Category Archives: News

Most of us in the under 40 camp suspect that Social Security will not be there for us when we retire, at least not to the degree it is there for retirees now.  This is as good a time as any to review the state of the Trust Fund and it’s  feeasability for future generations. […]

Not long ago I noticed that manufacturing and some import/export data had come in significantly below expectations, enough to warrant a downward revision in Q2 GDP. Well, the results are coming in now and they’re pretty damning.  Goldman’s out with a report today predicting it at 1.5 percent, down from the 1.8 percent originally predicted […]

You’ll have to forgive the vulgarity of that headline and it may sound like an odd question, but apparently he did according to the late historian Paul M. Zall, who wrote about early American history and figures like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Zall’s 2007 book, Abe Lincoln’s Legacy of Laughter, quotes Lincoln himself recalling the […]

Here are some before and after photos of Joplin, Missouri less than one hour after a tornado hit.  I was able to match up some of the Weather Channel’s footage with images taken from Google Street View.  You can see how some streets and landmarks look virtually nothing like they once did.   More from […]

It has become increasingly apparent that financial corporate interests have been throwing their weight around more than usual lately, especially since the financial collapse in 2008, but it would seem their efforts are not merely confined to influencing lawmaking in Washington DC, but when necessary can extend to generally much more independent state representatives as […]

You may have noticed that there is quite a lot of controversy surrounding the military “kinetic” conflict in Libya or what most people used to call “a war.”  While much of this controversy surrounds the wisdom of engaging in another military conflict in a troubled and politically complex region, perhaps even more controversial is the […]

At midnight this morning, the hacker group Anonymous posted internal emails from Bank of America employees which they say provides evidence that the bank knowingly committed fraud by providing regulators with inaccurate information, but critics charge that the same content was already available before today and the quality of the leak itself isn’t as newsworthy […]

According to a spokesperson for US Central Command, Persona Management Software is not being used by the US government inside the United States and that the program is limited to “foreign, non-English speaking” websites. Lt. Cmdr. Bill H. Speaks, spokesperson for US Central Command, said the program “supports classified activities outside the [United States]” on […]

(Listen to my BBC interview on Persona Management Software here.) The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage “fake people” on social media sites. Private security firms employeed by the government have used the accounts to create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues. The contract calls for the […]

According to leaked internal memos, private security firms with ties to the CIA and the Department of Defense proposed cyber attacks, media manipulation and other forms of subversive activity to protect Bank of America who was threatened by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange late last year. It assesses the threat posed by Wikileaks and offers several […]