WSJ // Current TV

Murdoch's UK Scadal WSJ & Fox News Shame

By Jon Ber I assume there were at least few Wall Street Journal employees cheering... more

jonber
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1 year ago
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Fox News Rupert Murdoch Biggest Crook on Earth

SP say, that Rupert Murdoch, is the biggest crook, to ever walk upon the face of... more

jonber
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1 year ago
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Wall Street Journal Finds 16 Scientists to Push Pollutocrat Agenda With Long-Debunked Climate Lies

A lot of folks have asked me to debunk the recent anti-truthful Wall Street Journal... more

coolplanet
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1 year ago
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6 comments

Wall Street Journal names Phoenix most miserable city.

By Kathleen Madigan The lot of the U.S. consumer hasn’t been a happy one.... more

thedirtman
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2 years ago
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Report: iPad 2 Now in Production

According to a report, production of Apple’s thinner, lighter and camera toting... more

admillios
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2 years ago
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1 comment

Krauthammer: Obama Has Republicans Right Where He Wants Them

Pundit and perpetually dour Travelocity Gnome Charles Krauthammer informed the world... more

omnipotentpoobah
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2 years ago
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Report: Verizon iPhone coming in early 2011, iPhone 5 in development

Apparently, Apple is going to start mass producing a CDMA version of the iPhone at the... more

admillios
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2 years ago
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8 comments

The Case for Corporate Social Responsability

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial by Dr. Aneel Karnani called The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility which posits the idea that corporate responsibility is irrelevant because “companies that simply to everything they can to boost profits will end up increasing social welfare”.

On the one hand, I want to thank Dr. Karnani because nothing makes me happier than more discussion about this important topic – especially in a globally important business publication like the Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, Dr. Karnani’s point of view is too simplistic and feels like Milton Freidman redux. I recommend reading the piece and also having a look at some of the more than 240 comments that readers have posted so far – most of which are opposed to Dr. Karnani’s position. Here’s what came to my mind when I read the editorial:

First, I believe that corporations fall into three categories with respect to corporate social responsibility:

1. Corporations that directly benefit society while acting in their own interests. Dr. Karnani provides examples such as auto makers that profit by making more fuel efficient vehicles and fast-food outlets that have improved their menus to be more nutritious. For me this really is a sweet-spot where the business goals and social outcomes are in sync and everybody wins.

2. Corporations that harm society while acting in their own interests. Here’s where Karanai’s argument just doesn’t hold up. There are all too many examples of businesses who directly and indirectly are actually having a negative social impact for the sole purpose of making a profit for their shareholders. Do tobacco companies benefit society by acting in their own interests. This is also an area where the government needs to play a stronger role.

3. Corporations that indirectly benefit society while acting in their own interests. The majority of corporations fall into this category. Their products and services don’t address social issues (e.g. homelessness, the environment, etc.) but do provide solutions to essential human needs such as communication, power, food, and so on. These are companies that have a social purpose and who should be operating in as responsible and sustainable a way as is appropriate for their type of business.

http://3blmedia.com/theCSRfeed/Case-Corporate-Social-Responsability#On Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial by Dr. Aneel Karnani called The... more

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WSJ says "Perfect Citizen" is Big Brother

The secret $100 Million Raytheon developed clandestine surveillance program for the... more

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2 years ago
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That's Gay Salutes: Wall Street Journal's Supremely Lazy Kagan Coverage

Ever since President Obama nominated Elena Kagan for Supreme Court Justice, her... more

bryan_safi
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3 days ago
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8 comments

ABC’s iPad App streamed over 650,000 shows

The iPad apps are surely putting the networks to its test! It is reported that... more

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3 years ago
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New Poll: Washington Is Broken « The Washington Independent

We postulated this morning that a bulk of voter anger is directed at Washington in... more

WeAreChangeKy
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3 years ago
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Google says Murdoch stories can be taken off

GO GOOGLE!! Net Neutrality is the war over the dissimination of information.

bansheewail
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3 years ago
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34 comments

Rupert Murdoch could block Google searches entirely

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google's search index as a way to... more

bansheewail
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3 years ago
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50 comments

Wall Street Journal to charge mobile readers

The Wall Street Journal soon will begin charging people to read the paper on mobile... more

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3 years ago
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Marriage is Gay

There's a lot of reasons why gay men and women shouldn't fight for marriage.... more

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3 years ago
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32 comments

Wall Street Journal's Expanded Europe & Asia Web Sites

The Wall Street Journal Monday launched expanded Web sites dedicated to content for... more

mcamca
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4 years ago
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A Search Engine With a Real Eye for Videos - WSJ, Mossberg

Wall Street Journal / All Things Digital review of a new video search engine that... more

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4 years ago
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Electromagnetic pulse could send us back to the dark ages

Imagine you're a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.

