I'll be touring with the Tea Party Express on its fourth trek across the country. Labeled "Liberty at the Ballot Box," the 14-day trip begins Oct. 18 with stops in 17 battleground states and 22 scheduled rallies from Reno, Nev., to Concord, N.H.
The Andrea Shea King Show will be broadcasting live from the road each evening as TPX IV makes its way across the United States. I will also be filing reports on a daily basis. In fact, next week's Surfin' Safari will be coming to you from Reno, Nev., the State with the highest unemployment rate in the nation. You can follow TPX IV's progress at Tea Party Express.org.
With America's attention increasingly focused on the upcoming Nov. 2 midterm election, more of us are looking for information that helps us make the right choice at the ballot box. Real Clear Politics has features you'll find quite useful.
For example, hit this page for the latest election polls. This page lays out the gubernatorial races. Find U.S. House battles here. And U.S. Senate races here. There's so much information there, you'll want to bookmark the site.
Google eyes Twitter for news
Some sharp eyes have noted that Google could be trying to integrate Twitter within its Google News. According to a tip from a Search Engine Land reader who apparently saw the experiment in action and posted a snapshot of what it looked like on Twitter, the feature adds a small box to the right-hand side of the page that allows users to login with their Twitter credentials and then "see when people you follow are talking about the news."
The New York Times reports that "Search Engine Land even found a help page about the experiment.
The description of the feature says that it will allow users to "find news articles that your friends are sharing on Twitter," but notes that the new Friends section will only show articles that can be found in Google News.
e-readers still reading books
It appears that even though there is more competing for our attention today with all manner of instant communication, those with digital reading devices such as Amazon's Kindle, the Sony Reader and Apple's iPad are spending more time on books, magazines and newspapers than those without them, according to a recent poll.
A Harrison Report online survey of 1,816 U.S. consumers shows that tablet and e-reader owners from 18 to 64 years of age spend 50 percent more time reading magazines. Users of tablets such as the iPad said they spent nearly 75 percent more time reading newspapers and 25 percent more time reading books.
Those with dedicated readers like the Kindle spend 50 percent more time reading newspapers and 45 percent more time reading books.
Facebook backlash over new feature
"If you guys want to run these new features by me before you launch them, I can probably save you from a couple of privacy law suits each year," writes Jason Calacanis, founder and chief executive of Mahalo.com.
Calacanis was refering to Facebook's latest feature, one which has created quite a bit of negative controversy.
Facebook has a propensity to create its own problems. The latest is its Groups feature, which allows anyone to "tag" and add a friend to any group. Anyone can set up a Facebook group and add anyone they want. If a group is publicly visible, anyone can see the membership of that group. Instead of allowing users to "opt in" to the feature, Facebook is requiring its users to "opt out."
Entrepreneur Calacanis published an e-mail he sent to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in which he complained about being "force joined" to a group called NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association).
Yikes! Are Facebook decision-makers smoking some funny stuff?
Maybe. Maybe not. Facebook has also rejected advertising from Proposition 19 activists who are trying to decriminalize marijuana in California.
But Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is urging California voters to say yes to a measure that would decriminalize the weed, saying in an e-mail: "More than any other initiative out there, Prop 19 will stabilize our national security and bolster our state economy. It will alleviate unnecessary overcrowding of non-violent offenders in our state jails, which in turn will help California residents."
He has contributed an additional $50,000 to the Yes on 19 effort, according to late contribution reports. Moskovitz previously gave $20,000.
Forbes estimates that the 26-year-old, who has a 6-percent stake in Facebook, is worth $1.4 billion.
Moskovitz, who prefers to keep a low profile, is portrayed by Joseph Mazzello in "The Social Network." Here's Moskovitz's take on the movie about Facebook.
You've got the cutest little baby face-book
Chances are you've probably seen those sonograms posted at Facebook or at someone's website. It's becoming more commonplace, according to a study by an Internet security company that shows 81 percent of children under the age of 2 have some kind of presence online. Within the first few weeks of life, a third of children have info and photos posted on the Web. The study polled 2,200 mothers in the developed world who have children under 2. Kids in the U.S. have the earliest online presence, with 92 percent of them showing up on the Web by the time they're 2.
About 7 percent of babies and toddlers already have an e-mail address, while 5 percent have a social-networking page, set up by parents eager to establish a place on the 'Net for their little ones.
