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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
French regulator warns of Google privacy policy (AP)
Monday, February 27, 2012
Why You Can?t Dismiss Nokia?s 41-Megapixel Phone
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/su5f0uPdgaE/
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ZTE Orbit is (another) budget Windows Phone: 4-inch display, 1GHz processor, 4GB storage
ZTE Orbit is (another) budget Windows Phone: 4-inch display, 1GHz processor, 4GB storage originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/27/zte-announces-orbit-windows-phone/
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Sunday, February 26, 2012
States called on to restore anti-smoking funds (AP)
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Social Media and Effective Advertising - Greeley Marketing ...
Written by: sales_11 | February 20, 2012 9:13 AM in Marketing & Advertising | 145 views | Tags: Branding , Business Marketing , Direct Marketing , Email Marketing , Interactive & Media Solutions , Internet Marketing , Media Marketing , PR Marketing , Promotional Marketing , Search Engine Marketing , Website Marketing , Word of Mouth Marketing
Social Media and Effective Advertising: Tapping the Experts in Maximizing Effective Online Presence
Social media is one of the most promising and fastest growing advertising avenues today ? and it is bound to grow even more in the coming years. If you are a company that is hungry for publicity and brand recognition, you should not miss the social media bandwagon. But as tempting as it can be, you also need to be very careful how your brand project itself to the public and most especially to your target market. On this regard you might need some specialized help that will not only put you out there in the open, but also do it with maximum gains and very minimal risks of backlashes.
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Social media is, well, social in every sense of the word. If you expect to have it as easy as a printed ad then you are mistaken. This advertising avenue engages people and does not only dwell in publicizing a product or service but also builds up relationships with consumers and clients. The least that you want to do is to be too impersonal with social media. This is where many companies fail in their social media campaigns. They miss to differentiate their approach on their conventional advertising outlets to the one they have online.
A social media content management company can help you organize your online advertising campaigns in such a way that everything you do in the internet is woven into a tapestry of clear, very personal and engaging ads. Social media is in the middle of your online presence. It can be a catalyst for traffic generation. Most importantly it attracts the right people to your web outlets. Can you do this on your own? Of course you can but the learning curve can be very steep. First impression still do last even in the age of the Internet. Sometimes you just need to screw up only once in your online campaign and that could spell the end of your progressive advertising strategy on the World Wide Web.
Tapping an expert on social media content can get your campaign running on the get go. No more delays, or fear of messing it all up and getting into unacceptable risks. You have to remember that social media is not only an advertising arm but a PR avenue as well. In today?s diverse online community, these two are blurred to a point that you do not actually know where one starts and the other ends. A social media content management company can help you with this confusion and make sure that you are very clear, prompt and sincere with your online dealings. This is at the very core of effective social media management. This is indeed very crucial for every company that has an online presence one way or the other. Social media campaigns is not about the big beating the small, but is more of the fast beating the slow. With an expert on your side, you do not have to worry about a thing. You will know what to say and when to say it. Content and timing are all important elements in online advertising.
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Astronaut Glenn calls historic flight "best day" of his life (Reuters)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120220/us_nm/us_space_glenn
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Suicide attack on Baghdad police academy kills 19 (Reuters)
Reuters - A suicide car bomber killed 19 police officers and cadets Sunday in an attack on a crowd outside a Baghdad police academy, police and hospital sources said.
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Sunday, February 19, 2012
Riverside County supervisors reject massive Temecula quarry
In the end, however, neighborhood objections to increased traffic, possible health hazards and environmental destruction won out, a rare outcome in the pro-development frontier of the Inland Empire.
Fierce opposition in Temecula, a city known for its vineyard-covered valley and rock-ribbed conservative politics, persuaded the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to vote down the proposed rock mine by a 3-2 vote, despite the promise of hundreds of new blue-collar jobs to the recession-flattened region.
Temecula City Councilman Jeff Comerchero called the vote a "watershed" moment for a county that had been used as Southern California's back lot for mining, landfills, prisons and other less glamorous necessities.
