emissions enough to prevent catastrophic results from climate change. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told Environment & Energy Publishing that he was hoping four important questions would be answered in Copenhagen: How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases? How much major developing countries such as China and India are willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions? How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed? How is that money going to be managed? 3. Why does the future of the world depend on it? This is really serious stuff. The best science tells us that we need immediate action on climate change to prevent catastrophic results. This month the U.N. Environment Program released an updated report following the groundbreaking findings in 2007 by the International Panel on Climate Change that basically said thing are are going to be as bad as the IPCC predicted or worse. "The pace and the scale of climate change is accelerating, along with the confidence among researchers in their forecasts," UNEP Director Achim Steiner said in the report. What UNEP found was that we've already committed ourselves to an increase in temperature above pre-industrial levels by 1.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, and if we don't get our acts together soon -- meaning making 25-40 percent reductions in CO2 emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 -- we're looking at 4.3 degrees Celsius increases or worse. A few degrees may sound like not a big deal, but actually it's quite bad. Here are some details from Matt McDermott at Treehugge r to put it in perspective: That effectively signs the extinction warrant for about half of all animal and plant life on the planet; it means coral reefs are gone due to ocean acidification; it means ice-free summers in the Arctic, sets both Greenland and Antarctica on the melting path to multimeter sea-level rise; and it means the glaciers in the Himalayas are doomed. In human terms, that means half of all humans will face water shortages; it means widespread starvation in South and East Asia, as water availability plummets and crop yields drop; it means much the same thing in Africa; the Mekong [River] Delta is 20 percent flooded and Ho Chi Minh City is 10-20 percent underwater; the Nile Delta (source of much of Egypt's food) is inundated with saltwater; same thing for most of Bangladesh. In the United States, it means localized temperature increases (think the Great Plains) of up to 7 degrees Celcius; it means severe water problems in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which supply meltwater to California agriculture; crop yields plummet in the Midwest; insect-borne diseases like dengue fever, historically confined to the tropics, spread to 28 states; coastal cities like Miami, New York, New Orleans and others have to contend with a sea-level rise of more than a meter. If you want some numbers: By 2030, 500,000 people could die due to climate change -- 99 percent of them in the developing world, which it should be pointed out have historically done very little to cause the problem. Already an estimated 300,000 people are seriously affected by climate change. In economic terms, by 2030 the global economy could take a $340 billion hit. Really, we can't put enough pressure on the governments and international organizations meeting in Copenhagen to put politics aside and come up with a truly comprehensive and fair treaty to reduce GHG emissions. 4. Will the U.S. screw it up for everyone again? Of course that's always a possibility, but there's ample reason to be hopeful that things will turn out differently this year. For one, we've got a president who actually understands the science and appreciates the seriousness of the issue. We've also got Congress lumbering away on a climate bill, although just how effective that bill may end up being is still in question. It's looking more and more likely that the U.S. won't have passed a comprehensive climate bill before Copenhagen, which is bad news, but does not necessarily spell disaster for the negotiations. David Fogarty from Reuters explains: In reality, the U.S. Senate might pass the climate bill in the first part of 2010, allowing President Barack Obama's administration to bring a 2020 target and financing pledges to the table during a major U.N. climate meeting in Bonn [Germany] in June. At worst, nations would have to wait until annual U.N. climate talks in December 2010. Of course, if the Senate doesn't get its act together and no bill comes to pass, then there is a glimmer of hope, but it's quite weak. Fogarty writes : The U.S. Senate votes against the climate bill, but other nations reluctantly go ahead with many measures to fight climate change anyway, hoping the United States will formally join the global effort at some point. In the worst-case scenario, negotiations start to resemble failed trade talks that repeatedly stall. Nations instead work on bilateral clean-energy and carbon-offset deals that fail to achieve major reductions in the growth of emissions. The trouble is we are dealing with a very limited time line, so making sure the U.S government is on board and our country is pulling its fair share of the weight is essential. And the sooner, the better. 5. What can I do? While world leaders will get to make some big decisions behind the negotiating table, that doesn't mean the rest of us should sit idly by. There are a bunch of ways to get involved: Call your senator and ask him or her to pass a strong, comprehensive climate bill. With the U.S. committed to cutting GHG emissions, global talks will be off to a much better start. You can join forces with people from all over the world on Oct. 24 for the global day of climate action sponsored by Bill McKibben and 350.org . You can find an action near you or start your own. And it doesn't end this weekend. Sign up with 350.org , and you'll get reminders about future actions, science updates and news about how things are going on the climate-change front. Join Tck Tck Tck , the largest mobilization demanding action on a climate-change agreement in Copenhagen. The group is bringing together individuals, big NGOs, and local and national groups ranging from the Global Campaign Against Poverty to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Team up with Tck Tck Tck and help to spread the word about what needs to be done at COP15. Get engaged. Stay on top of the issue, and help spread the word. Forward stories like this one to your networks. Check Twitter for updates on COP15 and pass along tweets. Become a fan of the COP15 Facebook page and invite your friends. The best thing to do is get active -- whether it's with a local group working on climate change or an international effort. We need to keep the pressure on world leaders -- here at home and abroad. McKibben said recently : "Temperatures will continue to go up, and a lot of damage will be done. What we are working for is to prevent change so large that civilization itself will be challenged, and that's still possible (we hope). But only if we get to work right away." More on Climate Change
 
Matthew Filipowicz: WATCH: The Scariest White House Halloween Costume Top
With Halloween just around the corner, some folks in the White House are getting into the spooky spirit. Namely, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. We have obtained exclusive footage of Gibbs revealing to President Obama what can easily be described as "the most frightening Halloween costume of all time". Be warned, the costume may be too scary for pregnant women, small children, or those with a weak heart. Take a look. More on Comics
 
Reid Punts On Insurance Industry Anti-Trust Exemption Top
Senate negotiators have decided not to include a provision revoking the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption in the bill leadership sends to the floor, said a Democratic aide close to the merger talks. Instead, the measure will be offered as an amendment on the Senate floor. The House health care bill, unveiled Thursday, includes a revocation of the exemption. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who makes the final decision on what goes into the bill, recently testified in favor of revoking the exemption. Requiring insurers to follow anti-trust laws is broadly popular as a way to look tough battling the insurance industry. "I'm not here to defend the health insurance industry," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Tuesday, while explaining why he opposed a public health insurance option. "I'm open to supporting the removal of the antitrust exemption for the insurance industry. I'm prepared to support it. I don't want to be cute with my words. I will support it if it comes up." The 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act exempts the insurance industry from anti-trust laws. The merged bill will, however, include a public option that will compete with private insurers. More on Health Care
 

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