So much for Google’s mantra of “Don’t be evil.” Bloomberg has more… Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda. Wait, that’s just $3.1B. What about the other $56.9B? Well, the rest isn’t [...]

Over the past two years I wrote, produced and directed a film called “We Will Make You Whole Again” with my co-director, editor and cinematographer Trevor Hawkins of Mammoth Media. Some of you know this because a couple months back I shared the trailer for the film and told you a little bit about what [...]

Ironically, the star of Waterworld (which I like…by the way) might be just the guy to help save the water in the Gulf of Mexico. Check out the nifty gadget he and his brother has been funding the development of (to the tune of $15M) for the past 15 years. Apparently, it can remove between [...]

The title says it all. If you tweet or have been thinking of a good excuse to get on Twitter, follow us @thedonklephant. We tweet all of our posts and some other fun facts too. Now, if you’re new to whole “twitter” thing, this article provides some good pointers: What Should I Tweet About? Also, [...]

I hadn’t, but when I did…wow. First, right there on the front page you have a map that details the total dollars announced, available and spent on the both the national and state levels (when you mouse over each graph or state). But the most impressive feature by far is when you enter in your [...]

A new website for the controversial, popular program is up and it includes some things you need to know if you’d like to take advantage. Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG [...]

After the release of a study that showed somebody is 23 times more likely to get into an accident, Dems in Congress are working on legislation that would make it illegal across the country. From the AP: WASHINGTON — States would be required to ban driving while texting or face the loss of highway funds [...]

Another day, another incredibly questionable Wall Street practice. And this one is particularly galling. Basically, some of the stock exchanges allow companies to see trades 3 milliseconds before they hit the market. It’s called “flash” trading, and the only folks who can take advantage of such information are the ones who pay a fee (of [...]

About a month ago, when most of the unrest in Iran was happening, I wrote about the fact that Nokia Siemens seemed to be helping the Iranian government track down protesters. Well, it looks like the Iranian people are doing something about it and protesting with their wallets. Perhaps you should too? Not so fast… [...]

I’ve been genuinely intrigued at how much fiction and reality have been intersecting recently. See, there’s this film called MOON and it follows the story of a guy working on the far side of the moon who figures out that there’s a lot more to his mission than collecting the natural resource Helium-3. It’s a [...]

Thanks to Justin and company for welcoming me on here as a regular contributor. I will be posting on a number of issues, but one area you can expect that I will regularly be tracking is technology related developments and how they interact with the political world and policy. I also live less than ten [...]

“Today you are the media, it is your duty to report and keep the hope alive.” – A recent Facebook status update by Mir Hossein Mousavi Over the weekend, I touched on the significance social media is playing in this revolution, and Mashable has more details… The status update, posted in Farsi and translated both [...]

Between the 2008 election and the current situation in Iran, social technologies have changed politics in very real, very meaningful ways. Now, with these immediate, uncontrolled communication channels available (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook), citizens finally have the ability to share what’s really going on without the media filter. Iranian leaders didn’t anticipate this, but other repressive [...]

Then here are 5 simple tips… The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter. 1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will [...]

And interesting little factoid in all of this Iran election stuff. From Reuters: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election. Confirmation that the [...]

O.k., this story is just cool: Earlier this month, Wilson thought of a tweet (the name for a post to the social networking site) and poof, his computer read his mind and sent the darn thing. At just 23 characters, Wilson’s message, “using EEG to send tweet,” was done with a computer setup that interprets [...]

First, he talks about how he’s going to start talking about all the spending he’s going to cut in the coming weeks. I wonder if it’ll quiet critics who say he’s spending us into the poor house. Probably not, but I’ll keep my eye out nonetheless. He also introduces the Chief Performance Officer and Chief [...]

(AP world headquarters) A while back, the A.P. targeted a site called the Drudge Retort for using excerpts of its stories on the site. This caused quite an uproar among bloggers because they felt that excerpting portions of a story’s copy was considered “fair use”, and I let my feelings be known as well. The [...]

Yet another step towards the goal to make the government’s actions more transparent than any other time in our history… “In late May, Data.gov will launch, in what US CIO Vivek Kundra calls an attempt to ensure that all government data ‘that is not restricted for national security reasons can be made public’ through data [...]

If you use the Twitter as much as I do, like I do, then you’ll definitely want to check this out. And scene… (h/t: Mashable)