Zohar Manor-Abel

The Good Lobbyists?

“As Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus is one of the most instrumental lawmakers in crafting the health care reform that President Barack Obama has promised. In his many years on the committee, Baucus has amassed a wealth of connections to the health care and insurance industries, often through his ties to former staffers turned lobbyists.

The five former Baucus staffers who now lobby for the health care or insurance interests represent twenty-seven different companies or associations. In some cases these lobbyists have the same clients. This map of connections expose how close the many organizations seeking influence on health care reform are to one of the most powerful players in Washington.”

All data was taken from OpenSecrets.org.

The Max Baucus Health Care Lobbyist Complex

Fahrenheit 451… Book burning as done by lawyers: “January 1st 2010 — and every January 1st – is public domain day, the day we celebrate the entry of copyrighted works into the public domain.  In the United States no published work will pass into the public domain tomorrow — nor the next year, nor any [...]

Arcade Fire and David Bowie – Life on Mars [Live EP - Live at Fashion Rocks, 2005]

This is my dissertation “The Freedom to Create & Creating freedom”. It was written as part of my final year project for BA Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins College in 2006.

“I didn’t grow up buying every book I read,” said the English born Mr. [Nick] Gaiman, 47. “I read books at libraries, I read books at friend’s houses, I read books that I found on people’s window sills.”Eventually, he said, he bought his own books and he believes other readers will, too. Neil Gaiman decided [...]

I took this test few years ago, when I joined StumbleUpon. I haven’t logged in to the site in a few years, until today, when I saw my result  and I decided to take the test again. Its interesting to see the differences in me, from being creative to becoming managerial. Funnily, it happened in [...]

Could it be right? It almost sounds like a joke. For me, it is just another point to prove how ridiculous the world, and more accurately, the capitalist world, has become. Slashdot reported that US Patent and Trademark Office issued a really broad patent for a “mobile entertainment and communication device“. “It’s a patent for [...]

From Wikipedia: Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is any of several technologies used by publishers (or copyright owners) to control access to and usage of digital data (such as software, music, movies) and hardware, handling usage restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work. The producers of films and music are [...]