Vtech is a ubiquitous Hong Kong-based electronic toy company whose kiddy tablets and other devices are designed to work with its cloud service, which requires parents to set up accounts for their kids. 4.8 million of those accounts just breached, leaking a huge amount of potentially compromising information, from kids' birthdays and home addresses to parents passwords and password hints. (more…)

The new Raspberry Pi Zero is a $5 general purpose computer, manufactured in Wales, with more power than a 1980s personal computer. (more…)

https://youtu.be/myhYNsRXYgsJohannes Hansen says: "Fooling around at the office yesterday my colleague Søren noticed this funny sound from the can."

https://youtu.be/2a1QISYNGHsLueb Popoff is a tree carver from Boulder, Colorado. In this video he takes a chainsaw to a tree stump and turns it into a wood sculpture with 3 raccoons and a fox.

Ecco the Dolphin was undoubtedly one of the trippiest games to emerge from the early '90s, a psychedelic ocean adventure about Atlantis, time machines and giant crystals whose gameplay was once turned into a six-hour meditation video.But it's never looked quite as surreal as it does in エコー ザ ドルフィン Ride the C a t a c l y s m, a series of animated gifs created by Brazilian glitch artist Sabato Visconti. Here, Ecco swims amidst jagged waves of pixel flotsam, often coming face to face with himself as he glides through a current of glitches.The series is billed as "an ongoing gif-roman of systemic failure, corrupted oceans, lush aesthetics, and sad dolphins, made with glitched out scenes from the classic Sega Genesis game." Visconti's previous glitch-oriented work has focused Donkey Kong Country, J. Crew catalogs, and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.See the full gallery of Visconti's Ecco the Dolphin glitch art here. via Kill Screen

/ GIFT GUIDE /all / mark / cory / david / xeni / rob / jasonIt's that time of year again! Welcome to Boing Boing's 2015 Gift Guide, where you'll find toys, books, gadgets and many other splendid ideas to humor and harry your friends and family! Scroll down and buy things, mutants!SPONSORED3D Robotics SoloThe ultimate drone for aerial video, 3D Robotics Solo puts the entire Hollywood toolkit into one backpack! It’s the perfect drone for beginners and pros alike — amazing pushbutton Smart Shots make the cinematic automatic. Solo flies, Solo works the camera — and you get the incredible shots you want. All with the GoPro camera you know and love.

A special holiday thank you to our long time sponsor Shanalogic! Shanalogic is a curated shop of handmade and independently produced gifts, many of which we own and love! Check out this fantastic Solar System Necklace!

Today and tomorrow only we are offering an additional 15% off the entire Boing Boing store (some exclusions may apply). Simply use coupon code: BLACKFRIDAY at checkout! Below are a few of our favorites from the store:First Generation Lytro 16GB Camera: The First Consumer Camera to Capture the Entire Light FieldAdobe Training Videos: Lifetime Subscription: 6,000+ Adobe Software & Web Design Training Videos'ExoMount Touch' Universal Car Mount: Drive Smarter w/ the Safest Way to Use Your Phone on the RoadHollywood Art Institute Photography Course & Certification: Take Better Photos from Day One with This Pro-Taught, 22-Module TrainingSKEYE Pico Drone: The World's Smallest & Cutest Drone to Ever Hit the SkyEssential JavaScript Coding Bundle:Master the Language Behind Every Web Browser with 15 Courses on All Things JavaScriptPencil by FiftyThree Digital Stylus:You’ll Forget You’re Drawing on an iPad with this Amazingly-Natural Digital StylusGetflix: Lifetime Subscription: Don't Let a Little Geo-Restriction Stand Between You & Your Favorite Show

When you look at the Thanksgiving story from Squanto's point of view, it's a pretty depressing science fiction story about minding your business outside your home one day when you're suddenly abducted by aliens with advanced technology, and when you finally make your way back home, years, you discover that nearly everyone on the continent has been wiped out by an alien supervirus. (more…)

Leo spent 1,000 hours making these 17kg robotic cosplay wings, modeled on Kayle from League of Legends. (more…)

BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music. has been trying to enlist Cox Cable as an accomplice in a copyright trolling scheme, demanding that the company pass on copyright infringement notices that accuse users of downloading music and order them to pay large sums of music or face punishing lawsuits. (more…)

