Category: Politics

Kim Dotcom promises to rehire all 220 Megaupload employees

Kim Dotcom has learned his lesson and is lawyering up to ensure that when his next-generation Megaupload website launches, it won’t be vulnerable to any legal challenges. Posting on his Twitter account on Monday, Dotcom said that he is working “24/7 with lawyers, developers, designers, investors & partners” to create the “ultimate” version of Megaupload that would be free of the legal controversies that had dogged the previous version of the site. When asked by a follower if he was worried that the new Megaupload could face the same fate as its predecessor, Dotcom replied “that will be IMPOSSIBLE. Trust me!”

While bragging about his progress in building the new Megaupload, Dotcom also promised to rehire all 220 Megaupload employees who lost their jobs in the wake of the website shutdown and further vowed to give them a pay raise once they were back working for the company. Finally, Dotcom told former Megaupload premium members would “have their premium status transferred to the new Mega, with a bonus on top.”

Kim Dotcom promises to rehire all 220 Megaupload employees

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The Resident: do the RNC and DNC serve a purpose?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzCSQuhkO4g

The Republican and Democratic National Conventions are right around the corner. Back in the day, these gatherings were crucial in terms of selecting presidential and vice presidential nominees, but today many contend it's more about party pageantry than real politics. The Resident's Lori Harfinest went out to the streets of the Big Apple to ask the people whether those party conventions are necessary anymore.

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JAPANESE WATER POWERED CAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CrxfMz2eDME

A Japanese venture company, Genepax, has unveiled a car on that runs on water. All it requires is a litre of water. In fact, any kind of water to be exact, whether its river, rain, sea water, or even Japanese tea. Its an electric powered car that runs solely on hydrogen dioxide. "The main characteristic of this car is that no external input is needed. The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water inside for you to add from time to time," said Kiyoshi Hirasawa, Chief Executive Officer of Genepax, after he proudly announced the company's invention. Once water is poured into the water tank at the back of the car, the newly invented energy generator takes out the hydrogen from the water, releases electrons and finally generates electrical power. "We highly recommend our system since it does not require you to build up an infrastructure to recharge your batteries, which is usually the case for most electric cars," said Hirasawa, who is hoping to advertise the car in time for the upcoming G8 Summit in Hokkaido, Japan. According to the company, 1 liter of water keeps the car running for about an hour with a speed of 80 kilometers or 50 miles an hour. The company has applied for a patent and is hoping to collaborate with Japanese automobile manufacturers to mass manufacture their invention in the very near future. As fuel prices continue rising and people look for greener alternatives, companies globally are trying to come up with alternatives.

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Unemployment rate drops to 8.1%

The labor market lost momentum last month as job growth fell to a disappointingly slow pace. But the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell.

 

 

The economy added 96,000 jobs in August, down from 141,000 jobs in July, the Department of Labor said Friday.

Economists polled by CNNMoney were expecting 120,000 jobs to be added in the month.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent, from 8.3 percent in July.

The weak job growth was seen as a negative sign for the struggling labor market. Economists often say at least 150,000 jobs need to be created each month to simply keep pace with the growing population.

The overall job market still has a long way to go recover from the financial crisis. Three years after the recession ended, roughly 12.5 million Americans remain unemployed, and 40 percent of them have been so for six months or more.

Unemployment rate drops to 8.1%

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Wall Street set to break spending records this election

 

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Wall Street is on track to spend more on this election than it ever has during a campaign season.

With two months to go before Nov. 6, Wall Street firms have so far spent $164 million on campaigns and donations to political groups designed to influence the elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That puts the industry on pace to surpass the spending record of $170 million that it set during the 2008 race.

The presidential and congressional elections are expected to be the most expensive on record. The Center expects the final tab to hit $2.5 billion, most of which will be spent on television advertising, campaign infrastructure and staff as well as logistical efforts to help voters get to the polls.

Securities and investment firms are one of the biggest powerhouses aiming to influence the elections, according the Center. Individuals from Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Bain Capital and Blackstone Group (BX) have contributed millions of dollars directly to campaigns and through political groups.

The biggest difference between this election and the race in 2008 is that Wall Street is now betting bigger on Republicans. During the last cycle, 57% of individuals from Wall Street gave to Democrats and President Obama. But this year, 60% of Wall Street's contributions went to Republicans.

"We're going to see a lot more [money] from the securities and investment firms going to both members of Congress and presidential candidates," said Bill Allison, editorial director for the Sunlight Foundation, another watchdog group that tracks political influence.

Wall Street set to break spending records this election

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http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/09/press-outlets-protest-manning-trial-secrecy-134398.html

More than 30 news outlets and media organizations lodged an official protest Tuesday against secrecy in the court-martial of Pvt Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accusing of leaking hundreds of thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

The amicus brief filed with the military's highest court, the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, supports a request from the Center for Constitutional Rights to allow public access to motions, briefs, written rulings and the docket in Manning's court-martial.

While hearings in Manning's case have been in large part public, the motions and briefs the prosecution and defense are arguing about are not available from the court. So, those watching the arguments often have trouble understanding precisely what the lawyers are arguing about.

"This Court should find that such an arrangement is unconstitutional," lawyers Gregg Leslie and Kristen Rasmussen wrote in the brief, which was joined by POLITICO and parent company Allbritton Communications Co. "The inability to view court documents filed in connection with a particular judicial proceeding burdens the news media’s constitutionally protected right to collect and disseminate the news and severely curtails journalists’ ability to do their jobs effectively."

Press outlets protest Manning trial secrecy

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RAP NEWS 15: Big Brother is WWWatching You

http://youtu.be/o66FUc61MvU

September 2012 rocks around with some crucial developments in the ongoing struggle over the future of the internet. Will it remain the one open frequency where humanity can bypass filters and barriers; or become the greatest spying machine ever imagined? The future is being decided as we type. Across Oceania, States have been erecting and installing measures to legalise the watching, tracking and storage of data of party-members and proles alike. If such plans materialize, will this place ever be the same? And what will be the evolutionary consequences for our human journey? Join our plucky host Robert Foster as he conducts an incisive analysis of the situation at hand. Joining him are newly appointed Thought Police General at the Pentopticon, Darth O'Brien Baxter, and a surprisingly lucid Terence Winston Moonseed. Once again, in the midst of this Grand Human Experiment, we are forced to ask tough questions about our future. Will it involve a free internet which will continue to revolutionise the way the world communicates with itself? Or is our picture of the future a Boot stamping on this Human InterFace forever?

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F*CK POLITICS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8QR2NGaQW24

You have two choices. Obama and Romney. Neither will stop government collusion with big business. Neither wants to make significant cuts to the military budget. Neither wants to take on the military-industrial complex. Neither wants to end the war on drugs. Neither will even address the issues of prison overcrowding and prison privatization. Neither wants to make radical changes to America's foreign policy. Those are your "two" choices.

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