Christian Science Monitor

 
 
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    Christian Science Monitor: Money & Money

  • US foot-dragging dims hopes for world trade deal

    Prospects for reaching a deal in the eight-year old Doha Round of global trade negotiations were remote; now, they’re truly distant. On Nov. 30, trade ministers of the 153-nation World Trade Organization (WTO) hold their ministerial conference in Geneva , but their agenda doesn’t even mention negotiations. It is officially defined ...

  • Best deals from Black Friday 2009 ads: Use your smartphone

    Using Black Friday ads to get the best deals could be grueling. If your best sales intelligence came from printed retail circulars, it meant organizing and comparing long lists. If you used an online deals aggregator, you still didn't have a good way of transporting that knowledge to the ...

  • New Economy cities: Boston is magnet for high-skilled workers

    Stu Haber has seen the future and it is trash. His employees at Infoscitex, a Boston-area start-up, built a machine that can transform everything from carpet to yesterday’s lunch into electricity or heat without any hazardous waste. The Green Energy Machine that Mr. Haber and his engineers call “the GEM” was ...

  • New Economy cities: Houston aims to move beyond the oil age

    The moment oil came spewing out of the Lucas No. 1 well at Spindletop on Jan. 10, 1901, Texas’ economy was forever wrenched from its agricultural roots and thrust into the Industrial Age of the 20th century. Today, nearby Houston is still riding the economic gusher produced by the major oil ...

  • New Economy cities: Huntsville eyes next launchpad for growth

    You should probably leave the rocket scientist jokes at home when visiting Huntsville, Ala. The chances are good (1 in 12, in fact) you’ll meet one here. In a state beset with educational challenges, this mid-size city (pop. 396,000) is an anomaly, a figurative brain soup where intellectual capital is ...
 
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    Christian Science Monitor: Innovation

  • Bing: Google gets some real competition

    It’s hard to compete when your opponent’s name is so popular that it’s become a verb. Such is the plight of every search engine that dares to challenge Google. Last year, four search engines made up more than 95 percent of all search traffic: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. Only Google ...

  • Google Chrome OS: Why should people switch?

    Will you be using Chrome OS a year from now? At the Web-based operating system's coming-out party at Google headquarters on Thursday, Google presented its vision of Chrome, and a huge amount of information on what the browser and operating system are based on, how they run, and the safeguards in ...

  • Scoot Coupe zips back into spotlight with the holiday season approaching

    The peppy, three-wheel Scoot Coupe darted back into consumers' consciousness today, just in time for holiday shopping. "The Price is Right" included the green-chic micromobile – part scooter, part golf cart, yet still street legal – in today's Showcase Showdown. Scoot Coupe is an odd pairing. Its toy-like frame houses an ...

  • Windows 7 sees ‘fantastic’ sales numbers

    Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, has sold very well in its opening weeks. How well? In its first month, Windows 7 has outsold any previous Microsoft OS launch by at least two fold, CEO Steve Ballmer said during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. He declined to offer concrete numbers. This sales ...

  • Forget the fangs. It’s spam that should really scare ‘Twilight’ fans.

    Fans of "Twilight" and "New Moon" already have plenty to be scared about – vampires, werewolves, a swirling debate over the feminist values of Stephenie Meyer's hit series. But what about malware? According to reports from the around the Internet this morning, the Twihard set was recently targeted by a group ...
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    Christian Science Monitor: Gardening

  • Unplanned garden ‘accidents’ have lovely results

    Developing a pleasing landscape or garden is the most wonderful work. We plan and design and deliberate. Plants are considered for one location or another, one function – like developing a hedge for privacy – or another, such as softening a stone building. It’s more fun than I can usually contain! Sometimes, ...

  • Gardeners love new plants even when they run out of space for them

    If you garden in one place long enough, you eventually run out of room to plant new goodies. This is a problem when you visit a nursery of rare and choice plants. Your eyes are bigger than your real estate. I now have three superb shrubs in pots, a witch hazel, ...

  • Ways to overwinter tender succulent plants

    I love growing succulents -- you know, those alluring fleshy, spiny, hairy, thorny, and otherwise bizarre-looking plants – in old bird baths, troughs, dishes, and other small containers outdoors during the summer months. These tender, no-fuss plants offer interesting textures, shapes and colors, creating individually fascinating gardens that, for the most ...

