The point isn’t that all the boilerplate should be inherently unenforceable. Most of it is pretty benign. “This is the address to which you should address your billing dispute.” “We really can’t promise that our network is so robust you can run a hospital or nuclear submarine on it. So please don’t try.” “In case for some reason you were confused, the trademark ‘Verizon’ is not yours, even though it’s stamped on your phone.” But sometimes there’s something nasty in there. Forced arbitration clauses. Class action waivers. Undisclosed charges (or whatever it is that makes AT&T think it can just tack on a few dollars in extra charges every month to pad its bottom line). There’s really nothing an individual consumer can do about any of this. Anyway, two points. 1. The Consumer Financial Protectin Bureau is really important to curb the worst of these abuses. 2. Let’s not blame people for “agreeing” to things that they didn’t actually agree to in any meaningful way.

‘Today corporations are becoming the single most powerful force shaping our societies and governments. While corporations have great potential to benefit society and even governments, they are entirely selfish entities – they have no accountability to the public, and no responsibility to ensure the public good. A government that is influenced by corporations can easily become a government that caters to corporations, a government that is effectively run by corporations. Such a government is not representative of its people anymore. It is therefore not a democracy.’

Apple is run by a hippie and it's the most valuable company in the world. Those who think liberal values are anti-business need to look at that closely.

An International Monetary Fund veteran explains how the US financial situation is like that of a less-powerful nation's developing economy. Oligarchy, corruption, and the financial sector's control of the government — it's not good.

I want to revisit this later; it is an interesting retort to Michael Pollan and others' condemnations of current farming techniques.

The extent to which large 'environmentalism' groups are actually destroying the environment with their corporate connections.

"I had this vision of the future — a ruined empire, run by number crunchers, squalid and stupid and puffed up with phony patriotism, settling for a long slow decline."

Facebook a front for CIA data collection? Hmm.

"The playing field is being leveled, says globalization guru Thomas Friedman - from Shanghai to Silicon Valley, from al Qaeda to Wal-Mart."