Category: Business

Corporate news from all over

Blackwater, Monsanto and Black Ops

Seth Anderson0 comment

Monsanto hiring Blackwater? Why am I not surprised that two companies as consistently evil as Monsanto and Blackwater1 have worked together?

Purple Hayes

Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater’s work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater’s owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. Officials from Total Intelligence, TRC and Blackwater (which now calls itself Xe Services) did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the “intel arm” of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

Governmental recipients of intelligence services and counterterrorism training from Prince’s companies include the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Netherlands police, as well as several US military bases, including Fort Bragg, home of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and Fort Huachuca, where military interrogators are trained, according to the documents. In addition, Blackwater worked through the companies for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the US European Command.

(click to continue reading Blackwater’s Black Ops | The Nation, Jeremy Scahill.)

Traffic Lights Turn green tonight

and Monsanto bobs and weaves:

Through Total Intelligence and the Terrorism Research Center, Blackwater also did business with a range of multinational corporations. According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto—the world’s largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto’s security manager for global issues.

After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson “understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name…. Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for.” Black added that Total Intelligence “would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto.” Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater “could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally.” Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto’s “generous protection budget” but would eventually become a line item in the company’s annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

Reached by telephone and asked about the meeting with Black in Zurich, Monsanto’s Wilson initially said, “I’m not going to discuss it with you.” In a subsequent e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating “there was no such discussion.” He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto “with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites.” Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was “a completely separate entity from Blackwater.”

 

Read the entire article yourself and make up your own mind…

 

Footnotes:
  1. now known as Xe [↩]

Oprah and her nakedly avaricious audience

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Won’t miss Oprah when she ends her show; I’ve never been a fan, and have become less tolerant of her diva-isms as they become more pronounced.

O

It was like “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,” but without all those nettlesome questions separating people from their prizes. By now, it’s got to the point where an audience that doesn’t score any booty goes home crestfallen.

Viewed charitably, the car and technology and pajama handouts amount to an immodestly rich and successful woman letting some of the wealth trickle down. But a skeptic might classify them as almost a form of bribery: Keep loving me, baby, and I might buy you that diamond necklace.

And the shows’ nakedly avaricious nature — audience members were virtually quaking with excitement as Winfrey teased out the prize announcement Monday — threatens to overshadow some of the good, and serious, work Winfrey does.

(click to continue reading Steve Johnson: Oprah one-ups herself: Free flights for audience – chicagotribune.com.)

and I loved this

Oprah Winfrey’s…studio audience — stocked with “ultimate” fans the way George W. Bush used to stock his speeches with partisans

Fees Go Undisclosed in Medical Journals

Seth Anderson0 comment

Conflict of interest in the media? and in the health care industry too? Shocking!

Entre nous

Twenty-five out of 32 highly paid consultants to medical device companies in 2007, or their publishers, failed to reveal the financial connections in journal articles the following year, according to a study released on Monday. Multimedia

The study compared major payments to consultants by orthopedic device companies with financial disclosures the consultants later made in medical journal articles, and found them lacking in public transparency.

“We found a massive, dramatic system failure,” said David J. Rothman, a professor and president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, who wrote the study with two other Columbia researchers, Susan Chimonas and Zachary Frosch.

(click to continue reading Consultant Fees Go Undisclosed in Medical Journals, Study Finds – NYTimes.com.)

Trust us, in other words. Or not. Since there are no real repercussions, in this field, or in others1, what is going to change?

People's Friend, People's Journal, Sunday Post, Dundee Courier

Like this2

Tom Ridge, was on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews, offering up his own recovery plan. There were “modest things” the White House might try, like cutting taxes or opening up credit for small businesses, but the real answer was for the president to “take his green agenda and blow it out of the box.” The first step, Ridge explained, was to “create nuclear power plants.” Combined with some waste coal and natural gas extraction, you would have an “innovation setter” that would “create jobs, create exports.”

As Ridge counseled the administration to “put that package together,” he sure seemed like an objective commentator. But what viewers weren’t told was that since 2005, Ridge has pocketed $530,659 in executive compensation for serving on the board of Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power company. As of March 2009, he also held an estimated $248,299 in Exelon stock, according to SEC filings.