  • A city farmer faces the challenges of urban gardening

    There are certain phrases I never expected to utter in my lifetime. Things like, "Excuse me if I don't shake your hand. Mine's covered in horse urine." Or, to my son, "When you're finished with dinner, clear your plate and feed the scraps to the worms." Yet those are exactly the ...

  • How to place rocks around water gardens

    We’ve all seen them, those water features — particularly small ponds — dotted on the edges with natural rocks that look totally artificial. You may even own one. After years of writing about backyard water features all over the country, I’ve come to think of this artificiality as distinguished by “same-size ...
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    Christian Science Monitor: Environment

  • How will California’s new TV energy standards affect you?

    On Wednesday, the California Energy Commission approved new energy-efficiency standards to regulate how much electricity television sets sold in the state can consume. When do the standards take effect? Jan. 1, 2011, with more stringent rules kicking in two years later. Do they apply to the TV sets I currently own?  No. ...

  • Economists put a price tag on the benefits of coral reefs

    In recent decades, coral reef ecosystems around the world have declined dramatically. One-fifth have died, according to a 2004 World Wildlife Fund assessment, and human activity directly threatens another 24 percent. As atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase, scientists say that higher temperatures and ocean acidification could kill 70 percent of ...

  • The hidden costs of fossil fuels - and biofuels, too

    A new report by the National Research Council seeks to put a dollar amount on the “hidden” costs of energy produced by burning fossil fuels. These costs aren’t factored into the market prices of coal, oil, and gasoline, or the prices of electricity generated by fossil fuels, the report says. But ...

  • Two big advantages of closed-loop geothermal systems

    When our heating contractor Tony Silverio  told us we had a choice between a closed loop and an open loop geothermal system, our first inclination was simply to go with the least expensive. That’s in part because we already knew we’d be spending significantly more upfront for a geothermal system than ...

  • ‘Going Rogue’: Is Sarah Palin a creationist?

    In her memoir, "Going Rogue," Sarah Palin reveals that she has creationist leanings, explicitly rejecting the belief that humans and other species evolved from a common lineage. There's no precise definition of "creationism," but the term generally encompasses those who oppose all or part of the theory – held almost universally ...
 
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    Christian Science Monitor: Books

  • Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West

    In Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West Benazir Bhutto writes of her vision of what we need to know and do to bring harmony and understanding between our seemingly conflicting cultures.  I highly recommend it.

  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories

    Translators are cooks trying to follow recipes to the letter, but by necessity they have to use the ingredients and equipment they’ve got at home. They make do and hope the approximations taste good. The American/Russian husband/wife team Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are known for their translations of the ...

  • Free books used as tools to fight evolution

    Hundreds of college students were surprised on Wednesday when they were handed free copies of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" as they walked across campus. But they were perhaps even more surprised when they opened the book and discovered that it contained a 50-page foreword by a Christian ...

  • Guardians of Being

    If you are one of those organized people interested in completing your holiday shopping as quickly and unerringly as possible, I have a suggestion for you: Pick up a copy of Guardians of Being by Eckhart Tolle with illustrations by Patrick McDonnell. In fact, while you’re at it, you might ...

  • The Republic

    The Republic by Plato is simply an outstanding book that give one a grand perspective. I'm very happy to have engaged this work because it stimulates the mind and furthers my thinking processes.
 
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    Christian Science Monitor: Marjorie Kehe - Chapter & Verse

  • Free books used as tools to fight evolution

    Hundreds of college students were surprised on Wednesday when they were handed free copies of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" as they walked across campus. But they were perhaps even more surprised when they opened the book and discovered that it contained a 50-page foreword by a Christian ...

  • 2009 National Book Award winners

     There was a bit of gallows humor at the 60th annual National Book Awards ceremony in New York last night. Host Andy Borowitz said that when he was first invited to emcee the awards, he was so honored that he said he would have done it for free. As it ...

  • Guest blog: “Twilight” moves into “Nightlight”

    Cult-wise, now we know the Twilight books have really arrived. No, we’re not talking about author Stephenie Meyer’s appearance on Oprah, or about the “Twilight Series” coffee beans offered by one enterprising company in brews like “Bella’s Blend”. The news that caught us ...

  • ‘Unfriend’ as word of the year? Is 2009 so cold?

    Not necessarily. Instead, the New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen "unfriend" (meaning to remove someone from your friend list on a social network like Facebook) as 2009 Word of the Year because of its "currency and potential longevity," says Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary program, who adds ...

