Of course they put someone from one of the few companies I have in my hosts list as 127.0.0.1 in charge of protecting privacy.
Sure, she's got experience working for the Satan of privacy violations. I don't give a rats what she did for them. This is like recruiting someone Microsoft to be in charge of internet security..Oh yeah, they already did that too.
Tomorrow they will define peace as war, darkness as light, and cats as dogs.
What will they do next week? Put Pol Pot in charge of the Human Rights Commission?
Bear in mind that without any asset in US jurisdiction, an overseas spammer won't have anything to confiscate, and need not feel compelled to cooperate. And his host government may not give a damn, since it probably has more important things to look at. The ISP may well not care, given how many overseas ISPs have been spamhauses for months on end, if not years.
In my view of things, as Spam is a criminal act in more and more places, the companies that hire spammers to market their products in that way are just as guilty as the actual spammer. Even if the spammer doesn't have assets inside of the USA, the company he is spamming for probably does and probably uses enough shipping and trade services even if they are locates somewhere else to be bound by the numerous trade treaties we have. IE: We *can* take their assets.
The day we start seizing the assets of the companies who hire them, is the day the spam stops. It's brutal, it's ugly, but RICO is the way to go.
I use Opera, and Webwasher. Between the two and the options they give... Even on a dialup most things on the web are tolerable. I agree that flash is far more aggrivating than helpful these days. Thankfully Opera supports disabling it with one key, and supports compression.:)
...And the manual is even useful for a lot of things. The one that came with 7.2 saved me a ton of aggrivation. Plus you get the bad (and sometimes humorous) German to English translation.:)
I'll probably get the boxed set for 8.2 when I get a new computer to take advantage of it. I run on really ancient *(@&$. I like having the DVD's and CD's handy if I foul something up majorly.
Back then I was really jealous of my friends Amiga. He could view porn in full color, and even brief porn movies. All I had was monochrome ascii art porn and "beep" sound.
Amiga was a pretty impressive system for the time period.
I regularly check on the apps (using netstat) that have ports open, and if I see something I shouldn't, I check it out.
This is all fine and well till the attacker replaces your version of netstat with his more l33t one that wont report on his activities, or a kernel module to do the same thing. This is entirely the point of a root kit.
... good software with bad documentation will probably fail to achieve widespread adoption.
That is one thing I like about FreeBSD. The handbook for it is actually pretty good and useful for most things. Sometimes a lot more reading than I want to do -- but for a compilation written by a mess of different people it doesn't have quite the spaghetti feel of Linux documentation. A lot less frustrating.
There were a few companies selling ozone generators to clean the air in your home. Unfortunately, Ozone indoors at high concentrations tends to cause a myriad of health problems (asthma being one of them).
Nothing really new in this article. The indoor marijuana growing industry has been using this technology for years, although a reduction in pest (spider mites) was just a side benefit to the odor reduction. Even in those situations, the rooms are set up with positive pressure, and a quick venting system. Failure to do that can lead to injury to the grower.
Probably will be okay for farmer Ted as long as he doesn't go into the silo.
Nexis has files on over 1.6 billion people on earth -- everything from what kinds of pizzas your ordered, how you paid for it, what you had on your last one -- to credit information, sweepstakes entries, court records, voting registration, sometimes even travel information, often they collect corporate applications for employment and resumes "truth maintainence" as well.
In comparison to "So they want you to pay per page on case law" -- their other activities make them a far more sinister corporation. Of course, your disgruntal ex spouse with the restraining order &.357 has to pay them a fee to get your new address. So does the mafia hit man. It's priced at a level that makes it merely a corporate tool for enslaving the masses. Plus companies love that they can make a few bucks selling your data to them.
Don't think your enemies can't find you with it either. Paid your taxes? Got a credit card? Bank account? Registered to vote? Entered a sweepstakes? Mailed in a warranty registration card? Bought a car? Bought a house (deed records)? Live in one of those states that sells drivers license data? Subscribe to any magazines? BMG record club? Bought a Domino's pizza? Even the act of filing the restraining order...searchable. Stayed at a major hotel/motel chain? Rented an apartment that required a credit check? -- People have been hunted down and killed this way. Abortion doctors, lawyers, spouses, people that owed money to loan sharks, witnesses...etc
You can make your phone number unlisted, change your name, move, open up new accounts -- and their service will even index the changes. So don't think that will help you either.
Onto the topic at hand.. Why isn't Uncle Sam indexing the case files and entering them all to be searchable over the internet?
The prime example of that is the RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations) law. Intended to stop organized crime, it is now used against anti-abortion protesters.
That's only because their websites had the home addresses of all of the staff, their license plates, telephone numbers, sometimes even an email -- along with pictures of the staff both in the "dripping blood" and flash "shoot an abortion doctor" game with links to places you could buy high powered weapons and ammo on the same page.
Okay, the odds that this legislation would get passed right now is really slim. I mean, without the pressing fear of imminent terrorism, there's no motivation for it. So, I'm wondering if the DOJ's intent in drafting this was to keep it on the shelf until the next terrorist attack happens. Then they would come out and explain that they couldn't stop it because they didn't have all the powers they need, and conveniently they'd have legislation ready to roll.
Or maybe they are waiting for all of the TV screens in the US to be focused on night vision images of anti aircraft guns in Iraq...and while the press is busy covering that they just slip this little bit of legislation in and it passes without the public being aware at all. War is a great ally of bad bills. Look at what happened while we were in Afghanistan with corporate handouts.
1) Tabbed Browsing. Not for everyone, but I love it. 2) Mouse gestures. Another control method is great 3) Speed and it's not an M$ product
4) Ability to disable/enable cookies/plugins/javascript/java/referrer logging/ gif animation/annonying embedded audio/popups from a single panel by pressing F12. Very handy.
5) Ability to turn graphics off completely.
6) Good CSS support (Opera7)
7) Zoom feature -- handy for guys like me with coke bottle glasses.
When I have to use other computers that don't have Opera or Mozilla installed it's a painful experience.
Having several versions of Opera around...I fired up msn.com in Opera 5.12 Opera 6.0, Opera 7.0b..I can assure you that is it severely broken in 7.0, mostly broken in 6.0, and rendered semi-okay in 5.12. MSN's pages have been notorious for not working well with Opera since I started using it several years back. Same page in Mozilla 12.X looks pretty good. I didn't test IE 5.5.
The main difference seems to be in 7.0 it draws the lines wrong and chops off bits of text. In 6.0 it draws the lines wrong, but doesn't chop off bits of text -- it does, however, change their formatting to appear very odd. In Mozilla is renders probably about what it should in IE. No chopped off text bits, lines drawn okay.
How long till someones tries to sell very used space shuttle parts on Ebay?
While this is a real downer, they've had a pretty good safety record, not had an accident for over 16 years. They have people up in space now that are depending on more launches to get them home -- so there isn't really any practical way to ground the program. I don't see this setting them back as far as continuing with their planned operations and missions is concerned.
It may also accelerate development of a new launch vehicle. Not that they have a great track record with developing new ones.
I've never had anything digital that didn't add a ton of noise to the sound. Remember Fenders Midi Guitar? +30DB. Absolutely worthless for anyone playing at any volume outside of their basement by themselves. Roland GP-8? Noise. GP-16? Noise.
First generation of "digital" delays? Excessive noise. In fact, even the expensive ($1000+ racks) that are dedicated to a single effect (Lexicon) add a ton of noise and choppiness to the sound.
I'm sure there are a ton of guitar players who thought they might save a little money and buy one of those 6 in 1 digital effects boards and quickly discovered that you had to use a noise gate on it to even make it tolerable, and it was worthless live because of the noise.
This isn't to say that some digital appliances don't have a place(if you don't mind the noise), and that analog appliances are always noise free (they aren't). But I can go buy a good set of analog effects from $20-110 a piece and not have those issues, have a simple interface that I can control easily. More knobs, or worse "buttons" just make the situation more aggrivating for the musician. If I have to do a ten step tap dance on a 10 button floor controller to change a bank of effects...I'm supposed to be able to do this in the middle of a song while playing? I've never been able to. About all I can muster is one or two foot stomps on very simple switches.
The one area digital effects are truly superior is compression. But it's very hard to find ones that allow soft compression for more varied styles of music.
Then comes the problems of...Can I change the pickups out with what I want and still have it work? I generally stick a P94 in whatever guitar I buy because I like that sound and know what it will do. With digital pickups am I going to have to gut the entire thing if that is all that is available to get what I want? Is my guitar tech going to be able to work on it? Or is every trip for a slight problem going to be "replace the main board"?
One other note on the wonders of digital appliances... I had a couple friends that bought digital modeling amplifiers and took them on the road. None of them can currently survive a trip through the airport even with heavy road cases. Not line-6, not yamaha. Am I going to have to worry about my guitar getting rattled to pieces if I take it through the airport to play a gig in Australia as well as the new amp and effects I am "forced" to use?
Even if it allows you to mount the buttons to control the effects on the guitar, that isn't an ideal solution for most players either.