In 2014, Britain strode boldly into the late 20th century, finally legalising "private copying" -- ripping CDs, taping LPs, recording TV shows, backing up your ebooks and games -- but now it's thought better of the move. (more…)

The Snoopers Charter is the UK Tory government's proposal to force ISPs to retain records of all their customers' online activities, and the government has used the excuse of the Paris attacks to call for its immediate passage despite the fact that the £175m/year the government has budgeted to defray ISPs' costs is not even close to enough to pay for the massive surveillance effort, meaning that Britons' ISP bills are set to soar if it passes. (more…)

Today only in the Boing Boing Store we are offering an extra 15% off of the below VPN deals just use coupon code: VPN15 at checkout.proXPN VPN: Premium Lifetime SubscriptionSurf the web with ultimate peace of mind – both at home and on the road – over proXPN’s fully-encrypted, lightning-fast servers. Your lifetime premium subscription gets you unlimited bandwidth on their ultra-private global server network and complete online anonymity—it even unblocks geo-locked content so you can browse freely around the world. Plus, proXPN never logs your online movements, so no one can ever track you or steal vital personal data.PureVPN: Lifetime SubscriptionMake sure your personal data and Internet activity are never exposed with this extremely reliable VPN trusted by over a million users. Whether you’re looking to beat geo-restrictions to binge-watch your favorite show anywhere in the world, or you need to send personal banking information over a safe connection, access to PureVPN’s self-managed VPN network will make sure that happens. Not to mention it has a wider reach (550+ servers nodes in 141 countries) and allows more simultaneous device connections (five) than pretty much any other VPN out there.Private Internet Access VPN: 2-Yr SubscriptionConnect through a VPN tunnel of your choice and forget about hackers, digital eavesdroppers, and government spies when you’re connected to public Wi-Fi at the airport or thumbing through your favorite social media site while in line for your morning coffee. High-level encryption ensures you’ll put an end to incessant digital advertising, while IP cloaking lets you stream your favorite movies and shows no matter where you are. With Private Internet Access, the only gateways to the outside Internet are the ones you open.Tiger VPN Lite: Lifetime SubscriptionThe Internet can be a scary place, packed full of hackers, government spies, identity thieves, and other degenerates. TigerVPN protects you from cyber crimes, and guarantees that your Internet activity stays anonymous. How? Connect to TigerVPN Lite’s 15 servers worldwide to get fast, private access—free from location restrictions. Yes, that means you can have your Netflix and watch it too no matter what country you’re visiting.

I have to admit - when I first saw the Swagway, I thought I’d never get on it. The very idea of finding balance on an electric skateboard seemed too difficult and I was certain I’d feel like a goofball.The thing is, I was wrong and everyone who sees the Swagway in person wants to give it a shot. And while they're on it, they can't help but smile when they do.When I received mine, I was excited to find it pre charged and ready to go. The Swagway self-balances by using a silent, internal gyroscope. The acceleration is controlled by sensors that are triggered by position changes of your center of gravity.When you lean forward, it’ll sense your actions and accelerate. The more you lean, the faster you go (up to 10 MPH).Turning is a little bit different. When you want to turn right, you just shift your weight a bit onto your left foot.For me, the first few minutes were all about just standing still on the Swagway. I was pretty wobbly at first but soon I was able to slowly ride around our office.[embed]https://youtu.be/yjZDqLk895k[/embed]After two days, I could casually ride around the office and slalom through coworkers. Even though I was way better at it, I still needed to think about every move I made.But then at some point it happened. I became one with the Swagway and learned to just think where I wanted to go and my body naturally made the micro-adjustments to get me there.This thing is built like a tank and even though it’s taken a beating, it runs as smoothly and quietly as the day I got it.When it’s time to charge, the process is simple. I just plug it in and wait for the red light to turn green. One of the few things I can say against the Swagway is that it’s possible to overcharge. If you charge for more than 2 hours you can damage the battery so you have to be on top of it. When the battery is in tip-top condition, one charge can run the Swagway for up to 20 miles.When you consider this is actually a mode of transportation, the $399.00 price tag really isn’t bad. Here's my coworker and friend Johnny Rodriguez successfully pulling off a strange maneuver on our office Swagway. You can see that he's jumping on it with his full weight and it's just fine.[embed]https://youtu.be/IW8qsFlV184[/embed]If you pick one up, you’re going to have to be a bit more careful when you take it outdoors. I’ve seen people zip around the sidewalks of LA while texting and to tell you the truth, it frightens me. Some caution needs to be taken when riding over bumps or slopes of more than 30 degrees of incline – but for me, I think using it in and around my office is enough.While the Swagway may not be Marty McFly’s hoverboard just yet, it’s an amazing step in the right direction.If you get the chance to jump on one you definitely should.Just don't jump on it like Johnny would.

