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Man Pleads Guilty To Selling Fake Chips To US Navy
itwbennett writes "Neil Felahy of Newport Coast, California, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and counterfeit-goods trafficking for his role in a chip-counterfeiting scam. Felahy, along with his wife and her brother, operated several microchip brokerage companies under a variety of names, including MVP Micro, Red Hat Distributors, Force-One Electronics and Pentagon Components. 'They would buy counterfeit chips from China or else take legitimate chips, sand off the brand markings and melt the plastic casings with acid to make them appear to be of higher quality or a different brand,' the US Department of Justice said in a press release. The chips were then sold to Naval Sea Systems Command, the Washington, DC group responsible for maintaining the US Navy's ships and systems, as well as to an unnamed vacuum-cleaner manufacturer in the Midwest."
That sucks ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'm imagining someone selling the Navy fake ships.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
You know the penalty.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You thought you could get away with fraud while dealing with the government?
Might as well as try robbing a police station.
Wonder what else our armed forces and government have purchased that is fake or just plain doesn't work the way it should...
The chips were then sold to Naval Sea Systems Command, the Washington, D.C., group responsible for maintaining the US Navy's ships and systems, as well as an unnamed vacuum-cleaner manufacturer in the Midwest.
Has our Navy gone from suck to blow?
Scamming someone who can answer the question, "you and what army". Oh okay, so their answer is "not army, marines" but still. Takes guts.
And with the US being involved in two wars, I think the sentence for this might actually be a cigarette, against a nice sunny wall. Blindfold optional.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Chips? Chips!?
Common, this is Slashdot. Chips? The technical jargon in the summary is horribly confusing.
For clarity, could we please use a more generic term, such as 'computer thingamajiggy?'
whats wrong with sony, samsung, or intel. I'm sure they could produce chips for government related applications, not some shady business no ones heard of before.
Are you familiar with efforts to foster American small businesses in the United States by the government (note this is nothing specific to Obama)? If you want to get into government contracts, I suggest you start a small business owned by a woman who is a minority. You'd be amazed at how easily you can land contracts and subcontracts as the government and big contractors strive to make quotas.
My work here is dung.
Because it was the free market and private enterprise that was doing the scamming?
And if they are willing to pull this on the gov't then it really doesn't bode well for the rest of us peons.
In other words the right to regulate chip counterfeiting belongs to your local State government, until you expand the Constitution with an amendment
Wrong. This is actually a proper use of the Interstate Commerce Clause. Now arresting some poor bastard for growing pot for his own personal use on the other hand.......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Thank you Neil Felahy of Newport Coast, California for reminding us to trust you.
Keep Doing Good.
Isn't there some confusion here? This is the free market at work; if it wasn't, the Navy would have their own fabs and employ wafer process techs as well as sailors and airplane mechanics. This is outside the brief of the government, especially the Navy, hence the government buying the fake chips from a private contractor. They didn't do enough due diligence and got burned -- isn't that what's supposed to happen when there's an information imbalance in a market?
HOW does a man and his family sell ANYTHING to the Navy? Is the Navy getting their parts from eBay or Craig's List?
Since when did they need real money from us? They either print their own or borrow it from China.
I suggest you start a small business owned by a woman who is a minority.
Why is it (properly, IMHO) called racism and/or sexism if someone gives favoritism to a white male but doing the inverse is just fine and dandy?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The military spends billions of dollars and has the money to buy directly from known, reputable firms like AMD, Siemens, Mitsubishi, NEC, Toshiba, etc. Doing so would ensure the quality of the electronic components.
Why is the military dealing with relatively unknown distributors of suspicious origin? This story is fishy.
The military probably did not intend to use anything "purchased" from unknown distributors. This "purchase", from the onset, was intended to be a honey pot attracting unscrupulous businesses connected to hostile governments like Beijing. The purchased components were never intended to be used. The aim was to find such unscrupulous businesses, to determine the network that Beijing has established in the USA, and to shutdown American traitors who participate in such a network.
Was it not a private enterprise that sold these fake chips?
The funny thing is that the chip manufacturers commit this same fraud daily. The same silicon is packaged in one package and labeled mil grade, and another labeled commercial grade. The price is often more than a magnitude different. Sometimes it is even the same package, just different print.
Of course sometimes there is different silicone, sometimes it is different temperature bin.
Funny that this is perfectly legal for the mfg. and when some clever reseller does the same it is fraud.
