although extreme insecurity is a bad thing, it provides one huge benefit: you cannot be worried about losing your security if you don't have any to lose in the first place. And worries about becoming insecure do seem to be at the root of a lot of anxiety in western societies.
The S.H.A.M.E. Media Transparency Project takes the war against corporate trolls and media shills to a new and more effective level. Its goal is to expose corrupt media figures, document journalistic fraud and make life a little harder for covert propagandists who manipulate the public, degrade our democracy and help perpetuate oligarchy power.
Sometimes it seems a bit excessive and unfair to me, but still fun to read their takedowns of some big names.Last year, for the first time, spending by Apple and Google on patent lawsuits and unusually big-dollar patent purchases exceeded spending on research and development of new products, according to public filings. New York Times, October 7, 2012
And this paper (2012-035) from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:The Case Against Patents by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, September 2012
The case against patents can be summarized briefly:there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless the latter is identified with the number of patents awarded – which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. This is at the root of the “patent puzzle”: in spite of the enormous increase in the number of patents and in the strength of their legal protection we have neither seen a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress nor a major increase in the levels of R&D expenditure ...