"I don't think the county of Riverside was strong enough politically or economically to really understand our image, of what we wanted to be, 20 years ago,'' Comerchero said. "This vote says that we really do have the right to determine what happens in our communities.''
Veteran Inland Empire economist John Husing, a consultant for the mining company, offered a less charitable assessment. He said the influx of upscale housing in Riverside and San Bernardino counties over the last decade coincided with rising opposition to major mines, jails and similar employers ? sources of blue-collar jobs in a region where nearly half the workforce has only a high school diploma.
"The people who moved out here think of themselves as upper crust,'' Husing said. "And the NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) attitude is very strong.''
Watsonville-based Granite Construction had proposed a 414-acre rock mine, known as Liberty Quarry, on a mountain that looms over the 15 Freeway in the southwest corner of the county, an upscale suburban haven that has attracted thousands of new families drawn by the quiet neighborhoods, good schools and gentle hills east of the Santa Ana Mountains.
The company would have mined about 270 million tons of granite over 75 years, supplying building material to northern San Diego County and southwest Riverside County.
Four days of marathon testimony and deliberations drew busloads of union members in favor of the mine and busloads of Temecula community groups against it.
"There are just too many uncertainties to me,'' said Supervisor John Tavaglione, whose district includes several similar mines in Corona.
Tavaglione appeared to be the swing vote against the project, siding with Supervisors Jeff Stone of Temecula and Bob Buster of Riverside. Voting in favor were Supervisors John Benoit of Indio and Marion Ashley of Perris.
In a statement, the company said it was "very disappointed by today's decision by the board as the environmental studies clearly show this project would be good for Riverside County.''
Gary Johnson, project manager for the proposed quarry, said one option for Granite may be to submit a revised proposal.
Granite won support from business leaders and chamber of commerce groups outside the city in part by stressing that the quarry would create 99 mining-related jobs and hundreds of more indirect jobs with local suppliers and support companies.
The argument was not lost on the supervisors, who oversee a county decimated by the economic downtown and a 12.5% unemployment rate, one of the highest in California. Earlier this month, medical device manufacturer Abbott Labs, the Temecula area's largest employer, laid off 300 workers.
Roger Wright, an unemployed 29-year-old laborer who lives a mile east of the proposed mine site, told the supervisors earlier this week that he was two weeks away from losing his house and car.
"To say we are currently scraping by is an understatement,'' Wright said. "We, like so many others in our situation, need the project to happen.''
Opponents included the city, Temecula wineries, local school districts, the regional tourism council, area avocado growers and the local chapter of the Sierra Club.
The Pechanga Band of Luise?o Indians also launched an aggressive campaign against the mine, which would be a few hundred yards from the reservation and loom over the tribe's four-star resort casino.
Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro said Granite's proposed mine was on a mountain where Luise?o people believe all life was created, akin to the Garden of Eden.
"We only have one creation site. Only one," Macarro told the supervisors shortly before the vote. "Once it's destroyed, once it's eviscerated by a mine ... it's gone."
phil.willon@latimes.com
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Saturday, February 18, 2012
Tribe touts Minn. casino for Vikings stadium (AP)
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Michael Jackson estate sues former MJ manager (Reuters)
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Monday, February 13, 2012
Do You Qualify For Help With Your Mortgage? | Sacramento Real ...
Sacramento Real Estate
Seems Sacramento County is getting a whopping 820 million dollars out of a $25 billion settlement with the banks that screwed the ?American Dream.? When you think about the fact the banks made a profit of over 45 billion dollars last year, this is a drop in the bucket for settling on foreclosed & struggling homeowners. But, it?s a start?
RULES For Foreclosed Homeowers to Receive Money:
Oh, and by the way this settlement will not include all distressed, foreclosed CA homeowners. ?Your loan had to be with one of the big 5 banks below or serviced by them AND the foreclosure MUST have been between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011
This settlement is a result of the illegal robo signings fraud and pulling the rug out from under homeowners who thought they were in the process of working out short sales and loan mods with the banks. ?And those who lost their homes to foreclosure will get a couple $2,000. Yippee.
