Alternative News

In USSA, Journalism is a Crime

"Author and activist Barrett Brown has been behind bars for nearly 300 days without a trial. Federal prosecutors have filed a 17-count indictment on charges arising from the act of republishing material obtained by hackers from HB Gary Federal and Stratfor, two private companies that are deeply involved in national security affairs. Brown’s supposed offense was to commit journalism by republishing information about politically privileged corporation that he didn’t personally acquire, and then to condemn a federal official who was harassing and persecuting his family. That’s the kind of thing that leads to prosecution in the American Reich." Continue reading →

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Inventing Pretexts to Ignore the Fourth Amendment

"Describing these factors as a threat to 'officer safety,' the agents demanded access to the home to conduct a 'protective sweep,' during which ammunition and drugs were found. A district court denied Mongold’s motion to suppress the evidence. The US. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court and suppressed the evidence, noting that the ATF agents 'could most easily have protected the officers’ safety by leaving [the] home, not by entering it.' The Tenth Circuit quite sensibly slapped down this cynical argument for a warrantless search, but it was careful to specify that its sensible ruling is not to be used as a precedent." Continue reading →

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Top 10 gold miners: cash cost reporting comes home to roost

The full absurdity of cash cost reporting for gold miners is really coming to the fore with the latest batch of quarterly and half yearly reports from the world’s leading gold mining companies. On a cash costs basis virtually all the world’s significant gold miners would appear to be profitable – most highly so, yet as we foreshadowed ahead of them on Mineweb the latest quarterly and half yearly profit figures coming out of the gold mining sector are, virtually without exception, dire. One might have been forgiven from asking in the past why reported earnings have invariably worked out as being way below the optimistic estimates suggested by cash cost reporting." Continue reading →

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How to Profit From Stealth Inflation

"Decreasing quality, with rising prices. That’s stealth inflation. And no one — not even the great monetary wizard Ben Bernanke himself — can deny that stealth inflation’s a real problem. Take a look at Kimberly-Clark Corp., makers of Kleenex and other consumer products. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal points out that they’ve quietly… slowly… been 'de-sheeting.' What is de-sheeting? De-sheeting is the reduction in the number of sheets of toilet paper or tissues in each package while holding retail prices constant. The beauty of the de-sheeting process is that it is very hard for consumers to detect." Continue reading →

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China is Banking on a Detroit Comeback

"Detroit real estate agents have been swamped with requests for cheap properties by Chinese investors. One agency even sold 30 properties to a single buyer. Why all the interest from Chinese investors? Back in May, The New York Times reported that dozens of companies from China were putting down roots in Detroit in order to push their way into the American auto industry. Chinese businesses have tried to keep the movement of Chinese auto suppliers into Detroit as quiet as possible to avoid the public backlash experienced by Japanese automakers moving manufacturing to the U.S. in the 1980s. The Chinese know an opportunity when they see one." Continue reading →

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Hacker Forces Colin Powell To Deny Affair While At State Department

"Powell’s swift denial of an affair--especially one possibly conducted with an official of a foreign government while he served as America’s chief diplomat--was clearly prompted by the sensitive nature of the e-mails sent to his personal AOL account. In the 'very personal' correspondence cited by Powell, Cretu calls him the love of her life and describes a relationship that spanned more than a decade. The 2010-2011 e-mails would leave most readers with the clear impression that the forlorn Cretu is writing about the twilight of a lengthy romance. Powell’s e-mail and Facebook accounts were illegally accessed by 'Guccifer.'" Continue reading →

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Illinois man pays $150,000 legal settlement in truck full of quarters

"A man in Williamson County, Illinois pulled a truckload of bags of quarters up to a law office on Wednesday, delivering his share of a court-ordered payment in a wrongful death suit. When asked why he was paying the $150,000 in quarters, Roger Herrin told WSIL-TV, 'Because I couldn’t do it in pennies.' In 2001, Herrin’s 15-year-old son was killed in a car accident when an uninsured truck driver ran a stop sign. The three other passengers in the car were injured. Immediately afterward, the families of the injured victims began to squabble with Herrin over the settlement, he said." Continue reading →

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Drone-Hunter’s Motto: “The Fly in Town — they Get Shot Down”

"On two occasions in a single week, surveillance drones operated from Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base were destroyed in incidents that put the public at risk. This is one of many reasons why cities across the country should emulate the example set by Deer Trail, Colorado. The municipal government of that village of 540 people is considering a proposal under which it would issue a $100 reward to 'any shooter who presents a valid hunting license and … identifiable parts' of a federally operated drone. As Deer Trail resident Philip Steel explains: 'We do not want drones in town. They fly in town, they get shot down.'" Continue reading →

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Bill Gates: Flip-Flopping IP Hypocrite

"A couple decades ago, Bill Gates seemed to have some appreciation of the damage wrought by patent law. Yet over the years Microsoft relied on the other major form of intellectual property—copyright—to dominate aspects of the software industry, and then to use the monopoly profits to accumulate thousands of patents. These two forms of IP are then used together to squelch competition. Now that Gates has used state-granted IP monopolies to acquire billions of dollars that he can then use to be a bigshot philanthropist, he is all for patents (as my friend Rob Wicks says, Gates is 'America’s wealthiest welfare queen')." Continue reading →

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Who’s Hiring in the U.S. and What They Pay

"The segment of the economy that has added the most jobs since the recession ended in June 2009 is classified as 'professional and business services.' About 2.12 million jobs have been created for architects, engineers, scientists, managers, computer geeks, and yes, journalists. This is normally high-paying work with an average hourly wage of $28.41 an hour, which translates into $1,136 a week. Unfortunately, almost half of the new professional jobs since mid-2009 were created at temporary-hiring agencies. The work doesn’t always lead to a full-time job and these positions pay far less: $15.74 an hour." Continue reading →

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