"The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despot's dread of a newspaper that laughs."
"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work."
"No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted."
Latin American Zeitgeist consultant emeritus
"Eu sou o rei dessa folia, pra delírio da Fiel"
Roberto Civita: Infotainment Outlaw
For jaw-droppingly arrogant and extreme violations of minimal standards of journalistic integrity, this blog no longer spends a tostão on any Grupo Abril or associated (Disney) infotainment products.
(L) 2005 Libre Commons Res Communes License. This log of my open-source wetware-Internet interface design work is outside of all legal jurisdiction and takes its force and action from the constituent radical democratic practices of the global multitude against the logic of capital. Void where prohibited by a little man with a gun in his hand.
Projected growth of Greater China iPod and PMP accessory industry. Source: China Sourcing Reports.
China IPod Maker, Journalists in Dispute: The journalists who had their assets frozen, in a dispute over their reporting on labor conditions in the factory that makes the Apple iPod, have had their cause taken up by Reporters Without Borders.
A media advocacy group on Wednesday urged Apple Computer Inc. to intervene in a dispute over alleged labor abuses by an iPod manufacturer in China.A media advocacy group on Wednesday urged Apple Computer Inc. to intervene in a dispute over alleged labor abuses by an iPod manufacturer in China.
U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Online financial futures exchange HedgeStreet.com has launched hurricane damage futures that will allow investors to place bets on the amount of property damage hurricanes may cause in the United States, exchange officials said Thursday.
From the shill watch: The latest alert arrives in the old Gmail inbox from The Freelance Work Exchange — a slimy little operation that specializes in placing homeworkers with astroturfing and “viral marketing” operations.
Two individuals are needed to undertake a forum posting campaign. You will be responsible for posting a minimum of 30 posts on forums per day. You will spread these out over 5 different forums. You should have the ability to spark debate, and have a friendly writing tone. Please send a quote per post you will make.
Historical prices on a Lopez Obrador victory. Source: Tradesports.
In the battle of the Mexican Netroots, perhaps the best organized attempt to counter the “vote by vote” Web video campaign is Andrés López Rivas, aka Ciberactivo, a 24-year old systems engineer from Monterrey who blogs at Mexico in Danger.
PAN out to hire this kid to run the south of the border equivalent of the Bloggers for Dean project coordinated by James Moore of Second Superpower fame. I’m going to see if I can interview him.
It’s a useful resource for reality-testing the charges made by the “resistance” of blatant media bias, and for getting an overview of how North American editorial pages have viewed the current crisis. Read the rest of this entry »
Euronext’s largest shareholder said on Wednesday that it intended to force the exchange to hold a vote on a merger offer from Deutsche Börse that currently exceeds a bid from the NYSE Group which was agreed by Euronext’s management in June.
The activist shareholder is once again a hedge fund — a high-flying philanthropic hedge fund with former ties to the Yale endowment, if I remember correctly.
For eight weeks, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has made his claim of electoral fraud the basis for what threatens to become a permanent protest of Mexico’s presidential election. Yesterday, Mexico’s electoral tribunal kicked away the foundations of his claim. In a recount of 9 percent of polling places, the judges found no evidence of widespread fraud and too few errors to change the results.
Actually, the court rejected the majority of the protests on the grounds that the representatives of the Coalition had no standing to bring them, and did not investigate the charges at all.
The electoral tribunal has not yet declared that Felipe Calderón, of the ruling National Action Party, is Mexico’s next president. It has until Sept. 6 to rule on whether President Vicente Fox and business groups interfered illegally in the election. No one should ask Mr. López Obrador to concede before this ruling. But it is time for him to end the protests and pledge to respect the tribunal’s final decision.
The Tribunal’s final decision, note, will also take into account the Coalition’s general complaints, most importantly that PAN, Fox and the media broke numerous election laws governing campaign funding, inflammatory negative campaigning, and interference by the executive in the campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Amisil has not received a single distribution from Clarium, while he [Mr. Thiel] has skimmed tens of millions of dollars out of Clarium into his own pockets. Theres been no pay for us, and hes been no pal.
Today on The New Market Machines Radio:
You would think that transitioning from northern hemisphere fall to southern hemisphere spring would get easier after the first few times you do it, but it always takes a psychic toll.
Since we are out rustling up my Brazilian resident visa today, enjoy a nostalgic musical interlude, in which I recreate my college DJ days with a set of songs that, for me, define the Brooklyn-B-burg-East Village axis of evolution.
PARIS – Pan-European stock-market operator Euronext NV said Wednesday that strong trading activity at its cash equities and derivatives business helped lift second-quarter net profit by 63%. … The company also said the plan to merge with NYSE Group Inc. will be put to a shareholder vote in early December. It aims to complete the merger in the first-quarter of 2007, it said.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — State Department investigators have found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.
