The Thesis, Economic Hitman, and Alcoa

Well, I'm back. Lately my personal life has been...well interesting. End of a marriage, family illness, and whole bunch else. The blog, I fear, has been ignored.

So, the news. The thesis was granted last week, and I received hard copies of the examiners' reports. I'll type them up and post them here. I have to fix a few grammatical mistakes, but nothing a weekend can't fix. Maybe I'll be really stupid and attempt a PhD. God alone knows what I'll do with that.

Two days ago, while eating lunch with radical comrades from Umzabalazo we Jubilee (which kind of exists as a underground, staunchly anti-capitalist South African social movement), I received a call from Alcan's economic hitman, who had just arrived in South Africa from Canada and wanted to meet me. As usual, he tried the old corporate tactic of co-option. He stated that Alcan was a good company, concerned about the environment, and that there were ways Earthlife Africa and Alcan could work together. When I told him that the only thing I was interested in getting out of Alcan was the price of electricity from Eskom, he was not happy. He then dragged out the next corporate trick, threats. He was concerned about my facts and that there would be consequences. I take that vaguely veiled threat to be a host of lawyers descending with paperwork. Well, screw that. Serve me and I'll spin that like a record.

For more on Alcan in South Africa, go here.

Keeping with aluminium smelting, Alcoa (who is trying to buy Alcan) just received a US$10 million contract from NASA. The corporatisation of space continues. Link.

There's even an idea for ads in space.