Mammon category archive
“Don’t Drink the Water” 0
The Duke of Hazardous still holds sway in North Carolina, much as the Old Dominion is now the dominion of Dominion Power, which used to call itself VEPCO (emphasis added).
It should not surprise that McCrory was on the payroll of the Duke of Hazardous for 28 years.
Follow the link and read the rest.
Alphabet (in the) Soup 0
Google’s parent company revealed as investor in loan shark payday lender which has been banned from Google search results for being morally dubious.
So much for “Don’t be evil.”
Chartering a Course for Disaster 0
Do not all of our children deserve the grift of an education?
The Snaring Economy 4
Instead, witnesses said, around a hundred people showed up at the two-bedroom house a couple of miles from the Oceanfront during College Beach Weekend. Police were called there twice: once for a report of gunshots and again three hours later for a shooting that left 20-year-old Darren Campbell dead.
In a resort town like this, short-term rentals are common, but most of them don’t fly under the regulatory radar as Airbnb stuff does. Follow the link for a thoughtful consideration of the challenges that snaring poses to municipal governments.
The Entitlement Society 0
The sucklers at the public teat aren’t who you think they are.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
Purdue Pharma began producing the pills two decades ago, claiming that it relieved severe, chronic pain for 12 continuous hours — more twice the time of generic drugs. Representatives of the drug’s maker promised doctors that patients would only have to take two pills a day for 24-hour pain relief.
But it wasn’t true, and Purdue knew it, the Times reveals.
And this surprise you how?
Much more at the link.
T(TP) Party 0
Governments who wish to snoop on their citizenry are fond of expressing the thought that, if you have nothing to hide, you won’t mind the intrusion (which is a fallacy, natch; some things should be private because they are nobody else’s damn business). Just for grins and giggles, let’s suppose the reasoning is valid and ask, does it cut both ways?
Read a bit of Trevor Timm’s remarks about the negotiations for the TTP and TTIP trade deals:
What progressive champion Senator Elizabeth Warren said then is even more true now: “If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”
Follow the link for much, much more.
This Is Your FDA on Big Pharma 0
Have you wondered why these days you see all those TV commercials from law firms asking, “Have you taken this drug/used this device/had this treatment?” Watch this and wonder not.
The Snaring Economy 0
Berlin acts to rein in rogue rentals which raise rents beyond the resources of rental residents (emphasis added).
Given that it is more profitable to rent out whole apartments for short holiday lets, some investors are holding on to apartments for such rentals rather than having long-term tenants.
San Francisco-based Airbnb.com — short for the business’s original name AirBed & Breakfast — is the biggest of several sites that allow people to offer and find such rental accommodation worldwide.
When it’s being done by “investors,” my friends, it ain’t sharing, not by any measure.
More at the link.
Flint-Hearted 2
The spring edition of the Virginia Tech alumni mag has a long article about the role of Virginia Tech scientists in documenting and publicizing the Republican poisoning of Flint, Michigan. I recommend downloading the PDF.
(I get the magazine because my father (and my brother) went to Tech* and I seem to have inherited a subscription through from my father through my mother.)
Chartering a Course for Disaster 0
At Cleveland.com, Brent Larkin acerbically dissects the lastest outbreak of the privatization scam in Ohio. A snippet:
The amount of money taxpayers send to online charter schools depends on how many students attend those schools.
However, charter operators have a history of submitting notoriously inaccurate attendance numbers. If you wonder why that is, reread the previous paragraph.
Responsible Fiscals 0
You can’t make this stuff up. (Actually, these days, you could, but you don’t have to.)