Moments earlier, retired general and “NBC Military Analyst” Barry McCaffrey told viewers that the war in Afghanistan would require an additional “three- to ten-year effort” and “a lot of money.” Unmentioned was the fact that DynCorp paid McCaffrey $182,309 in 2009 alone. The government had just granted DynCorp a five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan. The first year is locked in at $644 million, but the additional four options are subject to renewal, contingent on military needs and political realities.

In a single hour, two men with blatant, undisclosed conflicts of interest had appeared on MSNBC. The question is, was this an isolated oversight or business as usual? Evidence points to the latter. In 2003 The Nation exposed McCaffrey’s financial ties to military contractors he had promoted on-air on several cable networks; in 2008 David Barstow wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for the New York Times about the Pentagon’s use of former military officers–many lobbying or consulting for military contractors–to get their talking points on television in exchange for access to decision-makers; and in 2009 bloggers uncovered how ex-Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe had guest-hosted Countdown With Keith Olbermann while working at a large PR firm specializing in “strategies for managing corporate reputation.”

These incidents represent only a fraction of the covert corporate influence peddling on cable news, a four-month investigation by The Nation has found. Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials–people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests–have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them. Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens–and in some cases hundreds–of appearances.

(click to continue reading The Media-Lobbying Complex | The Nation.)

Corruption is endemic in our corporate culture.

Footnotes:
  1. like the generals who are always trotted out as experts on the television news shows, while simultaneously being paid big bucks by defense contractors [↩]
  2. which I may have blogged about before, or not, who can remember [↩]

Kiva Loan Number 28

Seth Anderson0 comment

 Erdenebaatar Ganbazar from Mongolia has a loan fundraising on Kiva

Location: Zavhan, Mongolia   Repayment Term: 25 months  Activity: Mobile Phones   Repayment Schedule: Monthly Loan Use: To purchase inventory.

Erdenebaatar Ganbazar is 33 years old and lives with his wife and son in Zavhan province, western Mongolia. He and his family live in a house.

Erdenebaatar works as a driver in the local police department, while his wife manages a cell phone business in their town. He and his wife started their business two years ago, and have made much progress with their business over the last year and have built a strong customer base. Erdenebaatar and his wife have gained much experience operating their business and dream of one day owning their own repair shop and cell phone store in their town. Erdenebaatar is requesting a 3,500,000 MNT loan to purchase cellphones and cellphone parts from Ereen, a border city of China, in order to increase his business sales.

(click to continue reading Kiva – Erdenebaatar Ganbazar from Mongolia has a loan fundraising on Kiva.)



Country:
Mongolia
Avg Annual Income: $2,175
Currency: Mongolia Tugriks (MNT)
Exchange Rate: 1,345.0000 MNT = 1 USD

Take Action With Your Money

 

Gale Norton Loves Her Some Sex, Meth and Oil

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Gale Norton, former Bush Pioneer,1 has no regrets about the shambles she left behind in her wake, before she joined Royal Dutch Shell.

I like to eat paste

Gale Norton, former President George W. Bush’s first Secretary of the Interior, ran the department during the time when its Minerals Management Service was guilty of some of its worst excesses—including holding cocaine and meth-fueled sex and oil parties. But that didn’t stop Norton from taking to Capitol Hill Tuesday to defend the “hardworking and professional men and women of the Minerals Management Service.”

Norton was one of two Bush-era Interior secretaries who testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday morning, the first time representatives from the previous administration have been put on the hot-seat about the regulatory miscues that may have led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Current Secretary Ken Salazar joined Norton (who served in the role from January 2001 to March 2006) and Dirk Kempthorne (June 2006 to January 2009) before the panel.

In her opening statement, Norton accused critics of the Interior Department of vilifying the Minerals Management Service (now renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement). “There has been a great deal of media attention to the ethics of MMS. It pains me to see the vilification of MMS and its employees. I want to speak in defense of the vast majority of hardworking and professional men and women of the Minerals Management Service,” said Norton in her prepared opening statement.

Now, it was under Norton’s watch that many of the porn, meth, and oil parties took place at the MMS’ Lake Charles, La. office. Oh, and the sex, oil, and cocaine parties at the Lakewood, Colorado office. And Norton, who went to work for Shell Oil shortly after leaving office, has been the subject of a Department of Justice criminal investigation into whether she illegally used her position at DOI to benefit the company that would hire her soon thereafter

(click to continue reading Bush Official on Sex, Meth and Oil: What’s the Big Deal? | Mother Jones.)

