Halliburton goes after fracking critics; hires tobacco-linked PR firm

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- Last week, Desmogblog outed Halliburton and other oil/gas companies, who together set up "Energy in Depth", an industry front group that claims to represent "small and independent" operators...

Click Title to continue

USDA ‘partially deregulates’ GM sugar beets, defying court order

BY Tom Philpott
grist
5 FEB 2011

Big Ag Wins Again

A week ago, the USDA shocked the organic-farming community by "fully deregulating" genetically modified alfalfa, after acknowledging that organic farmers had legitimate concerns about the move and hinting they'd be taken into account.

On Friday, the agency didn't simply skulk away from its own words in an apparent attempt to appease the agrichemical industry. This time, it defied a court order banning the planting of GM sugar beets until a proper study of their environmental impact can be done. The USDA announced that it would allow farmers to begin planting Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets -- genetically tweaked to withstand copious lashings of Monsanto's herbicide -- even though the environmental impact study has yet to be completed...

Click Title for full article

Experiments in workplace autonomy

Daniel H. Pink | March 2010 issue
Ode Magazine

Traditional employee management techniques are out of sync with human nature. Get ready for a renaissance of self-direction.

click title for article

Tomgram: Nick Turse, BP and the Pentagon's Dirty Little Secret

by Nick Turse
TomDispatch.com
June 17, 2010

...BP, evidently working hand-in-hand with the government, has put great effort into avoiding unnecessarily ugly photos, potentially negative stories, and unwanted information from the Gulf, by adopting methods of news control pioneered by the Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan. These include the “embedding” of reporters with government minders on public beaches, in the water, and in the air. It has even evidently become the norm in the Gulf now for officials to speak of reporters covering the scene as “media embeds.” In this way do our disparate disasters merge in corporate and government hands.

Click Title for full article

BP and the ‘Little Eichmanns’

by Chris Hedges
TruthDig
May 17, 2010

Cultures that do not recognize that human life and the natural world have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary value, cannibalize themselves until they die. They ruthlessly exploit the natural world and the members of their society in the name of progress until exhaustion or collapse, blind to the fury of their own self-destruction. The oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, estimated to be perhaps as much as 100,000 barrels a day, is part of our foolish death march. It is one more blow delivered by the corporate state, the trade of life for gold. But this time collapse, when it comes, will not be confined to the geography of a decayed civilization. It will be global...

click Title to continue

Stock Market Collapse: Another Goldman Market Rigging?

by Ellen Brown
truthout
Op Ed
May 11, 2010

Goldman and Wall Street reign. Congress appears helpless to discipline the big banks, just as the European Central Bank (ECB) appears helpless to prevent the collapse of the European Union.... Or are they?

click Title to continue

As Protests Mount Against San Cristobal Silver Mine, Bolivia Looks to Extract Massive Lithium Reserves, But at What Cost?

DemocracyNow!
April 20, 2010

We look at why Bolivian miners have staged a major protest at the San Cristobal mine, one of the world’s largest silver mines. We speak to journalist Jean Friedman-Rudovsky about the protest and about lithium, one of the most important new energy sources. Bolivia’s lithium reserves are estimated to be the largest in the world.

Click on Title to continue