That being said, I do see some uses for those who are disabled and play. I had a fit and a half converting a series of stomp boxes from their new style (FET) swtiches to traditional switches so I could wire up a hand controller for my friend who is paralyzed from the waist down. He plays with a pick, so the solution was to make a hand band that puts the other three switches on his 3rd 4th and 5th finger directly on his palm and a sweat band to take the cables to a point where they wouldn't be obstructive for him. He's got three effects now, distortion, delay, and reverb.
I also understand why the industry really wants this. Good wood is becoming harder to find. China has proved dismal with their lack of technical ability to manufacture quality instruments. but you can take a crappy $90 guitar and make it sound half way decent with enough digital processing. Electronics are cheap. So they will start making the guitar out of plastic and compressed cardboard and use electronics to mold the sound...Still sell it to you for $1000 but cut their manufacturing cost by 2/3.
I want my provider to block known spam sources; I don't really care whether that affects your e-mail. If you don't feel that the lists are worthwhile, then don't use them, but those that do want to use them on their own networks have every right in the world do do so, regardless of your kvetching.
I want my provider to block *spam* and only *spam*. Blocking 50,000 or 1.5 billion users (as a few of them do) from being able to send us email is not protecting us from the 150 or so spammers targeting us. It's keeping us from being able to communicate with a large chunk of the world.
It's very frustrating to find out your legit email is not getting through, and even more frustrating to learn (usually a substantial time later..sometimes not at all!) that mail sent to you is not getting through. As much as I hate spam, RBL's are a very poor solution.
This is a rotten situation. You can't send a mail to someone because you aren't on their whitelist, or you can't send a mail to someone because your netblock is listed on some list completely unrelated to you, you work in sales and mention "We can finance that for you, we get some great interest rates through XXX bank" and your mail gets flagged spam by some ISP's content filter, or you can't recieve it for any of the above.
It's petty, and it's making email useless for all. So instead of destroying email -- let us start to work on a new mail transfer protocol that can avoid most of these problems. Get a working solution, get the specs out, make it temporarily backwards compatible with existing systems, and have a hard switch date for the change to the new system. Maybe a period of 2 years to impliment the switch. They are doing it for IPV6, why can't we do it for email?
The question of who to believe is very central to medications. For instance, do you trust the drug company funded study on the incidence of that particular drugs side effects?
In many cases the actual incidence of those side effects isn't 2 in 100 but 20 in 100. You tend to find that out when independant researchers go after the same data. Many times drug companies studies will be designed in such a way as to minimize the appearence and reporting of side effects. Incidence of withdrawal in many common SSRI drugs is a case in point. One study looked at a drug that had such a long half life that it would still be present in the body by the time the study ended. They noted that they didn't have a high incidence of withdrawal effects. Of course not, the drug was still in the body!
So yes you can find some information on the net, but often you wont find anything more useful than what is included in the package insert. Once in awhile though, you find a lot of people who have the same problem or sets of problems with a drug and it's up to you to try to make sense of it.
I do wish that the FDA's incidence reporting data was better organized and more freely available to the public. (Anonymized of course)
Even in that data set you have to realize that it only reports a small fraction of the side effects actually experienced.
Then there is the lawsuit factor. Most major sides will not report anything other than the drug company funded official version of facts for fear of being sued.
There is just a ton of room for improvement. It would be nice if drugs were evaluated against one another by someone to see which one really does preform better. Ironicly, some of the HMO's and some countries with nationalized health care are finally beginning to do this work. Without it, all you know is the drug (*maybe) performed better than nothing and that was enough to get approval for it from the FDA.
(I say "maybe" because a handful of drugs that got approved did not beat placebo in the majority of trials. However, the FDA will allow you to submit only the ones that show it and throw out the data from the ones that do not.)
Webwasher will happily filter out shockwave/flash animations and will allow them for sites you specify. They do make a Linux version as well, though it is kind of flaky compared to the Windows version.
Does anyone have any URL's with examples of these
on
Next-Gen Pop-up Ads
·
· Score: 2
types of Ads and know the server they are originating from? Just curious would like to see one. I'm guessing it uses either javascript or flash?
I'm from Missouri, we've had a do not call list for a couple of years. It has some exceptions in it, for instance charities, the local phone company, and businesses you've done business with before (banks abuse this provision a lot).
On the whole it works pretty good. The State Attorney General takes on a few abusers every year and almost completely recovers the cost of the service. In my opinion, it's one of the better government programs out there. I'm satisfied with the results.
From an External CD/RW that was 4x4x2...To an internal that does 48x16x48. Not quite the 52x as the one in the article, but the difference for me is severe. Burning CD's was more of a chore on the old one, now I don't even think twice about it. Get it done in 3-4 minutes regardless of media type.
I can see how it would be worth it for people who are making severe upgrades like mine. After rebates (assuming they actually mail checks) I will have paid $33.12 for mine. Yeah, it sounds like an airplane taking off as it spins up to speed. I can live with that.
Please visit: http://www.ge.com/governance and than reply back with some facts on how GE is crooked. Ask and ye shall recieve.
GE has a lengthy record of criminal, civil, political and ethical transgressions, some of them shocking in disregard for the integrity of human beings. Here are a few examples:
In 1995, with the establishment of a Presidential Advisory Commission, the full extent of GE's human experiments with nuclear radiation were revealed. General Electric ran the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington as part of the U.S. weapons program. Beginning in 1949, General Electric deliberately released radioactive material to see how far downwind it would travel. One cloud drifted 400 miles, all the way down to the California-Oregon border, carrying perhaps thousands of times more radiation than that emitted at Three Mile Island.
In 1986, Representative Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, held hearings in which it was disclosed that the United States and General Electric had conducted experiments on hundreds of United States citizens who became "nuclear calibration devices for experimenters run amok." According to Markey: "Too many of these experiments used human subjects that were captive audiences or populations... considered 'expendable'... the elderly, prisoners and hospital patients who might not have retained their full faculties for informed consent."
One of GE's most gruesome experiments -- disclosed in the Markey hearings -- was performed on inmates at a prison in Walla Walla, Washington, near Hanford. Starting in 1963, 64 prisoners had their scrotums and testes irradiated to determine the effects of radiation on human reproductive organs. Although the inmates were warned about the possibility of sterility and radiation burns, the forms said nothing about the risk of testicular cancer. Markey's committee heard allegations that, at the time of the experiments, General Electric violated both civil and criminal laws.
GE's nuclear testing is merely one example of a lengthy corporate history of malfeasance that includes conviction of criminal price- fixing in the 1960s and many equivalent deeds. This article highlights only General Electric's recently adjudicated or settled criminal or civil violations. Environment
+ GE is wholly or partially liable for at least 78 federal Superfund sites.
+ On September 29, 1998, General Electric agreed to a $200 million settlement in principle of environmental claims resulting from pollution of the Housatonic River and other areas by chemical releases from GE's plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. (The settlement was reached with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice.)
The claims result from a long history of GE's use and disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous substances at the plant, which GE no longer uses for manufacturing. (PCBs, which have been linked to cancer, were commonly used in electrical devices and lubricants from the 1930s through the 1970s, when they were banned.)
Under the settlement, GE will remove contaminated sediments from the one-half mile of the Housatonic River nearest the GE plant. Through a cost-sharing agreement, GE will also fund much of the anticipated cost of an additional mile-and-one-half of river cleanup to be conducted by EPA.
These river cleanups will include contaminated riverbanks and soils in properties in the flood plain along the river. Later, after a cleanup plan is selected for downstream portions of the river, GE will perform that cleanup as well.
In addition, GE will remedy contamination at the Pittsfield plant and other nearby areas, including a school and several commercial properties. The settlement also will address claims that hazardous substances released from the GE plant caused injuries to natural resources in the Housatonic River downstream of the plant, extending through Massachusetts and into Connecticut.
In addition to cleaning up, GE agreed to pay $15 million in damages and to conduct a number of projects designed to acquire or enhance wildlife habitat. The damages payment will be used by the natural resource trustees -- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and agencies of Massachusetts and Connecticut -- to restore, replace or acquire the equivalent of the injured natural resources.
GE has also agreed to a "brownfield" redevelopment project on a portion of the defunct plant, including a multi-million dollar investment in Pittsfield, in conjunction with the new Pittsfield Economic Development Authority ("PEDA"). PEDA will commit up to $4 million of anticipated revenues from the redevelopment to further enhancement of natural resources.
+ On March 26, 1998, General Electric agreed to pay a $92,000 fine for previous violations of environmental reporting requirements for toxic releases at its silicone manufacturing plant in Waterford, New York, according to EPA's regional office. In addition, GE agreed to spend about $112,000 to upgrade local emergency response capabilities in surrounding communities. Between 1991 and 1996, EPA cited GE for 23 violations when toxic releases were un- or underreported. Chemicals involved include dimethyl sulfate, chlorine, 1, 1, 1, -trichloroethane, ammonia, and toluene.
