NO [Movie]

Trust Jesse Kornbluth to shine a light on things that will otherwise be obscure. This time it’s a movie that won no Oscars. No is a Chilean movie about the referendum on Pinochet’s government, a man that most people don’t know was helped by the CIA to become the country’s dictator. Read Kornbluth’s evocative review here.

The Trans Pacific Partnership (or is it?) [Article]

Most of us won’t care about it- yet, the US corporate sponsored TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) will soon inflict more misery on the world through an intricate, very secretive partnership between countries that is being pushed though their respective parliaments to become law. Essentially, the plan is to skirt domestic laws and courts and privately enforce the terms of a public treaty by directly challenging governments’ public interest policies before foreign tribunals to demand unlimited sums of taxpayer compensation. The premise for including such extreme extra-judicial enforcement procedures in past agreements has been that the domestic legal systems of developing country trade partners have not been sufficiently trustworthy. Japan is the latest country getting ready to sign up.

Money Management for the Moustached Man [Article]

I’ve posted a few links by Mr. Money Moustache, advocating living within one’s means as a pretty easy way to retire at age 30. Whatever your age, if taking control of your financial life interests you, then find you way around MMM’s great site through this easy to read article on Getting Rich: From Zero to Hero in One Blog Post. Highly recommend read (also be warned that you will probably spend a good few hours devouring this blog, once you start).

Workplace productivity & survelliance [Articles]

According to a recent internal memo, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer is not in favour of the ‘technologically forward’ working from home concept. Despite being touted as a progressive idea for many occupations that do not require a physical presence in the office, working from home is apparently no longer finding favour with management, citing loss of ‘productivity’.  As this Salon article points out, Tesco is taking productivity to another level (or sinking to a new low – whatever your perspective), by using high tech survelliance to track employees.Collaboration, folks, is the new corporate buzzword, so expect to be in the office more & longer.

Bradley Manning’s 1000 days in prison [Article]

A commentor on the Guardian site says it well: “Considering all the lies and deceit that led to the Iraq War, Abu Gharaib, Guantanamo, rendition, torture, the propping up of brutal dictators, the war crimes and indiscriminate drone killings, the propaganda on our “news” channels, the trillions of dollars lost, stolen, or tossed dow a hole in the desert, we are prosecuting the wrong guy.”.  Bradley Manning, 25, has spent 1000 days in military prison, most of it in solitary confinement, for “the largest leak of US state secrets” to wikileaks.