thepoliticalnotebook: Picture of the Day: Moscow, Russia. Police attempt to disperse anti-Putin protesters. News: After a stint as prime minister under Medvedev, Putin has once again been sworn in as president. He has nominated Medvedev as his prime minister. That’s not an endless revolving door or anything…. His inauguration was met with lots of protesting, and police rounded up anyone wearing the opposition’s symbolic white ribbon, arresting roughly 700 protesters as of Monday evening, and referring many of the young male detainees to the draft office. Read: Julia Ioffe for the New Yorker’s News Desk: “Putin’s Inauguration: Satire and Violence” and Regina Smyth for the Monkey Cage: “Russia’s Growing Opposition.” Watch: Video of riot police cracking down on anti-Putin protests. Credit: Sergey Ponomarev/AP. Via. View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.
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thepoliticalnotebook:

Picture of the Day: Moscow, Russia. Police attempt to disperse anti-Putin protesters.

News: After a stint as prime minister under Medvedev, Putin has once again been sworn in as president. He has nominated Medvedev as his prime minister. That’s not an endless revolving door or anything…. His inauguration was met with lots of protesting, and police rounded up anyone wearing the opposition’s symbolic white ribbon, arresting roughly 700 protesters as of Monday evening, and referring many of the young male detainees to the draft office.

Read: Julia Ioffe for the New Yorker’s News Desk: “Putin’s Inauguration: Satire and Violence” and Regina Smyth for the Monkey Cage: “Russia’s Growing Opposition.”

Watch: Video of riot police cracking down on anti-Putin protests.

Credit: Sergey Ponomarev/AP. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

Source: Guardian

antipahtico: Dennis Hopper & John Huston ~ Jim Beam
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antipahtico:

Dennis Hopper & John Huston ~ Jim Beam

(via bbook)

Source: antipahtico

Wal-Mart FCPA Probe Focuses On Mexico Amid Report Of Cover-Up - Corruption Currents - WSJ

rubenfeld:

My attempt at condensing the weekend that was:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. engaged in systematic bribery to fuel its growth in Mexico and covered up an internal probe into the matter, according to a blistering report over the weekend by the New York Times.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company, which is the world’s biggest retailer by sales, confirmedSaturday following the publication of the nearly 8,000-word front-page investigative story that it is investigating its operations in Mexico for possible violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law, passed in 1977, bars the use of bribes of foreign officials to get business.

According to the Times report, citing hundreds of internal records and emails, Wal-Mart paid more than $24 million in Mexico by handing out envelopes of cash to mayors, city council members, urban planners and bureaucrats who issued permits — anyone who stood in the way of preventing the company from opening new stores.

One-fifth of all Wal-Mart’s stores are in Mexico.

For an interesting perspective on the FCPA and the Bribery Act (and by “interesting” I mean pretty far out there, even for Forbes), read Wal-Mart and Corruption in Mexico: So What?

Source: rubenfeld

climateadaptation:

Now reading:

csmonitor:

Can natural gas save America? Our latest cover explores the benefits and limits of looking to natural gas to stabilize energy resources in the US.

READ: With all this natural gas, who needs oil?

Source: csmonitor.com

riversidearchives: Map Monday! This map is a bit different:  It is a landing site map for Apollo 11, dated in 1969. Held in records created by NASA at the National Archives at Riverside.
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riversidearchives:

Map Monday!

This map is a bit different:  It is a landing site map for Apollo 11, dated in 1969.

Held in records created by NASA at the National Archives at Riverside.

(via latimes)

Source: riversidearchives

theatlantic: Infographics Say It All in Facebook’s Latest SEC Filing In the amendment Facebook filed Monday to its S-1 SEC filing, some of the best information about the company is embedded in the infographics it used to illustrate its points. They show a company that’s booming, with rampant growth of users and revenue, but they also show a behemoth that’s saturated much of the globe save for one glaringly dark patch where China sits. […] Look at the mass of darkness where China is located, the stark border of Russia, the largely un-Facebook penetrated Africa, and the bright slash of Indonesia (at one point,Indonesian became the most-used Asian language on Facebook). That dislocation between population and Facebook users bears out some of the projections the company follows with in its filing, in particular its expansion plans. Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Facebook] More is better?
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theatlantic:

Infographics Say It All in Facebook’s Latest SEC Filing

In the amendment Facebook filed Monday to its S-1 SEC filing, some of the best information about the company is embedded in the infographics it used to illustrate its points. They show a company that’s booming, with rampant growth of users and revenue, but they also show a behemoth that’s saturated much of the globe save for one glaringly dark patch where China sits. […]

Look at the mass of darkness where China is located, the stark border of Russia, the largely un-Facebook penetrated Africa, and the bright slash of Indonesia (at one point,Indonesian became the most-used Asian language on Facebook). That dislocation between population and Facebook users bears out some of the projections the company follows with in its filing, in particular its expansion plans.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Facebook]

More is better?