+ On September 15, 1995, General Electric agreed to pay $137,000 in fines and expenses and to clean up a hazardous waste dump at a former plant where it repaired and rebuilt transformers.
The agreement was part of a settlement with the Florida State Department of Environmental Protection.
In October 1993, investigators swooped down on the GE Apparatus Service Center in Brandon, Florida with search warrants to take soil samples and confiscate computer records and files. Inspectors found 30 violations, including hazardous waste pumped from underground storage tanks into a nearby railroad spur, reports show. They also discovered groundwater contaminated with elevated levels of PCBs and a layer of petroleum and cleaning solvents floating on the groundwater. Complaints from previous employees and discoveries during routine inspections sparked a sheriff's office's investigation of the center, where employees cleaned and serviced heavy-duty electric motors and generators for 20 years.
GE closed the facility in December 1993.
+ On March 13, 1992, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a $20,000 fine against General Electric for violations of regulations at the fuel fabrication plant in Wilmington, North Carolina. On May 29, 1991, GE personnel accidentally moved about 320 pounds of uranium to a waste treatment tank. The danger of the mistake was that the size and shape of the waste container caused unsafe concentrations of uranium, which could have led to a nuclear accident. The NRC dispatched a special incident investigation team the same day and an inspection began two days later. The NRC found that the mistake was the result of lax safety controls.
+ According to documents obtained by Public Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act, GE-designed nuclear reactors around the world have a design flaw that make it virtually certain (90 percent) that in the event of a meltdown, radiation would be released directly into the environment and into surrounding communities, leaving the public without any protection. The NRC acknowledges that the reactor containment structure in GE-built nuclear power plants does not work, but they licensed the reactors anyway. (Also, a dozen or more GE-designed boiling water reactors in the United States and abroad have evidence of cracking in the reactor core shroud -- a metal cylinder surrounding the reactor's radioactive fuel rods.)
+ GE continues to mislead government officials and the public about the dangers of PCBs. At an April 22, 1998 shareholder meeting, GE CEO Jack Welch claimed: "PCBs do not pose adverse health risks." Testifying in Albany on July 9, 1998, EPA Administrator Carol Browner stated: "GE tells us this contamination is not a problem. GE would have people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote: 'living in a PCB-laden area is not dangerous.' But the science tells us the opposite is true... And concern about PCBs goes beyond cancer... The science has spoken: PCBs are a serious threat..."
+ GE was a big proponent, and prime beneficiary, of the "business-friendly" initiatives undertaken by former New York State Environmental Conservation Commissioner Michael Zagata, who was ousted by Governor Pataki after a controversial tenure. This "business friendly" policy, in 1995, let GE avoid paying a fine and gave the company a tax write-off. The settlement, reached through the program, let General Electric off the hook for permitting an industrial landfill to burn out of control for nearly a year in Waterford, Saratoga County. The deal allowed the company to avoid paying a fine, gave it a $1.5 million tax writeoff, and resulted in a boat launch being built near the Columbia County residences of former Environmental Conservation Commissioner Michael Zagata and his chief deputy. (These "business-friendly" initiatives were later rescinded.)
Defense Contracting Fraud + On July 23, 1992, GE pled guilty in federal court to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon and agreed to pay $69 million to the U.S. government in fines -- one of the largest defense contracting fines ever. General Electric said in a statement that it took responsibility for the actions of a former marketing employee who, along with an Israeli Air Force General, diverted Pentagon funds to their own bank accounts and to fund Israeli military programs not authorized by the United States. Under the settlement with the Justice Department over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, GE paid $59.5 million in civil fraud claims and $9.5 million in criminal fines.
+ GE's civil and criminal transgressions stemming from the Israeli military program are by no means isolated. GE is a repeat offender when it comes to Defense Department fraud. The company has repeatedly violated the False Claims Act -- a measure originally proposed by Lincoln to protect federal coffers. When the Project on Government Oversight surveyed defense contractors, it found that General Electric was responsible for 15 instances of fraudulent activity in just a four year period (1990- 1994) -- more than any other defense contractor. GE:
1. Paid $7.1 million to settle a qui tam suit alleging that the company failed to satisfy electrical bonding requirements for its jet engine contracts, thereby creating a safety risk. 2. Paid $5.87 million (along with Martin Marietta) to settle a qui tam suit associated with improper sales of radar systems to Egypt. 3. Paid fines between 1990 and 1994 ranging from a $20,000 criminal fine to a $24.6 million civil fine for a variety of defense contracting frauds, including: misrepresentation, money laundering, defective pricing (2 incidents), cost mischarging (3 incidents), false claims, product substitution, conspiracy/conversion of classified documents, procurement fraud and mail fraud. 4. Was convicted on February 3, 1990 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia of defrauding the government out of $10 million for a battlefield computer system. 5. Pled guilty on May 19, 1985 to charges of fraud and falsifying 108 claims on a missile contract. 6. Was convicted of defrauding the Air Force out of $800,000 on the Minuteman Missile Project. 7. Was convicted of bribing the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority.
Consumer Wrongdoing + GE was among four companies which paid New York City more than $4 million in 1982 to settle a lawsuit charging that wiring and cables in 754 subway cars were defective.
+ GE in 1992 agreed to pay $165,000 to settle a suit brought by 11 state attorneys general alleging the company deceptively advertised its lightbulbs. According to the state AGs, the ads promised consumers the same amount of light for less energy, but in fact the lightbulbs simply delivered less wattage.
+ GE Capital was ordered to pay $100 million for unfair debt collection practices, as part of a 1999 class-action lawsuit settlement. The suit alleged that GE solicited agreements from bankrupt creditors to pay their credit card agreements without notifying bankruptcy courts of the agreements.
+ GE recalled 3.1 million dishwashers beginning in 1999, stating that a side switch could melt and ignite, presenting a fire hazard.
+ In April 2001, New York State AG Eliot Spitzer won a ruling in state court that, in connection with the dishwasher recall, GE falsely told consumers the problem could not be repaired, prodding customers with partial rebates to buy new GE dishwashers.
Other Litigation + Workplace Safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited GE for at least 858 violations of OSHA rules from 1990 through March 2001. From 1994 to 1999, OSHA cited GE for at least 98 "serious" violations. OSHA issues "serious" citations to companies for conditions posing "a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result."
+ Employment Discrimination. In a lawsuit, a black worker at GE's Burkville, Alabama plant claims that General Electric officials have fostered a racially hostile environment. GE reached settlements with two ex-GE employees employed at the plant. The workers claim that they've been subjected to Ku Klux Klan symbols, swastikas and a hangman's noose at the plant.
Recidivistic GE What distinguishes General Electric is not merely the number of crimes committed -- or the dollar amount of the crimes -- but a consistent pattern of violating criminal and civil laws over many years.
Exacerbating the situation, General Electric has been a leader in using political influence to attempt to overturn the environmental and defense contracting laws that it persistently violates.
The GE Rap Sheet
23 March 1990 Shepherdsville KY - GE and others ordered to cleanup PCB contamination of soil and water
27 March 1990 Wilmington NC - GE fined for discrimination against employees who report safety violations - $20,000
11 May 1990 Ft. Edward/Hudson Falls - GE ordered to clean up PCB contamination of Hudson River - $10 million
27 July 1990 Philadelphia PA - GE fined for defrauding government in defense contacts - $30 million
11 Oct 1990 Waterford NY - GE fined for pollution at Silicone Products plant - $176,000
20 May 1991 Washington, D.C. - GE Ordered to pay damages over improperly tested aircraft parts for Air Force and Navy - $1 million
27 Feb 1992 Allentown PA - GE ordered to pay damages for design flaws in nuclear plants - $80 million
4 March 1992 Orange County CA - GE fined for violating worker safety rules on handling PCBs - $11,000
13 March 1992 Wilmington NC - GE fined for safety violations at nuclear fuel plant - $20,000
22 May 1992 Illinois - GE ordered to pay damages for design flaws of nuclear plants - $65 million
22 July 1992 Washington, D.C. - GE fined for money laundering and fraud over illegal sale of fighter jets to Israel - $70 million
13 Sep 1992 Chicago IL - GE ordered to pay damages for airplane crash - $1.8 million
12 Oct 1992 Nashville TN - GE ordered to pay damages for deceptive advertising on lightbulbs - $165,000
27 Oct 1992 Washington D.C. - GE ordered to pay damages from overcharging on defense contracts - $576,215
12 May 1992 Washington D.C. - GE ordered to pay damages to whistleblower on illegal sale of fighter jets to Israel - $13.4 million
2 March 1993 Riverside CA - GE and others ordered to pay damages for contamination from dumping of industrial chemicals - $96 million
11 March 1993 Grove City PA - GE and others ordered to clean up mining site - $1.81 million
16 Sep 1993 NY - GE ordered to compensate commercial fisherman for PCB contamination of the Hudson River - $7 million
11 Oct 1993 San Francisco - GE ordered to offer rebates to consumers after deceptive light bulb advertising - $3.25 million
