From HuffPo:
The LAPD has just released a new Orwellian commercial for iWatch, a program that encourages residents to spy on each other and report any “suspicious behavior” (whatever that means) to the authorities, who we’re assured will sort everything out.
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From the NYT Media Decoder Blog:
The New York Times plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs — about 8 percent of the total — by year’s end, offering buyouts to union and non-union employees, and resorting to layoffs if it cannot get enough people to leave voluntarily, the paper announced on Monday.
Finland has decided that everyone should have a 1Mb internet connection, and they are eventually shooting for 100Mb for everyone. They join Estonia, France and Greece in acknowledging the internet as a right.
“The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/opinion/14trillin.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=wall%20street%20smarts&st=cse
From The Boston Globe:
Heavy rains, beginning on September 19th, dumped between 15 and 20 inches of rain over three days on parts of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. The deluge overwhelmed natural and man made systems, and the record-breaking downpour turned streams into rivers, swamping neighborhoods, washing out roads and, unfortunately, taking at least nine lives. Damage costs are estimated at $250 million, the cleanup just now beginning. Georgia’s Republican Governor Sonny Perdue recently announced that President Obama has issued a Federal Disaster Declaration for individual assistance to aid residents of five affected counties. Collected here are a few recent photos around the area, largely centered on Atlanta, Georgia. (30 photos total)
TED Fellow and journalist Evgeny Morozov punctures what he calls “iPod liberalism” — the assumption that tech innovation always promotes freedom, democracy — with chilling examples of ways the Internet helps oppressive regimes stifle dissent.
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http://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what_orwell_feared.html
An article from today’s WSJ on the UN meeting on Climate Change.
“The world’s two largest greenhouse-gas emitters called for new action to curb emissions linked to climate change, but they didn’t make any concrete new commitments themselves.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125362691727230691.html#articleTabs_video%26articleTabs%3Darticle
Timeline of Health-Care Reform in America from the Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/HEALTHTIMELINE0907.html
How some of the major spending in the stimulus legislation will be shared among the states
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-STIMULUS0903.html
