Category: business ethics

Nuclear Plant, Left for Dead, Shows a Pulse (via Energy)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

You cannot kill these things.

Christopher Lee as Dracula in a mid-sixties Hammer film has the life span of a mayfly by comparison.

This nuclear plant, little more than a pile of looted wreckage is under consideration for construction.

I call upon anyone and every one for a little respect for the facts of the situation. Surely, we can think better than this?

James Pilant

By MATTHEW L. WALD/NYT HOLLYWOOD, Ala. — Spider webs line the 50-story cooling towers, parts have been amputated for the scrap value of their nickel or copper, and the control room still has analog dials at Bellefonte 1, a half-built nuclear plant here that was shelved 23 years ago. This does not seem like a particularly opportune moment to breathe life back into a reactor that was designed before the computer age. But its owner, the … Read More

via Energy

Rainbow 6 Leaked; Morality Plays Big (via The Lazy Geeks)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I am really impressed by this. It has been necessary for a long time. If the only way to keep score is to kill as many as possible, you kill as many as possible.

But the world is full of alternative actions. Morality and ethics are important, not only in the world of business but in war and peace.

I used to play a game called Fable in which your characters looks changed to match the moral quality of his actions. My character looked like a hero. No black hat for me.

This is a great development. Let’s give players more choices then choosing 5.45 over 5.56.

James Pilant

Rainbow 6 Leaked; Morality Plays Big Does anyone want to play a game that makes you have to deal with real life choices? Apparently, Ubisoft thinks you do. In a leak from Kotaku, it appears that the new Rainbow 6 game will have a “morality” engine. When you think about it, it is pretty bad ass. If this runs the way that Kotaku claims, it will be one of the most revolutionary games that has come out for First Person Shooters in a long time. I have detailed this game as more of a choo … Read More

via The Lazy Geeks

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HOW MUCH FREEPORT PRODUCES? (via West Papua Media Alerts)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is a David vs. Goliath story, if there ever was one.

A lone blogger wants to call a giant American corporation to account for how much ore it takes out of his country.

Well, at least due to the internet, he can make the demand. I’m not sure we could make the company report how much it takes out of the U.S.

James Pilant

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HOW MUCH FREEPORT PRODUCES? JUBI, 22 June, 2011 It is still very difficult for the Mimika district administration to get information about the quantity of gold and copper produced by Freeport-Indonesia and how much is exported via Portsite, Amamapare. The head  of the mining, energy and minerals department of the Mimika a … Read More

via West Papua Media Alerts

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (via Gooseberry Bush)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

These are my favorite lines from the post.

Wow! That’s interesting. So, apparently, Walmart has no responsibility for looking at these skewed numbers and wondering just why, exactly, that far more men than women are “qualified” to be managers. No one in their human resources department ever once questioned these statistics? Are we really saying as a country that we believe that men are innately more “qualified” to management 67% of the time? That’s not sexist. Of course not.

Those are also my thoughts. This decision is a travesty, a disaster.

Please read the article.

James Pilant

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back Two stories have made the news lately that involve women’s rights. The one step forward is Saudi Arabian women driving despite that country’s ban on women drivers. Despite the fact that there is not one civil, written law prohibiting women from driving, Saudi women who drive are jailed because of the ruling of conservative Muslim clerics. Some 40 women with int … Read More

via Gooseberry Bush

The Non-Rich (via Cassandra’s Tears)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I get depressed about it as well.

James Pilant

… what are we to do? It's a very depressing situation.  Guy dumps something like 299 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was in charge when 11 people in his company died and gets a $400,000 safety bonus. You and me would go to jail for decades.  He gets a bonus.  What's up with that? Bankers foreclose on military families.  They take the house of people are actively in a warzone.  They kick the wife and kids out.  Is anyone going to … Read More

via Cassandra's Tears

Netherlands becomes second country to make net neutrality a law (via VentureBeat)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I would like to see the United States do this. I would like to point out that the time to get to my site after hitting a link has increased by a third. I believe that is due to other services being given priority. I wonder how many people will bother to read my stuff when the wait becomes double or triple.

James Pilant

Netherlands becomes second country to make net neutrality a law The Dutch Parliament on Wednesday passed a law that prohibits Internet service providers from slowing down any kind of Internet traffic unless it's to ease congestion, preserve security, or block spam. The practice of treating all Internet traffic equally—whether it's text, e-mail, audio, or video—is commonly referred to as net neutrality. This move makes the Netherlands the second country in the world to put net neutrality into law, after Chile. … Read More

via VentureBeat

Greeks Enraged as the Parliament is set to approve Austerity plan (via )

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I believe Greece should default. I would rather live on a planet where investors have to make intelligent investment decisions than one where their investment decisions are protected by United States, the EU, the World Bank and the IMF.

I would love to hear more in the media about Goldman Sachs involvement in this debacle.

For instance, here, here, here, and here.

James Pilant

Greeks Enraged as the Parliament is set to approve Austerity plan Thousands of Greeks arrive at the Parliament’s building to press their representatives to reject the new austerity package. Reuters June 28, 2011 Anti-austerity protests turned violent in Athens on Tuesday as the European Union warned Greek lawmakers the country faces immediate default unless they back an unpopular economic plan this week. Hooded youths throwing stones and wielding sticks set fire to garbage bins and a telecoms truck outside parl … Read More

via

Is the PNG government also a puppet for the Chinese? (via Papua New Guinea Mine Watch)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here we see the Chinese government acting through “independent” corporations to forward its foreign policy aims. We are going to see a lot more of this.

James Pilant

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare's astonishing admission that foreign multinational companies are able to use their powerful positions to dictate the actions of the PNG government raises again concerns about the influence of the Chinese government and its controversial the Ramu nickel mine. Speaking about the Panguna mine on Bougainville, at a time when he was Foreign Minister, Somare has admitted mining company Rio Tinto "exerted a … Read More

via Papua New Guinea Mine Watch

This Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Is Surrounded by Floodwaters (via Jewish Nerd)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

There is something about a nuclear plant surrounded by flood waters that is more disturbing that a coal fired plant or any other kind of energy producing facility. What makes it more disturbing is that knowledge in the back of our skull that if things go wrong, the investors aren’t just out an investment, we all will pay a price for such a calamity.

May we live in a world where reason and knowledge are used to make energy decisions.

James Pilant

This Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Is Surrounded by Floodwaters The good news: Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station is staying dry despite being surrounded by tremendous Midwestern flooding. The bad news: Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station is surrounded by tremendous Midwestern flooding, and a history of safety mistakes. Also unsettling, as Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker points out, is the fact that all our information on the plant's condition is coming from the plant's owner. Very, ver … Read More

via Jewish Nerd

Time for a Corporate Death Penalty (via AntiCorruption Society)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have advocated for the corporate death penalty before. I continue to believe it is a vital idea whose time has come.

Now that corporations have full political rights in terms of money and political advocacy, they are more and more like human beings.

So, killing one for its crimes makes more and more sense. A corporation whose crimes have risen to a certain level is seized by the government, sold off piece by piece until nothing remains. The stockholders lose everything for their failure to oversee their investment.

Justice.

James Pilant

Time for a Corporate Death Penalty June 9, 2011 By Bruce A. Dixon, Managing Editor for Black Agenda Radio commentary There are more than 40 federal offenses for which the death penalty can be applied to human beings, most of them connected to homicide of one kind or another. But countless homicides committed by the artificial persons we call corporations go unpunished every day. Apparently “personal responsibility” applies only to humans who are not operating behind the legal shie … Read More

via AntiCorruption Society