What an insult?lose a home get $2,000. Sounds fair to me, how about you? ?I guess those checks will be going out within the next 120 days (if they can find those folks)! ?That brings up an interesting question?HOW ARE THE BANKS GOING TO FIND OUT WHO THE FORECLOSED HOMEOWNERS WERE THAT THEY ILLEGALLY FORECLOSED ON? ?mmmmm
We will start seeing banks foreclose on homes now, since they had this lawsuit looming over their heads regarding the robo signings, now the coast is clear to start foreclosing on those homeowners who have not been paying their house payments and living in the house for over a year.
The U.S. Government bailed the banks out and now sued the banks. Does anyone begin to even understand that type of logic? Well, this is just one law suit, now the investors will have their turn at the banks and servicers for the way the loans were bundled and sold off. ?Wonder what amount the investors will settle on?
It is said it will take about 6 months to implement what Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Ally Financial (who use to be GMAC) will be able to do for the homeowners out there in Sacramento that are struggling to pay their house payment. Now, remember there are always rules to everything and this is no exception. ?Here are today?s rules?
Rules for Distressed Homeowners Who Are Looking to Refinance:
- Your loan MUST be either owned or serviced by one of the 5 big banks that are part of this settlement
- Your MUST be current on your mortgage payment and NOT have been delinquent during the past year
- You MUST owe more than the home is worth (that shouldn?t be a problem)
- Your current mortgage loan MUST have an interest rate of 5.25% or greater
- FHA, VA loans are NOT eligible to be refinanced
- No bankruptcy or foreclosure in the last 2 years
Rules for Mortgage Reduction:
You MUST owe more on your mortgage than the current value of the home (that shouldn?t be a problem)
You MUST have missed one of your loan payments or you are about to miss one
The rules at the moment stipulate there will be money to help lower the mortgage debt and for loan modification.
The homeowner cannot have missed any payments if they want to refinance, the loan amount cannot exceed the conforming limit for the area you live in, it has to be your personal residence and your credit score cannot be lower than 580. ?However, the loan cannot be a loan guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie Mac. ?Want to know if your loan is Fannie or Freddie backed? ?Check out these sites:
Those are the rules as of today and always subject to change, of course.
Apparently, this settlement is effective over a 3 year period. ?Let?s see how long the banks take to start implementing yet another set of rules when it has taken years for them to implement the short sale system we have had for several years now. It?s my understanding the banks must prove they are working with the homeowner or suffer the consequences of the wrath of the Attorney General. I wonder if they?re worried?
Big 5 Banks and their Contact Information:
The STRONG and WILLFUL will SUCCEED!
Call your bank if it?s one of the big 5 and make sure they know, YOU know?good luck! ?Struggling homeowners, expect long delays on the phone, paperwork not received from you by the banks and bank officials telling you conflicting information?this is par for the course. ?Even though the bank settlement says, ?the banks will contact you,? ?if any of the above information applies to you, you should contact the bank (in my humble opinion).
In the meantime, the struggling homeowner will be waiting for all this to happen, hoping for some relief?I just hope this isn?t a set-up where we end up seeing the banks foreclose on a homeowner who thinks they are waiting for a reduction in their mortgage or a loan modification. ?That would be a repeat performance of the same.
I see a lot holes in this system and after the years working with banks doing short sales, I don?t think this will be an easy one for them to implement. Hope I?m wrong.
Sacramento Short Sale
Now, if you don?t qualify for a mortgage reduction or loan modification give me a call or email and let?s get your home listed as a short sale before the banks own another part of the ?American Dream? through foreclosing on your home.
Some other Articles & Videos to Help:
Sound Advice When Upside Down on Home Mortgage
Does It Matter Who The Short Sale Agent Is?
Get Your Short Sale Now BEFORE Law Leaves You At Risk
Source: http://www.sacramentorealestatevoice.com/more-help-for-struggling-sacramento-homeowners/
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Sunday, February 12, 2012
Double Fine's Kickstarter passes $1M, breaks record
Kickstarter's tweet officially announcing Double Fine's breaking of records.