The State Dept. had apparently cited national security in an effort to prevent the report from becoming public — threatening prosecution if members of Congress exercised their oversight powers.
In providing the report to the members of Congress, the State Department warned that making it public could violate federal law, people who have seen the report said. On Tuesday, Mr. Berman released the summary.
WASHINGTON — The World Bank and 11 utilities, banks, trading firms and others have put together the largest greenhouse-gas emission trades in history, a $1 billion deal that will help two Chinese chemical companies reduce emissions believed to cause climate change by the equivalent of 19 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Open Warfare in Open Source (FindTech GPL Insight): The usual excellent collection of readings on the ongoing conflict over the GPL v. 3 …
The proverbial “line in the sand” between camps supporting the current GNU General Public License and those promoting v3 was nowhere more apparent than at LinuxWorld, according to this piece [from BW]. On one side is the Free Software Foundation’s Richard Stallman. On the other is Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who is concerned that the digital rights management provisions in the new license are too restrictive. Read the rest of this entry »
Among today’s posts: Signs of cracks in the Lopez Obrador coalition?
The Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos (CROC) shifted the support it gave the PRD by endorsing Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the elections to the PAN candidate Felipe Calderón, after assuring itself that the elections court would declare the latter the winner of the presidential contest, according to La Jornada. The leadership of that organization said it felt “aggrieved” by the methods the PRD candidate has used in his “civil resistance.” Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday’s edition, for example, misidentifies Glenn Reynold’s interlocutor from Crooked Timber at a recent Cato Institute discussion of Reynold’s new book.
I also misattribute to BusinessWeek’s man in Hong Kong the statement that the Indian congress had repudiated data on the use of polluted water for soft drink bottling — making my whole rant on that point kind of dumb, or at least premature. He stated, correctly, that the public health authorities had reported those results to the congress. Read the rest of this entry »
Vigilante consumer report: the service at AirGorilla is failing the “monkeys with typewriters” test.
I need to have my return itinerary in hand to get my visa from the Brazilian Consulate.
We have not had time to apply for my permanent residency visa, and besides, my wife sent the original of our marriage certificate to Brazil for a business transaction my father-in-law is handling for us.
In the latest edition of The Pod People, on NMM Radio, I note a recent BusinessWeek podcast interview with its man in Hong Kong on Coke and Pepsi’s PR nightmare in India … and give them a good tongue-lashing for their crappy reporting.
Now that I have a chance to try to fill in the blanks myself, I’m even madder.
The New York Stock Exchange wants to add Borsa Italiana to the mix as it prepares to vote on its merger with Euronext, according to published reports. “It’s in the interest of Borsa Italiana to join with Euronext and be part of our deal…. We have already anticipated this possibility in the structure of our accord,” said John Thain chief executive in an Italian newspaper yesterday.
Interesting. This must be NYSE’s response to signs that an all-European exchange “federation” is getting some traction.
I have to say that I’m finding my $2x annual subscription to the AP Stylebook 2.0 to be a good investment. Take this e-mail update today:
An AP Stylebook entry has been updated. Editor’s Note: Changes in AP style, reflecting names as used by the Indian government that have gained favor internationally and in everyday speech.
Today’s update:
Mumbai: India\’s largest city, formerly known as Bombay. (Also, Chennai, formerly Madras.)
BukaneroZ (Mexico) provides a good example of a meme gaining traction in the anti-Peje blogosphere in Mexico, ridiculing and decrying the use of religious imagery in the public presentation of the rebel candidate and the picketing and leafleting of what the opposition considers to be political pulpits.
SAN PEJE, Santo Patrón de los plantones y de las revueltas. Si, aunque no lo crean ahora en catedral estan vendiendo escapularios con la imagen de San Peje, el motivo, posiblemente más campaña q lo apoye en su estupida pelea por la presidencia. Tal vez pienza que con esto el logrará cuando menos un favorcito del cielo o de plano tener un puesto a la derecha del Señor (perdon si ofendo algún cristiano, catolico o similar), el cual en mi opinión ya lo bateo de ahi y ni siquiera el diablo lo quiere por desmadrozo. La fotografia es de la primera plana de Diario Monitor.
“You’re not going to believe this, but they are selling scapulars in the cathedral now with images of Lopez Obrador. …”
PARIS (Dow Jones)–Pan-European bourse operator Euronext NV (29064.AE) Monday said it remains committed to its planned merger with NYSE Group Inc. (NYX) following weekend reports that is discussing an alternative three-way tie with Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1.XE) and Borsa Italiana.