18 July 1993 Hudson Falls NY - GE ordered to clean up PCB contamination of Hudson R. - $2.5 million
2 Feb 1994 Perry OH - GE settles with utility companies on defective Perry Nuclear Plant.
14 Mar 1994 Ft. Edward NY - GE ordered to clean up contamination of sediment in the Hudson River - $100,000
14 Sep 1994 Washington D.C. - GE fined for overcharges in defense contracts - $20 million
2 Sep 1995 Waterford NY - GE fined for air pollution and contamination of Hudson River - $1.5 million
15 Sep 1995 Brandon FL - GE fined for groundwater contamination - $137,000
9 Sep 1996 Waterford NY - GE Fined for Clean Air Act violations - $60,000
7 Oct 1996 Hendersonville NC - GE ordered to cleanup contamination of soil and groundwater - $1.029 million
8 Oct 1996 Cook County IL - GE ordered to pay settlement from airline crash in Sioux City - $15 million
22 Feb 1997 Somersworth NH - GE and others ordered to clean up contamination of groundwater and public water supply - $ 7 million
Feb 1998 Waterford NY - GE fined for pollution violations - $234,000
20 April 1998 Waterford NY - GE fined for pollution violations - $204,000
Oct 1998 United Kingdom - GE ordered to pay for asbestos cleanup and related pollution claims - 2 billion pounds
26 Oct 1998 Puerto Rico - GE and others ordered to cleanup contamination of drinking water supply - $4.2 million
5 Nov 1998 South Whitehall PA - GE and others ordered to cleanup contamination - $1.035 million
24 Jan 1999 Chicago - GE ordered to reimburse consumers over unfair debt collection practices -$147 million
19 Aug 1999 Piscataway NJ - GE, others ordered to cleanup contaminated groundwater - $23 million
2 Sep 1999 Malvern PA - GE and others ordered to clean up groundwater contamination - $18.8 million
17 Sep 1999 Moreau NY - GE ordered to build drinking water system after PCB contamination of water supply - $5 million
9 Oct 1999 Pittsfield MA - GE ordered to clean up PCB pollution in Housatonic River - $250 million
18 Oct 2000 New York NY - GE and others ordered to clean up contamination of soil - $28 million
Jan 2001 NY - GE and others ordered to refund overcharges on mortgage insurance - $4 million
4 Feb 2001 NY - State Supreme Court rules GE deceptively misled consumers into purchasing new dishwashers after recall while sending commercial customers a replacement part.
GE Tax Abatement Ripoffs
A November 1998 Time magazine profile of GE concluded that "[t]here is no starker example of the phenomenon of corporate welfare and vanishing jobs than General Electric Co."
The company has been a master at reducing its federal income tax obligations, particularly through complicated arrangements whereby GE stands in as the owner of assets for businesses that for one reason or another can't use the tax breaks for these assets [See "Of Tax Cuts, Loopholes and Avoidance: Working for Tax Justice," Multinational Monitor, June 2001]. General Electric has also proven itself adept at extracting tax breaks and subsidies from local and state governments, even as it has slashed employment.
This listing of subsidies is not a complete inventory. Because state and local subsidies come from so many different sources -- city agencies, county boards, regional bodies, state agencies and state tax credits -- and because they take so many different forms -- property tax reductions and abatements, training grants, low-interest loans, investment tax credits, research and development tax credits, job creation tax credits, sales tax waivers, utility tax cuts, etc. - there exists no centralized repository of information about subsidies provided to GE or any other large, multi-plant corporation.
Louisville: GE's Appliance Park has seen both subsidies and job loss. Between 1984 and 1999, unionized employment declined by almost 6,000, or 53 percent. In 1988, the state contributed to $1 million worth of subsidies for a customer-service center, and the previous governor had earlier pledged $3.5 million in annual training funds for the refrigeration line. In a 1993 episode, the State of Kentucky provided an estimated $19 million in tax breaks, the City of Louisville and Jefferson County provided another $1 million in incentives, and the union gave contract concessions valued at about $80 million, for total cost reductions of $100 million. Recently, the union again granted concessions after the company announced the relocation of range and laundry work to Georgia and Mexico and indicated that refrigerator work was at risk of being moved.
New York City: No U.S. city has been pressured more often or at greater expense to give tax breaks to companies that say they may leave than
New York. One of the earliest high-profile subsidy events was the city's 1987 deal with the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) for subsidies against the possibility that the network would relocate its operations to New Jersey. (GE acquired NBC in 1986, in the midst of the network's relocation decision-making process.) The city provided a 35-year property tax cut worth an estimated $72 million, $800 million in partly-tax exempt financing, a partial rent tax cut and a waiver on city sales taxes on at least $1.1 billion worth of machinery and equipment the network planned to buy. The financing amount was about six times larger than the previous record set by the New York Industrial Development Agency, $135 million for Morgan Stanley & Co.
Other news reports of subsidies to GE include:
Lowndes County, Alabama: A GE plastics plant received "millions" in local tax concessions in 1985 in one of the poorest counties in the nation.
Melbourne, Florida: GE Harris Railway Electronics received a state and local incentive package valued at $1.9 million for its new corporate headquarters, including a 10-year property tax abatement.
Springfield, Illinois: Garrett Aviation Services, acquired by GE in 1997, benefited from $8.5 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds for an aircraft painting facility from the Capital Airport Authority and from being included in a tax increment financing (TIF) district, which provides a sales tax exemption on building materials.
Fort Wayne, Indiana: The city granted GE tax abatements in 1983 when GE said it was moving consumer-product work to Mexico. GE's aircraft-engine division was granted $2.5 million in federal retraining funds when the company relocated about 800 jobs to Fort Wayne from
Evendale, Ohio in 1983; the additional State of Indiana subsidies raised the total package to $4.1 million. Mount Vernon, Indiana: GE's plastics plant expansion received a tax abatement valued at $1.3 million in 1988.
Bloomington, Indiana: GE received $150,000 for training from Indiana for an expansion of refrigerator production in 1988, and a total of $725,000 for training and road improvements from the state in 1992. It also received a 10-year tax abatement package from Monroe County in 1992, and possibly inclusion in a TIF district. And in 1994, the state gave GE another training grant of $60,000.
Jeffersonville, Indiana: GE's GEA Parts L.L.C. received a 10-year property tax abatement from the Jeffersonville City Council when it consolidated operations there from New Concord, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky.
Bangor, Maine: A GE facility there received a "STIF" or State TIF district, which provides for the state to rebate to the company up to 25 percent of state income tax revenues generated by new jobs, sometime prior to mid-1995.
New Hampshire: In 1985, the state's Industrial Development Authority approved $1.75 million in industrial development bonds for GE.
Camden, New Jersey: In 1991, the state's Economic Development Authority acted as a conduit for public funds from itself, Camden County, the Urban Development Corporation and the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority that subsidized a 575,000 square foot facility that GE leased from a private developer; total private and public funding was reportedly $65 million, including $46 million in bonds. The state also provided a training grant of $374,500. (The facility was taken over by Martin Marietta in a sale by GE in 1993.)
Evendale, Ohio: GE Aircraft Engines filed for tax abatements through Evendale and Hamilton County Development Company in a 1997-1998 expansion.
Hamilton, Ohio: A GE Aviation Service facility is located in the Southwestern Ohio Industrial District, an enterprise zone, under which companies are eligible for tax abatements of up to 50 percent.
Hebron, Ohio: GE's Newark Quartz Plant expansion in 1994 was slated to receive from Licking County a 75 percent property tax abatement for four years and 50 percent for three years on new equipment.
Ravenna, Ohio: GE's lamp plant received tax abatements on $17 million in new investments in 1994 from Portage County. The 10-year abatement was estimated to save GE $2 million. The abatement was granted after a rumor circulated that GE might be looking to relocate the plant.
Willoughby, Ohio: GE's Willoughby Quartz plant received a tax abatement in 1994 on a $2.2 million addition, 75 percent for seven years on equipment and 40 percent on real estate over four years. The abatement was estimated to save GE $114,113, and was to encourage GE to expand in Willoughby rather than in Newark, Ohio. GE received an additional seven-year, $2.5 million tax break in 1995 on a $17 million expansion.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: GE benefited from a 1993 $50,000 training grant to Delaware Area Vocational Technical School to train and retrain GE workers, and from a $218,315 training grant in 1993 to the same school for training and retraining.
Grand Prairie, Texas: GE received a 10-year inventory tax abatement worth an estimated $280,000 in 1996 on a warehouse in the Great
Southwest Industrial Park, into which the company announced it was moving its regional appliance distribution center. The warehouse's developer also received a 10-year 50 percent tax abatement worth $350,000.
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Of course they put someone from one of the few companies I have in my hosts list as 127.0.0.1 in charge of protecting privacy.
..Oh yeah, they already did that too.
Sure, she's got experience working for the Satan of privacy violations. I don't give a rats what she did for them. This is like recruiting someone Microsoft to be in charge of internet security
Tomorrow they will define peace as war, darkness as light, and cats as dogs.