Double Fine's Kickstarter initiative to fund a point-and-click adventure game is a huge success.
The initial goal of $400,000 was met in just over 8 hours, and when?In-Game first reported on this fundraiser yesterday, the $1 million mark was just on the horizon. It's since surpassed that amount, and in doing so, broke records for both the most funds raised in 24 hours and the highest number of backers, Kickstarter reports.
"There are crazy days and then there are days like yesterday" the Kickstarter blog?announces, breaking down the past 24 hours of the Double Fine crowdfunding hour by hour. It's a big week for?Kickstarter. As well as a shoutout??IFC comedy series "Portlandia," in an episode that airs Friday, the fundraising site hit another record via?the Elevation Dock, a high end iPhone 4/4S cradle, which became the very first Kickstarter to break the million dollar mark, a few hours before Double Fine hit that number.
The TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch Kit, a wristwatch cradle for the iPod Nano, held the previous record for most money earned for a single fundraising effort, generating $942,578. Check out that?project, along with other notable projects that that reached their fundraising goals, at the Kickstarter's Hall of Fame. Since 2009, the online crowdfunding hub has helped finance a large variety of creative endeavors, including?tech, journalism, film, music, print, food, even dance.
Now however, it's games maker Tim Schafer and his company Double Fine?that everyone is talking about, especially in the world of video games. Many believe that his success is the first crucial step towards a massive shake-up of the traditional business mode that governs video game business. It's a change that quite a few have been begging for, hopeful to see game sequels that have yet to be green lit, despite a strong demand, all because the powers that be are skittish for whatever reason.
An example of this can be found in a post by Destructoid?yesterday, in which contributors were asked games that they'd like to see be "Kickstarted" into reality. Most notable is the inclusion of "Mega Man Legends 3," a title that many devotees of the Mega Man series were happy to finally see happen after a decade's worth of waiting, only to be later disappointed?when it was cancelled by Capcom, its publisher. The reason cited was lack of potential profitability, which is exactly the attitude that caused Schafer to resort to an alternate means of fundraising to being with.
Not everyone is entirely convinced that rules have changed completely. Kotaku?notes that Double Fine's success gives hopes to established game producers to tap into their dedicated fan-base ? but for everyone else, including the little guys, the traditional model established by publishers still rules the landscape. Unless you're a beloved creator with cult status or a very small outfit running a barebones operation, publishers are necessary to pitch games to, since it costs so much to create a title these days.
At the very least, industry watchers hope publishers will pay closer attention to what game players want, in addition to game creators, a sentiment that is echoed in another Kotaku editorial, published Thursday. Because, in the end, all the interest and potential revenue that Double Fine's new game has generated thus far is money that is not reaching any of publisher's pockets.
As of this time of this report, the Double Fine Kickstarter is at $1,354,779, with 32 days left to go.
Related stories:
Matthew Hawkins is an NYC-based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, Giant Robot, and numerous others. He also self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of Attract Mode, and co-hosts The Fangamer Podcast. You can keep tabs on him via?Twitter,?or his personal home-base,?FORT90.com.
?
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Friday, February 3, 2012
Artist Mike Kelley found dead in L.A. home
Walker Art Center
By Derrik J. Lang, The Associated Press
Mike Kelley, the daring and influential contemporary installation artist who counted the band Sonic Youth and artist Paul McCarthy among his collaborators, has died, police said Wednesday. He was 57.
Kelley's body was found at his home Tuesday night and it appeared he had committed suicide, South Pasadena Police Sgt. Robert Bartl said, without providing further information on the death. An autopsy was pending.
The artist's death brings a tragic end to a career empowered by both a punk-rock rebelliousness and pop-culture kitsch. Kelley famously filled art spaces with sculptures and unorthodox objects, and his solo exhibit "Catholic Tastes" at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York," which provocatively combined dolls, drawings and other objects, established him as a major figure in the art world in 1993.
