Bradley Manning trial transcripts now available online, via crowdfunded stenographers – Boing Boing

Freedom of the Press Foundation has begun publishing transcripts from the trial of accused Wikileaks source Bradley Manning.

The US military has refused to release transcripts of Bradley Manning’s trial. In addition, they’ve denied press passes to 270 out of the 350 media organizations that applied. Without public transcripts or a press pass, it’s virtually impossible for media organizations to accurately cover the trial and for the public to know what the government is doing in its name.

In response, Freedom of the Press Foundation has crowd-sourced funding to place a professional stenographer in the media room covering the trial.

We will post full transcripts shortly after each day’s proceedings end. The morning session with be posted by 7 pm the same evening. The afternoon session will be posted by 9 am the next morning. The transcripts will be released under an Attribution 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.

Depending on how long the trial lasts, transcriptions will cost between $60,000-120,000, so please help support this project by going here to donate.

Here are the transcripts.

Also, read this opinion piece at the Foundation’s website, by Rainey Reitman: “Searching for an Enemy in the Case of Bradley Manning”

Leaked Audio of Bradley Manning’s statement released by Freedom …

Help crowd-fund a court stenographer for the trial of accused …

Freedom of the Press Foundation: an update, from John Cusack …

Boing Boing joins media coalition asking Manning judge to provide …

A Salute to Bradley Manning, Whistleblower, As We Hear His Words …

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing’s in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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via Bradley Manning trial transcripts now available online, via crowdfunded stenographers – Boing Boing.

How Walmart uses medicaid and foodstamps to avoid paying its workers a living wage

The combined worth of the 6 Walmart heirs and heiresses is greater than that of the bottom 41% of American families (48.8 million households). How do the grinning kids of Sam Walton stay so rich? By paying their employees slave wages and not providing benefits, forcing them to use food stamps and medicaid. Above, a poster by Miel Macassey that shows how Walmart siphons money from taxpayers so it can pay its workers (which represent 1% of the American workforce) an average of $8.81 an hour without having them and their kids drop dead of starvation.

via How Walmart uses medicaid and foodstamps to avoid paying its workers a living wage – Boing Boing.

via How Walmart uses medicaid and foodstamps to avoid paying its workers a living wage – Boing Boing.

Marijuana dispenser machine company’s stock gets really, really high, man

Medbox (MDBX), a firm that makes medical marijuana dispensing machines, says its stock “is getting way too high.” Shares spiked 3,000% this week (from about $4 Monday to $215 Thursday), “prompting executives to try and dampen investor enthusiasm.” The surge was caused by a MarketWatch story about how to invest in legalized marijuana.

via Marijuana dispenser machine company’s stock gets really, really high, man – Boing Boing.

via Marijuana dispenser machine company’s stock gets really, really high, man – Boing Boing.

How a multinational beer giant is making bank by destroying the world’s beer and laying off the world’s brewers – Boing Boing

In “The Plot to Destroy America’s Beer,” Businessweek’s Devin Leonard chronicles the rapacious AB InBev, a multinational, publicly traded giant corporation that is buying up American (and European, South American and Asian) family owned breweries, cutting them to the bone, lowering the quality of the ingredients used, shutting down breweries that have been running for more than a century, laying off thousands of workers who’ve given their lives to the companies AB InBev acquired, and changing the recipes to make all the different sorts of beer once on offer taste more or less the same.

InBev was never a sentimental company. Shortly after the merger, it shuttered the 227-year-old brewery in Manchester, U.K., where Boddingtons was produced. It encountered more resistance in 2005 when it closed the brewery in the Belgian village of Hoegaarden, from which the popular white beer of the same name flowed. InBev said it could no longer afford to keep the brewery open. After two years of protests by brewery workers and beer aficionados, it reversed itself. Laura Vallis, an AB InBev spokeswoman, says Hoegaarden exports spiked unexpectedly. “The brand’s growth since is positive news for Hoegaarden and for consumers around the world who enjoy it,” she says.

Yet some Hoegaarden drinkers say the flavor of the beer changed. “I think now it’s not as distinctive tasting,” says Iain Loe, spokesman for the Campaign for Real Ale, an advocacy group for pubs and beer drinkers. “You often see when a local brand is taken over by a global brewer, the production is raised a lot. If you’re trying to produce a lot of beer, you don’t want a beer that some people may object to the taste of it, so you may actually make the taste a little blander.” (Vallis’s response: “The brand’s commitment to quality has never changed.”)

Despite occasional setbacks, Brito’s assiduous focus on the bottom line produced the intended results. InBev’s earnings margin (before taxes and depreciation) rose from 24.7 percent in 2004 to 34.6 percent in 2007. Its stock price nearly tripled. Then he started running out of things to cut. In early 2008, InBev’s results plateaued, and its shares stumbled.

Investors hungered for another deal. Brito complied with the takeover of Anheuser-Busch. He had intimate knowledge of his target: America’s largest brewer had distributed InBev’s beers in the U.S. since 2005. Anheuser-Busch’s CEO, August Busch IV, the fifth Busch family member to run the company, was no match for La Máquina and his mentor, Lemann, who was now an InBev director. Anheuser-Busch’s board of directors accepted InBev’s bid of $70 a share on July 14, 2008.

via How a multinational beer giant is making bank by destroying the world’s beer and laying off the world’s brewers – Boing Boing.

via How a multinational beer giant is making bank by destroying the world’s beer and laying off the world’s brewers – Boing Boing.