Archive for April, 2008
GE: Big Earnings Miss
April 11th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: General Electric Co. reported its first decline in quarterly profit since 2003, missing analysts’ estimates with a 12 percent drop in earnings as a freeze in credit markets blocked asset sales and forced it to write down the value of investments. The world’s third-largest company by market value fell as much as 12 […]
White Hat Team Quickly Owned Power Company; Could Have Shut Down Grid
April 10th, 2008Via: Network World: Cracking a power company network and gaining access that could shut down the grid is simple, a security expert told an RSA audience, and he has done so in less than a day. Ira Winkler, a penetration-testing consultant, says he and a team of other experts took a day to set up […]
Moron U
April 10th, 2008Via: Chronicle of Higher Education: I teach a seminar called “Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge.” I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word “rendition.” Not one hand went up. This […]
Record Power Prices in Europe, Consumers May Pay the Price
April 10th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: Power prices rose to records across Europe, potentially increasing costs for consumers and industry on the continent as economic growth slows. Power for 2009 in Germany, Europe’s biggest electricity market, climbed to a record 65.50 euros ($105) a megawatt hour, gaining 1.2 percent, according to broker GFI Group Inc. The contract traded at […]
Wall Street’s Banks May Cut 35% of Jobs
April 10th, 2008Anyone need a used Porsche? Via: Bloomberg: Kenneth Moelis, the former president of UBS AG’s investment bank, said Wall Street firms may have to eliminate as much as 35 percent of employees as leveraged lending dwindles and the pace of mergers and acquisitions slows. “The Street got staffed up to support what was a slight […]
IMF: U.S. Crisis is ‘Largest Financial Shock since Great Depression’
April 10th, 2008Hold on to your wallet. Via: Guardian: America’s mortgage crisis has spiralled into “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression” and there is now a one-in-four chance of a full-blown global recession over the next 12 months, the International Monetary Fund warned today. The US is already sliding into what the IMF predicts will […]
What Power Looks Like
April 10th, 2008In case Newsweek’s fluff isn’t cutting it for you, here are some core materials: The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World by L. Fletcher Prouty Anglo-American Establishment by Carroll Quigley Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change […]
Hand-Held Lie Detector… Yeah Right
April 9th, 2008The Homeland’s Ministry of Magic 8 Ball Technologies is at it again. Via: MSNBC: The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph. The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough […]
UN: Food Price Rises Threaten Global Security
April 9th, 2008This situation is maddening. I’ve been reading our Bill Mollison permaculture books again (Intro and Design) and the path to abundance is right there. I have to conclude that the governments involved want the chaos they’re experiencing, or are about to experience. Rather than yielding some control to localities and supporting smaller, integrated animal/garden/food forest […]
Philippines Threatens Rice Hoarders with Life Imprisonment
April 9th, 2008Via: USA Today: Filipinos face life in prison if they’re caught hoarding rice. “The Department of Justice is preparing economic sabotage or plunder charges that carry a life sentence against traders found to be hoarding rice, the price of which has risen sharply amid a tight global supply,” The Inquirer reports. “Although the country has […]
