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● 06.10.10

● Links 10/6/2010: KDE SC 4.5 Beta 2, OSI Election

Posted in News Roundup at 3:58 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Why Isn’t Linux the Standard Secondary OS?

• Still, many people use multiple operating systems now, and so few use Linux as one of their choices. Among other reasons why Linux can function as a great sidekick to the more prevalent operating systems is that it’s more secure. If you’re going to jump into, say, an online banking app, why not do it in Linux, where the hackers and script kiddies aren’t?

• Additionally, many Linux distros instantly get you going on tasks instead of staring at hourglasses and are streamlined for quick results. It has long been a presumption in the Linux community that for it to really succeed, it has to be the sole OS on everyone’s desktop. Why does it? The answer is that it doesn’t have to do that.

• I’m already contemplating adding a Linux distro to the VMware-based system I’m running, and evaluating which one to use. It makes lots of sense.

=> ↺ HP leverages Linux, less known for contribution

• The 451 Group has published another open source strategy Spotlight report, this time turning our attention to longtime Linux server vendor Hewlett-Packard, which continues to dedicate resources to Linux and other open source software communities, but which also has a lower profile than others known for their open source contributions.

• HP has long been a big supporter of Linux and other open source software, particularly through its testing, certification and support of Linux on its ProLiant x86 and now Integrity IA-64-based servers. But despite its top market position, the company has also historically been overshadowed by others similarly supporting Linux and open source.

• [...]

• HP recognizes that users and customers – in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare, and among other early adopters – no longer need to be convinced on Linux. What they need now is guidance on adapting their strategy and effectively incorporating Linux and other open source software.

• More is available in the HP Spotlight report, which is available to existing 451 Group clients. Non-clients, as always, may apply for trial access via the same link.

Desktop

=> ↺ Memo From Dell: Ubuntu Linux Is Safer Than Windows

• Even as Dell ships millions of Windows 7 systems, the PC giant is making a bold statement on its web site. Indeed, if you look hard enough you’ll find Dell stating that “Ubuntu is safer than Microsoft Windows.” Moreover, Dell quietly says it plans to ship Ubuntu 10.04 systems in mid-2010. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

• Visit Dell.com/ubuntu and you’ll find a “Top Ten” list of “things you should know about Ubuntu.” Item number 6 on Dell’s list states:

• • “6) Ubuntu is safer than Microsoft® Windows® The vast majority of viruses and spyware written by hackers are not designed to target and attack Linux.”

Audiocasts

=> ↺ The Software Freedom Law Show – Episode 0×29: Motions for Judgment

• Karen, Bradley and Aaron talk about SFLC’s motion for default judgment against Westinghouse Digital Electronics, a defendant in the ongoing lawsuit concerning GPL violations of BusyBox.

=> ↺ KDE and the Masters of the Universe – 2010-06-08

• This week on KDEMU I talk to Nuno Pinheiro the overload of the Oxygen effort (not the element), we talk about Oxygen, Plasma and the KDE-Artists wallpaper contest!

=> ↺ Linux Outlaws 154 – The Big Android Shootout

• In this special episode of Linux Outlaws, we review the Google Nexus One phone and pit it against the Motorola Milestone and Samsung Galaxy and as a bonus Fab also gives you a big list of his favourite Android apps.

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Making Open-Source Software Free and Fabulous

• Linux, by being truly open, lets hardware vendors and network operators offer an attractive code base that they can build their own applications and services on top of to more equally balance profits. Those include app stores, online music services, and add-on hardware.

• Does Linux have a shot at challenging Apple’s dominance? We’ve seen this movie before. There was an Apple of the business computing market not so long ago. Sun Microsystems’ high-end servers made the company a darling of information technology departments, Internet startups, and Wall Street investors in the late ’90s and 2000. Linux was the underdog. A decade later, Sun no longer exists and Linux and Windows rule the data center.