BTW. Companies with military contracts are often required to give the military "best price". With a seperate label for military version of HW, this is really profitable.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Government procurement is a bureaucratic mess, and a royal pain in the ass for both buyers and sellers. Because of this (and because of rules preferring "small" and "minority-owned" businesses), it is very common for government entities to buy though a middle man that knows how their procurement systems work, rather than getting product directly from a manufacturer, especially for low-cost COTS products.
Fuck the Navy, you mean my vacuum cleaner might have sub-standard chips in it?! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Yeah, or the minor distributors put in a lower bid. One or the other.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
That's why on the government forms I said I was multiracial I'm part Anglo and part Saxon. I didn't come form Caucasia so I never check that box.
apparently the fake chips are made with less than 50% potato, have a weird taste and are sold in a can.
This is Slashdot damnit! Logic has no reason here.
Life is not for the lazy.
Is this like "counterfeit" copies of MS Windows? Where these chips that acted and functioned the same (shadow shift production runs)? Seems like we need a better word as counterfeit implies that it looks the same but does not act the same. Maybe we should just be saying "copies produced without authorization?"
The chips were then sold to Naval Sea Systems Command, the Washington, D.C., group responsible for maintaining the US Navy's ships and systems, as well as an unnamed vacuum-cleaner manufacturer in the Midwest.
Naval Sea Command is an unnamed vacuum cleaner manufacturer? You learn something new every day here on SlashDot.
Isn't it a bit hard to sell something without a name, though? How could you ask the salesperson for it? "I want one of those vacuums that don't have a name." "The Midwest one or the African one?" "I want blue, no yellow!"
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I knew those couldn't have been real Doritos
For that matter, how can we even be certain they're even being used for critical applications? Maybe they had some piddling alt system or prototype to develop and they just wanted to save some money? I mean, if the other (known) purchaser of these electronics is a vacuum cleaner manufacturer, We couldn't exactly be talking high-performance electronics to start with...
...Unless the reason the vacuum cleaner manufacturer is unnamed is they were working on some sort of super powerful "Stealth" Vacuum cleaner. Or maybe an Unmanned Vacuum Cleaner (a "UVC" as it were.)
Demented But Determined.
What happened is that they went with the cheapest (lowest bid) contractor. The other guys who bid on the contract probably had legit chips to sell and couldn't compete with the cheaters.
This is why the government's practice of having to accept the lowest bid is just fucking dumb. They always get ripped off.
Look at any of your local construction projects. The lowest bidder got that job. Now the job is over budget and behind schedule.
They rarely go with the best, most qualified bidder.
www.labrainc.com/
www.rhdistributors.com
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
because the only chips in my vacuum cleaner are doritos that fell on the floor.
Depending on what era Radio Shack those parts came from, I'd probably *prefer* the military using the Radio Shack kit.
... devices found themselves in things like reactor control systems, missile systems, and other catastrophically lethal stuff?
Maybe the military should be making it's OWN components, instead of buying them from the people they have their guns pointed at.
Why is it (properly, IMHO) called racism and/or sexism if someone gives favoritism to a white male but doing the inverse is just fine and dandy?
2 generations ago: negros were riding on the back of the bus (1949)
3 generations ago: women hadn't yet been given the right to vote (1919)
The short version is: because we say so.
The full version might have something to do with the long and storied
history of racism, sexism, and exploitation throughout human history.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Hitler had a foreign accent.
To most Americans (I am an American, by the way), anything stated in a foreign accent (especially British, for some reason) automatically has a better chance at being accepted as true.
:)
*ahem* The proper terminology is "Remotely Piloted Vaccuum" (RPV) ;-)
--Rags
Life is like a burrito. Sometimes the beans go bad.
There's only two places where that question would be considered "insightful": slashdot and Fox News.
I wouldn't say it's "how the free market is supposed to work" as that implies something positive and normative to be pursued; it's just an aspect of the free market (and many less-than-free markets which might seek to replace them, cf. nail quotas in Soviet Russia) that ultimately must be addressed by fixing the information imbalances.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Welcome to reverse discrimination.
The government is not at fault. The owner of those businesses is. The government looked for a seller within our free market, and that seller conspired to fool the government.
If anything, this says more negative about the free market, and the willingness of people to do illegal things out of selfish greed.
The government is the people. It is for the people, by the people. If the government is so "fucked up" as you say it is, than perhaps its just a reflection of our citizens.