  • All Sarah Palin, all the time

    If you follow book headlines (or headlines of any kind), brace yourself in preparation for this week. Pretty much what you are going to be hearing and seeing is all Sarah Palin, all the time. Her memoir "Going Rogue: An American Life" (on sale as of tomorrow) is already a ...
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    Christian Science Monitor: Eoin O'Carroll - Bright Green Blog

  • How will California’s new TV energy standards affect you?

    On Wednesday, the California Energy Commission approved new energy-efficiency standards to regulate how much electricity television sets sold in the state can consume. When do the standards take effect? Jan. 1, 2011, with more stringent rules kicking in two years later. Do they apply to the TV sets I currently own?  No. ...

  • Two big advantages of closed-loop geothermal systems

    When our heating contractor Tony Silverio  told us we had a choice between a closed loop and an open loop geothermal system, our first inclination was simply to go with the least expensive. That’s in part because we already knew we’d be spending significantly more upfront for a geothermal system than ...

  • ‘Going Rogue’: Is Sarah Palin a creationist?

    In her memoir, "Going Rogue," Sarah Palin reveals that she has creationist leanings, explicitly rejecting the belief that humans and other species evolved from a common lineage. There's no precise definition of "creationism," but the term generally encompasses those who oppose all or part of the theory – held almost universally ...

  • Did 2008 Wenchuan quake strike because China filled a reservoir?

    Scientists have seen this one before: Fill a reservoir behind a new dam, and, oops, you trigger an earthquake nearby not long after the lake is topped off. Now, a team of researchers led by the University of Colorado's Shemin Ge suggest that this could well be what happened with the ...

  • Geothermal heating and cooling – why we chose a closed-loop system

    The wonder of a geothermal heating and cooling system is that it uses use the energy naturally stored in the ground to heat and cool your house. Some extra juice is needed, of course, to run a heat pump to keep the system operating, but it amounts to a fraction – ...
 
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    Christian Science Monitor: Chris Gaylord - Horizons Blog

  • Google Chrome OS: Why should people switch?

    Will you be using Chrome OS a year from now? At the Web-based operating system's coming-out party at Google headquarters on Thursday, Google presented its vision of Chrome, and a huge amount of information on what the browser and operating system are based on, how they run, and the safeguards in ...

  • Scoot Coupe zips back into spotlight with the holiday season approaching

    The peppy, three-wheel Scoot Coupe darted back into consumers' consciousness today, just in time for holiday shopping. "The Price is Right" included the green-chic micromobile – part scooter, part golf cart, yet still street legal – in today's Showcase Showdown. Scoot Coupe is an odd pairing. Its toy-like frame houses an ...

  • Windows 7 sees ‘fantastic’ sales numbers

    Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, has sold very well in its opening weeks. How well? In its first month, Windows 7 has outsold any previous Microsoft OS launch by at least two fold, CEO Steve Ballmer said during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. He declined to offer concrete numbers. This sales ...

  • Forget the fangs. It’s spam that should really scare ‘Twilight’ fans.

    Fans of "Twilight" and "New Moon" already have plenty to be scared about – vampires, werewolves, a swirling debate over the feminist values of Stephenie Meyer's hit series. But what about malware? According to reports from the around the Internet this morning, the Twihard set was recently targeted by a group ...

  • Modern Warfare helps buoy Q3 profits at GameStop

    The success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the new first-person shooter published by Activision, has reportedly helped boost profits for the most popular video game retailer in the US. According to the Associated Press, sales rose to $1.83 billion in the most recent quarter at GameStop. That's a ...
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    Christian Science Monitor: Judy Lowe - Gardening

  • Unplanned garden ‘accidents’ have lovely results

    Developing a pleasing landscape or garden is the most wonderful work. We plan and design and deliberate. Plants are considered for one location or another, one function – like developing a hedge for privacy – or another, such as softening a stone building. It’s more fun than I can usually contain! Sometimes, ...

  • Ways to overwinter tender succulent plants

    I love growing succulents -- you know, those alluring fleshy, spiny, hairy, thorny, and otherwise bizarre-looking plants – in old bird baths, troughs, dishes, and other small containers outdoors during the summer months. These tender, no-fuss plants offer interesting textures, shapes and colors, creating individually fascinating gardens that, for the most ...