• The control and flexibility that hardware vendors and network operators gain with Linux, plus the ability to share research and development costs and move faster, make Linux a powerful choice for mobile computing development. The computer industry is seeing a seismic shift wherein longtime Microsoft partners such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard are making huge bets on Linux, relegating Windows to a lesser role. This was inconceivable a decade ago.

• Apple has set a high bar, no doubt. But if you don’t believe Linux can beat an entrenched market leader, just ask the folks who used to run Sun.

=> ↺ Counting the Cost of Free: What Value, Linux?

• Bentley: Your study found that it would cost $1.4 billion for a company to build the Linux kernel from scratch today, and $10.8 billion to build an entire Linux distribution similar to Fedora 9. Can you explain how you reached those figures?

• McPherson: The conclusions were reached by using David Wheeler’s well-known SLOC tool, SLOCCount, which makes use of the industry standard COnstructive COst MOdel (COCOMO). This methodology takes into account lines of code written, the appropriate number of labor years, and salary adjustments for inflation. We wanted to come up with a real number based on the one thing you can quantify in open source — code. We used a well-regarded methodology and tool that had been used before. Instead of making random projects, we thought this was the best way to approach it.

• Bentley: Why the Fedora community distribution and not another?

• McPherson: Fedora is the basis for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which represents a large percentage of the Linux market. This provided us with a very relevant model to assess. Also, David A. Wheeler had used Red Hat for his study in 2002. OpenSuse and Debian/Ubuntu would, of course, also be great targets for this study. We may do that at a later date. We also would like to use an embedded distribution.

• [...]

• Bentley: Do the findings have added significance in light of the current economic climate?

• McPherson: I think so. Linux has always been a lower-cost alternative to Windows, but this report illustrates its economic impact on technology innovation. It’s exciting to see how the collaborative development model is fueling a new category of devices and technologies that would be at least a decade into the future if it weren’t for Linux. Let’s remember that in software, time is money; oftentimes time is more important than money. For a company like Google or Intel to be able to make use of this code that has taken years to develop, drives innovation and keeps costs low for consumers.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Where The Btrfs Performance Is At Today

• For testing we used a ZaReason Verix notebook that we are currently reviewing. This notebook that is based upon an MSI MS-1656 has an Intel Core i7 Q720 processor, 6GB of system memory, an 80GB Intel SSDSA2MH08 SSD, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M GPU. We loaded Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on this powerful notebook with the Linux 2.6.35-rc1 kernel while continuing to use X.Org Server 1.7.6, GCC 4.4.3, and the GNOME 2.30.0 desktop.

Applications

=> ↺ TestDisk is a Great Recovery Tool

• TestDisk is a great tool for recovering files from a broken disk. My wife’s hard drive crashed yesterday and it turned out to be a corrupt boot sector. I booted to a Kubuntu Live USB and was able to use TestDisk to recover the MBR from the backup (it was NTFS which keeps a backup at a different part of the drive) and copy the files I needed to a USB key.

=> ↺ Openoffice.org-ogltrans, OptiPNG, Advanced PNG Optimizer. and Ospics, some images of operating system logos-mascots..

• OpenOffice.org is a full-featured office productivity suite that provide a near drop-in replacement for Microsoft(R) Office.

=> ↺ Scribus: Worth the Effort for the Linux-Loving Desktop Publisher

• Desktop publishing applications are different from word processing programs. Desktop publishing isn’t a sit-and-start-typing task; it requires more input from the user in terms of page layout, spacing and how elements are arranged. This might require a little more learning on the user’s part, but if you’re on Linux and desktop publishing is your thing, Scribus provides a robust set of options.

=> ↺ Review: LuckyBackup for Linux systems

• Backups are a crucial aspect of any PC users work. No matter if you are a home user who uses the PC for home banking or a data center administrator who depends upon backups as the go-to failsafe for petabytes of company data, without a backup you could find yourself dead in the water.

• [...]