Jerkstore

Footnotes:
  1. well, probably, too lazy to look her up [↩]

Banks Laundering Drug Money Without Consequence

Seth Anderson1 Comment

The cynic in me thinks the reason the United States has not assertively moved to legalize drugs1 is for this reason – large banks are making so much freaking money laundering drug money. The banks have many, many lobbyists in Congress, and have made it known they are opposed to changing the status quo. The politicians claim it is a moral issue, but we know they lie.

Nancy Reagan - Just Say Yo

We’ve all read damning accounts of the government saving banks from their risky subprime bets, but it turns out that the Wall Street privilege problem is far more deeply ingrained in the U.S. legal system than the simple bailouts witnessed in 2008. America’s largest banks can engage in flagrantly criminal activity on a massive scale and emerge almost completely unscathed. The latest sickening example comes from Wachovia Bank: Accused of laundering $380 billion in Mexican drug cartel money, the financial behemoth is expected to emerge with nothing more than a slap on the wrist thanks to an official government policy which protects megabanks from criminal charges.

Bloomberg’s Michael Smith has penned a devastating expose detailing Wachovia’s drug-money operations and the government’s twisted response. The bank was moving money behind literally tons of cocaine from violent drug cartels. It wasn’t an accident. Internal whistleblowers at Wachovia warned that the bank was laundering drug money, higher-ups at the bank actively looked the other way in order to score bigger profits, and the U.S. government is about to let everyone involved get off scott free. The bank will not be indicted, because it is official government policy not to prosecute megabanks. From Smith’s story:

No big U.S. bank . . . has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again . . . . Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory. Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets.

Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo in late 2008. The bank’s penalty for laundering over $380 billion in drug money is going to be a promise not to ever do it again, and a $160 million fine. The fine is so small that Wachovia will almost certainly turn a profit on its drug financing business after legal costs and penalties are taken into account.

(click to continue reading Wall Street Is Laundering Drug Money and Getting Away with It | Economy | AlterNet.)

Even if banks are not actively laundering the cartel money, they are storing it – the drug economy is easily in the trillions of dollars, and upper level drug cartel executives are not keeping their cash under their beds. Just imagine, if one drug dealer in a medium size U.S. city like Baltimore can clear a few million dollars a month, and illegal drugs are being dealt everywhere humans live, well, you do the math.

From Michael Smith’s article, a hint of the huge sums of money we are talking about

Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion [PDF – Exhibit A Factual Statement] for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history — a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.

(click to continue reading Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal – Bloomberg.)

See, that’s over $125,000,000,000 a year in just one bank! From one area of the drug economy! Not including Columbians, Jamaicans, Americans, Taliban, Triads, yadda yadda. I don’t know for certain, but this Wachovia case seems to only be discussing cocaine dollars, in other words, not including profits from heroin, cannabis, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and whatever else people buy to get high. All in all that is a seriously large number of dollars, untaxed, unregulated, unaccounted for. And for what? So that bankers and drug lords can live high on the hog, and addicts can die from adulterated street drugs?

No, the drug war continues because the status quo is making certain groups an almost unfathomable amount of profit.

Footnotes:
  1. despite the will of the electorate [↩]

Anthony Ward Buys Up All The Cocoa Beans

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Well, as many as he could get at least

Cacao Beans - Blommer Chocoalte

[Blommer Chocolate -A conveyor belt of cocoa beans feeds the factory]

Last week Anthony Ward, manager of the hedge fund Armajaro Holdings, made a big bet on the rising price of chocolate by picking up about $1 billion worth of cocoa beans. And in a departure from business as usual, where traders simply trade the rights to buy or sell commodities at a certain price in the future, Ward had all 240,000 tons physically delivered to Armajaro.

Issouf Sanogo, AFP / Getty Images Anthony Ward, manager of the hedge fund Armajaro Holdings, made a big bet on the rising price of chocolate by picking up about $1 billion worth of cocoa beans.Representing the largest delivery of the product in 14 years, it was a stunning move — yet one in keeping with the money man the British press has dubbed “Choc Finger,” after the Bond villain Goldfinger.

