Washington, DC Sustainability / Energy Calendar

Global Climate Change Coalition maintains a Washington, DC Sustainability / Energy Calendar; it is a Whitaker Associates project.

What would you do if you witnessed a crime?

Confidential Twitter documents

If someone gets hold of private documents and sends them to you, and you’re an online publisher, what do you do?

Say you’re not interested and tell them to phk off? Publish and be damned, if not possibly sued, whatever the content? Publish bits and pieces according to your lights and sensitivities?

TechCrunch seems to have chosen the latter course.

If someone shows you stolen material the proper thing to do is return the stolen items, and report the incident to the police. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this amongst journalists, but it is really very simple. A citizen should report criminal activity to the police.

If the stolen items are themselves evidence of criminal conduct, then the case is different. But if the material is just the information connected to a normal business, then its theft is a criminal matter.

I will be writing more about this when I have a chance, but once again the news business seems to be losing their moral compass and taking the rest of us with them.

Small Business Investment Company program

Recovery Act boosts venture capital

Small businesses having difficulty securing private equity or venture capital may find it easier to get funding as a result of changes made through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The changes, which were implemented Friday, will affect the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Investment Company program.

Excellent news.

Dirty tricks under color of journalism

Murdoch papers paid £1m to gag phone-hacking victims

Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

It is all there, breaking and entry, illegal surveillance, more like secret police than a news organization. So what do you do when your client is on the receiving end of this sort of pressure.

New to me local public affairs blog

BLACK VECTOR – Ideas For A New Direction For Public Affairs

In honor of the Glorious Fourth