Sunday, June 19, 2016

Microsoft announced on Thursday they are partnering with KIND Financial to help governments track the production and distribution of legal marijuana. Kind Financial, a California-based start-up company, began selling its Agrisoft Seed to Sale software three years ago. Microsoft is admitting Kind’s software on the Government portion of its Azure cloud service.

Although Kind Financial CEO David Dinenberg stressed to The Guardian they “absolutely do not touch the plant”, his company does business with growers and distributors of marijuana, as well as the governments that regulate it. State law in twenty-five US states — but not US federal law — has legalized marijuana, whether medicinally or for recreational use. Kimberly Nelson, Microsoft executive director of state and local government solutions, said they expect significant demand for technology to help states make sure cannabis distribution within their state is done according to their laws.

Kind also provides kiosks similar to automated tellers (ATMs) to facilitate marijuana transactions in dispensaries. The distribution of marijuana is often done only with cash or through machines like the ones Kind offers since many banks in the United States shy away from the marijuana industry entirely. Microsoft is not interacting with this part of Kind’s operations, however.

Microsoft and Kind will apply for contracts with state governments for their software. Currently, they have applied to Puerto Rico, a US territory, where medical marijuana has recently been made legal. BioTrackTHC, a company similar to Kind Financial, already has contracts with Washington, New Mexico, and Illinois.

Dinenberg said his company’s partnership with Microsoft is a major step in advancing the legitimacy of cannabis-related businesses.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

An advertisement for Dove beauty products has been viewed by well over three million people, without ever being on television. A copywriter from Ogilvy Toronto, the advertising agency that created a spot named “evolution”, uploaded the advertisement to video sharing website YouTube.

While the official upload of the ad itself has been viewed 1,119,262 times, there are dozens of copies of the ad on YouTube, adding to a minimum of 3,059,546 views. The official copy of the video is the website’s 12th most viewed this month, 53rd of all time.

Unofficial uploads have each received high levels of viewership, with 449595, 445322, 207906, 201670, 195265, 116501, and 102634 plays.

The agency did not originally intend to upload the video to YouTube, only display it on the company’s homepage. Staff member Tim Piper uploaded it to his account on October 6, about a week before it first got media coverage on Good Morning America.

The ad begins with a woman walking into a photo shoot. From there, she is primped and plucked by hair and makeup artists, then tweaked on a Photoshop-like program. The photo-manipulation is then posted on a billboard for the fictional “Easel Foundation Makeup” brand. Two young, teenage girls walk past, glancing at the board. “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted” ends the ad in text, “Every girl deserves to feel beautiful just the way she is.”

The creative team for the ad included Tim Piper, Mike Kirkland, Janet Kestin, Nancy Vonk, directors T Piper (treatment and post production) and Yael Staav (live action) from Reginald Pike, Soho post production, Rogue editing, Vapor music, Gabor Jurina and Make-up: Diana Carreiro, and Reginald Pike.

The official French copy of the ad has only received 132 views, although it was only uploaded on November 2, 2006.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The United States Senate Committee on Finance approved a proposal to reform health care on Tuesday, clearing it to move forward. The bill passed by a 14-9 vote, gaining support from the committee’s thirteen Democrats, and one Republican.

Senator Olympia Snowe was the only senator from the Republican party to back the bill. However, she said this might change as the bill moves through Congress.

“There are many, many miles to go in this legislative journey. My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow,” Snowe said.

President Barack Obama, who supports the bill as part of his effort to overhaul the country’s health care system, welcomed the committee’s vote. “We are closer than ever before to passing healthcare reform but we are not there yet. Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back – now is the time to dig in further and get this done. In this final phase we should engage with each other with civility and seriousness that has brought us this far and that this subject deserves.”

The bill, which contains a ten-year plan with an estimated cost of US$829 billion, is aimed at lowering healthcare costs and increasing the affordability of insurance. Proponents will now seek to merge it with another bill from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus emphasized, “Americans want us to craft a package that will get the 60 votes needed to pass.” He argued that the Finance bill was the best candidate to attract needed the centrist support.

Critics, however, have said that the proposed plan is too costly, and will cause the government to interfere too much into the private healthcare sector.

“We can now see clearly that the bill continues its march leftward,” said the senior Republican on the committee, Senator Charles Grassley. “This bill is already moving on a slippery slope to more government control of healthcare.”