World chocolate prices have more than doubled in the past two years, and poor harvests in Ghana and the Ivory Coast have further squeezed supply. Some analysts now worry that Ward’s purchase is an attempt to gain enough power to manipulate the market.

“If it looks like cornering, feels like cornering, it probably is cornering,” Eugen Weinberg, an analyst with German financial institution Commerzbank, told the Telegraph.

Some have noted that Ward made a tidy profit off poor African cocoa bean harvests in 2006 with a similar deal, clearing about $60 million off a purchase of 200,000 tons.

(click to continue reading British Hedge Fund Manager Anthony Ward Buys Up $1 Billion Worth of Cocoa Beans.)

Dedicated to all the…Fans Out There

We are Apple We Don’t Even Own Suits

Seth Anderson0 comment

Loved this quote about wardrobe choice in the middle of a long, interesting article about the fractious relationship between Apple and AT&T1. I’ve had a contract with Verizon previously, and the restrictions Verizon placed on the phone were ridiculous.

Topic of the Day

Looking back, it’s clear that the cracks in the Apple-AT&T relationship began forming as soon as Jobs announced the iPhone in January 2007. It was the first time the public got to see the long-rumored device — and, shockingly, the first time AT&T’s board of directors saw it as well. (Apple refused to show the phone to all but a handful of top AT&T execs before the launch.) The split only deepened from there. Apple and AT&T have bickered about how the iPhone was to be displayed in AT&T’s stores: Apple insisted the phone be presented on its own display stand, away from other models. They have even fought about wardrobe: When an AT&T representative suggested to one of Jobs’ deputies that the Apple CEO wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s board of directors, he was told, “We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”

(click to continue reading Bad Connection: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown | Magazine.)

Also, kudos to Steve Jobs for telling the AT&T hack to piss off. Apple isn’t a servant to AT&T, if anything, they are equals, and one could actually argue that Apple is in the dominant position.

Solipsistic note – was recently at a high level meeting, and I wore a suit, sans necktie, and was happy when the room full of execs we met were all in business casual attire, and not a suit to be found. I don’t mind having to wear a suit actually, as long as I don’t have to put on a tie.

Footnotes:
  1. SBC [↩]

Kiva Loan Number 26

Seth Anderson0 comment

Trio of musicians

Location: Takeo Province, Cambodia   Repayment Term: 20 months (more info) Activity: Musical Instruments   Repayment Schedule: Monthly Loan Use: buy musical instruments to rent in the village   Currency Exchange Loss: N/A

Hun Un, 52, is married and resides with her husband and three children in Takeo Province, Cambodia, an area known for Pre-Angkorean Temples. She is a deputy village chief and earns an income of $0.50 per day. Her husband is a motor-taxi driver, earning an income of about $3 per day. Un is requesting a loan of $500 to purchase musical instruments to rent when there is any special ceremony in the village. In the future, she would like to use any additional profit to repair her house. This is her second loan from CREDIT, a long-standing Kiva partner in Cambodia.

(click to continue reading Kiva – Hun Un from Cambodia is repaying a Kiva loan.)

Country: Cambodia
Avg Annual Income: $2,600
Currency: United States Dollars (USD)

Kiva loan Number 27

Seth Anderson0 comment

My 27th Kiva.org loan is the first that I noticed where the lender is located in Pakistan. Doesn’t mean much, just first I’ve noticed.

National Bank of Pakistan

Naseem shakil lives in the city of Riwind, in Pakistan, with her husband and two children. Both of her children attend school. Her husband has a job in the factory while she sells milk and has some buffaloes at her house. She wants to buy another buffalo because she thinks that she can increase her income by increasing the amount of milk and making more clients.

There is potential in her business because milk is the product which is used in every house and if she has more milk to sell then she can earn more money.

She is applying loan for her second loan from Asasah. Her first experience was good and she is hopeful that the results from this loan will be even better.

Note: “In this photo, Hamedi, the group member, is doing her household work and other members are helping her except Amna who is doing embroider works”.

Important Information About This Loan Asasah is the Kiva Field Partner in Pakistan that manages this loan. Though the State Bank of Pakistan has approved repayments on outstanding funds as of November 25th, 2009, it has come to Kiva’s attention that, due to the unique nature of Kiva’s model, future repayments to Kiva lenders could be subject to a case-by-case review by the State Bank of Pakistan. We want to make all Kiva lenders who are considering lending to entrepreneurs working with Asasah aware that, by lending to these entrepreneurs, they are taking on the additional risk that there may be an indefinite delay in repayments. Kiva will continue to work with Asasah on behalf of Kiva lenders to resolve any repayment issues should they arise.

