Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower | Business | The Guardian

Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower | Business | The Guardian

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Sick balance

Notice how this local news program is "balanced" between Nazis with Swastikas and those opposing them. It actually equates them as equals in hates, and refuses to call the protestors Nazis directly despite the fact they wear Swastikas.

This equating Fascists and those who protest should not even be possible in a truely democratic media. What is the situation in Az like when a news channel can think to cover an Nazi rally as if it was a group of Democrats and Republicans come to debate taxes.

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Stocks end big day at highs for the year - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com

Investors bought stocks for a fourth straight day on growing confidence about the global economic recovery, getting a shot of optimism from news this weekend that the Group of 20 countries will keep stimulus measures in place. Investors saw the agreement as a signal that interest rates would remain low. Major stock indexes rose as much as 2 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which jumped 185 points.

Stocks end big day at highs for the year - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com

Obviously the folks in Wall Street don't see radical socialism around the corner.  I would imagine if say 15% of major Wall Street investors believed that this was the end of Capitalism there would have been a run on the market, right?

Would probably pay to hear someone on the right explain that one.  But it not possible, they sure talk a great deal, but they never say anything.

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News Corp Boss Rupert Murdoch Suggests Online Newspaper Pages Will Be Invisible To Google Users | Business | Sky News

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has suggested the company's online newspaper pages will be invisible to Google users when it launches its new paid content strategy.

News Corp Boss Rupert Murdoch Suggests Online Newspaper Pages Will Be Invisible To Google Users | Business | Sky News

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.  Soon we will have a Murdoch free Internet!!!! Yes!!!

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BBC NEWS | Business | Small firms 'surviving' recession

A study shows that almost half of small businesses have maintained their profitability.

This follows recent criticism by Lord Sugar, the government's enterprise champion, who described struggling small companies as "moaners".

Most small businesses have used their own cash to get through the recession rather than rely on banks, the study by Kingston University shows.

Only a quarter of the 343 firms surveyed saw significant profit falls.

"More than half of small business owners survived the recession and the squeeze on credit by using their own savings and personal credit cards," the study said.

"This finding is a clear contradiction that all small and medium-sized businesses would suffer heavily in the downturn."

It cited small businesses' ability to "adapt, survive and thrive" in the downturn.

About 48% maintained or increased their profitability in the past year, it said.

'They are bust'

Lord Sugar made his comments at a small business event in Manchester last week.

"I can honestly say a lot of problems you hear from people who are moaning are from companies I wouldn't lend a penny to," he said.

"They are bust and they don't need the bank - they need an insolvency practitioner."

Formerly Sir Alan Sugar, he was made a Lord earlier this year so that he could join the government.

The Federation of Small Businesses also defended small firms, saying they "lie at the heart of our economy", adding they were "working hard in difficult times".

The Kingston University study surveyed 343 companies occupying commercial and industrial premises owned by Workspace Group, who lease business space and commissioned the survey.

BBC NEWS | Business | Small firms 'surviving' recession

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BBC NEWS | World | Free market flawed, says survey

BBC NEWS | World | Free market flawed, says survey

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BBC NEWS | World | Free market flawed, says survey

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well.

Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary.

There were also sharp divisions around the world on whether the end of the Soviet Union was a good thing.

Economic regulation

In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, it was a victory for ordinary people across Eastern and Central Europe.

It also looked at the time like a crushing victory for free-market capitalism.

BBC NEWS | World | Free market flawed, says survey

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Beck has something to cry about now

VICTORY WHEN IT COUNTS!!!!

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Hes the Man!!!!!

And the Winner Is!!!!!

Only way to deal with people like the tea baggers:  Hahahaha WE WON YOU LOST!!!!!

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Lucianne.com News Forum - Thread

I for one refuse to join the modern version of Doctor Mengle's line to the Auschwitz gas chambers. As Poster "Butch" said earlier, I will fight this to the last breath.

Lucianne.com News Forum - Thread

How can you have a democracy working with nut cases like this?  Has the Internet just provided a publishing platform for every mentally ill case on the planet.

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What is fascism anyways?

How about this for an indication rather than a definition.  If you find a group of people who see invading a nation on false pretext to establish "democracy", then ruin the nation, than see an effort to insure people receive basic assurance of health coverage, you are looking at fascists.

Wonder who that sounds like.

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As it passes

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To an Republicans out there I should remind you that you are feeling how I felt when the Iraq war was passed.  How did the Iraq war turn out for Iraq and America again?  We will see how this turns out.  Probably just like Medicare and Social Security, which everyone want to get rid or right?

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U.S. becomes top country brand under Obama: survey - Yahoo! News

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Barack Obama has done it again. The president's starpower has made the United States the place most people want to visit and do business with, according to an annual survey that ranks nations like retail brands.

U.S. becomes top country brand under Obama: survey - Yahoo! News

Obama makes US most popular country in the world again, can't wait to here the GOP talk about how this is "fascism",

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Who are the Fascists?

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Mark Hughes In Baltimore: Just minutes after I arrived, I was at the scene of a shooting ... - Americas, World - The Independent

Mark Hughes In Baltimore: Just minutes after I arrived, I was at the scene of a shooting ... - Americas, World - The Independent

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Schoolboy confronts Griffin at memorial - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

Schoolboy confronts Griffin at memorial - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

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Virtual businesses: Going to the office in Second Life CNN.com Notices Second Life

Virtual businesses: Going to the office in Second Life - CNN.com

From CNN

London, England (CNN) -- As travel budgets are squeezed and slashed in the recession, companies are increasingly seeking innovative ways of bringing employees together for conferences and meetings remotely.