Friday, May 12, 2006

Peter Costello’s budget announcement has led to rejoicing for small businesses, but the lack of joy for those pushing for radical corporate taxation reform has led to many businesses asking “what about us?”

Personal taxation and small business have been the big winners after this year’s federal budget. Although dampened by the twin economic threats of rising interest rates and petrol prices, there should be a reasonable amount of real income savings for both low and high income earners, with those receiving Medicare, or a superannuation benefit, privy to an even lower level of taxation (0% for those on super benefits).

Small business also has benefited from the Howard government’s 11th annual budget, with them receiving a higher level of reducing depreciation, leading to a higher level of deductions in the years following the uptake of new technology or other capital. They are also privy to a AU$435 million dollar tax cut to compensate for their changing accounting requirements under the government’s new AIFRS reporting standards, as well as increasing the uptake of both the small business tax relief scheme and CGT (Capital Gains tax) Concessions.

The budget was not a complete loss for big business however, as superannuation laws have been tweaked to streamline contribution and payment rules previously impeding those with multitudes of staff.

But this is not enough, says Big 4 accounting firm Ernst & Young. In their newly published paper “Taxation of Investment in Australia: the need for ongoing reform”. In it they lead the charge for a greater streamlining and organization of the corporate tax system in Australia, submitting that it will lead to reductions in “disincentives to work save and invest in Australia [as well as improving] the international competitiveness of Australian businesses.” This follows from a recent report brought out by Mr. Costello himself about the need for tax reform in Australia.

A budget night Mr. Costello was notably coy about any future reform of corporate tax in Australia. He alluded to the report by his ministers but kept from outlining the government’s plan precisely.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Wikinews has obtained ‘Operating Thetan‘ (OT) documents of the Church of Scientology which were leaked via Wikileaks. Although some portions of the manual have been leaked previously, this is believed to be the first time the full unedited version has been leaked.

The file is a 612-page compilation of material written for Scientologists by L. Ron Hubbard, and contains instructions for the eight different Operating Thetan levels including ‘clear’ and OT8. Most of the documents have been retyped from their original sources. The file does, however, contain some scanned in Hubbard’s own handwriting, which also bear his signature. The collection also contains bulletins by Hubbard written for individuals who have passed the according levels.

“A great many phenomena (strange things) can happen while doing these drills, if they are done honestly,” Hubbard writes in regards to ‘OT1.’ Hubbard then goes on to explain in hand written notes, the ‘drills’ one must do in order to become ‘OT1’:

“One: Walk around and counts bodies until you have a cognition. Make a report saying how many you counted and your cognition. Two: Note several large and small female bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down. Three: Note several large and several small male bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down. Four: Final a tight packed crowd of people. Write it as a crowd and then as individuals until you have a cognition. Note it down. Do step over until you do.”

Hubbard then goes on to explain OT2, but before he does so, he tells the Churches how to keep Scientology working. One way is to not divulge information on their “technology.” Doing so, says Hubbard, would result in “the complete destruction of all our work.”

“On the other hand there have been thousands and thousands of suggestions and writings which, if accepted and acted upon, would have resulted in the complete destruction of all our work. Our technology has not been discovered by a group. True, if the group had not supported me in many ways, I could not have discovered it either. But it remains that if in its formative stages it was not discovered by a group, then group efforts, one can safely assume, will not add to it or successfully alter it in the future,” states Hubbard in a confidential letter dated February 7, 1965.

Hubbard also goes on to say that “man has never before evolved workable mental technology and emphasizing it is the vicious technology he did evolve—psychiatry, psychology, surgery, shock treatment, whips, duress, punishment, etc., ad infinitum.” Hubbard also says that “war, famine, agony and disease has been the lot of Man” and that Man “has been what has made Earth a Hell—and if you were looking for Hell and found Earth, it would certainly serve.”

Hubbard calls those ‘men’ “SP Body Thetans” or those who “are out of valance” and who are “stuck toanother thetan or body but is not in control” with Scientology. Some he says are even “psychotic, serve faces and have fixed ideas” which “inhibits recovery.” Thetan is derived from the Greek word “Theta” which means “thought or life.”

“An individual being such as a man is a thetan, he is not a body and he does not think because he has no brain,” states Hubbard.

