Archive for March, 2011
How About a Master’s Degree in Twitbook Arts, Crafts and Sciences?
March 10th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal: Big consumer-products companies are going back to school. Businesses including Sprint Nextel Corp., Levi Strauss & Co. and Mattel Inc. are sponsoring college classes and graduate-level research to get help with their online marketing from the young and hyperconnected. Sprint, for example, supplies a class at Boston’s Emerson College with smartphones […]
GCHQ Staff Teach ‘Future Spies’ in Schools
March 10th, 2011Do the parents know about these activities? While this sort of indoctrination is standard operating procedure for all totalitarian states, here are some of the most terrifying examples of it that I’m aware of: — Russian Tax Police — Hitler Youth — Khmer Rouge Via: BBC: Schoolchildren as young as 12 are being introduced to […]
The Television Watches You
March 10th, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal: The television is channeling you. Data-gathering firms and technology companies are aggressively matching people’s TV-viewing behavior with other personal data—in some cases, prescription-drug records obtained from insurers—and using it to help advertisers buy ads targeted to shows watched by certain kinds of people. At the same time, cable and satellite companies […]
Gasoline Cost to Jump $700 for Average Household
March 10th, 2011Via: Reuters: U.S. drivers will pay another 10 cents a gallon for gasoline before the latest jump in wholesale costs is fully passed on at the pump, and yearly motor fuel costs will rise 28 percent from last year, the Energy Department said on Wednesday. The average U.S. household will spend about $700 more for […]
Amtrak Police Chief Bars Transportation Security Administration from Some Security Operations
March 10th, 2011Here’s the video that Amtrak Police Chief John O’Connor thought was a hoax: Via: Trains.com: In late February, the Transportation Security Administration took over the Amtrak station in Savannah, Ga., and thoroughly searched every person who entered. None of the passengers got into trouble, but the TSA certainly did — big time. Amtrak Police Chief […]
Yemen: Anti-Government Protesters May Have Been Hit with Nerve Gas
March 10th, 2011Via: The Australian: Earlier reports indicated that the gas used was tear gas, but doctors who have been treating the wounded refuted that claim today. “The material in this gas makes people convulse for hours. It paralyses them. They couldn’t move at all. We tried to give them oxygen but it didn’t work,” said Amaar […]
WORLD’S LARGEST BOND FUND DUMPS ALL U.S. GOVERNMENT DEBT
March 10th, 2011Via: Reuters: The world’s largest bond fund has gone ultra bearish on the United States, dumping all of its U.S. government-related debt holdings. The move by Bill Gross’s $236.9 billion PIMCO Total Return fund completed last month comes in the wake of a vicious Treasury market sell-off and just days after he questioned who will […]
Sedgwick, Maine Declares Food Sovereignty
March 9th, 2011Via: The Complete Patient: On Saturday morning, Sedgwick became likely the first locale in the country to pass a “Food Sovereignty” law. It’s the proposed ordinance I first described last fall, when I introduced the “Five Musketeers”, a group of farmers and consumers intent on pushing back against overly aggressive state food regulators. The regulators […]
Prison Labor Used to Build Parts for Patriot Missiles
March 9th, 2011Via: Wired: This spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece. But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the […]
Hard Times Generation: Homeless Kids
March 9th, 2011Via: CBS / 60 Minutes: The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in this country will soon hit 25 percent. Those children would be the largest […]