We need to be BETTER PEOPLE for ourselves, and our fellow Americans.
I don't think this is an issue of Due Diligence - blame the goverment blah blah blah - it's an issue of THEY LIED. They stated the chips were one thing / one grade and turned out they were another grade entirely.
It's reasonable to expect regular consumers in the marketplace to perform due diligence but when a person claims the product is the product and it appears that way then the person has performed due deligence. Requiring the person to inspect fab plants and everything else for every manufacturer is not due diligence - it's a hassle.
Let's get out of this blame the government mantra - the politico talking heads are having enough fun as it is. This is a criminal issue for which the company should be nailed pretty harshly. The goverment should get it's retribution through whatever means are most expedient.
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
Not what they expected when the navy asked for "sub-standard" chips
Because everyone knows all smaller distributors are untrustworthy. Come on.
Huge Corporate-think is really seeded deeply now, isn't it.
That nicely sums up most our middle eastern "conflicts" in 3 words.
Table-ized A.I.
The full version might have something to do with the long and storied
history of racism, sexism, and exploitation throughout human history.
I see, so this is just history repeating itself.
For a moment there I thought two wrongs don't make a right.
Buying from smaller businesses (which are more likely to keep some more of the money HERE in the U.S.) is Political Correctness???
The Military buys in far too small quantities for companies like AMD, etc. to care. While the military was once the bastion of forward looking electronics, it now focuses most of its energy on maintaining ailing fleets of old vehicles using technology that's 15+ years old (I know, I work for a company providing such support).
The main reason for purchasing through companies such as that listed above is that there are obsolete devices that are required to maintain $100000+ systems, that can ocassionally be found in the "after-market" - i.e. someone had a stash in their warehouse that they didn't use. If it wasn't for unfortunate practices such as this, the miliary budget would need to be significantly larger to redesign and build new electronics systems for its vehicles every 5 years (or every 2 years when dealing with memory technology).
What were white men doing two or three generations ago?
While some of them were probably benefiting greatly from institutionalized sexism and racism, others were part of the poor, downtrodden masses.
Even today, there are places that are very white and very poor, where there is little opportunity, and crime and poverty runs rampant.
So why do we assume all white men don't need any additional help?
Is it because of the color of their skin and their gender?
So, basically, what you are saying is that it is an over-reaction?
I have learned that 100% of SD cards and USB drives on eBay, if from China or Hong-Kong, are counterfeits, and you're lucky if they actually have the specified capacity. You're shit-out of luck if you hope to find a good quality SLC Flash-RAM component (be it SD, CF or USB drive) - they're all MLC.
Another example: did you know that 90% of Indian Sandalwood on the market is either not Sandalwood (it's adulterated) or, if you're lucky, it's not Indian (rather Australian or New Caledonian, much lesser in quality and Santalol content)? Other essential oils' adulteration is rampant as well. There's at least twice as much Lavendel EO on the market, than there's world production.
Olive oil adulteration is very common in Spain, Italy and Greece. Coconut oil adulteration is rampant as well. And this is stuff people _eat_! And then there are several Chinese milk scandals, where dozens of babies were killed.
A strong consumer association should emerge and help sorting out the good stuff from the bad. I don't know the solution to the problem, frankly, but I know it's bad and getting worse.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
just send a small group of highly trained men to pay them a visit.
to parphrase Hanover Fiste:
"They should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The military doesn't call people up and buy things. They announce a need and people bid. UIf a company doesn't bid then there isn't much they can do about it.
Some larger companies won't deal with smaller contracts.
This story isn't fishy, nore is the use of small companies unusual.
It would be cool if it's a honeyu pot, but the odds of that is really low, and it would need to involve other agencies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because while stealing $100 from Bob and giving it to Bill is usually regarded as bad. Doing so after Bob had stolen $100 from Bill usually isn't.
Or the underlying concept: two wrongs make a right.
What about that guy that sold them the fake "Mission Accomplished" banner for their aircraft carrier?
Nobody is more than 1 generation old.
The full version might have a lot to do with money...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Its not racism (or sexism) if someone gives preferential treatment to someone because they are a white male, its discrimination on the basis of race and sex. Racism is an attitude (as is sexism) that might reasonably inferred to be the (or part of the) motivation for the discrimination, depending on what other evidence of motivation is available.
