Money Category
Money in the news and how you are going to pay and pay and pay
MEPs Get Their Own Train
GRAVY?
European parliamentarians have been enjoying their first ride aboard their very own train. The high-speed Thalys train has launched a new, direct service from Brussels to the French city of Strasbourg exclusively for MEPs.
The service is an effort to silence growing discontent over the ‘travelling circus’, which involves the entire European Parliament uprooting to the Alsacian capital for its monthly plenary session at a cost of 200 million euros a year…
Gravy!
Posted: 8th, July 2008 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment
American Woman Has Sex For Petrol
THE petrol crisis:
JULY 2–A Kentucky woman is facing prostitution charges for allegedly trading sex for gasoline. Angela Eversole, 34, was nabbed last weekend during a police stakeout at a Days Inn, where she allegedly trysted with customer Kenneth Nowak. According to court records, Nowak admitted paying for Eversole’s services, in part, with a $100 Speedway gas card. Eversole was hit with a prostitution rap and also charged with doing business without an occupational license. Nowak was charged with promoting prostitution. Eversole and Nowak are pictured below in mug shots snapped following their June 27 arrests. A local prosecutor noted that it was sad to see someone selling their body for gas, in this case about 25 gallons worth.
Posted: 7th, July 2008 | In: Money | Comments (3)
AP Is Watching Bloggers
Business Week looks at how the big publishers are watching the bloggers:
The AP, a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by thousands of subscriber newspapers, has been using a system from Redwood City (Calif.)-based startup Attributor. Like other content recognition systems, Attributor’s software extracts a small digital fingerprint—a string of bits unique to a given article, song, or video—and collects them in a database. Then it continually crawls billions of Web sites and blogs, much as Google does when a user launches a search, to detect where that fingerprint recurs. In the recent incident, AP had unearthed instances where its content—at times whole articles—was posted to the liberal-leaning Web site Drudge Retort. Other Attributor customers include Thomson Reuters (TRI), Condé Nast Publications’ CondéNet, and the Canadian Press. The AP and Attributor declined to comment on the incident.
Copy And Paste.com…
Posted: 2nd, July 2008 | In: Money | Comment (1)
The Welfare State Generates Wealth, Apparently
Oh dear:
It isn’t capitalism that generates wealth. It’s competition matched by a strong welfare state.
Really?!
Posted: 30th, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment (1)
Nicholas Sterns On Carbon And Brass
SIR Nicholas Stern doing well:
Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the UK’s Stern report on climate change, will launch a new carbon credit ratings agency on Wednesday, the first to score carbon credits on a similar basis to that used to rate debt …
The agency, run by the IdeaCarbon group of which Lord Stern is vice-chairman, said it would offer investors a guide to the quality of credits and the likelihood that they would be delivered. Sellers of carbon credits would have to pay to have their products rated, while buyers would also pay to gain access to the ratings.
Making money from climate change…
Posted: 28th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comment (1)
Caroline Lucas Eats Locally
GREEN MEP Caroline Lucas wants local things for local people:
She concluded: “A re-localisation of our food systems would allow us take back control of our food from industrialists and financiers, and to feed a growing population in a way that is equitable and sustainable, while safeguarding human health, as well as the welfare of animals and the environment.
Let’s hear it for the Dark Ages…
Posted: 26th, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment
The Crisis In Newspaper Journalism
OUTSOURCING a newspaper to India:
An Indian company will take over copy editing duties for some stories published in The Orange County Register and will handle page layout for a community newspaper at the company that owns the Pulitzer Prize-winning daily, the newspaper confirmed Tuesday.
Time to invest in Anorak…
Op-Ed Quote Of The Day: Derrick Z. Jackson On Iraq And Oil
OIL and Iraq:
IT TOOK five years, the deaths of 4,100 US soldiers, and the wounding of 30,000 more to make Iraq safe for Exxon.
– Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe
Picture: Matt Buck
WPP And Robert Mugabe
IAIN Dale writes on his his blog:
The Advert WPP Must Hope You Will Never See
Today’s FT has a story that I find shocking in the extreme. The Company working to keep Robert Mugabe in power in Zimbabwe is part of Martin Sorrell’s WPP Group! At first I thought this must be a smear as the implications are so bad for his business. However, WPP have been forced to admit to the FT that it is true, and that the company behind Mugabe’s adverts that have incited the murder of 80 opposition campaigners is indeed part of the Young and Rubicam Group that WPP owns.
Zimbabwe isn’t working…
Posted: 22nd, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment (1)
Edith Macefield Dies
EDITH Macefield has died: Reports the SeattlePI:
Edith Macefield died at home, just the way she wanted.
The Ballard woman who captured hearts and admirers around the world when she stubbornly turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. She was 86.
“I don’t want to move. I don’t need the money. Money doesn’t mean anything,” she told the Seattle P-I in October.
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Posted: 20th, June 2008 | In: Money, Strange But True | Comments (2)
Ryan Air Promises A Blow Job In Business Class
RYAN Air’s no frills, straight-down-to-business airline:
As befitting any budget, prices can go up and down and up and down (yes, we get the picture – Ed)…
Posted: 20th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (9)
Financial Spread Betting: HBOS, Sterling Surges And Consumer Spending
HBOS, the country’s biggest mortgage lender, says it expects the number of houses sold across the country this year to fall by 45%.
And those houses that do sell will do so for “up to 9%” less than now.
Citigroup expects house prices to drop by 20% and volumes 50% by the end of 2009. HBOS and Citigroup are depressed. Banks are as bout as loved as, well, bankers. Shares in both banks are way down the on the year.
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Posted: 20th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (2)
The Thong Woman On Fame And Fortune In America
A WOMAN has been hurt, allegedly, by her thong underwear.
This is how America works. If anyone is preparing a capsule on American culture to bury in the ground or zoom into space, they should put this video in it. It’s the US media, the US legal system and the US economy in microcosm:
Knickers. And those trousers…
Posted: 19th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (11)
Daily Mail – Daily Wail: Money Causes Cancer
DAILY Mail Cancer Story Of The Day:
BBC: “Cancer deaths ‘higher in north'”
Death rates from cancer are higher among people living in the north than in the rest of England, research shows.
The National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) looked at data from 2005, and found death rates in the north were around 20% higher.
Cancer deaths were lowest in the south and midlands.
DAILY MAIL: “Being well-off is a breast cancer risk”
Affluent women in the South are more likely to die from breast cancer than those with more disadvantaged lifestyles
Such are the facts…
Posted: 18th, June 2008 | In: Money, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Assiacated Press Takes On Blogs And The Web
IF a website quotes from an Associated Press work, it is expected to pay a fee.
AP has sued Moreover, All Headline News (via), Viacom, and filed DMCA notices against The Drudge Retort for posting short excerpts of AP stories.
In a letter to Rogers Cadenhead, the owner of The Retort, the AP believes “the Drudge Retort users’ use of AP content does not fall within the parameters of fair use.”
Best just not to use them – they’re banned.
Posted: 17th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (9)
Why Roger Parry Gave Up The BBC
ROGER Parry is non-executive chairman of Johnston Press, magazine publisher Future, online pollsters YouGov and mobile phone content provider Mobile Streams. He once worked at the BBC:
Although he completed a masters in economics and management at Oxford, it was actually down the pub where he had the “epiphany moment” that saw him embark on a career in business. “I had been a broadcast journalist for seven years and only decided to leave the BBC when I was assigned to cover the Notting Hill Carnival for the third year running,” he says.
“I went with the same camera crew and sat on the roof of the same pub as before. We were sent there waiting for trouble but we spent the whole afternoon drinking beer and nothing happened. I thought to myself, ‘I can’t do this again… I’ll go nuts’.”
