CIA gives up the ‘Family Jewels’

The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA’s illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973–the so-called “family jewels.” Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed over the years for the documents. Gen. Hayden called the file “a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency.” The papers are scheduled for public release on Monday, June 25.

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I’ll sue you because I am an irresponsible prick

I am so over people suing other people for some miserable reasons. The last “big case” is this guy suing some Asian dry cleaner for $57 million because he was not satisfied with the service…. Come on people… Don’t be so fucking stupid!

I cannot stand people suing other people for such reasons. We all know the case of the smoker’s widow suing Philip Morris because her husband died of lung cancer. That makes me so freaking angry. Or people trying to sue the video game company because their son killed someone after playing a video game….

I think the main problem here is that people are not responsible enough. People are always trying to blame somebody else for their own mistake. In the case of the dead smoker, if I was the judge, I would say:

Madam, your husband died because he smoked too much. He should have known smoking would damage his health and if he didn’t know that, well, he probably was fucking stupid. Now you are trying to make money out of this, you should be ashame of yourself for monetizing your husband’s death.

In the case of the video game company, I would tell the parents that they are responsible for being such terrible parents and not being able to educate their child on what’s good/bad, real/fantasy.

Hey you people, be responsible for your own acts, stop blaming others for your mistakes or for the consequences of your acts.

Roy L. Pearson, worldwide symbol of legal abuse

A judge ruled Monday that no pair of pants is worth $54 million, rejecting a lawsuit that took a dry cleaner’s promise of “Satisfaction Guaranteed” to its most litigious extreme. Roy L. Pearson became a worldwide symbol of legal abuse by seeking jackpot justice from a simple complaint – that a neighborhood dry cleaners lost the pants from a new suit and tried to give him a pair that were not his. (read more…)

eBay can’t go without Google

I just read this article about eBay who stopped using Google PPC program for a while.

eBay says the reason for scaling back goes beyond displeasure at Google’s ploy, which was meant to protest the exclusion of Google’s Checkout service from the list of accepted payment providers on eBay’s sites.

Since eBay owns Paypal, it makes sense that they didn’t let Google Checkout be accepted as a payment provider. Anyways. 10 days later, eBay started advertising on Google again but not as much as before. Yahoo and MSN are benefiting from this situation between the 2 Internet giants.

Google won’t quantify its ad revenue from eBay publicly. In a statement, the company would only confirm that eBay is again buying ads: “Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership.”

What are the BerkShares?

BerkShares is a local currency that circulates in the Southern Berkshires region of Massachusetts. The current exchange rate for BerkShares is 1 BerkShare for 90 U.S. cents. BerkShares are traded for US dollars at banks in the area. BerkShares are not accepted everywhere, and some places place limits on their use–the co-op market in Great Barrington lets patrons pay for only half of their items with BerkShares, as it reduces the discount and money lost to merely 5%. There are approximately 844,000 BerkShares in circulation, worth $759,600 USD. Visit BerkShares.org

Cereality as an Interesting Example of an Experience Economy

Here is a great snip from ConvergenceCulture.org.

I recently had some e-mail correspondence with B. Joseph Pine, who co-authored the influential book The Experience Economy with James H. Gilmore. Pine had read our recent series here on Kellogg’s and the way the history of the marketing of breakfast cereals, including a multi-part look at the way modern breakfast cereals are marketed in the store and through Web extensions.

The series, called The Cereal Serial is available here, here, here, and here.

Pine pointed me toward a restaurant idea, launched in 2004, that makes particularly interesting use of this “experience economy” mentality, called Cereality.

In short, Cereality is a Cereal Bar, a breakfast shop decorated vaguely like a kitchen, with shelves and a pantry that features cereal boxes. The company calls their product “a new choice in fast food,” serving cereal to customers and allowing them to choose from among their favorite cereal brands. The Web site touts that “Pajama-clad Cereologists fill the orders. And customers choose and add their own milk, just the way they like it.”

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What is a ponzi scheme?

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns (“profits”) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business, named after Charles Ponzi. (read more…)

2007 BMW Alpina B7

In the company’s words, Alpina “builds fine automobiles for the connoisseur.” These are big-torque BMWs with automatic transmissions, more of a luxury bent than BMW’s own high-performance M cars. The first thing one of these connoisseurs might notice on the Alpina B7—it amounts to a hot-rodded 7-series—are the mammoth, concept-car-worthy 21-inch, 20-spoke BBS wheels. That’s because they are simply spectacular to behold. And that’s before they start moving; then the spokes blend together in an envy-inducing blur. Splendid. (read complete review…)

Who is Sam Zell?

Samuel “Sam” Zell (born September 1941) is a U.S. born billionaire and real estate entrepreneur. He is co-founder and Chairman of Equity International, a real estate private equity firm. With an estimated net worth of US$4.5 billion, he is ranked as the 52nd richest American by Forbes. In March 2007, Zell bought Tribune Corporation, publisher of the Los Angeles Times and owner of the Chicago Cubs. (read more…)

Bill Clinton Made $10 Million for Talks

Former President Clinton made more than $10 million in paid speeches last year, according to new filings that show he and his presidential-candidate wife have at least $10 million in the bank, and may have closer to $50 million.

According to financial disclosure forms made public Thursday, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton hold two accounts, each valued at somewhere between $5 and $25 million. One is an old-fashioned bank account; the other is a blind trust.

The reports indicate that when it comes to family wealth, Clinton is the wealthiest of the members of Congress running for president. Of all the presidential candidates, only Mitt Romney, whose assets are between $190 million and $250 million, may lay claim to being more affluent.