Category: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Good

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

I’ll update with details when I have them.

UPDATE: I read somewhere later that the D.A. is doing this as a stunt, but we’ll see.

2ND UPDATE: Here it is.

FLINT, MI – Felony and misdemeanor charges have been issued against three state and city employees in connection to the city’s water crisis.

Genesee District Court Judge Tracy Collier-Nix authorized charges, Wednesday, April 20, for Flint employee Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Stephen Busch and Michael Prysby.

Glasgow is accused of tampering with evidence when he allegedly changed testing results to show there was less lead in city water than there actually was. He is also charged with willful neglect of office.

Prysby and Busch are charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, tampering with evidence, a treatment violation of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act and a monitoring violation of the Safe Drinking Water.

Oh boy

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

08-2015_02

I never like to read this:

A leak at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state has prompted warnings of “catastrophic” consequences, as workers attempt to clean up more than eight inches of toxic waste from one of 28 underground tanks holding radioactive materials leftover from plutonium production.

Alarms on the site began sounding on Sunday, leading workers to discover 8.4 inches of toxic waste in between the inner and outer walls of tank AY-102, which has been slowly leaking since 2011 but has never accumulated that amount of waste before.

A former tank farm worker told local media that despite statements from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that the spill does not pose a threat to public health, it should be considered a major problem.

“This is catastrophic,” the worker, Mike Geffre, who first discovered that the tank was failing in 2011, told King-TV on Monday. “This is probably the biggest event ever to happen in tank farm history. The double shell tanks were supposed to be the savior of all saviors [to hold waste safely from people and the environment].”

Flint mayor: Governor’s decision to drink Flint water ‘doesn’t impress me’

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

FIRST Robotics State Championship 2016

Flint, MI Mayor Karen Weaver was on my radio show Monday night, and I asked her about Governor Rick Snyder’s pledge to drink that city’s water for a month. COLMES: The governor of your state, Rick Snyder, said today that he was going to drink for a month, I guess to give people some comfort, what’s… Continue reading “Flint mayor: Governor’s decision to drink Flint water ‘doesn’t impress me’” →

‘Moral Monday’ leader faces racist comments on plane; HE gets kicked off

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Rev. Barbour Speaks

Some days you can’t even imagine what’s going on in people’s heads. The Charlotte Observer reports that the Rev. William Barber, who suffers from an arthritic disability, purchased two seats on a flight from Washington to Raleigh/Durham. A person behind him complained loudly about Barber’s seating arrangement. “Barber said the other passenger said ‘he had problems… Continue reading “‘Moral Monday’ leader faces racist comments on plane; HE gets kicked off” →

AT&T seeks to eliminate CA landlines

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

AT&T Seeks to Elminate Land Line Phones in California by Miriam Rafferty April 12, 2016 (Sacramento) – Yesterday the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce heard AB 2395, a measure that aims to eliminate hard-wired land line phones in California communities where cabled fiber optic connections are not available or are too expensive to install, such… Continue reading “AT&T seeks to eliminate CA landlines” →

Disposable workers

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

12106p011

I read both this letter and the original story that prompted it in the New York Times, and was shaking my damn head. This is the economy that’s forced so many people over 60 into the gig economy, precisely at a time when their bodies are screaming at them to slow down. You can see the problem:

If the most critical issue this article is highlighting is how disposable employees are in the technology world, I think it would be wise to consider the macro trends in the economy, all of which point to a more distributed, happier work force of people who use their skills across dozens of companies in their working lives.

The author, of course, is a young guy who’s the CEO of exactly the kind of company that’s exploiting workers.

Then there’s this guy:

It’s been observed that companies have no social compact with employees anymore, so it is incumbent on individuals to set limits and stick to them. I did so and never once got fired for it. Even if I had been, who wants a job that robs you of any personal life? After hanging on to my first job, one that made me soul-sick, I was determined that I would never repeat that mistake again, and didn’t. My career may have suffered some, but I gained immeasurably. I refuse to work for any entity that doesn’t recognize that I am a human being who not only has a life outside of work, but also that I work in order to have that life. I don’t live to work. No one should.

I’m going to assume that he’s young, not married and doesn’t have kids. Because there’s only a brief period in life where you can actually afford this attitude (unless you have a trust fund).

This guy nails it:

This article doesn’t dissect technology work per se but rather the kind of boiler-room sales activity that you can find today in almost all businesses and that has long been exploitative — you saw it in the movie “Wall Street” (1987), with kids pitching stocks. Capital has always exploited labor, to one extent or another. And as we automate more and more, the exploitation will become more pervasive, and wages will suffer as labor becomes more commoditized to better compete with hardware and software — until there is largely no labor left.

How the Republicans plan to steal the nomination

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Alex Castellanos outlined the Machiavellian machinations that will likely occur at the Republican National Convention, which will insure that someone from the Republican establishment can stomach will eventually be their nominee, intimating that it could be someone not in the race right now. STEPHANOPOULOS: And Alex Castellanos, assuming, then, Donald Trump does not get to 1,237,… Continue reading “How the Republicans plan to steal the nomination” →