What will they do next week? Put Pol Pot in charge of the Human Rights Commission?
Bear in mind that without any asset in US jurisdiction, an overseas spammer won't have anything to confiscate, and need not feel compelled to cooperate. And his host government may not give a damn, since it probably has more important things to look at. The ISP may well not care, given how many overseas ISPs have been spamhauses for months on end, if not years.
In my view of things, as Spam is a criminal act in more and more places, the companies that hire spammers to market their products in that way are just as guilty as the actual spammer. Even if the spammer doesn't have assets inside of the USA, the company he is spamming for probably does and probably uses enough shipping and trade services even if they are locates somewhere else to be bound by the numerous trade treaties we have. IE: We *can* take their assets.
The day we start seizing the assets of the companies who hire them, is the day the spam stops. It's brutal, it's ugly, but RICO is the way to go.
Run Opera.
... Even on a dialup most things on the web are tolerable. I agree that flash is far more aggrivating than helpful these days. Thankfully Opera supports disabling it with one key, and supports compression. :)
Press F12. Uncheck "Enable plugins".
I use Opera, and Webwasher. Between the two and the options they give
...And the manual is even useful for a lot of things. The one that came with 7.2 saved me a ton of aggrivation. Plus you get the bad (and sometimes humorous) German to English translation. :)
I'll probably get the boxed set for 8.2 when I get a new computer to take advantage of it. I run on really ancient *(@&$. I like having the DVD's and CD's handy if I foul something up majorly.
Back then I was really jealous of my friends Amiga. He could view porn in full color, and even brief porn movies. All I had was monochrome ascii art porn and "beep" sound.
Amiga was a pretty impressive system for the time period.
I regularly check on the apps (using netstat) that have ports open, and if I see something I shouldn't, I check it out.
This is all fine and well till the attacker replaces your version of netstat with his more l33t one that wont report on his activities, or a kernel module to do the same thing. This is entirely the point of a root kit.
... good software with bad documentation will probably fail to achieve widespread adoption.
That is one thing I like about FreeBSD. The handbook for it is actually pretty good and useful for most things. Sometimes a lot more reading than I want to do -- but for a compilation written by a mess of different people it doesn't have quite the spaghetti feel of Linux documentation. A lot less frustrating.
There were a few companies selling ozone generators to clean the air in your home. Unfortunately, Ozone indoors at high concentrations tends to cause a myriad of health problems (asthma being one of them).
Nothing really new in this article. The indoor marijuana growing industry has been using this technology for years, although a reduction in pest (spider mites) was just a side benefit to the odor reduction. Even in those situations, the rooms are set up with positive pressure, and a quick venting system. Failure to do that can lead to injury to the grower.
Probably will be okay for farmer Ted as long as he doesn't go into the silo.
I have to agree with that, $18.00 to burn a mere 10 songs? Forget that, that's robbery.
I have to say Meah.
.357 has to pay them a fee to get your new address. So does the mafia hit man. It's priced at a level that makes it merely a corporate tool for enslaving the masses. Plus companies love that they can make a few bucks selling your data to them.
...searchable. Stayed at a major hotel/motel chain? Rented an apartment that required a credit check? -- People have been hunted down and killed this way. Abortion doctors, lawyers, spouses, people that owed money to loan sharks, witnesses...etc
Nexis has files on over 1.6 billion people on earth -- everything from what kinds of pizzas your ordered, how you paid for it, what you had on your last one -- to credit information, sweepstakes entries, court records, voting registration, sometimes even travel information, often they collect corporate applications for employment and resumes "truth maintainence" as well.
In comparison to "So they want you to pay per page on case law" -- their other activities make them a far more sinister corporation. Of course, your disgruntal ex spouse with the restraining order &
Don't think your enemies can't find you with it either. Paid your taxes? Got a credit card? Bank account? Registered to vote? Entered a sweepstakes? Mailed in a warranty registration card? Bought a car? Bought a house (deed records)? Live in one of those states that sells drivers license data? Subscribe to any magazines? BMG record club? Bought a Domino's pizza? Even the act of filing the restraining order
You can make your phone number unlisted, change your name, move, open up new accounts -- and their service will even index the changes. So don't think that will help you either.
Onto the topic at hand.. Why isn't Uncle Sam indexing the case files and entering them all to be searchable over the internet?
The prime example of that is the RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations) law. Intended to stop organized crime, it is now used against anti-abortion protesters.
That's only because their websites had the home addresses of all of the staff, their license plates, telephone numbers, sometimes even an email -- along with pictures of the staff both in the "dripping blood" and flash "shoot an abortion doctor" game with links to places you could buy high powered weapons and ammo on the same page.
(No, not an exaggeration).
Okay, the odds that this legislation would get passed right now is really slim. I mean, without the pressing fear of imminent terrorism, there's no motivation for it. So, I'm wondering if the DOJ's intent in drafting this was to keep it on the shelf until the next terrorist attack happens. Then they would come out and explain that they couldn't stop it because they didn't have all the powers they need, and conveniently they'd have legislation ready to roll.
...and while the press is busy covering that they just slip this little bit of legislation in and it passes without the public being aware at all. War is a great ally of bad bills. Look at what happened while we were in Afghanistan with corporate handouts.
Or maybe they are waiting for all of the TV screens in the US to be focused on night vision images of anti aircraft guns in Iraq
1) Tabbed Browsing. Not for everyone, but I love
it.
2) Mouse gestures. Another control method is
great
3) Speed and it's not an M$ product
4) Ability to disable/enable cookies/plugins/javascript/java/referrer logging/ gif animation/annonying embedded audio/popups from a single panel by pressing F12. Very handy.
5) Ability to turn graphics off completely.
6) Good CSS support (Opera7)
7) Zoom feature -- handy for guys like me with coke bottle glasses.
When I have to use other computers that don't have Opera or Mozilla installed it's a painful experience.
Having several versions of Opera around ...I fired up msn.com in Opera 5.12 Opera 6.0, Opera 7.0b ..I can assure you that is it severely broken in 7.0, mostly broken in 6.0, and rendered semi-okay in 5.12. MSN's pages have been notorious for not working well with Opera since I started using it several years back. Same page in Mozilla 12.X looks pretty good. I didn't test IE 5.5.
The main difference seems to be in 7.0 it draws the lines wrong and chops off bits of text. In 6.0 it draws the lines wrong, but doesn't chop off bits of text -- it does, however, change their formatting to appear very odd. In Mozilla is renders probably about what it should in IE. No chopped off text bits, lines drawn okay.
How long till someones tries to sell very used space shuttle parts on Ebay?
While this is a real downer, they've had a pretty good safety record, not had an accident for over 16 years. They have people up in space now that are depending on more launches to get them home -- so there isn't really any practical way to ground the program. I don't see this setting them back as far as continuing with their planned operations and missions is concerned.
It may also accelerate development of a new launch vehicle. Not that they have a great track record with developing new ones.
I've never had anything digital that didn't add a ton of noise to the sound. Remember Fenders Midi Guitar? +30DB. Absolutely worthless for anyone playing at any volume outside of their basement by themselves. Roland GP-8? Noise. GP-16? Noise.
...I'm supposed to be able to do this in the middle of a song while playing? I've never been able to. About all I can muster is one or two foot stomps on very simple switches.
...Can I change the pickups out with what I want and still have it work? I generally stick a P94 in whatever guitar I buy because I like that sound and know what it will do. With digital pickups am I going to have to gut the entire thing if that is all that is available to get what I want? Is my guitar tech going to be able to work on it? Or is every trip for a slight problem going to be "replace the main board"?
First generation of "digital" delays? Excessive noise. In fact, even the expensive ($1000+ racks) that are dedicated to a single effect (Lexicon) add a ton of noise and choppiness to the sound.
I'm sure there are a ton of guitar players who thought they might save a little money and buy one of those 6 in 1 digital effects boards and quickly discovered that you had to use a noise gate on it to even make it tolerable, and it was worthless live because of the noise.
This isn't to say that some digital appliances don't have a place(if you don't mind the noise), and that analog appliances are always noise free (they aren't). But I can go buy a good set of analog effects from $20-110 a piece and not have those issues, have a simple interface that I can control easily. More knobs, or worse "buttons" just make the situation more aggrivating for the musician. If I have to do a ten step tap dance on a 10 button floor controller to change a bank of effects
The one area digital effects are truly superior is compression. But it's very hard to find ones that allow soft compression for more varied styles of music.
Then comes the problems of
One other note on the wonders of digital appliances... I had a couple friends that bought digital modeling amplifiers and took them on the road. None of them can currently survive a trip through the airport even with heavy road cases. Not line-6, not yamaha. Am I going to have to worry about my guitar getting rattled to pieces if I take it through the airport to play a gig in Australia as well as the new amp and effects I am "forced" to use?
Even if it allows you to mount the buttons to control the effects on the guitar, that isn't an ideal solution for most players either.