OTOH, when a bunch of people, mostly wealthy white men, get together and decide to provide limited preferential treatment to people who aren't white men (but who, as business owners, are, as a class, wealthier than average) with the stated purpose of advancing the economic position of people in groups that were disadvantaged by past formal and informal discrimination, there a wide number of motives to which the action could reasonably be ascribed (some noble -- such as accepting the stated motivation -- and some less so -- seeing it as tokenism that avoids dealing with the widespread results of discrimination) but "racism" (or "sexism") -- at least in favor of the groups receiving the preferences -- isn't as easy a case to make as it is in the case of white men discriminating against people who aren't white men.
So how does reversing that make everything better? We're supposed to have 2 or 3 generations where a white male can't get ahead? Then what? It's all good? We switch back to equality?
And it's not like this reverse-racism works anyway. This may come as a shock to you but a huge number of these minority/woman owned businesses are actually RUN by non-minority males. The "owner" stays out the way and gets a check. I've even seen situations where the minority male who runs the show has the business in his wife's name because WBE gets more contracts.
Maybe it was Matel, and someone could not get the chip catalog.
You've got to have pretty big cojones to cheat someone who can point missiles at your house.
I immediately thought of the quote about Microsoft; "the only time Microsoft will make something that doesn't suck is when they make a vacuum."
Did anybody else catch the reference to NCIS? Life imitates art.
Best regards.
by white males out of proportion to their actual representation in the population
You are assuming (let's just take the case of "white women") that men and women are inherently the same on the inside, even culturally... that is, that an equal amount of white women as white men actually WANT to run businesses and be politicians.
I have met very few "white men" who want to be "stay at home dad's." I have met very many "white women" that want to be stay at home mom's. Unfortunately, the "thinkers" of today appear to invariably hold the premise that men and women are not different in any way, except physical appearance, thus we should have equal representation based on demographics in every job. Except jobs that women don't like, of course. And there isn't a huge social outcry about the discrimination against male secretaries/"administrative assistants." And when I've heard that argued, the answer seems to typically be that "well, women are better at doing those sorts of functions - phone answering, organization, etc." But it's sexist to say that men - on the whole/average is understood, of course - are better at anything. Except violence or something like that.
What if some unknown distant ancestor of Bill's took $100 from some ancestor of Bob's?
Taking $100 from Bill and giving it to Bob doesn't seems much more like two wrongs than the kind of restitution you're describing.
Then it is right to take $10,000 from Bill due to interest.
Yeah, that's what we need, secret police. What could go wrong?
So it seems you value representative control rather than awarding work to the most capable. That really doesn't match what I value at all, but perhaps it's more complicated than that.
I can see how there might be an old-boys network that would select the boys in the club instead of the most capable, and that ain't right either. Maybe we even need some kind of force pushing people to balance this more through the government.
Really, the government approach seems crude and unfair, and I wish there were a better way.
...but you really need to look at the issues at hand instead of calling BS on people that look at it differently. Bring up the social issues instead of dismissing the rhetoric instead of complaining that they're not. You can bring the discussion to a higher level instead of a lower one.
I think the term would be "positive discrimination". At least that is what the government called it here in the UK. It sounds horribly similar to the kind of stuff which is in 1984.
The full version might have something to do with the long and storied history of racism, sexism, and exploitation throughout human history.
Interesting. So I'm being punished because of the crimes of my fathers.
Actually, scratch that. My family came to the states from Germany in the 1930s and laid down roots in the Northeast. So they had nothing to do with slavery, Jim Crow or the lack of female voting rights. So, I'm actually being punished for the crimes of dead people just because I have roughly the same melanin levels that they did.
Yeah, that's totally fair and just.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
All My Sons?
In other words, because quite a few years ago somebody who looked kinda like me did really horrible things to somebody who looked kinda like her. Yeah, that makes sense.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Welcome to straight-forward discrimination.
FTFY
Chips Ahoy!
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
We don't. We assume that a majority of black folks could use some additional economic help. This was true starting with the end of slavery and people do tend to end up in the same economic condition their parents were in (middle class breeds middle class, etc...) so you can't necessarily say "that was a long time ago" because it wasn't - yet. Just don't ask me at what point that changes :-)
I can personally vouch for that. I'm a State government employee and any time we contract work out (which is generally on construction projects in my department's case) there is a list of minority-owned businesses that we must go through and contact X number of for bids before we can make any decision. Should we decide on a company not minority owned we have to give a lengthy explanation of why they were chosen over the minority-owned companies. This isn't always as hard as it sounds though, since the vast majority of the numbers on the lists (that get updated yearly) are no longer in service (or as in at least one occasion in the past reused by sex hotlines, those are fun). I am all for using minority contractors when they are the best options, but not just because they are minority owned. But I guess that's what reverse discrimination is all about these days..... Oh, I'm sorry, I meant "equal" opportunity.