• If your Linux machines need a solid, GUI-based backup, you need to look at LuckyBackUp. Its flexibility and ease of use cannot be matched in any GUI-based Linux application. And just because LuckyBackUp is geared toward ease of use, doesn’t mean it can’t handle larger jobs. If your server has a GUI, LuckyBackUp can easily take care of that as well.

=> ↺ Best 10 Mail Clients For Multi Platform

Instructionals

=> ↺ A Good Old Dog

=> ↺ Building Linux kernels the Debian way

=> ↺ Save Ubuntu space-auto-delete downloaded packages after installation

=> ↺ Manage Ubuntu Gnome Themes with Gstyle (GUI)

=> ↺ Ubuntu-system-panel – Simple menu and launcher for GNOME desktop environment

=> ↺ Installing ffmpeg-php on an Ubuntu 9.04 LAMP Server

=> ↺ How to Undo an Update in Ubuntu Lucid

=> ↺ How to customize Linux Mint 9

=> ↺ How to Enable Multimedia Support (MP3, Mpeg4, Divx, 3gp, avi) in Fedora 13

=> ↺ Easy desktop notification system

=> ↺ Convert any software packages to formats recognized by your distro using Alien

=> ↺ GRUB – embedding a configuration file into GRUB

=> ↺ [SOLVED] Can’t open /dev/dsp in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and Lucid Lynx 10.04

=> ↺ How to Open UIF File (MagicISO Custom ISO Format) in Linux / MacOS X

=> ↺ How to Easily Fix Window and Linux Boot Problems with the Super Grub Disk

=> ↺ Rar Unrar Support For Fedora 13 Goddard

=> ↺ How to install Oracle Solaris Studio Express 6/10 on Slackware 13.1

=> ↺ Lock Down Firefox Preferences on Ubuntu Lucid With a New firefox.js File

=> ↺ 7 Chmod Command Examples for Beginners

=> ↺ [How To]: Mount ISO, IMG, BIN, MDF and NRG Files On Ubuntu Using Furius ISO Mount

=> ↺ The easiest way to install Google Chrome on Slackware 13.1

=> ↺ OpenID authentication with the mod_auth_openid Apache module

=> ↺ Sabayon 5.3 installation guide

=> ↺ Change Run Command Keybinding to Match Gnome-Do (KDE Converts)

=> ↺ Cool bash scripting trick with arrays

=> ↺ DNS querying with dig

=> ↺ Privnote- A simple way to send longer messages on Twitter

=> ↺ how to retrieve image size in perl

=> ↺ Clone a Hard Drive Using an Ubuntu Live CD

=> ↺ KDE Power Management 101

=> ↺ How to recover files from lost+found after fsck in linux (How I did it in Ubuntu)

=> ↺ Upload to Rackspace Cloud Files in a shell script

=> ↺ Pessulus, Lockdown Editor, restrict/lock stuff on your Public Gnome Desktop

=> ↺ Ask Yoda: What the Heck is RTFM?

=> ↺ Unix Commands to Try When You’re Bored

Games

=> ↺ 5 Tools to Develop AAA Games

• To begin with, let us highlight the key functions within the game. Every time you run a game, a piece of software that is called the game engine loads itself into the memory. The game engine is like a kernel for the game. It will manage all resources, levels and your in-game progression. Everything that you see, hear or do, is managed by the engine. The engine itself is a collection of services that provide these capabilities.

• Once the engine is loaded, it uses the rendering subsystem to set your screen and start the game interface—legal screens, intros and menu systems. Using this rendering and the game logic through the game engine, you begin your gaming session.Every thing that you see is taken care of by the rendering engine. So, we will look at a rendering engine—OGRE 3D to be specific.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

=> ↺ Announcing the KDE e.V. Supporting Membership

• This morning KDE e.V., the legal organization backing the KDE community, launched its Supporting Membership programme under the slogan “Join the Game”. The Join the Game programme strengthens the bonds between KDE e.V. and the wider community and provides a more sustainable and independent source of income for KDE activties. By becoming part of KDE e.V. as a Supporting Member you can help to keep the KDE servers running, fund developer meetings, let developers organize and attend conferences and trade shows and protect the legal interests of the KDE community — this is all handled by the KDE e.V. in support of the KDE community.

