GranneBlog

Ramblings & ephemera

Abuse of “terrorist” investigative powers

From BBC News’ “Council admits spying on family” (10 April 2008):

A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment.
A couple and their three children were put under surveillance without their knowledge by Poole Borough Council [...]

Posted on November 20th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | No Comments »

Bush’s Manicheanism destroyed him

From Glenn Greenwald’s “A tragic legacy: How a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush presidency” (Salon: 20 June 2007):

One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness — who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a [...]

Posted on October 11th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, law, politics | 1 Comment »

USA owns 74% of IPv4 addresses

From Stephen Ornes’s “Map: What Does the Internet Look Like?” (Discover: October 2006):
The United States owns 74 percent of the 4 billion available Internet protocol (IP) addresses. China’s stake amounts to little more than that of an American university. Not surprisingly, China is championing the next wave of the Internet, which would accommodate 340 trillion [...]

Posted on December 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, Webster U: InfoSec Management | Comments Off

Wal-Mart’s monopsony power damages its vendors

From Barry C. Lynn’s “The Case for Breaking Up Wal-Mart” (Harper’s: 24 July 2006):
Instead, the firm is also one of the world’s most intrusive, jealous, fastidious micromanagers, and its aim is nothing less than to remake entirely how its suppliers do business, not least so that it can shift many of its own costs of [...]

Posted on July 30th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law | Comments Off

The mirror of monopoly: monopsony … which may be worse

From Barry C. Lynn’s “The Case for Breaking Up Wal-Mart” (Harper’s: 24 July 2006):
Popular notions of oligopoly and monopoly tend to focus on the danger that firms, having gained control over a marketplace, will then be able to dictate an unfairly high price, extracting a sort of tax from society as a whole. But what [...]

Posted on July 30th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law | Comments Off

Your job? Waiting in line for others.

From Brian Montopoli’s “The Queue Crew: Waiting in line for a living” (Legal Affairs: January/February 2004):
ON CAPITOL HILL, a placeholder is someone paid by the hour to wait in line. When legislative committees hold hearings, they reserve seats for Congressional staffers, for the press, and for the general public. The general-public seats are the only [...]

Posted on May 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Writing Ideas, business, law, politics, weird | Comments Off