Efforts by states and cities to “create” jobs cost taxpayers $50 billion a year, author Greg LeRoy says. And given the nature of corporate America, there’s no guarantee those jobs will stick around… or even materialize in the first place.
Buy the book here.
The world British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson creates is so vivid it feels as if you’re in the company of the characters he chronicles: bikers, schoolyard bullies, dreamers, lovers and losers.
For nearly four decades, Thompson has performed and recorded a wide variety of music, from traditional folk songs to rock-and roll.
His latest effort is Front Parlour Ballads, a mostly acoustic work recorded in a small studio in his garage.
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Ron Rack just posted a gorgeous Quicktime VR scene of West Virginia’s New River Gorge Bridge. Here’s another rather extraordinary VR Scene: Denis Gliksman’s Bretagne Rocky Coast. This VR scene includes a video layer (the ocean lapping the rocks).
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More on the cornfest. I avoided the butter, but did speak to a couple of the students who were seeking college funds. One had her eyes on Michigan State while the other is seemingly UC-Berkeley bound.
The report reveals that the IRS made 4.6 billion disclosures of tax return information to federal and state agencies. Here are the Top 5 recipients of taxpayer information:
In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?
You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.
Intel along with several large firms announced a project with communities around the world to make municipal WiFi a reality:
Cleveland, Ohio; Corpus Christi, Texas; Philadelphia; Portland, Ore.; Duesseldorf, Germany; Jerusalem, Israel; Taipei, Taiwan, are among the urban communities participating in Intel’s project. Other participants are Mangaratiba, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Gyor, Hungary; Principality of Monaco; Seoul, South Korea; Osaka, Japan; and Westminster in London.
This is interesting…
Environmental leaders from Freiburg, Germany will give a presentation at the MATC Downtown Education Center from 7:30 to 9:30 am on Friday, August 26. Dr. Dieter Woerner, Director of Freiburg’s Environmental Department, will give a talk on sustainable environmental policy and Andreas Hildebrandt of Verkehrs-AG will discuss the regional transportation system. Freiburg has developed sustainable environmental policies including extensive use of solar energy, bike trails and mass transit, recycling and urban planning. In 1992, Freiburg was awarded the title “German Environmental Capital” in a nationwide competition.
More information about Freiburg and other German sustainable development efforts visit: http://madisonfreiburg.org/sustainablecity.htm, http://www.solarregion.freiburg.de, http://www.wi-ei.org/germanymission.pdf and http://www.greentierwi.info/green.html
This event is sponsored by the Madison-Freiburg Sister City Committee, Sustain Dane, UWEX/SHWEC, and MATC.
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell discussed his views on four internet freedoms:
Here’s a PDF of his February, 2004 speech. Via David Isenberg.