Because Congress has written purchasing rules for the Federal Government that give preference to small and minority owned businesses. The same rules also give preference to buying the parts as cheaply as possible.
The result is, when you are buying small quantities and/or unusual parts, you end up dealing with middlemen and minor distributors. The big guys are rarely interested in anything other than big and/or multi year purchase commitments.
Having been on both ends of the process (both as a purchaser for the Navy and working for a small electronics dealer who sold to Navy), I assure you there's nothing fishy at all about the story. When you're a buyer, if the price is right and the paperwork appears in order, you have no choice but to buy from the minor and unknown. You haven't the authority, or the time, to investigate.
:) :)
Regarding your 'honeypot' theory, I suspect you've been reading too much Clancy or watching too much NCIS.
Not to mention that it IS federal jurisdiction if you're doing business with the military.
Chips? Chips!?
Apparently he sold them to some Admiral as potato chips but just as the admiral opens the packet and starts gobbling them he immediately notices that they are RICE chips. Not only that but they have a warning about anal leakage on the packet. Who puts anal leakage on their chips!?!!!?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
nope just like i dont owe any money on my fathers house. It doesnt work like that
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
In 2006-2007 it was a problem to get many parts in the reasonable quality - flash, op-amps, multiplexors.
So we bought a few reels from the second-hand distributor.
As a result flash marked as 32Mb was 2Mb inside, op-amps weren't up to the specs (manufacturer confirm that they were made of written-off dyes), multiplexors were sold as a particular brand with advanced features while indeed were jelly beans for $0.10 a piece.
Thankfully we were able to rework boards before products hit the consumer market.
That was a good lesson for us to never use Chinese distributors for parts
NSSC = Naval Submarine Support Center
Naval Sea Systems Command = NAVSEA
this sig was brought to you by the letter
The free market does not really exist. It requires that everyone be honest and play by the rules. In reality, people cheat and lie all the time. For this reason, the free market does not exist in its idealized form. We still strive for a free market, but rules, regulation, and enforcement are required in the real world. The only real question is how much "rules, regulation, and enforcement" is required to minimize the loss that results from fraud? Republicans and Democrats have different answers to this question.
White males still get ahead easily everywhere, quit whining.
Ah, so that's how libertarians justify opposition to land reform now that their ancestors have stolen the commons.
also due diligence isn't instant. These guys did get caught, eventually. If they were smart the first batch they sold was legit, then they just have until some regular or spot check review to sell the fake stuff.
You cannot possibly inspect every piece of every thing you buy from everyone, and adequately test it, even as a big entity. You test some, and, as with any (pseudo random) sampling method it won't catch everything right away, and might never catch some things.
Everything is political correctness to the whiny AC
While I am in the same boat as you, there is some justification for how things are. Because you are caucasian, you do not have to worry about being discriminated against. You do not have stereotypes applied to you that would make it difficult to find work. You have an advantage - you have it good. I often find myself feeling lucky that I am an attractive, 6', caucasian, blue eyed male. Doors open easier for me then others - that's life and that isn't fair.
If minority groups held seats of power (political and industrial) that represented their population then all would be good. No equal opportunity laws or policies would be required. Right now these laws exist because the sins of our fathers have to be corrected. And with racial tensions eased, life will be better for all - even people like you and me who already have it good and were not responsible for the problem in the first place.
Indeed.
I will gladly make reparations for slavery -- be it direct payments to the slaves' descendents, or preferential hiring policies, or AA policies at universities, or "race norming" of test scores, whatever. I'll pony it all up with a smile.
Provided, of course, that I then get to own a slave.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
well there is a type of vacumm chamber that could kill you a vacuum chamber, or the vacuum of spce
Less caffeine or more sleep, guy.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
nt
Because you are caucasian, you do not have to worry about being discriminated against
Bullshit. The topic at hand is institutionalized discrimination backed with the full power of the United States Government.