Virtual community Second Life is seeking to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks.

The company's Enterprise tool will let employees' avatars -- animated alter egos -- meet in virtual worlds from the privacy of a company's own network, rather than the public networks used in standard Second Life. That extra security could encourage more companies to take up the technology.

The ability to collaborate effectively using virtual tools may now become an increasingly important skill as technology offers more options than, say, video conferencing.

According to Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, more than 1,400 organizations -- including large companies, educational institutions, government agencies and even the U.S. military -- use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently.

Linden Lab says 14 companies are currently using Enterprise in its beta phase. One of those companies is IBM, which is an old hand when it comes to Second Life.

Rashik Parmar, IBM's chief technology officer for Europe, told CNN that last year about 350 of its technical leaders from around the world met for 72 hours via Second Life to brainstorm about new technologies.

"We had a whole range of environments, from auditoriums and collaboration pods to social areas where the avatars could pick up a beer around a log fire, or walk around a sculpture park and talk," Parmar told CNN.

IBM sells its own virtual meeting tool, Sametime 3D, which allows businesses to share ideas and collaborate in a 3D world, and the company is currently testing a more advanced version of the product.

Parmar told CNN that he recently held a meeting with 12 technical leaders from across Europe and Asia. While that would typically involve flying everyone to a central location, he said the meeting was held using the new Sametime 3D.

"Not only did we save travel time, but because the environment was so engaging, a lot more ideas came through," he said.

But virtual collaboration doesn't only involve virtual worlds. Tools like "Dropbox" allow online file storage and sharing, while "Basecamp" lets users to collaborate on projects online.

"Google Wave" was announced in May, but is currently only available by invitation. It's a real-time communication tool that allows, among other things, multi-user conversations and file sharing, and it could become a staple of virtual collaboration.

But if companies are to make the most of virtual collaboration, employees will have to learn that what works a bricks-and-mortar workplace may not be right for the virtual world.

Surinder Kahai is associate professor at Binghamton University School of Management, New York. He told CNN, "I've seen people mess up completely because they think that what works in a face-to-face environment also works in a virtual environment."

He says one problem is that virtual teams may not share national and organizational cultures, and that virtual workers should make a conscious effort to see things from their colleagues' point of view.

Another issue is that virtual teams can't take advantage of the kind of impromptu "water cooler" conversations that occur in a real workplace, where colleagues can share information they may have forgotten to communicate in meetings.

Kahai says that lack of human contact can also lead to feelings of isolation, but adds that virtual worlds such as Second Life can help by recreating the water-cooler experience.

"Many companies are using virtual worlds, and these can give a sense of place," Kahai told CNN. "You can hang out, run into someone, and have ad-hoc conversations with people."

Even in this era of remote collaboration, it seems that we still need human interaction -- even if it's completely virtual.

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Johann Hari: The harsh truth about Tory policies - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

In the midst of all this, Cameron's policy documents show he will try to change Britain's political landscape to make it harder for the Tories to be defeated. He will abolish 10 per cent of parliamentary seats, almost all in Labour areas. He will scrap the rules requiring commercial broadcasters to be politically impartial, unleashing the rabid Fox News model against the British left. And he will threaten to outlaw trade union funding for Labour.

Johann Hari: The harsh truth about Tory policies - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

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Tea Bagger talks the talk

And then can not walk the walk. Notice that UNDER GOD is stressed but he forgot "indivisible" and muffed up with Libert and Justice for ALL. In fact the essentially unity of the United States seems to be a value rejected by the entire Tea Baggers. America, in thier opinion, should be a white run nation. You look at the photos of a a tea bagger convention and it looks like a sad woodstock reunion, older white males standing around. I sometimes wonder what part of this movement were ex-hippies and how much of this movement has to do with the babby boomer self image.

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David Cameron's Europe plan is doomed - EU ministers | Politics | The Guardian

Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the centre-right Polish Europe minister, said treaty change was out of the question. He said the Tories were wrong to worry about powers being ceded to Brussels. "Nobody wants to repatriate powers from London to Brussels. The problem is powers are repatriated from London to Beijing. Without recognising that, without having Brussels and other European capitals on side, London will be marginalised."

David Cameron's Europe plan is doomed - EU ministers | Politics | The Guardian

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BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogging all over the world

In a special edition, World Service programme Digital Planet looked at the role of blogging, censorship and citizen journalism. In particular it considered bloggers in Vietnam, Cuba and China.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogging all over the world

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BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart spectacles aid translation

Spectacles that can provide subtitles have been created by hi-tech firm NEC.

Resembling glasses but lacking lenses, the headset uses a tiny projector to display images on a user's retina.

NEC said it planned a version that used real-time translation to provide subtitles for a conversation between people lacking a common language.

The firm said the gadget, dubbed Tele Scouter, was intended for sales people or employees dealing with inquiries from customers.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart spectacles aid translation

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The ultimate herbal remedy: Can cannabis improve autism? - Features, Health & Families - The Independent

The ultimate herbal remedy: Can cannabis improve autism? - Features, Health & Families - The Independent

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BBC NEWS | Politics | Tory EU stance will 'castrate' UK

"They have essentially castrated your UK influence in the European parliament," he added.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Tory EU stance will 'castrate' UK

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