The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you're prone to nightmares, don't read it before bedtime.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes high in the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys all the electronics in its line of sight. For a bomb detonated over the Midwest, that includes most of the continental U.S. Few, if any, people die in the blast. It's what comes next that has the potential to be catastrophic. Since an EMP surge wipes out electronics, virtually every aspect of modern American life would come to a standstill.

The commission's list of horribles is 181 pages long. The chapter on food, for instance, catalogs the disruptions up and down the production chain as food spoils or has no way to get to market. Many families have food supplies of several days or more. But after that, and without refrigeration, what? The U.S. also has 75,000 dams and reservoirs, 168,000 drinking water-treatment facilities, and 19,000 wastewater treatment centers -- all with pumps, valves and filters run by electricity.

Getting everything up and running again is not merely a matter of flipping a switch, and the commission estimates that many systems could be out of service for months or a year or more -- far longer than emergency stockpiles or batteries could cover. The large transformers used in electrical transmission are no longer built in the U.S. and delivery time is typically three years. "Lack of high voltage equipment manufacturing capacity represents a glaring weakness in our survival and recovery," the commission notes.

Many industries rely on automated control systems maintained by small work forces. In emergencies -- say, during a blackout -- companies often have arrangements in place to borrow workers from outside the affected area to augment the locals and help with manual repairs. After an EMP attack, those workers would be busy in their home regions -- or foraging for food and water for their families.

The commission offers extensive recommendations for how industry and government can protect against the effects of an EMP attack and ensure a quicker recovery. They include "hardening" more equipment to withstand an electromagnetic pulse; making sure replacement equipment is on hand; training recovery personnel; increasing federal food stockpiles; and many others.

If not, our vulnerability "can both invite and reward attack," the commission's chairman, William Graham, told Congress last month. Iran's military writings "explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States," he said. James Shinn, an assistant secretary of defense, has said that China is developing EMP weapons. The commission calls an EMP attack "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences." The threat is real. It's past time to address it.Imagine you're a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the... more

smorrisey
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4 years ago
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Modern office distractions cost billions

According to the received wisdom, computers are a godsend for productivity. Word processors relieve us of the burdens of flawless typing; digital files zip onscreen faster than the paper kind can be found and are easily mined for the smallest detail; and the Internet, with its document sharing and virtual conferencing, offers new paths to smooth workplace collaboration.

But the practical experience of working in a modern office can be remarkably frazzled. Instant-communications technology and the natural impatience of co-workers and bosses can create an unholy alliance designed, it seems, to rob the workday of any sustained interval of unbroken attention to a particular task. Social life, allegedly enhanced as networks of acquaintances wire themselves over networks of computer hardware, can be equally jumpy, with constant "friend requests" and "status updates." From email to instant messaging to Twitter - an update service devoted to what-are-you-doing-at-this- moment inanity – the interval between interruptions appears to be approaching zero.

In "Distracted," the free-lance writer Maggie Jackson takes a searching look at this trend, especially the distractions that technology has helped to bring about. The result is a scattershot tour that ranges from anthropology and neuroscience to fast food and the rites of meditating monks. Along the way, Ms. Jackson samples from the thinking of a series of experts – often described as visionaries or mavericks – who study our habits of attentiveness and diversion. The result is more reverie than argument, but "Distracted" does concentrate the mind on a real problem of modern life.

In the workplace, a distracted knowledge worker is a fallow asset. Thus current research into worker habits is especially valuable. In the spirit of Fredrick W. Taylor's scientific management, Ms. Jackson reports, researchers have found that workers "typically change tasks every three minutes" and "take about twenty-five minutes to return to an interrupted task . . . usually plugging into two other work projects in the interim." By one estimate, "interruptions take up to 2.1 hours of an average worker's day and cost the US economy $588 billion a year." Many distractions turn out to be self-initiated: It appears that we just can't wait to read the next email or blog entry or check to see what might be happening in an online discussion.

So what to do? In "Distracted," self-discipline proves the key to the attention puzzle. Martin Seligman and Angela Lee Duckworth, two psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, recently adapted a famous experiment that tested the willingness of young children to defer gratification: If you put them in a room with some prize – a toy, a marshmallow, an envelope full of money – will they take the prize immediately or hold out for a greater future reward?

In the end, Ms. Jackson makes her way to a Buddhist monastery, where people are learning to practice samatha – that is, to exercise voluntary control over their attention. Mountain retreats may not be for everyone, but the spirit of such an effort makes obvious sense in an era of information glut and tech-driven interruptions. Of course, if samatha – or something like it – turns out to be a good idea, it will be blogged about, praised in group emails, discussed online and debated in instant messages. Work will just have to wait.According to the received wisdom, computers are a godsend for productivity. Word... more

smorrisey
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4 years ago
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