corporations

Ralph Nader believes it is time to put U.S. global corporations on the DEFENSIVE! He declares that would be “the first step for the resurgence of the people so that corporations become our servants and do not remain our masters.”

In “Patriotic Yardsticks for Unpatriotic Giant Corporations” he calls out US Global Corporations for BETRAYING America -- betraying the American citizen taxpayers that have enabled them to become so incredibly successful. Nader spells it out: Read below the fold...

"The reality is that representative democracy, at the core, has to be about people voting, has to be about people engaging in political parties, has to be about people having contact with elected representatives, and having faith and trust in elected representatives, as well as those representatives demonstrating they can exercise political power effectively and make decisions that tend to be approved of," said Wilks-Heeg." Read below the fold...

Not news to anyone here, but still worth repeating:

But it's not just wealthy individuals who grotesquely manipulate the system for their benefit. It's the multinational corporations they own and control. In 2009, Exxon Mobil, the most profitable corporation in history made $19 billion in profits and not only paid no federal income tax—they actually received a $156 million refund from the government. In 2005, one out of every four large corporations in the United States paid no federal income taxes while earning $1.1 trillion in revenue. Read below the fold...

"Why should KitchenAid make blenders and health care coverage decisions? Why should lumber companies cut trees and create hospital networks?"

Ezra Klein asks and gives some reasons why , and the New Republic too: Why CEOs Don't Get It on Health Care Read below the fold...

I think I've spotted an actual desiring machine in the field! Scientific American:

Splenda is not satisfying—at least according to the brain. A new study found that even when the palate cannot distinguish between the artificial sweetener and sugar, our brain knows the difference.

Read below the fold...

Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.

Read below the fold...

Speaking of micro-organisisms, DarkSyde has a wonderful post up at Kos about the bedbugs, the Black Death, and Halloween (among other things). Read the whole thing, but this sentence leaped out at me:

While to one another we are lovers, strangers, friend or foe, to germs we’re nothing but walking meat markets: you and I are food.

Vivid and telling. And if you change two phrases, even more telling: Read below the fold...

Film at 11: Desiring machines have a biological substrate.

The desiring machines in the news want chocolate--but I'm sure there are other desiring machines that desire other things.

From the abstract at the Journal of Proteome Research (PDF) Read below the fold...

Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here.
________________________________ Read below the fold...

When a dealer that's more predatory and businesslike than the norm--one who doesn't live with his mother--goes down, the Feds confiscate his assets (before sending him to jail for graduate work in gang studies and homosexual rape).

But compared to corporations, dealers are penny ante.

So, last I checked, corporations were legal persons--with rights of free speech, and everything.

But who said corporations got to live forever? Read below the fold...

Bonddad and Tula explain the hard stuff so I don't have to. Bottom line: the investor class is whining like a bunch of skeer'd little bitches, and that's a good thing.
Read below the fold...

I'm not even going to recount mine. I'm ready to kill or break something. deep breath But I'm pretty sure we've all had them. Is it just me, or are cell phones getting crappier with every new "upgrade?" Sure, it's great to play some music and take a photo with your phone, but it'd also be nice if they weren't as sensitive as an albino nun at an all-gender orgy in the Mojave desert. Four 1-800 calls, six crashed web pages, three stores and several "customer service" representatives later, I may be able to talk on the phone again...as soon as next Wednesday. Read below the fold...