"His work was widely collected and exhibited internationally," said Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "He had a voracious appetite for all kinds of art. He was enormously curious and worked incredibly at his craft. He was never afraid to think really big. Artists like that don't come around very often."
Horst Ossinger / EPA
A file picture dated July 15, 2011, shows dancers pose in the installation "Test Room" by artist Mike Kelley.
Bartl said authorities went to Kelley's home Tuesday after a concerned family friend went to the residence, and then called 911. The friend told investigators that Kelley had been depressed after recently breaking up with his girlfriend, but no note was found, Bartl said.
Kelley's work will be included in the upcoming 2012 Whitney biennial in New York.
In addition to "Catholic Tastes," other major solo exhibitions included 2004's "The Uncanny" at the Tate Liverpool in the United Kingdom and 2006's "Profondeurs Vertes" at the Louvre in Paris.
"Mike was an irresistible force in contemporary art," Kelley's studio, Gagosian Gallery, said in a statement that the Los Angeles Times published on its website. "We cannot believe he is gone. But we know his legacy will continue to touch and challenge anyone who crosses its path. We will miss him. We will keep him with us."
Kelley's notable works included a life-size re-creation of his childhood home on wheels, tiny rendition of Superman's extraterrestrial birthplace encased in a glass jug and several spherical sculptures made of stuffed animals.
"His works often violated notions of so called good taste and blurred the boundaries between art, music and popular culture," said Barron.
He erected a life-sized Colonel Sanders statue alongside a miniature Sigmund Freud at the Gagosian in Los Angeles in 2011 and was influenced by old yearbooks for a sprawling 2005 exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in New York that featured a 15-foot-long missile called the "gospel rocket."
Kelley was a student of conceptual artist John Baldessari, and he collaborated with fellow bold artists like Paul McCarthy and Tony Oursler. The band Sonic Youth used Kelley's work on the album cover for "Dirty" released in 1992.
Born in Detroit, Kelley founded the band Destroy All Monsters with three other musicians in 1974. He left the band in 1978 to attend the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, near Los Angeles, but never strayed far from the music scene, frequently contributing to music journals and always counting music as an inspiration.
"He was extremely intense, very serious, phenomenally well read. He would go very deep into his subjects, a real artist scholar but with a real passion for whatever he was investigating," Barron said.
After encounters with him, Barron said, "I always came away learning something new, thinking about things differently and in awe of his curiosity."
Although she corresponded with him in the last couple of weeks, the last time she saw him was a month ago.
"It's incredibly sad," Barron said. "It's hard to imagine somebody with the life force and intensity that Mike brought to bear is no longer with us. His impact will be seen with distance as all the more powerful and we'll have to begin to process this."
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Thursday, February 2, 2012
ACODRES.ORG ? The diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis Is just not Easy
NECESSARY: If people suspect that you will find multiple sclerosis, before you decide to see a doctor, ensure that you have got adequate Health and fitness, Disability and Life cover. Large dosage of by natural means found health proteins called proteins can restore the human body?s ability to form normal amounts of hormones as well as neurotransmitters. Recently a fresh medication has emerged that multiple sclerosis treatment used to deal with other diseases which include leukemia. Like with any issue, there are generally some that not necessitate treatment simply because that typically the symptoms which they experience are generally so delicate.
Answered silly Chief Administrative Officer Renata Christian, ?Financial assistance ms treatment available for some patients clinically determined to have MS.? Most normally they come about because numerous sclerosis damages or injuries both myelin additionally, the nerve cellular material. Most of times, prescribed medicine is simply able to manipulate symptoms, not source, of the virus. One has simply to look around around the vast variety of people who are switching with an all live food diet to ascertain just the way healthy one of these diet is certainly.
