bbi

beckett brown international. i'd never heard of them. i will remember the name now (aka S2i)



Exclusive: Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups

By James Ridgeway Additional reporting by David Corn, Jennifer Wedekind, Daniel Schulman, and Nick Baumann

A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records—donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos—from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies.
In addition to focusing on environmentalists, the firm, Beckett Brown International (later called S2i), provided a range of services to a host of clients. According to its billing records, BBI engaged in "intelligence collection" for Allied Waste; it conducted background checks and performed due diligence for the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm; it provided "protective services" for the National Rifle Association; it handled "crisis management" for the Gallo wine company and for Pirelli; it made sure that the Louis Dreyfus Group, the commodities firm, was not being bugged; it engaged in "information collection" for Wal-Mart; it conducted background checks for Patricia Duff, a Democratic Party fundraiser then involved in a divorce with billionaire Ronald Perelman; and for Mary Kay, BBI mounted "surveillance," and vetted Gayle Gaston, a top executive at the cosmetics company (and mother of actress Robin Wright Penn), retaining an expert to conduct a psychological assessment of her. Also listed as clients in BBI records: Halliburton and Monsanto...........

scientific whaling?

no, it's not. it's whale killing specifically for sushi, sashmi and for all i know, whale b-b-q. putting everything else aside (moral reasons i mean), a lot of whales are endangered OR recovering (if taken off the endangered list). there are bans on hunting to protect them. japan doesn't obey them.
A Clash of Views On Whale-Loving
Creature Is a Delicacy in Japan, a Cause in the West

By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service
TOKYO, Jan. 25 -- At Ohana, a restaurant not far from the Japanese parliament in central Tokyo, a small plate of chilled raw whale costs $17.50. Grilled whale is $9, while whale in a hot pot goes for $29. The mammalian flesh for these dishes -- available year-round and served mostly to businessmen older than 40 -- comes from Japan's annual whale hunt, carried out, the government here declares, to advance "scientific" knowledge of cetaceans...............
.............The Japanese originally announced that they would take up to 50 humpback whales in the current hunt in addition to 800 minke and 50 fin whales. The humpback kill would have been the first in more than 40 years for a recovering species whose numbers had been reduced by about 90 percent by industrial whaling.
Under pressure from the United States and the European Union, where the humpback holds a special place in environmentalists' hearts, Japan backed away from that hunt. But the fleet is proceeding against the rest of the prey. ..

i've quoted it before and here it is again, from star trek iv: the voyage home
scotty to admiral kirk: 'Admiral, there be whales here'
and here is the amazing judy collins singing farewell to tarwathie accompanied by visions of whales.........

of guitars and greenpeace

who'd a thunk it?

i played for YEARS and years. everything from classical to blues - my forte (and i use that term VERY loosely) was folk though. i stopped playing but still have my gibson b something 12, could be 45 or 52 but i think it's a 25 -12, i don't remember (12 string). she's a beauty!

Saving Trees Is Music to Guitar Makers’ Ears

By GLENN RIFKIN
Published: June 7, 2007

Christian F. Martin IV is the sixth generation to run his family’s renowned guitar-making business, C. F. Martin & Company. But he is surely the first to worry about the availability of the distinctive woods needed to build Martin guitars, the choice of musicians like Sting, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett and John Mayer.

As old growth forests have been razed and several species of tropical woods like mahogany, ebony and rosewood have become much scarcer, guitar makers like Martin, Taylor, Fender and Gibson have had to rethink the notion that there is an inexhaustible supply of the desired woods to make their instruments.
As small, privately held companies, these instrument makers have banded together to join the burgeoning corporate social responsibility movement, not just to appear politically correct but to ensure their long-term survival.........