It’s how the news works…
Posted: 17th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Money | Comment
Celebrity News Of The Day: Pete Doherty’s Petrol Crisis
THE petrol cisris is gripping Britain.
“PETROL CRISIS GETS EVEN WORSE,” says the Express on its front apge. This is the crisisiest petrol crisis ever.
Just how bad it is is can be found in the Star where news is that Pete Doherty can’t afford to fill up his car.
Says Doherty, by way of a speech bubble: “It’s cheaper to buy smack.”
You’re on, Pete. Crisis, what crisizzzzzzzzzzzz
Posted: 17th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Money, Tabloids | Comments (8)
Police Log: Delivery Man Wears £85,000 Watch
IF you are going to steal, try not to make your theft stand out:
A delivery worker who stole a luxury watch priced at 18 million yen was arrested Saturday after an acquaintance became suspicious when he saw the worker wearing it and alerted his workplace, police said.
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Posted: 16th, June 2008 | In: Money, Strange But True | Comments (5)
John McCain’s Credit Card Statement
ON John McCain’s new Senate Financial Disclosure Form, voters can wodner about his fiscal policy:
The bulk of the McCains’ obligations stemmed from a pair of American Express credit cards that are held in Cindy McCain’s name. According to the disclosure reports, which present information on debts in a range rather than providing a precise figure, Mrs. McCain owed $100,000 to $250,000 on each card.
Says JTaplin: “I know what American Express charges for interest on a Platinum Card. A fiscally responsible household should probably sell some of the million of Anheuser-Busch stock they own and stop paying that 17% ARP on $500,000 worth of Amex charges.”
Indeed…
Posted: 16th, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians | Comments (2)
Beat The Petrol Crisis With A SatNav
THE Express uses its front page to announce: “EMPTY SHELVES – this was the bleak scene in Spain yesterday. Now Britain faces the same misery as petrol strike is on.”
Above the headline, and the picture of what may the only British shopper not buying booze in a Spanish supermarket, is the offer: “WIN A TOMTOM IQ SATNAV.”
Indeed…
Posted: 13th, June 2008 | In: Money, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Spanish Property Developers Threaten To Sue Greenpeace
Greenpeace hits Spanish porpertty prices:
A group of real estate developers and property owners in La Manga del Mar Menor – a spit of sandy, low-lying coastal land and Murcia’s premier beach resort – are threatening to take Greenpeace to court over its graphic predictions of what global warming may do to the area, which they say have caused house prices to plummet.
The lawsuit, which the plaintiffs plan to present unless Greenpeace agrees to an out of court settlement of almost EUR 30 million in damages, comes more than six months after La Manga featured prominently in a photo book published by the environmental organisation that was intended to shock Spain into action on climate change.
As Tim Blair says: “They’ve successfully shocked developers and property owners into legal action. Mission accomplished, Greenpeace.”
Women Lose Heads For Chick Lit
BOOKSLUT points out the latest fashion for the covers of chick-lit books: girls with no heads. Hurrah!
Posted: 11th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (3)
School Of The Bleeding Obvious
FROM the office Of The Commonwealth Secretariat:
“Most people are poor because they do not have money”
– Prof. M.L. Gupta, Officer in charge of NSS (National Service Scheme) in the Punjab Engineering College
Posted: 11th, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (2)
What To Do With Your Old iPhone
A NEW iphone is coming. It’s the second coming for phone twats:
The word on the street from my shadowy hipster associates is that the thing to do is jailbreak the phone and then ebay it internationally to some country where the iPhone is not yet sold through a carrier. In those fabled lands, a jailbroken iPhone 1.0 is probably worth almost as much as you paid for it.
Everyone in Iraq will have one by Christmas
George Bush Uses Power Of Persuasion TO Increase Oil Supply
GEORGE Bush told the New York Times on June 28, 2000: Bush Would Use Power of Persuasion to Raise Oil Supply.
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.
(Click the image)
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Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians | Comments (6)