Please note this Field Partner is “atypical” among Kiva’s partner base as they have not been visited by any members of Kiva’s staff. Because of on-going security concerns, due diligence and monitoring have been conducted remotely. This partner does, however, meet all of the minimum criteria for partnership with Kiva.

(click to continue reading Kiva – Naseem Shakil Muhammad Shakil Shahid’s Group from Pakistan has a loan funded through Kiva.)

Of the 27 loans I’ve made through Kiva, 15 have already been repaid, 10 are in the process of being repaid, and the delinquency rate is zero. Not bad, not bad at all.

BP and the Lockerbie Case

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Too bad corporations aren’t treated like people.1 BP would be eligible for extraordinary rendition, and perhaps even a brief, three or four year stay in Guantanamo Bay. Aiding and abetting terrorists, don’t ya know.

Tales of the Towering DeadLONDON — The oil giant BP faced a new furor on Thursday as it confirmed that it had lobbied the British government to conclude a prisoner-transfer agreement that the Libyan government wanted to secure the release of the only person ever convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing over Scotland, which killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans.

The acknowledgment came after American legislators, grappling with the controversy over the company’s disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, called for an investigation into BP’s actions in the case of the freed man, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

After an initial demand for an investigation on Wednesday by four senators from New York and New Jersey, further calls for an inquiry by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were made on Thursday by Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats of California.

Mr. Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, was released and allowed to return to Libya in August after doctors advised the Scottish government that he was likely to die within three months of prostate cancer. But nearly a year later, he remains alive and free, though kept out of sight, in Libya’s capital, Tripoli.

BP’s statement on Thursday repeated earlier acknowledgments that it had promoted the transfer agreement to protect a $900 million offshore oil-and-gas exploration deal off Libya’s Mediterranean coast. The British justice minister at the time, Jack Straw, admitted after Mr. Megrahi was repatriated and freed that the BP deal was a consideration in the review of his case.

(click to continue reading BP Faces New Scrutiny in Lockerbie Case – NYTimes.com.)

Money trumps all, right? Even in cases of real terrorism, with convicted terrorists.

Financial Icarus

The U.S. winked and nodded at BP’s machinations previously, but after the Gulf of Mexico disaster, and the horrible PR effort of BP, the U.S. wants to distance itself

British officials have noted privately that the last three American administrations have been keen for American oil companies to strike deals with Libya, and that BP has been joined in the contest for potentially lucrative deals by several American oil giants, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

Still, the chain of events surrounding Mr. Megrahi fostered deep disillusionment in Washington, where politicians and senior officials criticized what they regarded as Britain’s duplicity in the affair.

Their anger was based, in part, on assurances the United States said it had been given at the time of the Lockerbie trial, held before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands, that anybody convicted in the case would serve the full term in Scotland. Mr. Megrahi’s conviction was the only one in the case, after a Libyan accused of being an accomplice, like Mr. Megrahi an agent of Libya’s secret intelligence service, was found not guilty and freed.

Footnotes:
  1. According to the Supreme Court, only in the arena of political advertising [↩]

Driver Error in Toyota Accidents

Seth Anderson0 comment

Not quite as sexy a headline, right? Probably won’t hear as much coverage of this part of the long-running story, much easier to blame Toyota for faulty construction.

Rain slicked streets 1

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.

The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.

But the findings—part of a broad, ongoing federal investigation into Toyota’s recalls—don’t exonerate the car maker from two known issues blamed for sudden acceleration in its vehicles: “sticky” accelerator pedals that don’t return to idle and floor mats that can trap accelerators to the floor.

(click to continue reading Crash Data Suggest Driver Error in Toyota Accidents – WSJ.com.)

Of course, this contrary evidence is a limited data set, examining dozens of data recorders out of the more than 3,000 involved in a crash is not enough to draw conclusions.

Some Toyota officials say they are informally aware of the NHTSA data-recorder results. Toyota officials haven’t been briefed on the findings, but they corroborate its own tests, said Mike Michels, the chief spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales.

