Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/10
Several studies have been done since the Great Recession, and we’ve learned that many of the CEOs who devastated our economy weren’t only greedy, but nearly 40% of them bombed at their jobs—and that 10% were psychopaths. Some studies have also revealed that the wealthier they were, the more likely they were to be more narcissistic and more unethical. So unless they were lucky enough to be born into wealth, many of these “job creators” were using nefarious means to accumulate their vast wealth—contrary to the popular myths that they accomplished this with just hard work and/ or a great idea.
Last month, we wrote about the vastly different views on net neutrality from a variety of minority and latino organizations. The key to the story, not surprisingly, was that the minority groups that are heavily funded by the giant broadband troika of Verizon, AT&T and Comcast apparently think that true net neutrality would be a disaster for the minority community — while the groups not funded by those corporate giants believe that more open and free internet devoid of fast and slow lanes is a good thing for the minority community.
Some reflections on these grim prospects were offered by General Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which controls nuclear weapons and strategy. Twenty years ago, he wrote that we had so far survived the nuclear weapons era “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.”
Insiders said Walgreens’ board had decided that the intense political pressure on companies examining inversions could have a significant impact on its reputation among American consumers.
As the pieces of this puzzle fill in, the image that emerges is of a possible Ukrainian ambush of a jetliner heading into Russian airspace that had markings very similar to President Putin’s official plane. As shocking as that picture may be, there is a grim logic to it, given the demonization of Putin who has been likened to Hitler and Stalin by pundits and politicians from Ukraine to the United States.
With PGP encryption implemented in a browser plug-in, though, messages are encrypted before they’re transmitted, and the private keys cannot be disclosed by Yahoo because the company doesn’t possess them.
Physical and operational structures already exist that could help USPS offer basic financial services: prepaid debit cards, mobile transactions, new check cashing services, savings accounts, and even simple, small-dollar loans.
Each week we see reports of police violence and increasing militarization of police departments. Sometimes police violence is blatant as was this attack on young protesters in Mexico that caused death and serious injuries. And sometimes it is more subtle and dispersed, as this murder of a young Latino in Denver. Sometimes it gets national attention, as is the case of Eric Garner. And sometimes it is part of a daily phenomenon as these youth in Chicago recount.
Last Monday, a dam holding waste from the Mount Polley gold and copper mine in the remote Cariboo region of British Columbia broke, spilling 2.6 billion gallons of potentially toxic liquid and 1.3 billion gallons of definitely toxic sludge out into pristine lakes and streams. That’s about 6,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water and waste containing things like arsenic, mercury, and sulfur. Those substances are now mixed into the water that 300 people rely on for tap, hundreds from First Nations tribes rely on for hunting and fishing, and many others rely on for the tourism business.
Monday: Mount Polley Dam broke causing 5 million cubic toxic chemicals
to flow into creeks & waterways