Agricultural policy is not sexy. You probably don't know the intricacies of "loan deficiency payments" or "base acreage," and you probably don't care. This was once an agrarian nation, but now there's a less than 1% chance that you're a farmer, and if you are, you're probably part time; the average farm family gets 82% of its income from nonfarm sources. We're not a people of the soil anymore, and for most of us, our eyes glaze over when we ...

Misratah has become the Libyan war's most infamous quagmire, despite its size and location. The rebel-held port city with a population of just half a million on the country's western Mediterranean coast is completely isolated from the swaths of rebel-held territory in the east. As such, both sides recognize it as a symbol of the rebellion's claims to represent all Libyans, not only those who live in the east. And the fact that the city not only ...

Michael Fertik may be running a business, but by the time new customers are knocking on his door, things have turned decidedly personal. "People send us letters that say, 'You saved my life,'" says the CEO of Reputation.com, pointing to the dramatic ways in which a person's virtual reputation can shape their day-to-day routine. "They literally say, 'I'm now able to live my life.'" When most Web surfers Google themselves, the self-search begins and ends with social ...

The Belgian Catholic Church must have felt it hit a nadir last year when it had to face harrowing revelations of rampant child sex abuse among its priesthood. However, the church's reputation is now at a new low, thanks to the ill-judged comments of the disgraced former Bishop of Bruges, who in April 2010 admitted to abusing his nephew. Belgians have been left in open-mouthed disbelief after the airing of a TV interview with Roger Vangheluwe in ...

Juanita Bynum's story may read like soap opera, but her travails are a reminder of the longtime magnetism between celebrity Pentecostal preachers and scandal. The 48-year-old regular on the Trinity Broadcasting Network made her reputation with a sermon renouncing pre-marital sex to search for a holy partner. She appeared to find one in a minister named Thomas Weeks III, wed him in a $1 million on-air ceremony, and together they went ...

Three hours after I gave my name and e-mail address to Michael Fertik, the CEO of Reputation.com, he called me back and read my Social Security number to me. "We had it a couple of hours ago," he said. "I was just too busy to call." In the past few months, I have been told many more-interesting facts about myself than my Social Security number. I've gathered a bit of the vast amount of data that's being collected ...

Famously dubbed the "mad dog of the Middle East" by former President Ronald Reagan, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has a reputation that has run the gamut from eccentric revolutionary to international pariah over his long career. Often seen swathed in animal skins and surrounded by a posse of virgin female bodyguards, the colorful leader has become as well known for his unusual personality as for his controversial political moves, the latest of which included celebrating convicted ...

Just like Vegas, what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet. How that affects your job search is up to you. (CareerBuilder) -- Just like Vegas, what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet. How that affects your job search is up to you. Gone are the days when all you were concerned with was whether or not your rsum and cover letter were error-free. Now, you've got bigger things to worry about -- like what kind ...

The captain of the Italian national football team, Fabio Cannavaro, has hit out at his treatment at the hands of the world's media after being cleared of doping by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI). The Juventus defender, who led his country to World Cup victory in 2006, failed a drugs test two days after treating a wasp sting with a cream containing cortisone on 28 August. The case against the 36-year-old, whose insect-allergy means that untreated stings could prove fatal, ...

From the ubiquitous T-shirts sporting a red-eyed tree frog clinging to an Imperial beer bottle, to the best-selling postcards featuring the flamboyant poison-dart frog holding court in the rainforest, Costa Ricans today identify with frogs the way Russians relate to bears. That's because Costa Rica over the past generation has built a reputation as one of the world's greenest countries. It so jealously guards its environment that 26% of its territory is under national park protection, its eco-tourism sector ...