Did You Know
Did You Know
Corporate Criminal Law Doesn’t Exist
Editor - Corporate Crime Reporter: The biggest corporate criminals routinely side-step all criminal procedure and any possibility of conviction by cutting deals with prosecutors, trading paltry fines and empty promises of reform for government press releases praising their cooperation. ... “The Department of Justice’s recent resolution of an inquiry into Boeing will serve as a running example of the sort of theatrical pageantry that some people call ‘corporate criminal law’ today” ... corporate punishment is threadbare of the kind of stigma associated with general punishment ...
[ Visit Website ]
Oct 13, 2021, 5:23pm
Did You Know
It's the Algorithm, Stupid!
Thom Hartmann: This is the essence of how social media algorithms work: when you view certain content online, the algorithm chooses what other, associated content to “push” toward you. ... In making those “what’s next” decisions, social media algorithms push us deeper and deeper into progressively more “sticky” and “engaging” content ... seeing more and more ads and thus delivering more and more pennies to the company. ... Just like cocaine dealers add baking soda to make it into crack, just like food manufacturers add sugar to kids’ cereals, just like tobacco companies add ammonia to make their cigarettes more addictive, ... social media adds “jolts” to our recommended views or the things we see next to get us hooked, keep us hooked, and make more money...
[ Visit Website ]
Oct 6, 2021, 12:18pm
Did You Know
Largest-Ever Leak of Offshore Files Reveals the Secret Finances of Hundreds of Billionaires and World Leaders
Hannah Levintova: Based on 11.9 million records, the “Pandora Papers” expose hidden holdings of global elites from Putin to Shakira ... The blockbuster investigation, called the “Pandora Papers,” reveals offshore holdings belonging to more than 130 billionaires and to dozens of heads of state ... Several of their key findings highlight the role of American entities in shielding assets for the world’s wealthiest people ... South Dakota, Nevada, and more than a dozen other US states have transformed into tax havens friendly to the globe’s wealthiest who are seeking financial secrecy ... Several of the world’s preeminent museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, are home to looted Cambodian antiquities...
[ Visit Website ]
Oct 3, 2021, 4:45pm
Did You Know
Wuhan Red Herring? While COVID-19 Origins Remain Obscure, for Decades the West has been Creating Deadly Viruses for BioWarfare
Gwen D'Arcangelis: We Need to Reorient our Attention to What Our Own Government and Scientists Have Been Doing in Germ Research and Germ Warfare Labs. ... Research on pathogens like coronaviruses takes place in high containment laboratories. ... Even with these precautions, accidents happen: from worker exposure to accidental leakage and shipment errors (shipping live instead of dead pathogens). ... the best strategy for addressing the industry is to target its greatest purveyors: the United States and Europe ... The military/defense industry pours massive amounts of funding into germ research for so-called biodefense, instead of investing in health research...
[ Visit Website ]
Sep 30, 2021, 3:32pm
Did You Know
What’s the Word? Climate Lingo Demystified
Max Steiner: The climate crisis is taking center stage, with deadly hurricanes, torrential rains, and wildfires blazing out of control, but it can be hard to grasp the jargon that accompanies a warming world. (“Carbon capture,” anyone?) In advance of November’s UN COP26 (see below), WhoWhatWhy has collected and clarified 14 of the terms you’re likely to see in coming months. ... Greenhouse gases are control knobs on the Earth’s thermostat....
[ Visit Website ]
Sep 20, 2021, 2:39pm
Did You Know
Midwest Dispatch: The U.S. Government Might Be Paying Someone to Monitor You
Sarah Lahm: Be careful what you say on social media—even if you’re simply giving your opinion on a hyper-local topic related to how your city or town functions. Someone from an Israeli organization, innocuously called Zencity, might be listening, perhaps even turning your comments on Facebook or Twitter over to local authorities, including the police. ... Zencity uses artificial intelligence tools to collect comments people make on public social media pages, and then aggregates that data for the municipalities they are working for. ... The fact that Zencity is an Israel-based operation might raise a few eyebrows as well. NSO Group, one of Israel’s “star cybersecurity companies,” as National Public Radio put it, has been implicated in a global spying scandal...
[ Visit Website ]
Aug 30, 2021, 2:33pm
Did You Know
The All-Seeing "i": Apple Just Declared War on Your Privacy
Edward Snowden: By now you've probably heard that Apple plans to push a new and uniquely intrusive surveillance system out to many of the more than one billion iPhones it has sold ... Apple plans to erase the boundary dividing which devices work for you, and which devices work for them. ... Why is this so important? ... Once the precedent has been set that it is fit and proper for even a "pro-privacy" company like Apple to make products that betray their users and owners, Apple itself will lose all control over how that precedent is applied. ... Apple gets to decide whether or not their phones will monitor their owners’ infractions for the government...
[ Visit Website ]
Aug 27, 2021, 2:13pm
Did You Know
Abolitionist Library Workers Want Library Access for All. That Begins with Getting Cops Out.
Jason Christian: Library staff work to remove the need for police officers within libraries and focus on de-escalating training ... Public libraries have, in many places, become a last refuge for people without other access to basic resources — a place to use a computer, read and write, rest. ... Addressing the needs of these patrons — who may be experiencing homelessness, for example, or navigating drug abuse problems — requires training for the library staff (including how to handle sexual harassment and mental health-related out- bursts), not the heavy hand of the law...