Martin Shkreli, the hedge-fund douche-bro who hiked the price of an off-patent drug used by AIDS and cancer patients from $13.50 to $750, then promised to lower the prices after becoming the Most Hated Man on the Internet did no such thing, because he is a liar. (more…)

Nick Sousanis, who delivered his doctoral dissertation in comic book form, has a new comic in the current Nature magazine, explaining the last 25 years' worth of climate talks, as a primer in advance of the Paris climate talks next week. (more…)

(more…)

Disasterpeace's wonderful soundtrack for Polytron's seminal game Fez has just been released on mouth-watering, lucent pollen-colored vinyl sheathed in a gold-embossed gatefold jacket. It looks as beautiful as it is certain to sound.It comes along with a digital version (FLAC or MP3 format); you can order it now from the Polyshop for $39.99.At the same time, Polytron also announced an exclusive limited edition physical version of Fez a year in the making, hidden inside a beautiful red and gold adventure notebook.

These knitted gloves are here to save the day (and your hands) with an ultra-comfy, double-layer that will allow you to stay warm and use your phone. Now you can take photos on the fly, text, Tinder, and more without letting freezing temperatures get in your way. Plus they work with all touchscreens, so no gadget is off limits.

Once upon a time, clock towers were a sort of public utility, a shared temporal reference point that synchronized communities where personal timepieces were often a rarity. Although we hardly need the reminder in the modern age of smartphones, there's something about these buildings still capture the imagination, not just as striking aesthetic objects, but as physical metaphors for either moving through time, or running out it.In the game Tick Tock Isle, you play as a "confident young horologist" (read: clock man) who has been summoned to a mysterious island to fix a broken clock tower, which should be your first clue that things are about to get weird. Naturally, you end up traveling back in time to the days when the now empty island was a bustling community, and have to figure out how and why it got abandoned by talking to townspeople and solving puzzles.If you're a fan of adventure games, it's definitely worth the hour or so it takes to play what developer Squiddershins calls "a very short, very silly adventure."Tick Tock Isle is also described as a "spiritual successor" to Cat Poke, the developer's earlier puzzle game about a little girl annoying her pets on a rainy day. Although it doesn't have nearly as many cats, Tick Tock Isle manages to pack a lot more story (and mystery and humor) into a game that is just as short, sweet, and charming.You can download the demo for free, or buy the full game for $2.99. Sorry Mac users—it's Windows only.https://youtu.be/_r-nHWKI06g

This organic cold-pressed, unrefined coconut oil is less than half the price of Trader Joe's coconut oil (and probably one third the price of coconut oil sold at Whole Foods). I have a subscribe-and-save order for it on Amazon so the price is $13.59 for a 54 ounce jar. I spread it on toast, make unsweetened cocoa with it, and use it to roast potatoes, especially sweet potatoes. I never get sick of the taste or smell of coconut oil - it makes me happy.

(more…)

Apparently I’ve had crummy doorbells for the past 45 years and didn’t even know it. It took visiting a good friend’s home to find out what I was missing. When I got there, I was greeted by what looked like a mini-HAL.The creepy thing was that I didn’t even touch the device before hearing my friend's voice come through it. He was a hundred feet away and knew I was there because of a built in motion detector. When I began walking up his driveway, the RING detected me and pinged Juan on his phone. He then had the option of ignoring me, simply viewing my actions or talking to me.Though I couldn’t see him, we were having a full conversation as if we were talking on a speakerphone. But the fact that Juan could have been anywhere in the world and know that I was approaching his home, makes this so much more than a speakerphone or intercom.When Juan FINALLY opened his front door, he showed me the recorded video of me walking up and talking into the device. I have to say I was amazed by how good I looked.The RING’s video is HD and is recorded at 720p at 30 FPS. The field of view is 180 degrees and the RING has night-vision! My awesome iPhone 6 doesn’t have night vision!One of the first things you'll do when you get your Ring device is set the sensitivity of the motion sensor. This is so that if you have kids playing in your yard, the RING doesn’t keep pinging you over and over.All you need for the simple installation is a Wi-Fi connection and a drill.There are a few other tools that you’ll need, but they're equipped in the well-designed packaging.To power it, you could either tie into your existing doorbell system or you can set it up with the supplied wall mount in any part of your home or office. The battery in the RING device is USB rechargeable and holds its charge for a full year!Since it connects to your phone through the WiFi connection in your home, the RING doesn’t have to even be mounted outside - or at all for that matter.Because this device is so versatile, I’ve been using it for tasks other than what it was designed for.

The LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE was the company's latest answer to Apple's dominating entry into the market. But it died fast, pulled off the shelves within a week due to an unspecified problem with the display.Ron Amadeo writes that they "are not in a position to communicate the specifics of the issue that led to this decision."

Store more on your Mac with this microSD memory card adapter.(more…)

Follow @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.Please join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE, for early access to comics, and more.You can get both EMU Club Adventures books, signed, sketched and delivered in time for the holidays here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Motherboard's Jason Koebler follows Kyle Wiens around the Electronics Reuse Conference -- Burning Man for the service-people who fix your phones, laptops, and other devices -- in New Orleans. Wiens is founder and CEO of Ifixit, whose mission is to tear down every single thing you own, write a repair manual for it, and source or manufacture the parts you need to fix it yourself. (more…)

Well, this is wonderful—Jason Scott, creator of the GET LAMP documentary and tireless historian in the service of games, is releasing a huge trove of scans from the archives of Infocom veteran Steve Meretzky.Infocom, of course, was a leading developer of mysterious and beautifully-written computer text adventure games in the 1980s. Meretzky's carefully-kept notes—over 9000 scans, says Scott—document numerous aspects, from design to business, of what was widely considered the company's golden age, in which it produced famous games like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, and the remarkable, pioneering A Mind Forever Voyaging, written and made by Meretzky himself, among others.Jason Scott writes of these documents, which will live at The Infocom Cabinet:

Sgt Crispy writes, "XKCD creator Randall Munroe, has made a spiffy little hoverboard game. Looks to be small, however, when you realize that boundaries are made to be broken, A massive world opens up to be explored." (more…)