The dark Italian stallion candidate is still waiting around, though, like that blond Amish guy at the end of Witness.
The Business reported Sunday that Euronext, Deutsche Boerse and Borsa Italiana are in talks to create a pan-European stock market which it said could scupper Euronext’s NYSE deal.
The paper said the deal has the firm backing of management at the German and Italian stock exchanges, but has yet to receive support from the Euronext board.
The Euronext spokeswoman declined to comment directly on the report but said: “We are still committed to pursuing a deal with NYSE.”
The TRIFE elections court in Mexico will not authorize a vote by vote recount, but has not discarded the option of adjusting the vote count, possibly by nullifying the vote in districts where fraud was found.
Two justices, speaking for the whole court, stressed that citizen vote counters did their work in an impartial manner. That seems like a pointed statement to me. Does that mean it might still find that IFE did not?
Los magistrados del Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF) resolverán en el transcurso de hoy los 375 juicios de inconformidad relacionados con la elección presidencial del pasado 2 de julio.
Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan’s second-biggest lender, has asked the Tokyo Stock Exchange for 40.4 billion yen ($345 million) in compensation for failing to stop a trading error last year, the exchange’s president said.
… a closer look at the numbers raises questions about Forbes.com’s industry-leading success. For its claim of a worldwide audience of nearly 15.3 million, it has been citing February data from comScore Media Metrix, one of the two leading providers of third-party Web traffic data.
Zocalo campers: “25 days in resistance to fascism”
Columnist Miguel Angel Velázquez of La Jornada, says the fat lady has already sung, for a private audience — citing whispers in the corridors of the interior ministry.
I though this New Latin American Left was hipper and had more of a sense of humor?
On the other hand, this is one of the first times I’ve seen blogs noted as a significant factor in the opposition’s campaign against the MMSMM (the Mexican mainstream media mafia) …
La llamada guerra sucia contra el candidato presidencial de la coalición Por el Bien de Todos, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, se ha extendido hasta sus simpatizantes, pues en varios blogs se arremete de manera visual y verbal contra quienes han participado en las asambleas informativas del perredista y en el plantón instalado entre el Zócalo y la fuente de Petróleos.
“The so-called ‘dirty war’ against [AMLO] has been extended to his supporters as well: Various blogs have been carrying out visual and verbal assaults on those who participated in the candidate’s informational assemblies [in the Zocalo] and in the sit-in set up between the Zocalo and the first blocks of Petroleo Ave.
Who really rocks the Net roots in Mexico?
PAN vs. AMLO party sites, daily page views.
Source: Alexa.com. Click to zoom.
Mexico Election Court to Rule on Recount Monday (via WaPo): Showdown day between the PANdejos and the Pejendejos — the fairly funny punning variants on pendejo (‘idiot, butthead’) the two blogospheres have devised to insult the other.
Lopez Obrador is known as el peje, after some kind of fish native to Tabasco.
MEXICO CITY Reuters – Mexico’s electoral court will hold a public session Monday to give its verdict on a partial recount of votes in the July 2 presidential election, which leftists say was rigged against them. The court will convene at 8 a.m. to give the results of the recount earlier this month at 9 percent of polling stations, a spokesman for the court said Sunday.
A NY Times study finds that 41% of companies receiving buyout bids in the last twelve months show “abnormal and suspicious trading” before the deals became public.
The most jaw-dropping, I think, of a number of videos floating around the videosphere purporting to show evidence of vote-tampering in secure vaults after the July 2 elections in Mexico.
While most of these videos show sealed packets of votes looking like racoons had been foraging inside them, inside sealed, guarded vaults on IFE premises, this offers a hint as to how they might have gotten that way.
So what are we supposed to be looking at here? The opening title reads
Opening of vote packets ordered illegally by IFE [the Federal Election Insitute]
Implementing a new approach to markets coverage, the Associated Press is expanding reporting in the financial area to link print and online components of reporting, writing and graphics efforts.
The nut of the coverage of the association representing most of the financial supporters of the API as well suggests a welcome foray into Bloomberg & Reuters turf by mass circ biz journalists: Read the rest of this entry »
Parental advisory: salty language in the late paragraphs.
If you’ve suffered through an NMM Radio podcast or two — wanted: sexy-voiced elocution student to replace lisping, adenoidal mouth-breather at the mike — you know that the NMM has plans to bugger off to Brazil soon for semi-good.
What will that offshoring deal mean for the NMM blog empire? Simple: It’ll naturally evolve into a sharper focus on the BRIC markets. Or so I hope.
Latin American Zeitgeist consultant emeritus
"Eu sou o rei dessa folia, pra delírio da Fiel"
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