It is vital to do not forget- patients connected with MS will probably experience A variety of Sclerosis symptoms on / off, in width ups vanish for a couple of months before starting. Others grow tremors making it hard to work well. Probably the most commonly incomparable symptoms in include those with MS certainly is the inability so that you can walk which has a natural gait which happens to be caused by means of weakness on the muscles as well as sometimes, due to numbness on the feet. A common non medications for numerous sclerosis dizziness is certainly VRT or perhaps Vestibular Treatment Therapy that the therapist works together with the persistent to retrain in the same manner their human brain interprets as well as processes the internet that the application receives through the vestibular system together with the sight proprioception in order that the brain no isn?t any longer altered. Please refer an original research record published on the Journal connected with Neurology, Neurosurgery as well as psychiatry. Education is important with numerous sclerosis conditions early creation. Following the correct program will have your MICROSOFT cured, whilst constantly currently taking drug shots, and performing nothing as well may establish fatal. Such sensors damage occurs due to inflammation. If you seriously consider these characteristics from the multiple sclerosis guidance group, it will be easy to identify a bed that is befitting you. If you require a close consider the global picture about where a very high concentrations of individuals with MICROSOFT are, you?ll discover that this really truly a sickness of european cultures. There are a great many Multiple Sclerosis patients who ? re beginning so that you can medicate theirselves with numerous types of at residence or different treatments. Many many others are flying abroad in the hunt for doctors who will perform typically the Liberation Treatment method surgery, which is now unavailable not in the United State governments save for ones occasional investigate group.
Source: http://www.acodres.org/2012/02/01/the-diagnosis-of-multiple-sclerosis-is-just-not-easy/
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Florida Primary Voters Tune Out Negative Ads
'I think it's kind of ugly, and I don't really agree with it all,' young voter tells MTV News.
By Gil Kaufman
Mitt Romney greets voters in Florida
Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/ AFP/ Getty Images
TAMPA, Florida — The one excuse Florida voters can't use is the weather. That was especially true Tuesday (January 31), a picture-perfect day for voting in the Republican primary in the always-important swing state.
With 50 delegates at stake in this winner-take-all state, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was tipped to win after spending nearly four times as much on negative ads (with the help of some SuperPAC surrogates) than his rival Newt Gingrich.
Despite the deluge of attack ads that blanketed the airwaves over the past few weeks, anesthesiology assistant student Ricky Varlotta, 24, said he saw a lot of the commercials but tried not to let them affect his decision. "I think it's kind of ugly, and I don't really agree with it all," he said after casting his vote for Romney at the Kate Jackson Memorial Center in downtown Tampa. "If they think that's the best way they can win, it says a lot about them."
Varlotta said a number of his friends with jobs voted early to make sure their ballots got counted, but that some are also so disenchanted with the political process that they've decided to just sit it out this time. "That's their choice, and I think if you're really concerned about it, you would come out and do something about it, and that's why I'm out here voting," he shared. This is the first presidential primary campaign that has felt the impact of SuperPAC money, and from what the voters who spoke to MTV's Power of 12 could tell, so far, it was not for the good.
Though her chosen candidate, U.S. Representative Ron Paul, chose not to mount a campaign in Florida, Tessa McKenna, 21, singer for the "country shoegaze" band Sleepy Vikings, has been bowled over by all the negative Florida campaign ads she's been inundated with when watching shows on Hulu. Because they don't really educate her on the candidates, McKenna has also tuned out the din of the commercials.
"In politics, I guess you never really know who's right and who's wrong," she said. McKenna, who registered as a Republican at 16 when she got her license, felt that her personal politics don't really match those of the party anymore, but she likes to stay politically involved and feels that Libertarian-leaning Paul is the "lesser of all evils" in this election cycle.
"Kids really need to get out and make change for their country," she said.
Despite the more than $20 million spent in the primary on the spots, Amy Hightower said she's never been influenced by them, because she's more focused on the issues than the personalities.
The young mother added that it has been hard lately being a Republican because she is pro-choice and for gay marriage and social programs. Despite those leanings, she cast an absentee ballot for Gingrich because, "He's no bullsh--. He just says it how it is, and he's not afraid of his flaws. I feel like a lot of the other ones are so slick ... and the others were too far to the religious right."
MTV is on the scene in Florida! Check back for up-to-the-minute coverage of the primaries and stick with PowerOf12.org throughout the 2012 presidential election season.
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1678254/florida-primary-voters.jhtml
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