In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, one of the central characters is Lennie, a man with some form of mental development disability who enjoys petting mice and puppies. Only he enjoys it so much he can’t stop and often ends up squashing them literally to death.The thing is, evidence suggests that the mice and puppies were probably enjoying the petting before Lennie’s fat fingers squashed them. In 2013 researchers from the California Institute of Technology published the results of a study done on mice that showed there is a specific type of sensory cell in skin that responds to careful stroking. The lead researcher on the study suggested we could one day have a skin lotion that makes us feel better.It’s all very well that mice enjoy being stroked, but why did Lennie -- and why do many other people -- derive pleasure from stroking soft animals? Numerous research studies suggest that during stroking, receptors in the skin send signals to various parts of the brain. This can be measured using MRI scans of the brain during stroking that show increased neuronal activity associated with increased blood flow. The affected areas of the brain light up even when the person involved is unconscious.I think Lennie should have been given a stress ball or something to occupy him, although I’ve no idea if it would have been a sufficient alternative to petting mice. Sometimes such toys are not always what they seem: https://youtu.be/6BL_vxrGyoUAs we know, there are plenty of materials that are lovely to touch. Silk, velvet, and polar fleece to name but a few. What factors affect whether or not our skin receptors will respond positively to such materials? I contacted Marilyn DeLong, a professor of apparel studies at the University of Minnesota. I wondered if personality might play a small part in how people respond to touching certain materials.“Of course personality plays a part in how people respond to touching materials" she said. "When you have interest in touching, your prior experience in touching similar or different materials, your response to touching various materials -- are all involved.”I was racking my brain, probably firing off all kinds of neuronal chaos, trying to think of other factors that might affect our reactions to touching materials. I was thinking about how people touch materials - for example, gently and slowly stroking materials as opposed to rubbing them quickly. I asked DeLong if this would have much effect on how people feel about a material?“How people touch materials is critical. There are more ways to touch than fast and slow, however. In addition to stroking, a designer would likely pick up a material and squeeze gently to learn about its resiliency, lift it up and move it to determine drape, examine it visually for its perceptible tactile qualities, for example. Experience plays a large role in touch - experience is a good teacher and can result in shortcuts in the process of touching. One learns quickly that a material that feels soft upon first encounter could become scratchy and result in discomfort over time.”When one thinks about the materials that feel nice to the touch, plastic would probably not make many people’s lists. However there is one plastic product that engages many of us in very pleasurable touching: that lovely stuff known as bubblewrap.Why do so many people feel a sense of satisfaction when popping bubblewrap? Yes, it feels squidgy and makes a small bursting noise of air when the bubble is popped, but what is happening within us when we engage in such eccentric behavior? I got in, er, touch with Dr. Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute in Miami to briefly touch on the subject. I asked Dr. Field if she had any idea why people derived pleasure or contentment from popping bubblewrap or stroking animals.“Both those activities involve stimulation of pressure receptors under the skin which leads to a relaxation state, e.g. slower heart rate and decreased stress hormones and the feedback from these activities is also pleasurable - the popping sound of the bubblewrap and the pleasurable sounds from the animal.”In 1992, psychology Professor Kathleen M. Dillon published a paper on her study about why people enjoy popping bubblewrap. She hypothesized that it may have something to do with your fingers releasing muscle tension when engaging in bubblewrap popping. She also noted in her paper that the ancient Greeks used to carry "worrybeads" (small smooth-surfaced stones or pieces of amber or jade) around with them to enjoy the calming effects of stroking them.I also asked Dr. Field for her opinion on why evolution has resulted in many of us deriving pleasure from popping bubblewrap, stroking soft furry animals, velvet. etc? I haven’t covered human-to-human touch here because I feel the benefits are more obvious but Dr. Field alluded to it in her answer: “In our "no touch" culture we find touch experiences as substitutes for human-to-human touch.”The central theme of Of Mice and Men is loneliness, so in light of what Dr. Field says, we can probably conclude that this at least partially explains why Lennie enjoyed petting mice so much. However, if his traveling partner George had bothered to take the time to invent bubblewrap, he might have saved Lennie and his animals a whole world of trouble. It turns out that there is evidence to suggest that cute animals make some people feel aggressive. At least that’s according to two psychology graduates of Yale University in this paper. They found that if you show pictures of cute animals to people while they are popping bubblewrap, the subjects end up popping significantly more bubbles. I found out about this study via this site, which also features a photo of a teacup dog which is so cute, you might want to bite your screen.Don’t open it, I’m warning you.Image: Shutterstock

They're $4 from Stickermule -- a great way to show your Glorkian pride.

A kerfuffle about a Canadian university where yoga classes were cancelled after concerns about cultural appropriation were raised by the Centre for Students with Disabilities sparked Michelle Goldberg, author of a biography of yoga pioneer Indra Devi to discuss the complicated issue of cultural exports, cultural appropriation, and the history of yoga. (more…)

A leaked recording made of a conference call posted by the Edison Electric Institute, which lobbies for the power industry, reveals lobbyists for high pollution companies talking about how they can exploit the Syrian refugee crisis to get a rider inserted into a pending bill that would kill the EPA's Waters of the United States rule, which protects America's waterways from pollution. (more…)

Yesterday, Dell was advising customers not to try to uninstall the bogus root certificate it had snuck onto their Windows machine, which would allow attackers to undetectably impersonate their work intranets, bank sites, or Google mail. Today, they apologized and offered an uninstaller -- even as we've learned that at least one SCADA controller was compromised by the bad cert, and that Dell has snuck even more bogus certs onto some of its machines. (more…)

Michael from Muckrock writes, "From Boy Scouts to movie stars, no one was safe from J. Edgar Hoover's all-watching surveillance apparatus at the FBI -- or his sharp tongue. MuckRock has put together a collection of his most biting insults to serve up at Thanksgiving, in case you need to put any of the in-laws on notice." (more…)

Most folks use paper,Some use their hand,Outdoors they use leaves,In the desert they use sand.But what about fruit? You've never wiped your keister with a kiwi?They make every thing for every purpose in Japan, and now they're making fruit toilet paper. The original article on Rocket News notes that the company which created this bit of fruity foolishness won a design award of note for the product.The simultaneously strange and endearing qualities of Japan are laid bare in this quote from the manufacturer's website, so helpfully pointed out by Rocket News: "Latona Marketing says of their sweet creation 'Many companies and stores throughout Japan give a roll of toilet paper to customers as a novelty gift to show their appreciation.'"I want you to try that this upcoming holiday season and let me know how it goes.You can buy this unique gift here. Unfortunately they are not scented. So while fruity they may look in the bathroom, fruity they will not smell.