You do not have stereotypes applied to you that would make it difficult to find work
Citation needed. There are stereotypes for every race. Italians get stereotyped because of the mob. Germans get stereotyped because of the Nazis. The Brits are referred to as Limeys. Don't tell me that there aren't stereotypes that apply to Caucasians.
minority groups held seats of power (political and industrial) that represented their population then all would be good
They do hold seats of power. It's acceptable practice for Governments to draw legislative districts with the specific intent of electing minorities. Again with a nice double standard -- if you draw a district designed to elect a white guy it's called racism, but if you draw one designed to elect a black or latino it's called "progressive".
Right now these laws exist because the sins of our fathers have to be corrected
They weren't the sins of my father. Even if they were I seem to recall that the Constitution speaks out against the corruption of blood.
And with racial tensions eased
How do you ease racial tensions by disadvantaging an entire race because of crimes that were committed before most of them were born?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Electronic synthesizer makers/hackers/repairers have problems with counterfeit chips too. The Roland TB-303 has a number of transistors that have not been made in decades. Some have suitable modern replacements, but others do not. You have to be very careful buying transistors and chips to repair old synths (like the Juno) because it can be hard to spot fakes from looks alone. Chip counterfeiters can be very good at replacing a chip's markings. Sometimes you don't find out that it's a fake until you get it soldered into the circuit. Ebay is the most popular place for these kinds of scams, but occasionally a reputable electronics retailer will be duped into carrying them.
A company back in the mid-20th century always seemed to be able to find the mil-spec chips needed for military contracts.
Turns out they were pulling the same scam: Buying consumer- or seconds-grade chips (from Radio Shack even), grinding off the markings, and rebranding them to look like the mil-spec ones.
The first space shuttle prototype was named the Enterprise, due to public pressure. It was used for things like testing the piggyback transport plane and what-have-you, and the results of such testing used in final design changes for the flying fleet. It is rumored that NASA DID examine whether they could upgrade it to flight status and end up with one more shuttle, rejected the option due to the cost (higher than building another one), and that a major factor in the decision was the need to replace all the electronics due to concern that those counterfeit chips had ended up in the assemblies.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Slavery wasn't just an American problem
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline
# 1807 Abolition in Prussia, Germany The Stein-Hardenberg Reforms.
# 1808 United States--importation of slaves into the US prohibited after 1 Jan..
In fact one of the most recent countries to engage in slavery was Germany
1946 Fritz Sauckel, procurer of slave labor for Nazi Germany, convicted at the Nuremberg trials and executed as war criminal.
votes for women
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage
In the years before World War I, Norway (1913) and Denmark also gave women the right to vote, and it was extended throughout the remaining Australian states. Near the end of the war, various states gave women the right to vote, including Canada, Soviet Russia, Germany and Poland. British women over 30 had the vote in 1918, Dutch women in 1919, and American women in states that had previously denied them suffrage were allowed the vote in 1920. Women in Turkey were granted voting rights in 1926. In 1928, suffrage was extended to all British women on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. One of the most recent jurisdictions to grant women full equal voting rights was Bhutan in 2008.
Seems that historically Germany also shared similar practices as in America following a similar series of reforms.
Secondly and perhaps more importantly by becoming American citizens your family accepted the choices made by the American government.
You really shouldn't feel hard done by, especially since you still have the advantage of being white.
There is still a long way to go before humanity ends discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, gender, money.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
"Pentagon Components".
That must have fooled some guy at the navy thinking he was buying parts to another branch of the government?!
What's next? Not-counterfeit-R-Us?
Ohhhkaaay. My great grandparents were in eastern Europe at the time. Perhaps Bill's grandparents were half slave owners 1/4 slaves and 1/4 abolitionists. How do you propose to fairly apportion blame and restitution here? And for how many generations?
"You're a part of the problem here in the great United States; where it's become acceptable to be a sexist, and racist against the majority of the country."
Yes, I guess that's why there are only 17 women and only 1 black person out of a 100 senators. Because it's "acceptable" to be sexist against men and racist against whites.
Please return to that argument when white men are actually underrepresented in politics or business, not while they remain grossly overrepresented.
Please look at a grid I made at :
http://ariskatsaris.deviantart.com/art/Political-grid-143752221
(You can click on it for a bigger image)
Meritocracy is all fine and dandy, but without solidarity strengthening the "egalitarian" axis, it just means that all future competition tilts towards the already successful rather than awarding the more capable.
Solidarity has its own pitfalls ofcourse -- leaning leftwards, it may transform from "supporting the weak" into "group loyalty" instead, thus turning into a new privilege and a new aristocracy.