That being said, I do see some uses for those who are disabled and play. I had a fit and a half converting a series of stomp boxes from their new style (FET) swtiches to traditional switches so I could wire up a hand controller for my friend who is paralyzed from the waist down. He plays with a pick, so the solution was to make a hand band that puts the other three switches on his 3rd 4th and 5th finger directly on his palm and a sweat band to take the cables to a point where they wouldn't be obstructive for him. He's got three effects now, distortion, delay, and reverb.
I also understand why the industry really wants this. Good wood is becoming harder to find. China has proved dismal with their lack of technical ability to manufacture quality instruments. but you can take a crappy $90 guitar and make it sound half way decent with enough digital processing. Electronics are cheap. So they will start making the guitar out of plastic and compressed cardboard and use electronics to mold the sound...Still sell it to you for $1000 but cut their manufacturing cost by 2/3.
Rant mode off.
They suck !
That being said, I can't believe their arrogance. Lucky I'm not a judge sitting on that case.
I want my provider to block known spam sources; I don't really care whether that affects your e-mail. If you don't feel that the lists are worthwhile, then don't use them, but those that do want to use them on their own networks have every right in the world do do so, regardless of your kvetching.
I want my provider to block *spam* and only *spam*. Blocking 50,000 or 1.5 billion users (as a few of them do) from being able to send us email is not protecting us from the 150 or so spammers targeting us. It's keeping us from being able to communicate with a large chunk of the world.
It's very frustrating to find out your legit email is not getting through, and even more frustrating to learn (usually a substantial time later..sometimes not at all!) that mail sent to you is not getting through. As much as I hate spam, RBL's are a very poor solution.
This is a rotten situation. You can't send a mail to someone because you aren't on their whitelist, or you can't send a mail to someone because your netblock is listed on some list completely unrelated to you, you work in sales and mention "We can finance that for you, we get some great interest rates through XXX bank" and your mail gets flagged spam by some ISP's content filter, or you can't recieve it for any of the above.
It's petty, and it's making email useless for all. So instead of destroying email -- let us start to work on a new mail transfer protocol that can avoid most of these problems. Get a working solution, get the specs out, make it temporarily backwards compatible with existing systems, and have a hard switch date for the change to the new system. Maybe a period of 2 years to impliment the switch. They are doing it for IPV6, why can't we do it for email?
The question of who to believe is very central to medications. For instance, do you trust the drug company funded study on the incidence of that particular drugs side effects?
In many cases the actual incidence of those side effects isn't 2 in 100 but 20 in 100. You tend to find that out when independant researchers go after the same data. Many times drug companies studies will be designed in such a way as to minimize the appearence and reporting of side effects. Incidence of withdrawal in many common SSRI drugs is a case in point. One study looked at a drug that had such a long half life that it would still be present in the body by the time the study ended. They noted that they didn't have a high incidence of withdrawal effects. Of course not, the drug was still in the body!
So yes you can find some information on the net, but often you wont find anything more useful than what is included in the package insert. Once in awhile though, you find a lot of people who have the same problem or sets of problems with a drug and it's up to you to try to make sense of it.
I do wish that the FDA's incidence reporting data was better organized and more freely available to the public. (Anonymized of course)
Even in that data set you have to realize that it only reports a small fraction of the side effects actually experienced.
Then there is the lawsuit factor. Most major sides will not report anything other than the drug company funded official version of facts for fear of being sued.
There is just a ton of room for improvement. It would be nice if drugs were evaluated against one another by someone to see which one really does preform better. Ironicly, some of the HMO's and some countries with nationalized health care are finally beginning to do this work. Without it, all you know is the drug (*maybe) performed better than nothing and that was enough to get approval for it from the FDA.
(I say "maybe" because a handful of drugs that got approved did not beat placebo in the majority of trials. However, the FDA will allow you to submit only the ones that show it and throw out the data from the ones that do not.)
Cut & Paste.. (sigh) English translation.
% 2F %2Fwww.reforma.com%2Fnacional%2Farticulo%2F256682% 2F&langpair=es%7Cen&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&prev=%2Fla nguage_tools
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A
Webwasher will happily filter out shockwave/flash animations and will allow them for sites you specify. They do make a Linux version as well, though it is kind of flaky compared to the Windows version.
types of Ads and know the server they are originating from? Just curious would like to see one. I'm guessing it uses either javascript or flash?
I'm from Missouri, we've had a do not call list for a couple of years. It has some exceptions in it, for instance charities, the local phone company, and businesses you've done business with before (banks abuse this provision a lot).
On the whole it works pretty good. The State Attorney General takes on a few abusers every year and almost completely recovers the cost of the service. In my opinion, it's one of the better government programs out there. I'm satisfied with the results.
Of course, my upgrade was pretty severe...
...To an internal that does 48x16x48. Not quite the 52x as the one in the article, but the difference for me is severe. Burning CD's was more of a chore on the old one, now I don't even think twice about it. Get it done in 3-4 minutes regardless of media type.
From an External CD/RW that was 4x4x2
I can see how it would be worth it for people who are making severe upgrades like mine. After rebates (assuming they actually mail checks) I will have paid $33.12 for mine. Yeah, it sounds like an airplane taking off as it spins up to speed. I can live with that.
Please visit: http://www.ge.com/governance and than reply back with some facts on how GE is crooked. Ask and ye shall recieve.
... considered 'expendable' ... the elderly, prisoners and hospital patients who might not have retained their full faculties for informed consent."
... And concern about PCBs goes beyond cancer ... The science has spoken: PCBs are a serious threat..."
GE has a lengthy record of criminal, civil, political and ethical transgressions, some of them shocking in disregard for the integrity of human beings. Here are a few examples:
In 1995, with the establishment of a Presidential Advisory Commission, the full extent of GE's human experiments with nuclear radiation were revealed. General Electric ran the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington as part of the U.S. weapons program. Beginning in 1949, General Electric deliberately released radioactive material to see how far downwind it would travel. One cloud drifted 400 miles, all the way down to the California-Oregon border, carrying perhaps thousands of times more radiation than that emitted at Three Mile Island.
In 1986, Representative Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, held hearings in which it was disclosed that the United States and General Electric had conducted experiments on hundreds of United States citizens who became "nuclear calibration devices for experimenters run amok." According to Markey: "Too many of these experiments used human subjects that were captive audiences or populations
One of GE's most gruesome experiments -- disclosed in the Markey hearings -- was performed on inmates at a prison in Walla Walla, Washington, near Hanford. Starting in 1963, 64 prisoners had their scrotums and testes irradiated to determine the effects of radiation on human reproductive organs. Although the inmates were warned about the possibility of sterility and radiation burns, the forms said nothing about the risk of testicular cancer. Markey's committee heard allegations that, at the time of the experiments, General Electric violated both civil and criminal laws.
GE's nuclear testing is merely one example of a lengthy corporate history of malfeasance that includes conviction of criminal price- fixing in the 1960s and many equivalent deeds. This article highlights only General Electric's recently adjudicated or settled criminal or civil violations.
Environment
+ GE is wholly or partially liable for at least 78 federal Superfund sites.
+ On September 29, 1998, General Electric agreed to a $200 million settlement in principle of environmental claims resulting from pollution of the Housatonic River and other areas by chemical releases from GE's plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. (The settlement was reached with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice.)
The claims result from a long history of GE's use and disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous substances at the plant, which GE no longer uses for manufacturing. (PCBs, which have been linked to cancer, were commonly used in electrical devices and lubricants from the 1930s through the 1970s, when they were banned.)
Under the settlement, GE will remove contaminated sediments from the one-half mile of the Housatonic River nearest the GE plant. Through a cost-sharing agreement, GE will also fund much of the anticipated cost of an additional mile-and-one-half of river cleanup to be conducted by EPA.
These river cleanups will include contaminated riverbanks and soils in properties in the flood plain along the river. Later, after a cleanup plan is selected for downstream portions of the river, GE will perform that cleanup as well.
In addition, GE will remedy contamination at the Pittsfield plant and other nearby areas, including a school and several commercial properties. The settlement also will address claims that hazardous substances released from the GE plant caused injuries to natural resources in the Housatonic River downstream of the plant, extending through Massachusetts and into Connecticut.
In addition to cleaning up, GE agreed to pay $15 million in damages and to conduct a number of projects designed to acquire or enhance wildlife habitat. The damages payment will be used by the natural resource trustees -- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and agencies of Massachusetts and Connecticut -- to restore, replace or acquire the equivalent of the injured natural resources.
GE has also agreed to a "brownfield" redevelopment project on a portion of the defunct plant, including a multi-million dollar investment in Pittsfield, in conjunction with the new Pittsfield Economic Development Authority ("PEDA"). PEDA will commit up to $4 million of anticipated revenues from the redevelopment to further enhancement of natural resources.