The Guardian has a video report on the Sweden Democrats, the third largest party in the country, which runs on a platform of blatant racism, anti-immigration, and nationalism.

Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright recently went to North Korea and took photos of colorful, symmetrical building interiors that look a lot like a Wes Anderson film set.

https://youtu.be/cHbYk2l9w-EDesigner Milan R. Vuckovic produced this video time-lapse of terrorist attacks around the world over the last 15 years. Only attacks with 20 or more fatalities were included.

https://youtu.be/OgBHRokBoHAThe video has a terrific crack of thunder. There's no information about where this happened.[via]

https://youtu.be/-wV_58DHkLMAfter watching this video, I realize I've never eaten a yam. According to the President of the Sweet Potato Council, yams in the United States are only found in "specialty stores." Yams have been a staple in some African countries for centuries, and when slaves were brought to the US, they referred to sweet potatoes as "yams." The name stuck.

See more photos at Wink Fun.In Arcadia Quest, the mighty city of Arcadia has fallen to a foul vampire lord, Lord Fang, and his army of orcs, goblins and other monsters. They control the entire city, but the guilds of the city aren't going to take it laying down. There's loot to be had, and a throne to reclaim. The guild that does it sets themselves up in a position of power in the new regime. You'll guide a guild of three drafted heroes through six campaign-style missions with and against up to three opponents, attempting to complete objectives and gain power by fighting all comers.The miniatures in the game are exceptional, with the individual sculpts for the heroes being incredible. The game play is tense, too. You weigh pursuing goals with not wanting to rush in and get the objectives, only to have the opponent's fresher guild members come in right after you and take it from you. The scenarios are well balanced and the map design is set up to not favor any particular side. Being able to grow your heroes and build them up, getting better armor and abilities is exceptionally appealing. You'll build rivalries with your fellow players, but they still need your firepower to help complete the missions, or at least need you to not be at their flanks while they fight the monsters. Win the day, for Arcadia – and also fat loots, and power. – James OrrArcadia Quest

This video appears to be a freighter's anchor being lost as it is dropped. The situation just gets worse and worse as the chain's momentum increases and whatever braking mechanisms exist fail. Soon, metal is on fire, and it seems clear that it is now time to back away from the gigantic runaway anchor chain whose back end components are likely to go places unknown when they emerge from the ship. Yet our intrepid shooter keeps filming!I see no gloves, goggles, hard hats or fear, and thereby suspect this involves Russians.

Remember back in the heady days of the mid-1990s, when playing computer games felt like running around in a endless maze of cardboard walls? Relive it today in Payroll, a game that simulates both the excitement of working in an office building, and the thrill running Windows 95, complete with 640x480 pixel resolution and sound effects ripped from an Adlib sound card.You play as a diligent employee working in an office that also seems trapped in the '90s, complete with noisy fax machines and X-Files posters on the walls. You have a computer, and its screens will tell you what you need to do.

Five protestors were shot Monday while protesting the recent shooting death of a black man. Police are looking for three white suspects. The victims' injuries are reportedly not life-threatening.“Tonight, white supremacists attacked the ‪#‎4thPrecinctShutDown‬ in an act of domestic terrorism. We won’t be intimidated.” Black Lives Matter Minneapolis wrote on Facebook. The Washington Post reports that those shot were protesting outside a police station.https://twitter.com/MinneapolisPD/status/669056985829154816

The barb in trade agreements' tail is the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, which lets companies sue governments to repeal rules that interfere with their profitability. It's let tobacco giants fight anti-smoking campaigns, and now it's letting fisheries attack rules aimed at preventing the wholesale slaughter of dolphins. (more…)

Pfizer's used a tax-dodge called a "reverse-inversion" to sell itself to a much smaller, Irish pharma company, moving its corporate nationality to Ireland at the stroke of a pen. (more…)