Winning Hearts & Minds

Military Police Officers Sit, Join Protesters In Brazil

"A dramatic video that has gone viral since being posted Tuesday shows a small group of military police officers joining a protest in Sao Paulo. In the video, a large crowd of mostly young activists erupts into applause when the six military officers, clad in light blue uniforms and helmets, decide to sit on the ground with them. The protests in Brazil began on June 13 when a small group of mostly students demonstrated against an increase in the fare of public transportation. Since then, the protests have ballooned to include other grievances, including corruption and the high cost of hosting the World Cup in 2014." Continue reading →

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Welcome, baseball fan. Go directly to jail.

"You see, they take law and order Very Seriously in Washington. Oh, sure, there is murder, drugs and prostitution (and solicitation, but more on that later), but those crimes are a byproduct of any large metropolitan area, and, well, folks will be folks. No, I am talking about the unspeakable crime of trying to resell tickets to a Washington Nationals makeup baseball game. I went to jail. I sat in a cell for 2½ hours, stood for a mug shot, got fingerprinted, paid 50 bucks and was released. In the grand scheme of things, my travails were minor to all but me. But when that cell door slams shut, the world becomes a different place." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWelcome, baseball fan. Go directly to jail.

Video: Huge Protests In Brazil Sweep The Country

"Though the protests initially began following the announcement of bus fare increases, they have evolved to include a wide range of groups that have grown dissatisfied over everything from government corruption and income inequality, as well as to outrage over the police's harsh response to protesters last week. In a sign that public dissatisfaction was still simmering, soccer fans booed president Dilma Rousseff on Monday during the opening of a two-week tournament at a stadium in the capital Brasilia. The heckling only intensified when the president of the global soccer body, FIFA, reprimanded the crowed for failing to show the president 'respect.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingVideo: Huge Protests In Brazil Sweep The Country

Steve Wozniak Laments Creating The Tools That Government Uses To Spy On Us

"When Morgan suggested the government would not be able to keep such a close eye on citizens without the work of innovators like him, Wozniak acknowledged: 'I actually feel a little guilty about that – but not totally. We created the computers to free the people up, give them instant communication anywhere in the world; any thought you had, you could share freely. That it was going to overcome a lot of the government restrictions. We didn't realise that in the digital world there were a lot of ways to use the digital technology to control us, to snoop on us, to make things possible that weren't.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSteve Wozniak Laments Creating The Tools That Government Uses To Spy On Us

Businesses in Berlin open arms to digital currency Bitcoin

"Cassandra Wintgens ceremoniously affixed the blue sticker with the thick, yellow 'B' to the pane in the front door of her guesthouse-cum-cafe. 'Bitcoin accepted here,' it read. The establishment Lekkerurlaub Notaufnahme, which translates roughly as 'Yummy Holiday Emergency Admission,' thereby became the seventh business in the Graefe neighbourhood of the multicultural Berlin district of Kreuzberg, to accept the digital currency — whether for an overnight stay or a cup of coffee in the cafe. 'I think it’s exciting,' she remarked. 'We don’t need banks for Bitcoins. They just muck us about anyway and don’t do anything for small-scale businesspeople.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBusinesses in Berlin open arms to digital currency Bitcoin

Brazil leaders to meet after 1 million protest in streets

"Brazil awoke Friday to city centers still smoldering after a night that shocked the nation: 1 million anti-government protesters took to the streets in scores of cities, with clusters battling police and destroying swaths of storefronts and government buildings. President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting about the protest with top Cabinet members Friday, after a largely silent and much criticized response to some of the biggest demonstrations seen in this 192 million-person country in decades. The majority of protesters have been peaceful, and crowds have taken to chanting 'No violence! No violence!' when small groups have prepared to burn and smash." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBrazil leaders to meet after 1 million protest in streets

Brazilian authorities face fresh protests against government corruption despite concessions

"Authorities in Sao Paulo and Rio, Brazil’s two biggest cities, canceled the transit fare hikes that had been the initial spark for two weeks of nationwide protests. But there is no sign that the movement, which has no political coloration and no clearly identified leadership, is about to lose steam. Initially ignited by the fare increases, the protest fed on widespread resentment at the billions of dollars the government is spending on the Confederations Cup, the World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The demonstrators instead want higher funding for education and health and a cut in salaries of public officials, railing against rampant corruption within the political class." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBrazilian authorities face fresh protests against government corruption despite concessions

Internet Archive Federal Credit Union Backed by Internet Pioneer Brewster Kahle

"Jordan Modell has experience working with Citibank, American Express and the Bank of New York. Brewster Kahle is an Internet pioneer who helped develop precursors to the World Wide Web and Amazon.com and sold them for millions of dollars that he has used to form a foundation that supports the Internet Archive, an effort to digitally record everything that has been on the Internet since 1996. The pair decided to found a credit union after coming to the conviction that the existing financial services industry has largely stopped working for low-income and middle-class people and that a bank was not the best vehicle to meet the needs of those populations." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingInternet Archive Federal Credit Union Backed by Internet Pioneer Brewster Kahle

‘We were told to lie’ – Bank of America employees open up about foreclosure practices

"Employees of Bank of America say they were encouraged to lie to customers and were even rewarded for foreclosing on homes, staffers of the financial giant claim in new court documents. According to testimonies obtained by journalists at ProPublica, supervisors at various Bank of America branches across the United States encouraged employees to regularly deny loan modification applications with no reason. At times, they were told to make up excuses to customers who risked losing their homes. In one of the sworn statements, an ex-bank staffer said he would be directed to deny upwards of 1,500 loan modification applications at a single time with no apparent reason." Continue reading →

Continue Reading‘We were told to lie’ – Bank of America employees open up about foreclosure practices