=> ↺ KDE Software Compilation 4.5 Beta2 Release Announcement

• Today, KDE has released the second beta version of what is to become KDE SC 4.5.0 in August 2010. KDE SC 4.5 Beta2 is targeted at testers and those that would like to have an early look at what’s coming to their desktops and netbooks this summer. KDE is now firmly in beta mode, meaning that the primary focus is on fixing bugs and preparing the stable release of the software compilation this summer. Over the last two weeks, roughly since the first beta, 1459 new bugs have been reported, and 1643 bugs have been closed, so we’re witnessing a lot of stabilization activity right now. More testing is in place, however, while the restless developers continue to create a rock-stable 4.5.0.

=> ↺ Second Beta for KDE SC 4.5 Available for Testing

=> ↺ Review: Amarok 2.3.1

• I only used Amarok lightly on KDE 3, so I am not equipped to answer claims that the recent releases still lag behind the 1.x releases (although I might some day investigate by looking at Pana, a project whose purpose is continue the development of Amarok’s first version.

• However, with five releases, Amarok’s second series is approaching maturity in its own right. Although some of the newest features are less than perfect I appreciate the Amarok team’s constant efforts to improve the application, and to accommodate a variety of user styles. Despite a few imperfections, it remains my music player of choice — and the 2.3.1 release simply reinforces my preference.

GNOME Desktop

=> ↺ New module decisions for GNOME 3.0

• Following some lengthy discussions within the GNOME community, release manager Vincent Untz has published a summary of the new modules to be included in the next major release of the GNOME desktop environment for Linux and Unix. GNOME 3.0, scheduled to arrive in September of this year, will not include the GNOME Activity Journal, formerly known as GNOME Zeitgeist. The Activity Journal allows users to locate documents chronologically and supports tagging and relationships between groups of files. According to Untz, it will not be included because it “needs more integration with the rest of the desktop and the overall GNOME design; right now, it feels too much like a stand alone application.”

Distributions

Gentoo

=> ↺ Fwd: Thanks from a Gentoo user

• The mail below reached the PR team today. I felt like sharing it with you.

=> ↺ blu-ray on gentoo

• I’m pretty excited because I got my first BD-ROM drive last night from NewEgg, a LITE-ON iHOS104-06. That means I can do some real testing, ripping and playing around.

PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Review: PCLinuxOS 2010 Gnome – With Screenshots

• I know I said I would review Xubuntu next, and keep PCLOS Gnome for the July edition of SaGeek MAG, but I wanted something other than a Gnome Distro to review for the MAG, and I only had the 10.04 RC available of Xubuntu, not the final release. Hence PCLOS 2010 Gnome it is for tonights review.

• Well how did it perform?

• [...]

• PCLinuxOS is good, but not good enough. The Gnome edition especially needs some sanding on the edges, and then some polish on top of that. I would recommend the KDE edition over the Gnome edition any day, but as far as Gnome based distros goes it loses out to some really serious competitors, and this is reflected in my comparative scoring.

• There are many little touches that give me hope for the future of PCLOS, help menus, auto installer for OpenOffice – little things that might just make this the next best Gnome distro to arrive. Right now it just falls short of Ubuntu’s 3/5 Q-rating.

Fedora

=> ↺ Why I’m still using Fedora 13

• I must say I’m impressed with the latest Fedora. I haven’t met any deal-breakers for me yet, but then again, I’ve only used it for a week. Still, there’s much to like.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ What indicator applets were made for: Mock-up Power Manager Applet for Ubuntu

• Power management in Ubuntu is a largely poor effort – particularly as Ubuntu stretches it’s leg in the field of mobile computing devices; users need a more coherent and accessible way to control power settings. Users currently need to use 3 (!) applets in-order to manage the oft-most power-related used features of screen brightness, CPU performance and battery life indication.