It is not until ‘OT3’ when you learn the true beginning of Scientology. In Hubbard’s own hand written notes, he begins to describe a series of “76 planets [orbiting] around larger stars founded 95,000,000 years ago” which he says “are visible from here [Earth].”

From those planets, which were over-populated by “about 250 million per planet,” came a “head of the Galactic Federation” named ‘Xenu‘ who solved the overpopulation by sending vast numbers of his people to Earth somewhere between “75,000,000 and 4 qadrillion [Sic] years ago.” Hubbard says that he brought them to Earth and dropped them off inside volcanoes on an island he describes as Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. Xenu then captured the ones who escaped after 36 days and exploded the remaining individuals with a hydrogen bomb. Xenu was later “captured after six years of battle” and Earth had since become a “desert.”

It is also said at this level, an implant, in what Hubbard calls an “engram” will be given in which the individual can “see pictures.” However these pictures are not to be “stuck” or permanent.

At ‘OT4’ individuals are allegedly rid of illegal and legal drugs. Documents state that addicts are not treated with drugs, but simply not given anything.

“As drugs and drug incidents have been so common on the whole track, to simply generally ask for drugs or drug incidents when dealing with BTs and clusters, could cause a total restim,” states the document which then says that individuals are made to wait out the effects of the drugs. Another process used to try and stop drug use is to “take any previously given Drug somatic items, or newly list any additional items connected with reading drugs, medicines, etc., and assess for reading somatic item.” Hubbard insists that these methods are proven effective.

‘OT5’ is when individuals learn about the “physical universe, not the laws of physical scientists, but the basic considerations about Matter, Energy, Space and Time,” states Hubbard.

At ‘OT6’ a Scientologist is alleged to develop skills of telepathy and skills attained at ‘OT7’ are claimed to include the “rehabilitation of ability to project intention.” The final level of the series, ‘OT8’, is intended to produce “have full certainty and, therefore, perception on all” of your issues.

Wikileaks previously published documents relating to the Church of Scientology’s division the Office of Special Affairs. The 208-page document released March 9 details Scientology’s involvement in black propaganda according to its “Fair Game” practices.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

On Monday, the person responsible for changing the Hollywood sign in California to read “Hollyweed” as a new year’s prank turned himself in to local authorities. 30-year-old artist Zachary Cole Fernandez surrendered himself, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said.

According to LAPD, Fernandez went to the police station accompanied by his lawyer, where he confessed to have changed the sign and was bailed out shortly thereafter for US$1000. LAPD charged Fernandez with trespassing; earlier reports indicated vandalism charges were ruled out as he used black and white tarps to alter the letter “O” to read lowercase “e”. The sign was not physically damaged.

A court hearing is scheduled for February 15. Fernandez said this act was an art project, and claimed he faces up to six months in prison if convicted. It took Fernandez two hours to alter the sign. Regarding conviction, he said, “I’m a person of integrity. If I do something wrong, I will own up to it.”

Exactly 41 years ago, on the same date in 1976, then-university student Daniel Finegood modified the sign to read “Hollyweed” for an art class assignment. Finegood returned to change the sign again in 1990, spelling out “Oil War” to protest against the First Persian Gulf War. Fernandez, on Tuesday, said his act was to “bring light and positivity and happiness”. He said he was inspired by Finegood’s modification to the sign.

City Councilman David Ryu said in a statement. “Pranks of this nature deplete the resources of our valuable public safety personnel”.

The term “weed” is an English slang term for cannabis, a banned drug in many countries. On November 9, a ballot for legalising recreational use of cannabis in California for the age group of 21 and above was passed. The law legalising recreational cannabis is due to come into effect in 2018.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

American film director John Hughes, noted for such movies as Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club, died Thursday due to a heart attack.

A statement, released by his representative, said that he experienced the heart attack while on a morning stroll in Manhattan, New York. Hughes was born on February 18, 1950 in Michigan. He started his career as an advertising copywriter in Chicago. By the end of the 1970s he was a frequent contributor to the National Lampoon magazine.

In the 1990s, he made the Home Alone series, which became a box office sensation and turned Macaulay Culkin into a star.

In recent years, Hughes stepped back from the movie industry to spend more time with his family. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons and four grandchildren.