Clik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 30 January 2011
Business Still using Facebook? Really? The social network is going to start adding your “likes” and “check-ins” to advertisements in users’ news feeds. And it’s not optional, according to Irina...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 6 March 2011
Business The US Supreme Court has ruled (.pdf; 139KB) that corporations do not have personal privacy rights accorded to natural individuals. As a result, AT&T can’t prevent embarrassing corporate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 13 March 2011
Business According to Nelson D. Schwartz, writing for the New York Times, “… industry experts estimate that nearly a trillion dollars worth of mortgage debt is ‘underwater,'” where the homeowner owes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 29 May 2011
Business Square demoed the two missing pieces — an iPad-based cash register and an iPhone-based app, Card Case — from its ecommerce system at TechCrunch Disrupt. The cash register is an iPad app...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 17 July 2011
Business For my generation’s entire life we were told in no uncertain terms that home ownership was the bedrock of responsible personal finance. Now, of course, we’ve all learned — the hard way — that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 21 August 2011
Business Google is buying Motorola for US$12.5 billion. Corporate media, at least initially, mistakenly thought that Google is getting into the hardware business. By the second day, most had picked up...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 28 August 2011
Business Matt Haughey reveals the utter bullshit that is the credit scoring system in the US. While in college, Haughey racked up debt because he was amazed that anyone would give him credit. His...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blotter: Week ending 4 September 2011
Business Richard Florida calls it the Great Reset. Others call it Freelance Nation and the Gig Economy. Sara Horowitz, writing for the Atlantic, calls it the industrial revolution of our time. It’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Again, with the fear-mongering politics
President Obama was never opposed to the provisions of this year’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that allow for US citizens to be detained indefinitely without due process....
View ArticleClik here to view.
TPP may be worse than ACTA; we’ll never know until it’s too late
The US versions of vastly overreaching anti-piracy legislation — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the Senate — were...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Obama misuses Espionage Act as personal Official Secrets Act
Candidate Obama promised — quite vigorously — to strengthen existing whistle-blower protection laws to protect federal workers who disclose government misdeeds. It was a cornerstone of his pledge to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Never can say sorry
Frahne Franovitch was the most tormented soul I’ve ever met, and after complaining bitterly about the situation in his homeland of Afghanistan in the 1970’s, Frahne took his own life in complete and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
US Justice Department on warrantless wiretapping: Heads we win; tails they lose
For the last 12 years — and into the foreseeable future — the US government has vigorously avoided any court determination regarding its warrantless wiretapping program. The warrantless wiretapping...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wyden places hold on FISA Amendment Act
President Obama campaigned — adamantly — on either ceasing or significantly curtailing the warrantless wiretapping program initiated by President George W. Bush. That was then. Since the election,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SCOTUS upholds Affordable Care Act
It’s rare that I start an article with a disclaimer and a where I’m coming from statement, but here goes. I’ve never supported President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). I felt betrayed when he took...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An inkling of RomneyCare II
Thanks to Trip Gabriel and Robert Pear, writing for the New York Times, we have at least an initial peek into what presumed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has in mind for healthcare...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Maybe there’ll be butter beans in Saint Paul
One of the things that I miss most about living in the deep south is butter beans. As close as anyone gets up here on the far edge are lima beans and they’re vastly different and not nearly as tasty....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Media and post-truth politics
In the days leading up to the Republican convention in Tampa, Jay Rosen published another insightful piece asking if journalists should call-out lies when they occur. He’s referencing Daniel Patrick...
View ArticleClik here to view.
US Supreme Court declines to review warrantless wiretapping dismissal
For six years the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fought a good legal battle to bring the US telecommunications giants to justice for allegedly providing backdoors to their networks allowing the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Obama institutionalizes kill list with disposition matrix
The Obama administration expects to continue adding names to its kill list for at least a decade — maybe more — into the future. So reports Greg Miller, writing for the Washington Post. The grand,...
View Article