Toyota says its own downloads of data recorders have found evidence of sticky pedals and pedal entrapment as well as driver error, which is characterized by no evidence of the brakes being depressed during impact.

Still, since the start of Toyota’s troubles late last summer, the Japanese company hasn’t blamed drivers for any of the sudden-acceleration incidents, though in many cases the company couldn’t find another cause. Toyota President Akio Toyoda has said the company won’t pin the blame on customers for its problems as part of its public-relations response.

Kiva Loan Number 24

Seth Anderson0 comment

– Vanna Phy from Cambodia is repaying a Kiva loan

Location: Ta Khmao District, Cambodia

Repayment Term: 22 months (more info)

Activity: Fishing

Repayment Schedule: Monthly

Loan Use: To purchase fishing materials for her husband’s fishing business and to rent more plots of the land to grow lotus.

Mrs. Vanna Phy (shown in the photo) and her husband, Mr. Vang Pang, have been married since 1992. They have four sons. All of them are in school. The family lives along National Road number Two, about twenty kilometers north of Phnom Penh City.

Phy sells fish in the village that her husband catches. Besides fishing, the couple also grows peanuts and lotus. Phy is asking for a loan of $1,000 to purchase fishing materials for her husband’s fishing business and she will use a part of her loan to rent more plots of the land to grow lotus.

(click to continue reading Kiva – Vanna Phy from Cambodia is repaying a Kiva loan.)

Country: Cambodia
Avg Annual Income: $2,600
Currency: United States Dollars (USD)


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Kiva Loan Number 25

Seth Anderson0 comment

Mrs. Sokha Mul Village Bank Group from Cambodia has a loan funded through Kiva

Location: Srae Pou Village, Cambodia   Repayment Term: 14 months (more info)

Activity: Farm Supplies

Repayment Schedule: Monthly Loan Use: To buy fertilizer and gasoline.

Currency Exchange Loss: Possible       Default Protection: Not Covered

Fifteen people selected Mrs. Sokha Mul as the village bank president of their group, located in Srae Pou village in Takeo province. The group members will each use a small piece of the loan for different purposes. Mrs. Sokha Mul is 41 years old. She is a farmer who owns a one point four-hectare plot of land where she can grow rice to sell to support her family.

Now she has some problems, because her field is infertile and it is far away from an irrigation system. So to improve production, Mrs. Sokha Mul is applying for a loan to buy fertilizer and gasoline. Her husband, Mr. Vy Horm, is a mechanic at his home. She is a mother of four children, one of whom is a motorbike taxi driver, while the others are attending the local public school. Mrs. Sarat Soung is a group member, so she is presented in the picture.

(click to continue reading Kiva – Mrs. Sokha Mul Village Bank Group from Cambodia has a loan funded through Kiva.)

Country: Cambodia Avg Annual Income: $2,600 Currency: Cambodia Riels (KHR) Exchange Rate: 4,250.0000 KHR = 1 USD

Microsoft Kills Kin Quickly

Seth Anderson0 comment

Speaking of product launches, the Microsoft Kin has been discontinued after a whopping two months in the marketplace. Yikes. Sales must have been freaking horrible. Microsoft spent a lot of money developing Kin, and a lot of money advertising it. Who is getting fired tomorrow? Ballmer?

Ready for a scotch

Amid anemic sales, Microsoft has decided to halt work on its Kin phone less than two months after the product hit the market. The social media-oriented phone will not make its planned European debut and Microsoft is shifting the entire Kin team to work on Windows Phone 7, the Microsoft smartphone operating system due out later this year. Andy Lees, who heads up the company’s cell phone efforts announced the move to Microsoft workers earlier on Wednesday, according to a source close to the company.

Microsoft confirmed the move in a statement to CNET.

“We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned,” the company said. “Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.” The Kin, which made its debut just two months ago at an event in San Francisco, was the result of several years of work by Microsoft and stemmed from its 2008 acquisition of Sidekick maker Danger. However, despite a few innovative features including streaming music and a Web-based companion site, the Kin phones were criticized for missing key features, such as a calendar, as well as because the monthly fees for the phone were as high as more capable smartphones, such as the iPhone and Android-based devices.

(click to continue reading Microsoft pulls the plug on Kin | Beyond Binary – CNET News.)