How Google & Co. Will Rule Your Rep

Reputation is a tricky business. And not just for politicians anymore. This year we're all worried about approval ratings—or should be. Reputation was once a qualitative measure of our behavior, vital but vague. Now it's getting quantitative. Soon there is likely to be an actual numerical reputation score for each of us, like a FICO credit score but for our whole lives.Ready? We've got the precursors now, whether or not we're aware of them. Companies such as PeerIndex, Twitalyzer, Talentag and PostRank (bought by Google) already apply online analytics to establish the heft of an individual's or business's "social capital."...

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Smear Tactics Will Discredit Perpetrator, Not Reputation Of Target

"Swift justice demands more than just swiftness." When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart penned those words from the bench in 1958, there wasn't much chance he could have envisioned how quick "swift" could be 53 years later. Nor could he have imagined that swiftness — not necessarily in a legal sense, but in one every bit as important: Reputation. The fact is, throughout history, it has always behooved people to rectify misconceptions or misrepresentations of their character or reputation as quickly as the message spreads. The longer a falsehood permeates the public discourse — even if the truth eventually...

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Rumsfeld: If Gadhafi Stays, U.S. Reputation Damaged, American Enemies Emboldened

Washington - Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said today that if Gadhafi remains in power in Libya, it will damage the prestige of the United States. He compared the possible scenario of Gadhafi staying in power in Tripoli to the U.S. and coalition forces not removing Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, though he refused to take a firm stand on whether U.S. military action in Libya was the correct move for the Obama administration. In an exclusive interview on "This Week" with ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, Rumsfeld said, "the fact is we are

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Government: No Electronic Flaws in Toyotas

WASHINGTON -- A government investigation into Toyota safety problems has found no electronic flaws to account for reports of sudden, unintentional acceleration.

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6 Brazen Advocates of Slut Culture on the Pseudo-Feminist Left

Sluthood wasn't always considered a virtue. Most normal, rational people look at sleeping around as something sad and wrong. It's not healthy, physically or mentally, it can be damaging to a young girl's reputation, and it can also be incredibly dangerous. Women that sleep around oftentimes end up feeling used and regret their choices when they get older and decide to settle down. Other women end up contracting STDs, which may or may not be treatable. For these reasons and more, being a slut is understandably looked down upon -- it can be genuinely harmful. Today's pseudo-feminists, however, have...

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To Russia, with Love

Given Russia's reputation for excessive bureaucracy, it's only right that a company would exist to help businesspeople to set up, find the right translators, and also provide the right legal guidance to navigate the Byzantine direction of Russia's business bureaucracy. Center of Economic Planning consists of a professional team of skilled translators, auditors and IT specialists who will also not just help foreign businesses, but also help native Russians build their businesses.

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Unindicted Duke LAX players sue Duke University

By Tamara Gibbs DURHAM -- In a filing Tuesday in Federal Court, unindicted Duke Lacrosse players are suing Duke University, the City of Durham, Duke University professors, Mike Nifong and the DNA lab involved in the case. The suit also names doctors and nurses who treated the alleged victim the night she claimed she'd been raped at a party. The players are also suing City Manager Patrick Baker and former Durham Police Chief Stephen Chalmers. As part of the investigation, the unindicted players had to give up DNA samples and were named in the school paper. In the 404-page lawsuit,...

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The remarkable death of Dixie America

Few parts of the world are as loved and loathed with the intensity that is felt for the American South. Thanks to a long line of contributions to the popular culture from Gone with the Wind to Borat, via Deliverance, Dixie, the great muggy swath of the southeastern United States, from Washington DC to Texas, has a firm grip on the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. To its detractors it is a terrifying and contemptible land full of racist rednecks, Bible-toting hypocrites and downtrodden blacks. To those of a more romantic disposition, and certainly to most of its inhabitants,...

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Beyond food and toys, China struggles with its global reputation

Beyond food and toys, China struggles with its global reputation From climate change to Darfur, public opinion polls reveal a global unease with the growing superpower. By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Beijing As China prepares to celebrate its emergence as a global power at next year's Olympic Games, a rash of recent American and international opinion polls suggest that the Asian giant faces an uphill battle to convince the world it is worthy of its new status. And it is more than just a question of food or toys. Beijing's task is made harder,...

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Washington diary: Land of ideas

How many ideas has the US allowed to flourish that would otherwise have withered on the vine? I am happy to report to you that the Oxford Union, in its infinite wisdom, has allowed America to continue existing. After a raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - was overwhelmingly squashed. My colleague Jonah Goldberg, from the National Review, made a witty and punchy case for the birthright of America, lambasting the Union for a motion that "sounded like a bad joke". Peter Rodman, a former US assistant...

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Anti-Americanism in Venezuela (Death to America: Part 2).

For the second in a series of sceptical snapshots of the anti-American world, the BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb travelled to Caracas, the car-choked, sweltering capital of oil-rich Venezuela. Chavez is one of the ringleaders of the anti-American movement Why Caracas? Because at the moment it is the heart - the very epicentre - of Latin anti-Americanism. Venezuela is unusual, indeed unique. It is a Latin American nation which in recent years has become rich enough to have the power to tell the US to take a hike. And Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected leader, loses no opportunity to...

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