Archive for January, 2011
GM Sold More Vehicles in China Than the U.S. in 2010
January 25th, 2011Via: USA Today: General Motors last year sold more cars and trucks in China –now the world’s largest and fastest-growing auto market — than it did in the U.S. GM sold 2,351,610 vehicles in China in 2010, up 28.8% over 2009. By contrast it sold 2.215,227 in the U.S., up 6.3%.
Jesse Ventura Sues TSA Over Pat-Downs
January 25th, 2011Via: KSTP: Former governor Jesse Ventura never shied away from a battle during his one term as Minnesota’s chief executive. Now, as a “television performer,” as he describes himself in a new lawsuit, the former pro-wrestler is trying to launch a legal smackdown against the agencies that are supposed to protect the flying public. In […]
Moscow Airport Bomb Kills 31, Injures More Than 130
January 24th, 2011In other news: Israel Concerned Russia Will Recognize Palestinian State, and then, Dmitry Medvedev Restates Russian Support for Palestinian State. *boom* Via: Los Angeles Times: An apparent terrorist bombing Monday at a crowded arrivals terminal at an airport near Moscow left 31 people dead and more than 130 injured, Russian officials said. The bomb at […]
Large Leak of Documents ‘Reveal Slow Death of Middle East Peace Process’
January 24th, 2011I have no idea what to make of this. It’s massive and I haven’t looked and any of the documents yet. Here it is, but, as always, with a grain of salt… or CAST LEAD as the case may be. Via: Guardian: The biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the Middle East […]
Peter Dale Scott: The Doomsday Project, Deep Events, and the Shrinking of American Democracy
January 24th, 2011Via: Asia Pacific Journal: In recent years I have become more and more concerned with the interactions between three important and alarming trends in recent American history. The first is America’s increasing militarization, and above all its inclination, even obsession, to involve itself in needless and pernicious wars. The second, closely related, is the progressive […]
First UAV Flight in Support of Domestic Law Enforcement Operation Occurred in 2009 in Austin
January 24th, 2011Via: Washington Post: AUSTIN – The suspect’s house, just west of this city, sat on a hilltop at the end of a steep, exposed driveway. Agents with the Texas Department of Public Safety believed the man inside had a large stash of drugs and a cache of weapons, including high-caliber rifles. As dawn broke, a […]
China Bank Moves to Buy U.S. Branches
January 24th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal: China’s biggest bank signed an agreement that would make it the first Beijing-controlled financial institution to acquire retail bank branches in the U.S., though regulators could still block the deal. Under the deal, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., by some measures the world’s largest bank, agreed to acquire a […]
Is It Strange That FEMA Wants to Buy 140 Million Packaged Meals with a Shelf Life Only 36 Months for a Specific Disaster Scenario?
January 23rd, 2011I’m sure that there are plenty of reasons why this isn’t weird, but I’ll just make a note of it in case Coincidence strikes. Via: Federal Business Opportunities: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores pre-packaged commercial meals to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this […]
Federal Reserve Creative Accounting to Avoid Insolvency?
January 23rd, 2011Mmm hmm. Via: Reuters: Concerns that the Federal Reserve could suffer losses on its massive bond holdings may have driven the central bank to adopt a little-noticed accounting change with huge implications: it makes insolvency much less likely. The significant shift was tucked quietly into the Fed’s weekly report on its balance sheet and phrased […]
The Pathology of Facebook and Twitter
January 23rd, 2011Via: Guardian: The way in which people frantically communicate online via Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging can be seen as a form of modern madness, according to a leading American sociologist. “A behaviour that has become typical may still express the problems that once caused us to see it as pathological,” MIT professor Sherry Turkle […]