=> ↺ Canonical developing Ubuntu OS for tablets

• Canonical is preparing a version of the Ubuntu OS for tablet computers as the company looks to extend its presence in the mobile space, a company executive said.

• Tablets with the Ubuntu OS could become available late in winter 2011, said Chris Kenyon, Canonical’s vice president of OEM services. The OS will be a lightweight version of Linux with a simplified, touch-friendly user interface.

10.10

=> ↺ Chromium default Browser for UNE 10.10

• Firefox will surely remain available in the repositories, so there will be an open door for everyone who, like me, is more comfortable using it. My concern is that Canonical is apparently sacrificing some of its original values, like security and reliability, in favor of the “flavor of the month”. I didn’t understand the excessive push on social interaction tools and now I don’t understand getting rid of an Internet browser which has been their flagship for so long, which is also an industry standard. Do they think popular is better? Hard to tell, but with all the bugs pending fixing, I find it funny that they actually waste a second thinking of replacing the Internet browser.

=> ↺ 5 new things can happen in Ubuntu 10.10

• It really sounds great when canonical announces new Version of Ubuntu . Personally i always look forward for new things and changes . In this post i am going to discuss about new changes in Ubuntu 10.10 which is going to happen .Till now only alpha-I version have been released .

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Make your fridge run Linux!

• OMG, what? My refrigerator, that thingie that keeps all them foods and whatnot cool and edible can run Linux? Well, definitely. And in this article, I will show you how.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Innovation: Still Open for Business

• These days it’s hard to get excited about anything short of the most innovative solutions. Still, it takes time and effort to stay on top of it all and then be prepared to sell it internally to your organization. Linux, largely due to its roots in the open source community, consistently leads the market with rapid innovation and feature-rich development.

=> ↺ Can FOSS Skills Be Measured?

• Sure, FOSS is fun, but is it profitable? Or is it just a spare-time hobby? There are actually two sides to FOSS: FOSS as free and open source software for a set of tools and platforms; and FOSS as a methodology for the development of software. One cannot exist without the other. And the reason for the superiority of FOSS tools is precisely because they are the result of FOSS methodology.

• The FOSS software development/deployment methodology — a child of the Internet, and which is based on openness, sharing and collaboration — is also a powerful tool to develop ‘soft skills’ like the ability to communicate, search for and find solutions, and to think out-of-the-box. Over a long time, I have noticed that people who actually participate in projects following the FOSS methodology are eminently better programmers and far better at communicating, solving problems and collaborating, than people who follow the ‘closed methodology’.

=> ↺ 10 considerations for maintaining open source in your organization

• So you’ve decided to use some open source code in your organization, company, or enterprise. What’s the same or different about maintaining open source versus traditional software. Here are ten things to consider:

• 1. The term “maintenance” can be considered one component of “subscription, support, and maintenance” or it can be used more generally to mean “now that’ve I’ve installed this software, how do I make it do what I want, patched, and updated?”.

• [...]

=> ↺ OSI Committee Chairs Election for 2010-2011

• Earlier this month, the OSI board held elections for the organization’s committees. Board members interested in working on OSI initiatives such as membership, education, policy and economic development, outreach submitted their candidacy to the board. Based on the slate of candidates, the board voted the following chairpersons to lead each OSI initiative for the next year.

=> ↺ Brazil Wants To Be The Next India and Open Source Is Their Secret Weapon

• Going back 5 or 6 years, Brazil tried to free itself of Microsoft’s stranglehold on the software it used. It put a big push into supporting, using and lead development in open source software technology.

• Much the same way it supported the use of bio-fuels like ethanol, this has led to Brazil being less dependent on Microsoft and other closed source software. Additionally, a booming open source development community has been fostered and cultivated.

