mericans for Prosperity, the Tea Party-aligned group part-funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, is building a state-of-the-art digital ground operation in Ohio and other vital battleground states to spread its anti-Obama message to voters who could decide the outcome of the presidential election.

The group hopes that by creating a local army of activists equipped with sophisticated online micro-targeting tools it will increase its impact on moderate voters, nudging them towards a staunchly conservative position opposed to President Obama’s economic and healthcare policies. Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is spending tens of millions of dollars developing its local strategy, already employing more than 200 permanent staff in 32 states.

Classified a non-profit ‘social welfare’ organisation, AFP is legally obliged to project itself as a non-partisan campaign that neither endorses nor opposes candidates for public office. But there is no disguising its targets, nor their political nature.

In Ohio, volunteers are given a script which they follow when engaging voters. ‘President Obama took office three years ago and promised to fix our economy,’ they say, ‘yet unemployment is still high and our debt is up to $6tn.’

AFP has already spent $30m so far this election cycle in opposing President Obama and other prominent Democratic candidates […]

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Engineers in London said this week that they’ve developed a new type of synthetic vehicle fuel that’s created out of water and thin air, literally by pulling carbon molecules out of the atmosphere and recycling them.

Speaking to a conference this week put on by the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers, researchers with Air Fuel Synthesis, Ltd. said they’ve successfully married a synthetic fuel production technique that dates back to World War II with modern atmospheric carbon capture and sequestration methods.

The resulting product, they said, works in all current vehicles, can be blended with conventional fuels, and just might be a game changer for human energy and the fight against climate change if it’s ever produced on a large enough scale.

‘We haven’t broken the Second Law of Thermodynamics or anything,

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PHILADELPHIA — A survey of about 1,100 Americans finds that more than 4-in-10 respondents admit they don’t have more than $500 in readily accessible savings.

The survey is a kind of departure for CreditDonkey.com, a website that compares credit card deals. Not all respondents were poor. Some had big houses, big mortgages or 401(k)s, but still no more than five Benjamins to rub together right now.

Jill Michal, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, reacts to the lack of liquid assets.

‘It doesn’t shock me, but it does scare me. You know, we often say that the reason so many people fall off the edge in a tough economy is that they’re standing way too close to it, and I think this is a perfect demonstration of that.

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What is it with CEOs and their jets? Many of them seem to take greater interest in aviation than in the nuts-and-bolts of corporate operations.

The latest cringe-worthy example: Bloomberg reported today on the highly-detailed specifications that Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries required for the flight crews on the company’s corporate jet.

‘Clean-shaven males had to wear a uniform of Abercrombie polo shirts, boxer briefs, flip-flops and a ‘spritz’ of the retailer’s cologne,

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When the National Football League ended its lockout of the professional referees and the refs returned to call the games, all across the country players, fans, sponsors and owners breathed a sigh of relief. Fans were grateful for the return of qualified judges to keep things on the up and up.

After the now infamous Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers game, when questionable calls by the replacement refs led to a disputed 14-12 win by the Seahawks, even union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, the pride of Janesville, Wisconsin, became – briefly – fans of organized labor, calling for a negotiated peace and bringing the real refs back on the field.

In Baltimore, when the professional referees returned for their first game of the season, fans gave them a standing ovation. One held a sign: ‘Finally! We get to yell at real refs! Welcome back!

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