08.12.11
Links – Nokia Dying, Astroturf as Warfare, Protest as Hacking, Big Pollution.
Reader’s Picks
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Health/Nutrition
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US Food and Drug budget slashed despite increasing food born disease from nasty food makers such as Cargil.
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Armed Federal agents raided a popular and legal health club after an expensive sting operation and harass Amish farmers.
No illnesses have been reported in the club’s 12-year history. And if a problem were to occur with the club’s food, members say, they would be able to quickly figure out the source. This was the second such raid on Rawesome, the first having happened in June of 2010.
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Tell the U.S. Department of Agriculture to enforce antitrust legislation against Big Meat as required by the 2008 Farm bill.
160,000 independent cattle producers in the past 15 years [have been driven out of business] … Most poultry processors operate under take it or leave it contracts … companies have retaliated against farmers that complain. … The survival of small and midsize family farms is essential for our access to more healthy, sustainable and local meat. … [exploitative rules favor] factory farms which practice environmentally damaging practices, animal cruelty, and the overuse of antibiotics.
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If the US subsidized small farms instead of agribusiness, it would make tens of thousands of jobs and improve Americans’ health.
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Defence/Police/Aggression
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Disrupting communications.
American specialists have become especially proficient at forging the onscreen cyber-trademarks used by Al Qaeda to certify its Web statements, and are posting confusing and contradictory orders, some so virulent that young Muslims dabbling in jihadist philosophy, but on the fence about it, might be driven away… And in a classified tactic used multiple times across the Middle East, American military and intelligence officers have hacked the cellphones of terrorist leaders to lure them into an ambush or spread the word that fellow cell members were embezzling money or plotting against their comrades. Distrust of secure communications disrupts and even deters action.
HB Gary wanted to do these things to US political activists on behalf of big companies in the US Chamber of Commerce. Astroturfing is aggression and, in this case, an act of war.
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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Global heating brings malaria, West Nile, Dengue Fever and Lyme disease to the US
[visit the new NRDC map which] shows the areas where two key mosquito species are known and projected to live. These two species are the ones that can carry Dengue fever. Dengue (also known as “Breakbone Fever”) causes a characteristic triad of high fever, horrible body aches, and a rash. Last year, there was an outbreak in Florida, and there are frequent small outbreaks along the Texas border
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Utilities spark protests by sticking ratepayers with the bill for risky energy projects
US states are subsidizing risky and dirty energy projects. The most expensive and foolish ones are nuclear plants but the immediate health costs of coal are not factored in.
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Health claims from BP drilling disaster are completely denied by a ridiculous standard of proof.
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Protesters at BP’s New Orleans office dumped oil just recently taken off Mississippi beaches, to remind Americans that the oil is not gone and neither is the damage.
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Shell Oil disregarded its own supposed standards in dumping oil in Nigeria, and cleaning up the contamination will cost a billion dollars.
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Global heating increases the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico
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Finance
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Goldman’s new money machine: warehouses
A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminium, about a quarter of global reported inventories. … Also pushing aluminium costs higher are bank financing deals, which are estimated to have locked up about 70 percent of the 4.4 million tonnes of the metal sitting in LME-registered warehouses around the world.
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Anti-Trust
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Nokia is shutting down Symbian and will not bring their MeGo run N9 to the US market.
This article is by a Microsoft booster but the announcement is inline with previous CEO statements and is the predictable shutdown of a major competitor. Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft has cost the company dearly
second quarter losses have widened to $523 million or a loss of 10 cents per share compared with a net income of $323 million or 9 cents per share in the prior-year quarter … operating income was approximately $556 million, down 41% year over year …
Even Gartner has a hard time sugar coating the results.
Nokia’s market share fell to 22% from 41% [in smart phones] … Overall, Nokia sold 97.9 million mobile devices in the second quarter, down from 111.47 million units a year earlier. Its overall market share fell to 22.8% from 30.3%. … Worldwide handset sales totaled 428.7 million units in the second quarter, up 16.5% from a year earlier. Smartphone sales grew much faster–by 74%–and accounted for a quarter all handset sales.
Where are Finland’s anti-trust regulators?
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Microsoft Florian claims a German court order on Apple’s behalf will block all EU sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab
Apple previously claimed to have blocked sales of the device in Australia.
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A patent troll lawyer was fined for extortion.
filing over a hundred lawsuits, each of which was followed up almost immediately with offers to settle at fees much cheaper than it would cost to fight, has the ‘indicia of extortion.’
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Censorship
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Court Says Sending Too Many Emails To Someone Is Computer Hacking [2, more details]
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals last week reversed a district court and reinstated a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) claim brought by an employer against a labor union for “bombarding” the computer systems of its sales and executive offices with emails and voicemails making it impossible for the company to communicate with its customers and vendors.
The employer’s problems are mostly self inflicted. They had an arbitrary limit on the number of emails any employee could have in their “inbox” and used Microsoft for service, which performs poorly at best. The court, however, found evidence of intentional computer damage because the union urged fired employees to “fight back”. If we followed the court’s logic, I’d be liable for damages if I asked readers to email the court and tell them that they are wrong and enough people agreed that it overwhelemed the court’s poorly configured mail server and the judge’s even poorer mail client. An HB Gary type company can easily abuse this ruling.
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A US law school tried to sue a critic into silence.
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Privacy
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Civil Rights
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The consequences of rights errosions in the US.
[the Boston Consulting Group] bluntly praises Mississippi’s “flexible unions/workers, minimal wage growth, and high worker productivity,” estimating that in four years, workers in China’s fast-growing Yangtze River Delta will cost only 31 percent less than Mississippi workers. That’s before you figure in shipping, duties, and possible quality issues. Add it all up, says BCG, and “China will no longer be the default low-cost manufacturing location.” … Plenty of factory jobs in Northern states — even in the former high-wage stronghold of auto — are already “competitive.”
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Immigrant hate laws create US ghettos.
Some people don’t even want to come out of their homes; some don’t even want to report crime. There’s a fear of being arrested; people are not driving. The kids are not even playing in the neighborhood. They’re targeting predominantly Latino areas. We hear about something happening every day. Some of our community leaders are getting calls three times a day about arrests. What is very astonishing is that the law hasn’t even gone into effect yet.
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Ikea, embarrassed by press coverage, makes things a little better for workers in their US sweatshop.
[the Daily Show] painted the situation in Danville as an example of the U.S. turning into “Europe’s Mexico.” … IAM says Danville’s plant is the most dangerous furniture factory in the U.S., with 1,536 days lost from work due to injury since 2007.
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