[ Visit Website ]
Aug 23, 2021, 3:53pm
Did You Know
Restorative Justice Won’t Work Without This Crucial Piece
Madison Pauley: "restorative justice process, in which people who cause harm, and those affected by their actions, are brought together for a facilitated dialogue" ..... For the first 10 or so kids who opted in, the program was “hugely effective and transformative,” says Katz, who is now retired. One marker of its success was the recidivism of participants, which fell to almost zero. ... Before long, public defenders started declining Katz’s offers for restorative justice, worried that whatever their young clients admitted during the process might later be used against them in court ... In July, Illinois lawmakers attempted to solve the problem that plagued it by barring any statements made in a restorative justice process from being used later in lawsuits, prosecutions, or other court proceedings...
[ Visit Website ]
Aug 14, 2021, 3:07pm
Did You Know
Arithmetic
Michael Brenner: Let’s consider the “infrastructure” bill getting its last massages in Congress. ... This is essentially a concrete-and-bricks bill. Over the five-year life of the program, $146 billion is earmarked for roads (mainly) and airports. Public transit: $39 billion. Power — private and public — gets $73 billion; water $120 billion; broadband $68 billion. Clean energy gets stiffed: $0. (However, the latest draft bill would make fossil fuel companies eligible for at least $25 billion in new subsidies). ... To put each number in perspective, here are a few comparative numbers: Defense budget (nominal): $750 billion per annum. ... Afghanistan: $2.25 trillion ... Intelligence budget: about $85 billion per annum. ... Tax breaks to very wealthy in 2002, 2009, 2017: $2 trillion – $3 trillion, approximately...
[ Visit Website ]
Aug 9, 2021, 11:02am
Did You Know
COVID-19: More US Defendants Plead Guilty
Shi Yan, David M. Zimmerman, Kelly T. Sutherland and Miko M. Wilford: Despite a constitutional right to a jury trial, more than 94 percent of criminal convictions in the United States result from guilty pleas, not jury verdicts.... The Covid-19 pandemic changed the nation’s criminal justice system in two major ways. .. First, prisons and jails, as places where diverse populations came into very close physical contact, became outbreak hot spots. ... And then courts closed or limited their operations ... These facts further increased the risks of going to trial...
[ Visit Website ]
Aug 4, 2021, 2:15pm
Did You Know
These 3 Deceptively Simple Questions Can Shatter the Mythology that Sanctifies U.S. Imperialism
Matt McKenna: 1. Does the United States Actually Oppose the Behaviors It Claims to Oppose? ... In 2018, the United States bombed Syria over the (highly disputed) claims that the government of Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons within the context of the Syrian civil war. ... Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administration’s use of Agent Orange in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. ... 2. Does the United States Seek Peace? ... the United States has been at war in all but 11 years of its 245-year existence. Far from defensive violence, nearly all of these wars have been aggressive wars of choice. ... 3. Does the United States Care about Democracy? ... the United States currently provides arms to 73% of the world’s dictatorships...
[ Visit Website ]
Jul 26, 2021, 1:12pm
Did You Know
Urban mining: when communities reject the throwaway economy
Mauro Anastasio: A growing number of communities across Europe are speeding up the shift to more resilient economies and supply chains, rethinking the way we create, use, and dispose of our everyday products. ... This is the story of Maakfabriek, a Belgian creative lab and community of upcyclers extracting precious resources from urban waste and giving products a second life. ... Going beyond recycling, the mission of communities like Maakfabriek is to add value to urban waste, sharing tools and ideas to give goods like discarded furniture and broken electronics a new life. ... Known as urban mining, this practice is becoming increasingly popular in a society that’s running out of raw materials and strives to find a sustainable alternative to conventional, destructive mining...
[ Visit Website ]
Jul 16, 2021, 12:54pm
Did You Know
Revealed, The True Extent of America's Food Monopolies & Who Pays The Price
Nina Lakhani, Aliya Uteuova, Alvin Chang, The Guardian, UK: Investigation shows scale of big food corporations' market dominance and political power ... A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans ... In fact, a few powerful transnational companies dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and supermarkets to cereals and beers. ... the size and influence of these mega-companies enables them to largely dictate what America’s 2 million farmers grow and how much they are paid, as well as what consumers eat and how much our groceries cost ... It also means those who harvest, pack and sell us our food have the least power...
[ Visit Website ]
Jul 14, 2021, 11:31am
Did You Know
Why America Can't Have “Nice Things”
Thom Hartmann: So, if the majority of Americans want Scandinavian/European healthcare, schools, unions, wages and taxes-on-the-rich, why don’t we have these things? ... The answer is actually pretty straightforward: “Conservative” billionaires and the Supreme Court they created. ... Conservative billionaires, who know if we can all vote we’ll soon raise their taxes and give ourselves healthcare, education and good pay, are funding voter suppression efforts in every state in the union as well as challenging voting rights at the Supreme Court. ... Americans deserve better,..
[ Visit Website ]
Jul 11, 2021, 3:02pm
|
FountainofLight.net