  • How to place rocks around water gardens

    We’ve all seen them, those water features — particularly small ponds — dotted on the edges with natural rocks that look totally artificial. You may even own one. After years of writing about backyard water features all over the country, I’ve come to think of this artificiality as distinguished by “same-size ...

  • House plants for black thumbs and cave dwellers

    I’ve killed more than my share of houseplants. One of the great paradoxes of life is that accomplished gardeners who grow prize-winning roses and gigantic tomatoes frequently turn into grim reapers when it comes to ficus and philodendron indoors. Gardeners are used to supplying plenty of water and nutrients to their outdoor ...

  • Take advantage of bargain bulbs with this trick

    Here’s a trick that allows you to take advantage of the money-saving late offers from Internet bulb companies like Brent and Becky’s or Old House Gardens. Or you can snag bags of orphan bulbs locally for rock-bottom prices and have them bloom in your garden next spring. Water features – especially ...
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    Christian Science Monitor: Patchwork Nation

  • Why Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’ tour looks like a campaign

    Dante Chinni
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:58 am
    Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin officially launched her “Going Rogue” book tour Wednesday in the western Michigan city of Kentwood, and the crowd, somewhat predictably, went wild. More than 1,000 people were waiting in line before Ms. Palin even arrived, according the Detroit News. Many commentators have already compared the aesthetics of Palin’s book tour to a political campaign – the bus she’s using, the buttons for sale, the wild cheers. And looking at her announced tour stops through Patchwork Nation’s 12 community-type framework, there may be other…

  • Economic hardship is now widespread. Is that a good thing?

    Dante Chinni
    18 Nov 2009 | 5:49 am
    As we travel around Patchwork Nation and talk about the good news in the national economy – GDP growth, the improving Dow – we are often met with skepticism. Regardless of what headlines say, many people have yet to sense a turnaround locally.This month’s Economic Hardship Index shows how complicated the national economic picture can be. Overall, this month’s average is 34.3 – 12 points higher than last month’s, with higher scores equaling more hardship. Scores are up across the board, and in some community types, the scores are up significantly. But they are being…

  • How the recession ‘looks’ in one Boom Town

    Dante Chinni
    16 Nov 2009 | 6:37 am
    This economic downturn looks different depending on where you are. We’ll focus on the different ways places are hurting Wednesday in our Hardship Index. Here, we’re talking about how the recession actually “looks.” In Eagle, Colo., a “Boom Town” that saw its population double in the last decade, the streets scenes look surprisingly normal. There are some small signs that times have gotten harder. The Starbucks in the new downtown, where all the homes had gone up, recently closed. Buildings that were empty in July remain empty. But everything is well-maintained. Winding through the…

  • Why voters’ ages mattered so much in latest elections

    James Gimpel
    13 Nov 2009 | 8:30 am
    The high turnout of older voters and the lighter turnout of the young certainly helps to explain the difference between last year’s presidential election and last week’s Republican victories in the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey. President Obama even had his grass-roots political organization, Organizing for America, involved in those campaigns to mobilize the voters who turned out for him last year. But in both states, turnout of younger and minority voters was down, as it has been in previous off-year contests. Why does the age of those who happen to vote matter…

  • Some good news regarding unemployment numbers

    Dante Chinni
    11 Nov 2009 | 5:46 am
    The economy is at a tricky juncture. Things are clearly better if you look at some indicators – such as last quarter’s 3.5 percent figure for gross domestic product. But that jump has not manifested itself in a meaningful way – at least not yet. Consider the unemployment figures for Patchwork Nation in September (the most recent month available for county-by-county figures). There are signs that things are getting better – in some places – but the changes are not the kinds of things you write home about. Nine of our 12 community types saw small drops in the unemployment rate –…
 
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    Christian Science Monitor: Daily News Podcast

  • November 19, 2009

    19 Nov 2009 | 10:38 am
    President Obama ends his Asian tour with talks in South Korea and cheering from US servicemen and women.

  • November 18, 2009

    18 Nov 2009 | 10:42 am
    President Obama and Chinese leaders have a dialogue during his visit, but no deals.

  • November 17, 2009

    17 Nov 2009 | 10:26 am
    A Rwandan rebel leader is arrested on war crimes charges in Germany.

  • November 16, 2009

    16 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    The space shuttle Atlantis hauls some extra supplies up to the International Space Station.

  • November 13, 2009

    13 Nov 2009 | 10:38 am
    British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says NATO can send more troops to Afghanistan.
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