Archive for the 'Elite' Category
Wal-Mart Nominates Google Vice President to Board
April 17th, 2012Via: AP: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that it nominated Google Inc. Vice President Marissa Mayer to its board of directors, a move that the discount retailer says will help it sell more products through mobile devices. Mayer, 36, is vice president of Google’s “local and maps” division, which means she oversees products and software […]
Briton Killed After Threat to Expose Overseas Financial Dealings of Chinese Politician’s Wife
April 16th, 2012Via: Reuters: The British businessman whose murder has sparked political upheaval in China was poisoned after he threatened to expose a plan by a Chinese leader’s wife to move money abroad, two sources with knowledge of the police investigation said. It was the first time a specific motive has been revealed for Neil Heywood’s murder […]
Google’s Sergey Brin: Web Freedom Faces Greatest Threat Ever
April 16th, 2012You know that we’re in deep shit when Sergey Brin sounds like he’s been reading Cryptogon. Via: Guardian: The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned […]
Huddles: Goldman to Pay $22 Million to Settle SEC, FINRA Charges
April 12th, 2012Via: Reuters: The case stems from a practice at Goldman that came to light several years ago known as “huddles,” where stock research analysts met with the firm’s traders to share their best trading ideas. Those ideas were then passed along to preferred clients.
‘Proposed ‘Natural Health Products Bill’ in New Zealand Would Fine Individuals $50,000 for Making a Cup of Unapproved Herbal Tea’
April 12th, 2012I tried to determine if one could theoretically wind up on the wrong side of this thing for producing, for example, one’s own chamomile tea. The following is from Natural Health Products Bill 324-1: Manufacture of natural health products 28 Licence to manufacture natural health products (1) A person must not manufacture a natural health […]
Royal Canadian Mint to Create Digital Currency
April 12th, 2012It’ll be anonymous, will it? So people will be using smartphones, which amount to the most awesome goddamned deployment of mass surveillance technologies in history, to anonymously buy and sell things? Don’t look at me. I just work here. Via: TheStar: The Royal Canadian Mint wants to get rid of pocket change — and it’s […]
Tobacco Farmers Claim Monsanto, Philip Morris and Other U.S. Tobacco Giants Knowingly Poisoned Them, Causing “Devastating Birth Defects” in Their Children
April 11th, 2012Via: Courthouse News Service: Monsanto, Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco giants knowingly poisoned Argentinean tobacco farmers with pesticides, causing “devastating birth defects” in their children, dozens of workers claim in court. The farmers, on their own behalf and for their injured children, sued Altria Group fka Philip Morris Cos., Philip Morris USA, Carolina Leaf […]
3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up
April 10th, 2012I’d love to know the mechanisms by which students come to be required to buy, say, a calculus textbook for over $200. What has to happen to get a racket like that up and running? Suitcases of cash? Prostitutes? All-expenses-paid-conferences/colloquia-as-vacations? Horse heads tucked into beds with people? Via: The Chronicle of Higher Education: Open-education resources […]
Radioactive Particles from Fukushima Disaster Were Detected in Kelp Off Southern California
April 10th, 2012Via: San Francisco Chronicle: Kelp off California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state’s coastline, according to a new scientific study. Scientists from CSU Long Beach tested giant kelp collected off Orange County, Santa Cruz and other locations after […]
Situation at Fukushima Has Potential to, “Destroy the World Environment and Our Civilization”
April 8th, 2012Via: Akio Matsumura: Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with […]