+ On March 26, 1998, General Electric agreed to pay a $92,000 fine for previous violations of environmental reporting requirements for toxic releases at its silicone manufacturing plant in Waterford, New York, according to EPA's regional office. In addition, GE agreed to spend about $112,000 to upgrade local emergency response capabilities in surrounding communities. Between 1991 and 1996, EPA cited GE for 23 violations when toxic releases were un- or underreported. Chemicals involved include dimethyl sulfate, chlorine, 1, 1, 1, -trichloroethane, ammonia, and toluene.
+ On September 15, 1995, General Electric agreed to pay $137,000 in fines and expenses and to clean up a hazardous waste dump at a former plant where it repaired and rebuilt transformers.
The agreement was part of a settlement with the Florida State Department of Environmental Protection.
In October 1993, investigators swooped down on the GE Apparatus Service Center in Brandon, Florida with search warrants to take soil samples and confiscate computer records and files. Inspectors found 30 violations, including hazardous waste pumped from underground storage tanks into a nearby railroad spur, reports show. They also discovered groundwater contaminated with elevated levels of PCBs and a layer of petroleum and cleaning solvents floating on the groundwater. Complaints from previous employees and discoveries during routine inspections sparked a sheriff's office's investigation of the center, where employees cleaned and serviced heavy-duty electric motors and generators for 20 years.
GE closed the facility in December 1993.
+ On March 13, 1992, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a $20,000 fine against General Electric for violations of regulations at the fuel fabrication plant in Wilmington, North Carolina. On May 29, 1991, GE personnel accidentally moved about 320 pounds of uranium to a waste treatment tank. The danger of the mistake was that the size and shape of the waste container caused unsafe concentrations of uranium, which could have led to a nuclear accident. The NRC dispatched a special incident investigation team the same day and an inspection began two days later. The NRC found that the mistake was the result of lax safety controls.
+ According to documents obtained by Public Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act, GE-designed nuclear reactors around the world have a design flaw that make it virtually certain (90 percent) that in the event of a meltdown, radiation would be released directly into the environment and into surrounding communities, leaving the public without any protection. The NRC acknowledges that the reactor containment structure in GE-built nuclear power plants does not work, but they licensed the reactors anyway. (Also, a dozen or more GE-designed boiling water reactors in the United States and abroad have evidence of cracking in the reactor core shroud -- a metal cylinder surrounding the reactor's radioactive fuel rods.)
+ GE continues to mislead government officials and the public about the dangers of PCBs. At an April 22, 1998 shareholder meeting, GE CEO Jack Welch claimed: "PCBs do not pose adverse health risks." Testifying in Albany on July 9, 1998, EPA Administrator Carol Browner stated: "GE tells us this contamination is not a problem. GE would have people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote: 'living in a PCB-laden area is not dangerous.' But the science tells us the opposite is true
+ GE was a big proponent, and prime beneficiary, of the "business-friendly" initiatives undertaken by former New York State Environmental Conservation Commissioner Michael Zagata, who was ousted by Governor Pataki after a controversial tenure. This "business friendly" policy, in 1995, let GE avoid paying a fine and gave the company a tax write-off. The settlement, reached through the program, let General Electric off the hook for permitting an industrial landfill to burn out of control for nearly a year in Waterford, Saratoga County. The deal allowed the company to avoid paying a fine, gave it a $1.5 million tax writeoff, and resulted in a boat launch being built near the Columbia County residences of former Environmental Conservation Commissioner Michael Zagata and his chief deputy. (These "business-friendly" initiatives were later rescinded.)
Defense Contracting Fraud
+ On July 23, 1992, GE pled guilty in federal court to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon and agreed to pay $69 million to the U.S. government in fines -- one of the largest defense contracting fines ever.
General Electric said in a statement that it took responsibility for the actions of a former marketing employee who, along with an Israeli Air Force General, diverted Pentagon funds to their own bank accounts and to fund Israeli military programs not authorized by the United States.
Under the settlement with the Justice Department over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, GE paid $59.5 million in civil fraud claims and $9.5 million in criminal fines.
+ GE's civil and criminal transgressions stemming from the Israeli military program are by no means isolated. GE is a repeat offender when it comes to Defense Department fraud. The company has repeatedly violated the False Claims Act -- a measure originally proposed by Lincoln to protect federal coffers. When the Project on Government Oversight surveyed defense contractors, it found that General Electric was responsible for 15 instances of fraudulent activity in just a four year period (1990- 1994) -- more than any other defense contractor. GE:
1. Paid $7.1 million to settle a qui tam suit alleging that the company failed to satisfy electrical bonding requirements for its jet engine contracts, thereby creating a safety risk.
2. Paid $5.87 million (along with Martin Marietta) to settle a qui tam suit associated with improper sales of radar systems to Egypt.
3. Paid fines between 1990 and 1994 ranging from a $20,000 criminal fine to a $24.6 million civil fine for a variety of defense contracting frauds, including: misrepresentation, money laundering, defective pricing (2 incidents), cost mischarging (3 incidents), false claims, product substitution, conspiracy/conversion of classified documents, procurement fraud and mail fraud.
4. Was convicted on February 3, 1990 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia of defrauding the government out of $10 million for a battlefield computer system.
5. Pled guilty on May 19, 1985 to charges of fraud and falsifying 108 claims on a missile contract.
6. Was convicted of defrauding the Air Force out of $800,000 on the Minuteman Missile Project.
7. Was convicted of bribing the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority.
Consumer Wrongdoing
+ GE was among four companies which paid New York City more than $4 million in 1982 to settle a lawsuit charging that wiring and cables in 754 subway cars were defective.
+ GE in 1992 agreed to pay $165,000 to settle a suit brought by 11 state attorneys general alleging the company deceptively advertised its lightbulbs. According to the state AGs, the ads promised consumers the same amount of light for less energy, but in fact the lightbulbs simply delivered less wattage.
+ GE Capital was ordered to pay $100 million for unfair debt collection practices, as part of a 1999 class-action lawsuit settlement. The suit alleged that GE solicited agreements from bankrupt creditors to pay their credit card agreements without notifying bankruptcy courts of the agreements.
+ GE recalled 3.1 million dishwashers beginning in 1999, stating that a side switch could melt and ignite, presenting a fire hazard.
+ In April 2001, New York State AG Eliot Spitzer won a ruling in state court that, in connection with the dishwasher recall, GE falsely told consumers the problem could not be repaired, prodding customers with partial rebates to buy new GE dishwashers.
Other Litigation
+ Workplace Safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited GE for at least 858 violations of OSHA rules from 1990 through March 2001. From 1994 to 1999, OSHA cited GE for at least 98 "serious" violations. OSHA issues "serious" citations to companies for conditions posing "a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result."
+ Employment Discrimination. In a lawsuit, a black worker at GE's Burkville, Alabama plant claims that General Electric officials have fostered a racially hostile environment. GE reached settlements with two ex-GE employees employed at the plant. The workers claim that they've been subjected to Ku Klux Klan symbols, swastikas and a hangman's noose at the plant.
Recidivistic GE
What distinguishes General Electric is not merely the number of crimes committed -- or the dollar amount of the crimes -- but a consistent pattern of violating criminal and civil laws over many years.
Exacerbating the situation, General Electric has been a leader in using political influence to attempt to overturn the environmental and defense contracting laws that it persistently violates.
The GE Rap Sheet
23 March 1990
Shepherdsville KY - GE and others ordered to cleanup PCB contamination of soil and water
27 March 1990
Wilmington NC - GE fined for discrimination against employees who report safety violations - $20,000
11 May 1990
Ft. Edward/Hudson Falls - GE ordered to clean up PCB contamination of Hudson River - $10 million
27 July 1990
Philadelphia PA - GE fined for defrauding government in defense contacts - $30 million
11 Oct 1990
Waterford NY - GE fined for pollution at Silicone Products plant - $176,000
20 May 1991
Washington, D.C. - GE Ordered to pay damages over improperly tested aircraft parts for Air Force and Navy - $1 million
27 Feb 1992
Allentown PA - GE ordered to pay damages for design flaws in nuclear plants - $80 million
4 March 1992
Orange County CA - GE fined for violating worker safety rules on handling PCBs - $11,000
13 March 1992
Wilmington NC - GE fined for safety violations at nuclear fuel plant - $20,000
22 May 1992
Illinois - GE ordered to pay damages for design flaws of nuclear plants - $65 million
22 July 1992
Washington, D.C. - GE fined for money laundering and fraud over illegal sale of fighter jets to Israel - $70 million
13 Sep 1992
Chicago IL - GE ordered to pay damages for airplane crash - $1.8 million
12 Oct 1992
Nashville TN - GE ordered to pay damages for deceptive advertising on lightbulbs - $165,000
27 Oct 1992
Washington D.C. - GE ordered to pay damages from overcharging on defense contracts - $576,215
12 May 1992
Washington D.C. - GE ordered to pay damages to whistleblower on illegal sale of fighter jets to Israel - $13.4 million
2 March 1993
Riverside CA - GE and others ordered to pay damages for contamination from dumping of industrial chemicals - $96 million
11 March 1993
Grove City PA - GE and others ordered to clean up mining site - $1.81 million
16 Sep 1993
NY - GE ordered to compensate commercial fisherman for PCB contamination of the Hudson River - $7 million
11 Oct 1993
San Francisco - GE ordered to offer rebates to consumers after deceptive light bulb advertising - $3.25 million
18 July 1993
Hudson Falls NY - GE ordered to clean up PCB contamination of Hudson R. - $2.5 million
2 Feb 1994
Perry OH - GE settles with utility companies on defective Perry Nuclear Plant.
