Archive for January, 2011
Global Food Supplies Stretched to Limit
January 14th, 2011Via: MSNBC: Strained by rising demand and battered by bad weather, the global food supply chain is stretched to the limit, sending prices soaring and sparking concerns about a repeat of food riots last seen three years ago. Signs of the strain can be found from Australia to Argentina, Canada to Russia. On Thursday, Tunisia’s […]
Missouri: Concrete “Home” of Overwatch Systems CTO Is One of the Largest in the U.S.
January 14th, 2011Overwatch is wholly owned by defense giant Textron. This is from the Overwatch homepage: Overwatch delivers multi-source intelligence (multi-INT), geospatial analysis and custom intelligence solutions to the Department of Defense, national agencies and civilian organizations. Our solutions enable analysts to integrate and leverage multiple intelligence sources to improve situational understanding and deliver actionable intelligence in […]
Haiti: Another Success Story… for U.S. Corporations
January 14th, 2011Via: NPR: In the aftermath of the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, those who were desperate to find something positive in the tragedy that claimed an estimated 230,000 lives talked about the “opportunity” the destruction could present for the impoverished nation to “build back better.” On the tragedy’s one-year anniversary, it’s become […]
Growing Fish in Greenhouses
January 14th, 2011Via: YouTube: Related: growingpower.org
Mitre/JASONs Advise Pentagon to Collect DNA and Complete Human Genome Sequences for All Military Personnel
January 14th, 201123andme.mil? Don’t laugh. Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, was one of the briefers on this. As you may or may not know, Wojcicki is married to Google’s Sergey Brin. I don’t know what’s more terrifying to consider: What the military is going to do with this, or what Google is going to do with this. […]
S&P, Moody’s Warn On U.S. Credit Rating
January 14th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal: With attention focused on sovereign-debt worries in Europe, two major credit-rating firms reminded investors again that the U.S. has debt problems of its own. Investors bought Treasury debt nonetheless, ignoring the comments, which echoed prior statements by the companies and may still be months or years away from having any practical […]
Freedom in Decline Worldwide
January 14th, 2011Via: AFP: Global freedom declined for a fifth straight year in 2010 as authoritarian regimes dug in worldwide and crime and unrest plagued democracies like Mexico, a US watchdog said Thursday. In “Freedom in the World 2011” the Washington-based Freedom House said it had documented the longest continuous period of decline since it began compiling […]
IBM’s Watson: How About, “We’re Fucked” for $100, Alex
January 14th, 2011Update: Watson Won Via: PC World: Wrapping up a three-day run on the Jeopardy game show, IBM’s Watson computer has beaten two former champions in a historic match of man versus machine. —End Update— Ah, don’t worry. Surely, the regime will use this for good. *sigh* Via: Boston Globe: IBM recently created a supercomputer named […]
Derren Brown Controls Shopping Mall Visitors
January 13th, 2011I wanted to believe that this wasn’t real; that it was just a stunt for television, with paid actors, etc. I know a bit about hypnosis, but I had pretty serious doubts about this one. So, is this real, or not? Surely, it’s not, right? I emailed Tony Rodriguez, a friend of mine who happens […]
In 2010, U.S. Foreclosures Topped One Million for the First Time
January 13th, 2011Via: Reuters: Banks seized more than a million U.S. homes in one year for the first time last year, despite a slowdown in the last few months as questions around foreclosure processing arose, a leading firm said on Thursday. Banks foreclosed on 69,847 properties in December, bringing the year’s total to 1.05 million, topping the […]