=> ↺ Ingres VectorWise goes GA, open source by end of year

• Ingres have made Ingres VectorWise generally available to download for free evaluation or commercially licence and say that an open source release for the accelerated database technology should be expected by the end of the year.

=> ↺ Not All Open Source is Created Equal

• It became obvious that like any social network, open source has its own code of conduct that needs to be adhered to. Whether you think of it as business environment or community process, people that are part of a particular social network do not appreciate individuals (or companies) that diverge from these agreed-upon “rules.”

=> ↺ Open Source Lightworks Makes Centurion An Epic

• Award-winning editor Chris Gill utilized Lightworks to edit Neil Marshall’s latest adrenaline-fused thriller, Centurion.

• Building upon blockbuster buzz, including Centurion, EditShare recently announced plans to make Lightworks into the most advanced Open Source editing solution available in the industry. Beginning in Q3 of this year, a free Lightworks download will be made available to all users.

• Customers will be able to familiarize themselves with the Lightworks editing system and its multitude of features including: true shared projects, instant save, 3D editorial functionality, Universal Media File support, native RED editing, native 2K support with DPX and RED, dual outputs, and a format-independent timeline.

Government

=> ↺ EU warns against proprietary software

• The European Union’s top Internet official took aim at Microsoft Corp. on Thursday, warning that governments can accidentally lock themselves into one company’s software for decades by setting it as a standard for their technology systems.

• EU Internet Commissioner Neelie Kroes, in her previous post as EU antitrust chief, fined Microsoft hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in a lengthy row over the company’s refusal to share some data with rivals and the tying of a Web browser to a best-selling operating system.

• She now says she wants to draw up detailed guidelines for European governments to encourage them to require other software, especially programs based on open source code that is freely shared between developers.

=> ↺ MT: Directive to boost uptake of open source

• Malta’s public administration wants its institutions to increase their use of open source software. In a directive published early last week, the government says it also wants to share more of its own applications by publishing them using the European Union’s open source licence (EUPL).

Leftovers

Environment

=> ↺ Inhofe: Fiorina ‘is supporting’ my push to gut the Clean Air Act, agrees climate change is a ‘hoax’

• Today on Capitol Hill, Americans for Prosperity, the corporate front group founded and funded by David Koch of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, hosted an event to urge the passage of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to gut the Clean Air Act’s power to regulate carbon emissions. Several Republican Senators came to the AFP event to encourage support for the resolution, which was drafted by lobbyists from the coal and oil industry.

• After the event, ThinkProgress spoke to one of the speakers, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), about his support for Carly Fiorina (R-CA), the U.S. Senate candidate to emerge from the primary last night. Inhofe gave Fiorina an early endorsement, and his nephew, Fred Davis, created the infamous “demon sheep” ads for Fiorina’s campaign.

Finance

=> ↺ Trial Begins for French Trader Accused of Costing a Bank Billions

• It took Jérôme Kerviel, the celebrity rogue trader who stands accused of losing billions of euros at the French bank Société Générale, 10 minutes to make it through the scrum of microphones and journalists outside a courtroom Tuesday.

=> ↺ Goldman’s Hudson Mezz CDO Is Now Focus Of Brand New SEC Probe

• As disclosed earlier, Australia’s Basis Yield Alpha sued Goldman today for failing to “disclose material information knowing that, by this omission, information that they did disclose was rendered misleading.” That lawsuit opens the way for every single investor who ever bought a CDO from Goldman as a primary issuer (not in the secondary market). As we have pointed out previously, Goldman and BP will soon be competing over which firm has more active lawsuits against it. On the other hand, Goldman may offset some costs by IPOing the largest corporate litigation firms, as their partners will soon be rolling in the dough. While completely impossible, the mutual conflicts of interest in the risk factors of such a prospectus would make for a comic book all on its own.

=> ↺ Ex-Fla. lawyer gets 50 years for Ponzi scheme

• Disbarred attorney Scott Rothstein, whose seemingly unlimited wealth bought palatial homes, exotic cars and mega-yachts, was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in prison for operating a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme using faked legal settlements.