Source: theatlanticwire.com

mohandasgandhi: U.N.: Crime is one of world’s “top 20 economies” Criminality worldwide generates proceeds in the trillions of dollars each year, making crime one of the world’s “top 20 economies,” a senior U.N. official said Monday With the scope of global crime — and particularly organized crime — threatening emerging economies and fomenting international instability, Yury Fedotov called for concerted world action to combat the trend. “We need to recognize that the problem requires a global solution,” Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told reporters outside an international conference focused on preventing the exploitation of illegal migrants and other crimes linked to human trafficking. “No country can handle this problem alone.” Fedotov said that “criminal business” earns those behind it $2.1 trillion — nearly 1.6 trillion euros — a year, which he said is equivalent to nearly 7 percent of the size of the global economy. In a recent UNODC report, global gross proceeds were calculated from such illicit activities as money-laundering (US$1.6 trillion in 2009) and cocaine trafficking (US$84 billion for 2009). Other criminal enterprises which added to UNODC’s $2.1 trillion estimate were counterfeiting; human trafficking; and trafficking in oil, wildlife, timber, fish, art and cultural property, gold, human organs, and small and light weapons. (Criminal proceeds within a national sector, such as burglaries, fraud, loan sharking or protection racketeering, were not included.) In separate comments inside the meeting, Fedotov said that as many as 2.4 million people may be victims of human trafficking worldwide at any given time, calling it “a shameful crime of modern-day slavery.” Corruption is another concern of the meeting. Fedotov told the opening session that estimates put the amount of money lost through corruption in developing countries at $40 billion annually. U.S. delegate Brian A. Nichols said the changed face of organized crime makes prosecution more difficult than in the past. “Today, most criminal organizations bear no resemblance to the hierarchical organized crime family groups of the past,” he told the meeting. “Instead, they consist of loose and informal networks that often converge when it is convenient and engage in a diverse array of criminal activities, including the smuggling of counterfeit goods, firearms, drugs, humans, and even wildlife to amass their illicit profits.” You can read Fedotov’s complete speech here.
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mohandasgandhi:

U.N.: Crime is one of world’s “top 20 economies”

Criminality worldwide generates proceeds in the trillions of dollars each year, making crime one of the world’s “top 20 economies,” a senior U.N. official said Monday

With the scope of global crime — and particularly organized crime — threatening emerging economies and fomenting international instability, Yury Fedotov called for concerted world action to combat the trend.

“We need to recognize that the problem requires a global solution,” Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told reporters outside an international conference focused on preventing the exploitation of illegal migrants and other crimes linked to human trafficking. “No country can handle this problem alone.”

Fedotov said that “criminal business” earns those behind it $2.1 trillion — nearly 1.6 trillion euros — a year, which he said is equivalent to nearly 7 percent of the size of the global economy.

In a recent UNODC report, global gross proceeds were calculated from such illicit activities as money-laundering (US$1.6 trillion in 2009) and cocaine trafficking (US$84 billion for 2009).

Other criminal enterprises which added to UNODC’s $2.1 trillion estimate were counterfeiting; human trafficking; and trafficking in oil, wildlife, timber, fish, art and cultural property, gold, human organs, and small and light weapons. (Criminal proceeds within a national sector, such as burglaries, fraud, loan sharking or protection racketeering, were not included.)

In separate comments inside the meeting, Fedotov said that as many as 2.4 million people may be victims of human trafficking worldwide at any given time, calling it “a shameful crime of modern-day slavery.”

Corruption is another concern of the meeting. Fedotov told the opening session that estimates put the amount of money lost through corruption in developing countries at $40 billion annually.

U.S. delegate Brian A. Nichols said the changed face of organized crime makes prosecution more difficult than in the past.

“Today, most criminal organizations bear no resemblance to the hierarchical organized crime family groups of the past,” he told the meeting.

“Instead, they consist of loose and informal networks that often converge when it is convenient and engage in a diverse array of criminal activities, including the smuggling of counterfeit goods, firearms, drugs, humans, and even wildlife to amass their illicit profits.”

You can read Fedotov’s complete speech here.

Source: cbsnews.com

Robo-Readers Used to Grade Test Essays

infoneer-pulse:

A recently released study has concluded that computers are capable of scoring essays on standardized tests as well as human beings do.

Mark Shermis, dean of the College of Education at the University of Akron, collected more than 16,000 middle school and high school test essays from six states that had been graded by humans. He then used automated systems developed by nine companies to score those essays.

Computer scoring produced “virtually identical levels of accuracy, with the software in some cases proving to be more reliable,” according to a University of Akron news release.

» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)

Well, there you have it. Software grades essays better than people. Think of all the money we’ll save…

Source: infoneer-pulse

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(via typographie)

Source: Flickr / taffeta

quotevadis: “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Marxism, and was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. His work continues to influence fields such as Marxist philosophy, sociology, critical theory and literary studies. Sartre was also noted for his relationship with the feminist author and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir.
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quotevadis:

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Marxism, and was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. His work continues to influence fields such as Marxist philosophy, sociology, critical theory and literary studies. Sartre was also noted for his relationship with the feminist author and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir.

Source: bigotherbigother.files.wordpress.com