But meritocracy alone can't stand. If it's not supported by egalitarianism it *will* make itself into aristocracy.
Yeah, companies make unrealistically low bids to get the contract knowing full well there is no way they can do the work for that price...
It would be cheaper to have people sufficiently qualified and independent to evaluate the options in advance...
There should also be severe penalties for failing to deliver on budget and schedule.
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And in 2 generations, whites will ride on the back of the bus..
In 3 generations, men will lose the right to vote..
Going for equality is one thing, but a lot of these efforts are going too far. A lot of people simply aren't satisfied being treated equally, and are demanding preferential treatment.
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Bullshit, I have seen many situations where a white male has not got a job or not been promoted because someone equally or less qualified but who happens to be from a so called minority was available too.
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The problem is that a lot of people in these minority groups feel they're owed something...
I have witnessed people bunking off school because they say they don't need it, they will be owed a job when they leave school and thus don't see the need to waste time learning anything.
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How many black men or women actually stand for election as senators?
When resume's turn up applying for jobs (in IT) there are usually little or no women or blacks applying, the vast majority are white or asian males. Employers can only employ the people who apply for jobs that they are qualified to do.
Another problem is that unqualified people will often get a job because they're a minority...
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Well I guess it goes to show our home pc cpus are just as good as the military brand cpus.
I guess maybe thats why they now by ps3s for their cpu power cycles, instead of overpriced chips that are counterfeit anyways!
We still make damn good ones. Say you need a vacuum for cleaning up ASH3 waste inside a semiconductor plant.
Nilfisk has one and it's only $5000.
http://www.nilfiskcfm.com/vacuum-applications/electronics-semiconductors.aspx
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
What were white men doing two or three generations ago?
While some of them were probably benefiting greatly from institutionalized sexism and racism, others were part of the poor, downtrodden masses.
Even today, there are places that are very white and very poor, where there is little opportunity, and crime and poverty runs rampant.
So why do we assume all white men don't need any additional help?
Is it because of the color of their skin and their gender?
While the simple answer is "yes", the reality is far more complex. The reality is a minority in the same situation as a while male tends to have a more difficult time improving their lot. While this is stupid, sad and reprehensible it's also reality.
I hate when I realize I used a particular word too often. I'm too lazy today to look up alternatives, however. :-P
You know the thing about UDP jokes? I don't care if you get it or not.
> whats wrong with sony, samsung, or intel.
Sony: rootkit
Intel: an endless list of bugs and design problems,
fdiv being one of the more infamous.
Samsung: I give up, you tell me.
If your father had a mortgage on said house, it doesn't disappear just because he dies.
By their skin color of course. And for 12 generations.
Oh. Well, ok then. Is there an installment plan?
Because, as any fule kno, only Muslims have ever cracked and gone on a killing spree.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Your right, but when he dies, I dont have to pay it off, the estate does, I just get whats left over. So if i get nothing, well ya know what it wasnt mine to start with, it was his.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
So the parent here gets mod'd as insightful because he doesn't know that the U.S. has enemies. So I post a response pointing out in common /. style that the U.S. has many current and potential enemies (we have 2 active wars going on for God's sake and an inactive state of war with North Korea) and I get mod'd as "offtopic"? How can you be offtopic when you are directly challenging a post that has been mod'd as insightful? Explain that for me please.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
I've seen many situations where the white man in question was whining and blaming "AA" for his lack of skills, either work-based or social, and then finding people to nod in approbation. Your demographic is still in charge and seen as the default, so quite honestly, you can fuck off.
So hm, I guess the english should start learning welsh.
How many black men or women actually stand for election as senators?
Which kinda indicates the underlying problem...
There were no non-white or female presidential candidates in either of the two major parties all the way up to 2004. Does that tell you *nothing* about racism or sexism in society in centuries past?
Or are you gonna say that since they didn't stand for election, it doesn't mean anything that they weren't elected either?
Employers can only employ the people who apply for jobs that they are qualified to do.
Of course. And people can only become "qualified" by getting educated. And the rich have a significant advantage in securing education for their children. And the rich are predominantly white.
Therefore in this self-reinforcing establishment black and Hispanic minorities will remain underqualified.
Another problem is that unqualified people will often get a job because they're a minority...
That's actually the least of the problem. Why don't you go a few steps further back and figure out *why* some minorities have fewer qualifications in the first place.