Morning Media Summary

Tech:

If You’re Going To Kill It, Open Source It!:
“Another week, another company killing off a giant product after spending millions of dollars and years developing. Back in 2009 Cisco bought Pure Digital Technology’s Flip. Gadget fans and makers were puzzled by this; phones were just about good enough to start beating the Flip. Now, it’s heading for the landfill.”

Amazon’s Cloud Crash Disaster Permanently Destroyed Many Customers’ Data:

“In addition to taking down the sites of dozens of high-profile companies for hours (and, in some cases, days), Amazon’s huge EC2 cloud services crash permanently destroyed some data. ”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

Historic Flooding Unfolding Along Mississippi, Ohio Rivers:

“As if tornadoes and damaging thunderstorms were not enough, historic flooding is also threatening the Mississippi River, below St. Louis, as well as the lower part of the Ohio River.”

Insurance / Gambling:

Poker websites’ actions were risky, experts say:
“Like doing drugs in front of the cops, poker websites were brazen in using U.S. institutions to conduct business the federal government had declared illegal.”

Health / Safety:

Man Accused of Smiggling Nearly 4,000 Snakehead Fish:
“A Brooklyn seafood importer has been accused of illegally importing nearly 4,000 snakehead fish, a predatory freshwater creature known as “fishzilla” that has been outlawed in New York state since 2004.”

Economics:

Economic growth slows inflation surges:
“Economic growth braked sharply in the first quarter as higher food and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending and sent inflation rising at its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years.”

Legal:

Federal civil rights offices criticized for amount of spending, redundancy:
“As leaders look for more ways to cut government expenditures and reduce the budget, some have pointed out the duplicative nature of a number of the government’s overlapping bureaucracies. The prodigious amount of federal offices devoted to diversity and civil rights is one example.”

Labor:

San Joaquin County Workers Take Protest To The Streets:
“San Joaquin County workers gathered outside county buildings for a 15-minute demonstrationt to call for cost-saving measures.”

Transportation/ Land Use:

High-Speed Rail:
“Investing in high-speed rail in the Northeast corridor may make sense because it has a population density sufficient to generate enough riders to sustain the billions of dollars required to build, maintain and operate the system. Given the current federal spending freeze on high-speed rail, I believe that the time is right to consider seeking private capital to help shoulder the substantial investment needed to achieve true high-speed rail along the corridor.”