Archive for the 'Outsourced' Category
Corrections Corporation of America Wants to Buy State Owned Prisons and Then Get States to Commit to Keeping Them Full of Prisoners
February 23rd, 2012Via: ACLU: Recently we learned that the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country, sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to buy up their state-owned and operated prisons and put them under CCA control. If offering cash-strapped states a quick infusion of money by taking control of […]
Detroit Citizens No Longer Rely on Police as Self-Defense Killings Skyrocket
February 9th, 2012Via: The Daily: Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police […]
Six Million People Are Under Correctional Supervision in the U.S.—More Than Were in Stalin’s Gulags
January 25th, 2012Via: New Yorker: For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their […]
Sorry iBooks, Paper Books Still Win on Specs
January 22nd, 2012Apple’s vision for ebooks is to make them like webpages, complete with embedded music, videos, lectures, 3D models, etc; the more distracting, the better. One of the most irritating experiences that I can think of is being interrupted as I’m trying to concentrate. When I sit down to read a book, I don’t want my […]
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory
January 16th, 2012Update: Apple’s Chinese iPhone Plants Employ Forced Interns, Claim Campaigners Via: Guardian: Apple’s factories in China are employing tens of thousands of students, some of them on forced internships, according to campaigners lobbying for better labour conditions at Foxconn plants, which assemble iPhones. Some students could be as young as 16. The Foxconn chairman, Terry […]
Civilian Contractors in the Kill Chain
January 1st, 2012The absurdity is reaching Strangelovian proportions: “Our No. 1 manning problem in the Air Force is manning our unmanned platforms,” said Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, Air Force vice chief of staff. Via: Los Angeles Times: After a U.S. airstrike mistakenly killed at least 15 Afghans in 2010, the Army officer investigating the accident was surprised […]
Blackwater, Xe, ACADEMI
December 13th, 2011Via: AFP: The US security firm formerly known as Blackwater, which was barred from Iraq over a deadly 2007 shooting, has renamed itself a second time. USTC Holdings, the investor consortium that acquired ex-Blackwater firm Xe Services in December 2010, announced ACADEMI as the new name and brand for Xe Services. The rebranding came as […]
Inside Romania’s Secret CIA Prison
December 8th, 2011Via: AP: In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect. For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed “Bright Light” — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There it held al-Qaida […]
Alabama: Inmates Can Replace Hispanic Farmhands
December 7th, 2011Via: Politico: Alabama farmers frantically looking for workers to replace those that have fled the state in the wake of its tough new immigration law should just stop by their local prison, according to the head of Alabama’s agriculture department. John McMillan, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, told the Montgomery Advertiser […]
New Zealand: 1 Million Didn’t Bother to Vote
November 28th, 2011Update: National Almost Beaten by The Abstention Party Via: New Zealand Herald: Voter turnout in the general election was an historic low of 68.8% of eligible voters. An argument can be made that the National Party was almost beaten by The Abstention Party, which won 31.2% of the (non)-vote. Once you take into account the […]
