Month: October 2014

I can’t see it happening here

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

People would just shrug, I think:

Tens of thousands of protesters have marched through the Hungarian capital Budapest against plans to tax internet use in the biggest anti-government demonstration for years.

Huge crowds gathered in the capital’s main squares and there were smaller rallies in six other cities.

The government has drafted a law which would levy a fee on each gigabyte of internet data transferred.

The EU has condemned it as a bad idea that could threaten political freedom.

Protests began in Hungary on Sunday, when demonstrators hurled old computer parts at the Budapest headquarters of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party.

Under the proposals, internet providers would be made to pay 150 forints (£0.40; €0.50; $0.60) per gigabyte of data traffic.

The fee is one of a series of measures proposed by the government to bring down the budget deficit.

The ruling Fidesz party has tried to stem the anger by proposing a 700-forint cap on the tax for individuals and 5,000 forints for businesses.

But opponents believe the tax reflects the increasingly authoritarian style of Mr Orban.

Slave wages in Silicon Valley

~ susie

Seriously, they’re just finding this out? People in the media must not know any normal working people:

A year-long investigation by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) raises questions about a well-known visa program setup to recruit foreign workers to the US: Is it indentured servitude in the high tech age? Or is it a necessary business model to compete in a quickly changing high tech economy?

NBC Bay Area and CIR’s team discovered an organized system that supplies cheap labor made up of highly-educated and highly-skilled foreign workers who come to the US via H-1B visas. Consulting firms recruit and then subcontract out skilled foreigners to major tech firms throughout the country and many in Silicon Valley.

[…] While many of the consulting companies that use H-1B visas appear to play by the rules, NBC Bay Area and CIR found numerous examples of other companies taking advantage of foreign workers and breaking federal law in the process. “’Indentured servants’ is a pretty accurate term because in many cases that’s exactly what’s going on,” said Phillip Griego of San Jose’s Phillip J. Griego and Associates. Over the years, Griego and his law partner, Robert Nuddleman have represented several H-1B workers in lawsuits against body shops.

[…] A guesthouse is a small apartment or home where as many as eight to ten workers stay at once. A dozen different interviews confirmed that the guesthouses are commonly used by body shops. One worker from India described how the body shops explained the guesthouse when he arrived: “We are placing you in the guesthouse. Until you get the job you have to stay in the guesthouse, you should not go out, even for a walk,” the worker said.

‘Get in line’

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

He only cares what you think if you’re a major contributor, silly!

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie practically dared a nurse to sue him for quarantining her even after she tested negative for Ebola. “Whatever. Get in line,” the brash Republican said Tuesday during a campaign stop in Rhode Island. “I’ve been sued lots of times before. Get in line. I’m happy to take it on.”

Maine nurse Kaci Hickox spent a weekend in an isolation tent at a Newark hospital after she flew back from West Africa, where she was treating Ebola victims. After she threatened to sue, she was released on Monday and driven back to her home state. A range of public-health experts have said quarantine for doctors and nurses who are not sick is unnecessary and could hurt efforts to wipe out the Ebola crisis at its source in West Africa.

Christie dismissed complaints about Hickox’s treatment as “malarkey” and said he had no concerns about the fact that she was kept in a tent.

“She was inside the hospital in a climate-controlled area with access to her cellphone, access to the Internet and takeout food from the best restaurants in Newark. She was doing just fine,” he said.

Inky, Daily News punt on endorsements

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey Goodbye

Wow, this sounds like the same corporate stance the shitty Journal-Register chain I once worked for had. The ed board was told they had to endorse Bush — “or no one.” Personally, I have never seen an election swayed by an endorsement, but they sure do look persuasive in those TV ads, right?

This is the time of year when newspapers start to endorse candidates. Corbett got the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, no surprise given its conservative ownership. Wolf got the Harrisburg Patriot/Penn Live nod, which is prestigious because it’s the state capital’s daily.

The strange one is the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, which are owned by the same company and are not endorsing in the race. Owner and publisher H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest wrote in yesterday’s Inquirer that he’s decided the papers shouldn’t endorse a candidate, and has instead asked the editorial boards to “provide a summary of where the candidates stand on the critical issues facing the state, as well as the positions each paper has taken on those issues, and then let the voters decide who they think is most qualified.”

Missing from Lenfest’s piece: The fact that he gave Corbett a $250,000 campaign contribution. Bad show.

Considering that both papers have been kicking Corbett’s ass up and down the street on school funding and fracking, this is a tad peculiar.

The new ‘enlightened’ Georgia

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

vote-here2

Looks a lot like the old Jim Crow, doesn’t it?

ATLANTA, GEORGIA—On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Brasher of the Fulton County Superior Court denied a petition from civil rights advocates to force Georgia’s Secretary of State to process an estimated 40,000 voter registrations that have gone missing from the public database.

Though early voting is well underway in the state, Judge Brasher called the lawsuit “premature,” and said it was based on “merely set out suspicions and fears that the will fail to carry out their mandatory duties.”

[…] The New Georgia Project, who spearheaded the voter registration drive and brought the lawsuit against the state, vowed Tuesday to “continue to pursue all legal avenues available.” But with the election mere days away, there may be little remedy for the tens of thousands of people who submitted all necessary documents, but have still not received a registration card. Four of those impacted voters were present at the court hearing, but were denied the opportunity to testify.

Dr. Francys Johnson, President of the Georgia NAACP, who represented the 40 thousand voters in the court, called the ruling “outrageous.”

“All in all – a republican appointed judge has backed the republican Secretary of State to deny the right to vote to a largely African American and Latino population,” Johnson wrote in a press release.

Yup, that’s Texas

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

haileystone

Sometimes I think I should have a section just for stupid stories from Texas and Florida:

EDNA, Texas — A Texas girl’s involvement in a charity run got her suspended from school.

Carol Stone said her daughter, Hailey, participated in a color run for charity over the weekend.

Runners wear white and get doused with colored dyes and some pink dye got in Hailey’s hair.

When she went to class on Monday, she was put on in-school suspension for violating her elementary school’s code of conduct, which forbids unnatural hair color.

“We didn’t plan for her hair to be colored like that. It definitely wasn’t done on purpose, so I didn’t believe it was right for that to happen,” Stone said.

Stone is keeping her daughter home until the dye washes out of her hair but said the school went too far.