14 Mar 1994
Ft. Edward NY - GE ordered to clean up contamination of sediment in the Hudson River - $100,000
14 Sep 1994
Washington D.C. - GE fined for overcharges in defense contracts - $20 million
2 Sep 1995
Waterford NY - GE fined for air pollution and contamination of Hudson River - $1.5 million
15 Sep 1995
Brandon FL - GE fined for groundwater contamination - $137,000
9 Sep 1996
Waterford NY - GE Fined for Clean Air Act violations - $60,000
7 Oct 1996
Hendersonville NC - GE ordered to cleanup contamination of soil and groundwater - $1.029 million
8 Oct 1996
Cook County IL - GE ordered to pay settlement from airline crash in Sioux City - $15 million
22 Feb 1997
Somersworth NH - GE and others ordered to clean up contamination of groundwater and public water supply - $ 7 million
Feb 1998
Waterford NY - GE fined for pollution violations - $234,000
20 April 1998
Waterford NY - GE fined for pollution violations - $204,000
Oct 1998
United Kingdom - GE ordered to pay for asbestos cleanup and related pollution claims - 2 billion pounds
26 Oct 1998
Puerto Rico - GE and others ordered to cleanup contamination of drinking water supply - $4.2 million
5 Nov 1998
South Whitehall PA - GE and others ordered to cleanup contamination - $1.035 million
24 Jan 1999
Chicago - GE ordered to reimburse consumers over unfair debt collection practices -$147 million
19 Aug 1999
Piscataway NJ - GE, others ordered to cleanup contaminated groundwater - $23 million
2 Sep 1999
Malvern PA - GE and others ordered to clean up groundwater contamination - $18.8 million
17 Sep 1999
Moreau NY - GE ordered to build drinking water system after PCB contamination of water supply - $5 million
9 Oct 1999
Pittsfield MA - GE ordered to clean up PCB pollution in Housatonic River - $250 million
18 Oct 2000
New York NY - GE and others ordered to clean up contamination of soil - $28 million
Jan 2001
NY - GE and others ordered to refund overcharges on mortgage insurance - $4 million
4 Feb 2001
NY - State Supreme Court rules GE deceptively misled consumers into purchasing new dishwashers after recall while sending commercial customers a replacement part.
GE Tax Abatement Ripoffs
A November 1998 Time magazine profile of GE concluded that "[t]here is no starker example of the phenomenon of corporate welfare and vanishing jobs than General Electric Co."
The company has been a master at reducing its federal income tax obligations, particularly through complicated arrangements whereby GE stands in as the owner of assets for businesses that for one reason or another can't use the tax breaks for these assets [See "Of Tax Cuts, Loopholes and Avoidance: Working for Tax Justice," Multinational Monitor, June 2001].
General Electric has also proven itself adept at extracting tax breaks and subsidies from local and state governments, even as it has slashed employment.
This listing of subsidies is not a complete inventory. Because state and local subsidies come from so many different sources -- city agencies, county boards, regional bodies, state agencies and state tax credits -- and because they take so many different forms -- property tax reductions and abatements, training grants, low-interest loans, investment tax credits, research and development tax credits, job creation tax credits, sales tax waivers, utility tax cuts, etc. - there exists no centralized repository of information about subsidies provided to GE or any other large, multi-plant corporation.
Louisville: GE's Appliance Park has seen both subsidies and job loss. Between 1984 and 1999, unionized employment declined by almost 6,000, or 53 percent. In 1988, the state contributed to $1 million worth of subsidies for a customer-service center, and the previous governor had earlier pledged $3.5 million in annual training funds for the refrigeration line. In a 1993 episode, the State of Kentucky provided an estimated $19 million in tax breaks, the City of Louisville and Jefferson County provided another $1 million in incentives, and the union gave contract concessions valued at about $80 million, for total cost reductions of $100 million. Recently, the union again granted concessions after the company announced the relocation of range and laundry work to Georgia and Mexico and indicated that refrigerator work was at risk of being moved.
New York City: No U.S. city has been pressured more often or at greater expense to give tax breaks to companies that say they may leave than
New York. One of the earliest high-profile subsidy events was the city's 1987 deal with the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) for subsidies against the possibility that the network would relocate its operations to New Jersey. (GE acquired NBC in 1986, in the midst of the network's relocation decision-making process.) The city provided a 35-year property tax cut worth an estimated $72 million, $800 million in partly-tax exempt financing, a partial rent tax cut and a waiver on city sales taxes on at least $1.1 billion worth of machinery and equipment the network planned to buy. The financing amount was about six times larger than the previous record set by the New York Industrial Development Agency, $135 million for Morgan Stanley & Co.
Other news reports of subsidies to GE include:
Lowndes County, Alabama: A GE plastics plant received "millions" in local tax concessions in 1985 in one of the poorest counties in the nation.
Melbourne, Florida: GE Harris Railway Electronics received a state and local incentive package valued at $1.9 million for its new corporate headquarters, including a 10-year property tax abatement.
Springfield, Illinois: Garrett Aviation Services, acquired by GE in 1997, benefited from $8.5 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds for an aircraft painting facility from the Capital Airport Authority and from being included in a tax increment financing (TIF) district, which provides a sales tax exemption on building materials.
Fort Wayne, Indiana: The city granted GE tax abatements in 1983 when GE said it was moving consumer-product work to Mexico. GE's aircraft-engine division was granted $2.5 million in federal retraining funds when the company relocated about 800 jobs to Fort Wayne from
Evendale, Ohio in 1983; the additional State of Indiana subsidies raised the total package to $4.1 million.
Mount Vernon, Indiana: GE's plastics plant expansion received a tax abatement valued at $1.3 million in 1988.
Bloomington, Indiana: GE received $150,000 for training from Indiana for an expansion of refrigerator production in 1988, and a total of $725,000 for training and road improvements from the state in 1992. It also received a 10-year tax abatement package from Monroe County in 1992, and possibly inclusion in a TIF district. And in 1994, the state gave GE another training grant of $60,000.
Jeffersonville, Indiana: GE's GEA Parts L.L.C. received a 10-year property tax abatement from the Jeffersonville City Council when it consolidated operations there from New Concord, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky.
Bangor, Maine: A GE facility there received a "STIF" or State TIF district, which provides for the state to rebate to the company up to 25 percent of state income tax revenues generated by new jobs, sometime prior to mid-1995.
New Hampshire: In 1985, the state's Industrial Development Authority approved $1.75 million in industrial development bonds for GE.
Camden, New Jersey: In 1991, the state's Economic Development Authority acted as a conduit for public funds from itself, Camden County, the Urban Development Corporation and the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority that subsidized a 575,000 square foot facility that GE leased from a private developer; total private and public funding was reportedly $65 million, including $46 million in bonds. The state also provided a training grant of $374,500. (The facility was taken over by Martin Marietta in a sale by GE in 1993.)
Evendale, Ohio: GE Aircraft Engines filed for tax abatements through Evendale and Hamilton County Development Company in a 1997-1998 expansion.
Hamilton, Ohio: A GE Aviation Service facility is located in the Southwestern Ohio Industrial District, an enterprise zone, under which companies are eligible for tax abatements of up to 50 percent.
Hebron, Ohio: GE's Newark Quartz Plant expansion in 1994 was slated to receive from Licking County a 75 percent property tax abatement for four years and 50 percent for three years on new equipment.
Ravenna, Ohio: GE's lamp plant received tax abatements on $17 million in new investments in 1994 from Portage County. The 10-year abatement was estimated to save GE $2 million. The abatement was granted after a rumor circulated that GE might be looking to relocate the plant.
Willoughby, Ohio: GE's Willoughby Quartz plant received a tax abatement in 1994 on a $2.2 million addition, 75 percent for seven years on equipment and 40 percent on real estate over four years. The abatement was estimated to save GE $114,113, and was to encourage GE to expand in Willoughby rather than in Newark, Ohio. GE received an additional seven-year, $2.5 million tax break in 1995 on a $17 million expansion.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: GE benefited from a 1993 $50,000 training grant to Delaware Area Vocational Technical School to train and retrain GE workers, and from a $218,315 training grant in 1993 to the same school for training and retraining.
Grand Prairie, Texas: GE received a 10-year inventory tax abatement worth an estimated $280,000 in 1996 on a warehouse in the Great
Southwest Industrial Park, into which the company announced it was moving its regional appliance distribution center. The warehouse's developer also received a 10-year 50 percent tax abatement worth $350,000.