Titans of Industry category archive

To quote the Velvet Underground, from the magnificent Velvet Underground with Nico:

I’m waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington, 1 2 5
Feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive
I’m waiting for my man.

And the man’s name is . . . “Biggie Pharma.”

(If you doubt me, watch Wheel of Fortune on Monday and don’t zip through the commercials. It’s all drugs all the time.)

If every advertising lie were prosecuted, there would be no advertising.

Jurors deliberated for less than an hour Tuesday before finding Kevin Trudeau guilty of criminal contempt in weeklong trial during which prosecutors accused the TV pitchman of lying in infomercials to boost sales of his diet book.

Another tale of what happens when public responsibility is outsourced to profiteers.

Vultures.

. . . in that nugget:

Scientists have performed an “autopsy” on nuggets from two unnamed fast-food chains.

The findings aren’t pretty: 40 to 50 percent of the nuggets were meat, and the rest was fat, skin, connective tissue, blood vessels, nerves and bone fragments, according to the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

And this surprise you how?

After all, wondering when the end will come adds the spice of adventure to day-to-day living.

Despite being treated, waste water from fracking and other forms of gas and oil extraction can leave elevated levels of contaminants in streambeds at the point they are discharged and well downstream, according to a study published Wednesday.

(snip)

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health found high levels of barium, benzene, chlorides, strontium, and other contaminants at the end of the outflow pipe in excess of state and federal water-quality standards.

Asia Times reports on the spread of proprietary seeds in the Balkans (they are already dominant in the US).

A nugget, about that special species produced when some big seed company crossed a tomato with a styrofoam cup:

“There’s small chance today that you will find out whether what you have bought is a real, home-grown tomato,” said Jasmina Zdravkovic of the Institute of Farming in the central Serbian town of Smederevska Palanka, some 63 kilometers southeast of the capital Belgrade.

“Most probably you’ll end up with one which has a white, inedible middle. It comes from the gene that was introduced to keep the tomato firm,” she told IPS. Such tomatoes are never ripe; they only get red from the outside, Zdravkovic said.

According to Zdravkovic and experts from the Faculty of Agriculture at the Belgrade University, indigenous species have lost the battle against the big international seed-producing companies. Native species have been reduced to being cultivated either in private gardens or in small local areas.

Read the rest and weep for the loss of food and flavor, as food gets replaced by stuff like this.

Warning: Grim.

Well, it’s about time.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s decision to prosecute a major Marcellus Shale natural-gas driller for a 2010 wastewater spill has sent shock waves through the industry.

Shockwaves my anatomy.

They thought they had been given a ticket to set drinking water on fire ride.

More here.

Jamesetta Walker goes shopping for a better deal on a television connection and finds it an unpleasant experience.

I think I’d rather have my eyelashes stapled to a brick wall than to deal with cable and satellite television service providers.

Find out why at the link.

I have ridden the train through west Texas several times. Every time I remembered the story of an Englishman trapped on the train with a Texan who kept boasting about the glories of his state, finally winding up with, “Why, you could fit all of lil’ ole England in one tiny corner of Texas!”

As the Englishman looked out the window at the barren, windswept landscape of mesquite and red dirt, he said, “I say, old chap, do the place a world of good, eh, what?”

You ain’t lived until you’ve seen Del Rio.

Via Raw Story.

Silently.