Is your child playing video games, or designing them?
Google has announced an open source development contest for 13-18-year-old students around the world. The new contest, which begins Nov. 22, is called Google Code-in.
You may remember the pilot program from 2007-2008 called the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, which gave 400 students around the world an opportunity to help out open source projects on several tasks.
Check out Google's Frequently Asked Questions about the contest. Google is hoping to get pre-university students from all over the world involved. For more info, join Google's mailing list for contest updates. Mentoring organizations that are participating will be announced on Nov. 5.
Frazzled? Or a lifeline?
Being perpetually connected via technology comes with a price. According to an Associated Press-mtvU Poll, technology has become so enmeshed with college students' busy lives that they'd be frazzled without it.
The poll found that while 57 percent of students said life without computers and cell phones would make them more stressed, a significant number – 25 percent – said it would be a relief. Most feel pressured to instantly answer texts or voice mails, most get nervous if someone doesn't immediately reply to a message and nearly half worry whether messages they get are jokes.
One student said she'd feel disconnected without it: "You feel like it's a lifeline."
Turn left in .3 miles.
On a recent trip in Arizona, we programmed our GPS device to take us from Point A to Point B. Somehow, the "female" voice consistently gave us directions exactly opposite of our intended destination. We eventually figured it out – we had misprogrammed the darned thing.
Here's a sad story of how one GPS cost someone his life.
In a bizarre coincidence, two auto accidents were caused by a GPS in 24 hours. In one, the location finder directed two Senegalese men onto a rural road that ended abruptly, causing the car to drop into an artificial lake, killing one of them. According to the survivor, the driver was following the GPS directions when the car fell into the water and sank. GPS is wonderful, but as with anything, gigo (garbage in, garbage out).
Ouch! That's hot!
Do you work on your laptop computer while it's sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit. Resting your computer on your lap can lead to "toasted skin syndrome," an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports. Temperatures on a computer case can reach as high as 125 degrees.
One youngster developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months.
You can purchase a dual fan cooler for your laptop. It will help protect your skin and extend the life of your computer, too.
Social media sends financial S.O.S.
Women who were escaping a domestic violence situation needed cash fast. So a nonprofit agency that provides assistance to battered women sent out a modern-day S.O.S. The agency, with the pro-bono help of the technology firm Activate Direct launched an e-mail, Facebook and Twitter campaign.
The effort went viral, raising nearly $25,000 in less than three weeks, enough to save the group's Sexual Assault Response Team program, which provides an advocate to meet rape victims at hospitals.
As big-money donors cut back and government funding grows scarce, nonprofits are successfully turning to social media to solicit smaller donations to make up for shortfalls.
The time capsule
1890 – Dwight David Eisenhower is born
1947 – Chuck Yeager breaks sound barrier. But who is Chalmers Goodlin?
1964 – Khrushchev "retires" as first secretary
1978 – Polish bishop becomes Pope John Paul II
1989 – 6.9 earthquake hits San Francisco
1994 – Arafat, Israelis share peace prize
1996 – Handguns to be outlawed in U.K.
2000 – USS Cole attacked in Yemeni port
This week's videos picks
The Socialist by Ben Howe
Now playing at the Princess Theater, Urbana, Ill.
Congratulations to WorldNetDaily readers Bryan Walker of Johnston, Iowa; Ellen Springer, Hackensack, N.J.; and Leo Warren, Maryville, Tenn., who were among the first to correctly guess actor Tony Curtis in his portrayal of Lt. Nicholas Holden in the 1959 movie "Operation Petticoat."
The film is a World War II comedy about a submarine commander who finds himself stuck with a decrepit (and pink) sub, a con-man executive officer and a group of army nurses. Curtis was thrilled to act alongside Cary Grant, an actor he greatly admired.
Curtis passed away last month at his home in Henderson, Nev. He was 85.
The quote from Operation Petticoat was: "Don't let the manicure fool you, sir. I grew up in a neighborhood called 'Noah's Ark'; If you didn't travel in pairs, you just didn't travel."
This week's quote: "Hey, Ridley, ya got any Beeman's?"
Name the movie, the actor and the character. Note: There are two additional clues to the movie in this week's column. Send your answer to me at the email address below. Good luck!