=> ↺ Timberwolf Lawsuit: Goldman Sachs Sued By Australian Hedge Fund Over ‘Sh–ty Deal’

• In addition to generating some laughs and populist outrage during a contentious Senate hearing in April, Goldman Sachs’s infamous “shitty deal” is also turning into a major headache for the embattled firm.

• Today, Goldman was sued for securities fraud by an Australian hedge fund, which claims that it was suckered into buying $81 million of toxic subprime mortgage securities, which led to the collapse of the fund, according to a lawsuit obtained by Huffington Post.

• Basis Yield Alpha Fund claims that Goldman engaged in a “series of fraudulent and deceitful acts or practices” and “put profits before integrity,” according to its complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. The fund is seeking to recover more than $1 billion in total damages.

=> ↺ Bad News for Banksters

=> ↺ Unemployment and Despair

• Americans who have been unemployed for more than six months are much more likely to report having emotional distress than people who have been unemployed for a shorter period, according to new Gallup survey data.

=> ↺ Wall Street’s Naked Swindle

• The nation’s largest financial players are able to write the rules for own their businesses and brazenly steal billions under the noses of regulators, and nothing is done about it. A thing so fundamental to civilized society as the integrity of a stock, or a mortgage note, or even a U.S. Treasury bond, can no longer be protected, not even in a crisis, and a crime as vulgar and conspicuous as counterfeiting can take place on a systematic level for years without being stopped, even after it begins to affect the modern-day equivalents of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies. What 10 years ago was a cheap stock-fraud scheme for second-rate grifters in Brooklyn has become a major profit center for Wall Street. Our burglar class now rules the national economy. And no one is trying to stop them.

=> ↺ House duo backs banks on cards

• The fee issue is emerging as one of the biggest battles in the issue as House and Senate lawmakers look this month toward a conference agreement to resolve scores of differences in the legislation. Congress is planning to approve the overhaul package, stretching more than 1,500 pages, before the Fourth of July recess.

=> ↺ Blanche Lincoln fends off Bill Halter in Arkansas

• Sen. Blanche Lincoln beat back a ferocious Democratic challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in Tuesday’s Arkansas runoff, holding off the hard-charging lieutenant governor whose campaign became a priority for unions and the progressive movement.

• Lincoln’s victory presented a stinging rebuke to organized labor, including the Service Employees International Union and to progressive groups such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which poured millions of dollars into television ads, phone calls and ground troops in an attempt to upend the two-term incumbent.

=> ↺ Reversing the revolving door

• The career path for congressional aides with an eye for big money used to be clear: Toil in anonymity for years in a Hill office before cashing in with a lobbying gig or heading to a Wall Street powerhouse for a consulting job.

• Now it’s the revolving door in reverse.

• Capitol Hill has become a magnet for some former financial industry executives, who have traded high-flying jobs for the grind of congressional hearings and committee markups. Some are taking Hill salaries that would have been a mere Christmas bonus on Wall Street. One former Lehman Brothers analyst still calls his buddies in the trading pit in New York. Another who did work for the defunct investment giant landed a spot in a congressional office — as an unpaid intern.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

=> ↺ Risky Business #154 — Adrian Lamo: Why I turned informer

• In this week’s feature interview we chat with Adrian Lamo. Best known as the “homeless hacker,” Lamo is in the news again over his decision to inform on US Army Specialist Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker of the so-called “Collateral Murder” video published by Wikileaks in April.

=> ↺ Scott Horton Interviews Daniel Ellsberg

• Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, discusses Specialist Bradley Manning’s arrest for passing classified information to Wikileaks, the unfortunate negative connotations of the “whistleblower” moniker, how Obama has decriminalized torture, 260,000 possible sources of embarrassment for the State Department and the Obama administration’s eager prosecution of whistleblowers.

=> ↺ Conversations with History: Daniel Ellsberg

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