An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy..

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power.

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world - physics-math - 19 October 2011 - New Scientist

I think that there need to be better legal ways to protest on the Internet.

You cannot fight censorship with censorship (DDOS). The web banners and backgrounds from the mid 90's are a better way, but they've fallen out of practice. This banner (which I found on very capitalist ritholtz.com) shows support for the OWS movement and is easy to integrate with a website without significant design changes.

Regardless of your politics, this is the right way to protest online.

These little banners are a far cry from actually ungluing your ass from the chair and going to an Occupy protest, but my hope is that they will help get even more people involved. If you do place a banner on your site, thank you. Please don’t stop there. Stand up – literally – for what you believe in.

Occupy Movement Web Banners

In December, a federal judge ruled that the 4th amendment applies to email and that the feds cannot go after it without a warrant. (We have Smilin' Bob to thank for that.) Though the federal judge's decision only applies to the four states in his jurisdiction, it looks like federal agencies are applying it nationally.

This is an important positive development. Leahy's update to the ECPA would bring it in line with this ruling.

Feds Shy Away From Raiding Email Without Warrant - Slashdot

On October 29 (UT), Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, will be at opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky, shining brightly and rising as the Sun sets.

I've enjoyed watching Jupiter this fall. Its one of the brightest objects in the sky right now. Yesterday morning I was driving to the San Francisco Airport. The western hills were topped with a layer of thick fog, and you could see Jupiter hanging in the sky above them, still shining as the gray sky brightened toward blue.

APOD: 2011 October 22 - Jupiter Near Opposition

Neither of the main Western models has much political credit at the moment. European social democracy promised voters benefits that societies can no longer afford. The Anglo-Saxon model claimed that free markets would create prosperity; many voters feel instead that they got a series of debt-fuelled asset bubbles and an economy that was rigged in favour of a financial elite, who took all the proceeds in the good times and then left everybody else with no alternative other than to bail them out.

Capitalism and its critics: Rage against the machine | The Economist

I enjoyed the rant here as well as some of the attached comments.

You'll notice that a lot of Gen Xer's latched onto bullshit schools of thought over the years, like becoming "South Park Republicans" years
ago, or Ron Paul retard libertarians or 911 twoofers today. You've got
former underground Gen X types like Jim Goad and Peter Bagge shilling
for the likes of Reason magazine. Seems Gen Xers just keep looking for ways to
fool themselves into thinking that really regressive ideas or sucking it up and taking it are somehow statements of individuality when in fact they are utterly conventional, and do nothing to challenge anything. But god forbid they get called hippies.

Emptyage — Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It

The Iraqi government is to launch a new investigation into one of the most controversial incidents of the Iraq war, after the release of a diplomatic cable alleging that US soldiers handcuffed and executed women and children during a 2006 raid.

The troops were also accused of calling in an air strike to destroy evidence.

As a consequence of this revelation, Iraq refused to allow US Troops stationed there to be immune from Iraqi judicial processes. Therefore, the US made a decision to pull out of the country.

I don't know where to begin with this...

WikiLeaks leads to US withdrawl from Iraq

If you have any doubt that Bank of America is in trouble, this development should settle it.

If BofA fails, its going to be a major economic event.

Bank of America Deathwatch: Moves Risky Derivatives from Holding Company to Taxpayer-Backstopped Depository « naked capitalism

This quote made me laugh out loud:

Oddly, despite the recent rise of the libertarian-leaning Tea Party faction of the Republican Party, no Republican has decided publicly that privacy protection of Americans’ online communications is a winning issue.

Given that the "Tea Party" is supposedly supported by "Libertarians" concerned with individual freedom, and that a number of "Tea Party" supported candidates are in office from around the country, you'd think that "Tea Party" candidates would support clear cut individual liberty issues like the proper extension of warrant requirements to data in the cloud. This is really a no-brainer, as the article lays out:

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was adopted at a time when e-mail, for example, wasn’t stored on servers for a long time. Instead it was held there briefly on its way to the recipient’s inbox. E-mail more than 6 months old was assumed abandoned, and that’s why the law allowed the government to get it...

But technology has evolved, and e-mail often remains stored on cloud servers indefinitely, in gigabytes upon gigabytes — meaning the authorities may access it without warrants if it’s older than six months...

Leahy’s measure, among other things, would require court warrants to obtain all that cloud data.

Either:
1. The "Tea Party" pays lip service to Libertarian views but doesn't actually support them when push comes to shove.
2. "Libertarians" don't really support individual liberty like they say they do - they really only care about money - low taxes, not personal freedom.

You can talk all you want about how you support individual liberty, but when push comes to shove, if you are not willing to take action, you are not what you say you are.

No GOP Senator Supports Bill to Protect Cloud E-Mail Privacy | Threat Level | Wired.com

17223 users on the wall
17223 users
take 50 spammers down
delete their accounts
17173 users on the wall