Category: Uncategorized

More Of “Chicken Little” Hinderaker, On Solar Capacity…

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Hinderaker (waxing delusional on a Sunday) sees a vast Chinese plot to control the USA, via… wait for it!… solar panel deliveries.

Yes. That’s what his latest crazy conspiracy theory holds: Xi is going to secretly limit our own use of solar panels we’ve bought and installed, via a (non-existent) chip-set that gives him control over the amount of electricity we can harvest from them. Or something.

Ri-i-i-i-i-i-ght.

Whatever. Here are some facts: there are many non-China based, and quite a few actual US and Canadian manufacturers of solar panels (if you are worried about John’s jingoistic paranoia) [I might ask… why would China destroy stuff it already sold to us under 25 year warranties — but I’m just kinda’ nutty that way]:

CertainTeed, San Jose, CA, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 10 years

Crossroads Solar, South Bend, IN, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 10 years

First Solar, Perrysburg/Lake Township, OH, Tech.: Thin film; Warranty: 12 years

GAF Energy, San Jose, CA, Tech.: Shingle; Warranty: 25 years

Q CELLS South Korea, Dalton, GA, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 25 years

Heliene Canada, Mountain Iron, MN, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 15 years

Merlin Solar, San Jose, CA, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 25 years

Mission Solar, San Antonio, TX, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 25 years

Next Energy Alliance, Riverside, CA, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 10 years

Silfab Solar Canada, Bellingham, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 25 years

Solaria, Fremont, CA, Tech.: Monocrystalline; Warranty: 25 years

Tesla, Buffalo, NY, Tech.: Monocrystalline and Shingle; Warranty: 25 years

Oops! Amazon Will Now NOT Complete That Second Nashville Tower…

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As we end our “daily drumbeat” on the company — we did want to complete the mid-2021 story arc… of its attempts to lend a 21st Century flair — to downtown Music City.

That will all be packed away, into a mothball-filled cedar chest, now — for the foreseeable future.

And while Amazon keeps the tax incentives it won locally to build, the city will forego perhaps $40 million in what would have been added income tax revenue from the employees’ collateral spending, on lunches, bike commutes, and so on.

This of course is both the result of poor labor relations / management (we documented) at Bezos’ company, and too heady expansion plans more generally, by his minions — in a flattening online US purchasing and delivery economy.

Unfortunate, indeed — since I am truly a connoisseur of excellent architecture — but the shell of it will remain… awaiting a rebound in purchasing trends (eventually). In the mean time, it will add to the glut of empty glass tower space in and around the Gulch. A monument… to “what might have been“.

And, so it goes — as the rain falls… sideways, here in the City of Big Shoulders this morning. Grinning just the same. . . . out.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker’s NRA Lobbying Has Bequeathed Greater Rights To Inanimate Objects… Than To Families Of Dead Children…

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If I were just making this stuff up, I’d be depressed. As it is, I am… morose.

Apparently the NRA has twisted the AP’s arm sufficiently to get it to rule that calling an AR-15 an “assault rifle” is unfair… to (wait for it!) the ASSAULT RIFLE. WTAF?!

I am not sure why I should / would worry about the “precious fee-fees” of the inanimate object (a gun), or its maker, or its owner.

Were I the AP journalists — I might give primacy to the families of the dead victims — and witnesses — who say they saw an AR-15, a semi-automatic, or fully automatic “weapon of war” used on their children, wives, school teachers, grandparents or neighbors.

It is time to find out how much Hinderaker’s gun lobbyists paid to get this one rammed through.

And while I am all for honest debates, using generally accepted terms… the truth ought to prevail: these rifles are useless for hunting game. They are solely for the taking of human lives, in large numbers, very quickly. Solely.

So just… fuck right off, Hinderaker.

This Will Conclude Our Review Of Amazon’s Labor Policies…

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To be clear, we do not expect that Amazon will suddenly begin to respect its US team members’ rights to organize, nor do we expect that the company will quickly back away from its last century labor tactics.

We’ve been seen, and heard, and we know the movement that started with Mr. Smalls and others will eventually carry the day at Amazon. We will just end our day-to-day tallies here.

Except for an obvious echo — to our now decade ago close coverage of the USW Local No. 10-86 labor matters — at Merck’s legacy facilities, in Pennsylvania, warehouse labor matters are in truth… pretty far afield from our power alley.

And so it goes… with sincere congrats passed along, at the now fully remote-first new opportunity… excellent life-style choice… grin.

नमस्ते

Steady, And Rhythmic Drumbeats, Now: ANOTHER New Charging Letter, In Bellmawr, New Jersey — This Time, Against Amazon Logistics

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Apparently Amazon Logistics is trying to either close this facility, or re-assign the work done there to a sub-contractor — or another location.

And the Amazonians United branch there is having… none of it.

That implicates NLRA § 8(a)(3) rights.

So — another file is opened; this one to be assigned to the Philly regional NLRB offices. We will image the documents, and post links here — when the FOIA process makes the same. . . available to the public.

Onward, just wondering how it can be that Bezos, et al., cannot see this is a game they cannot win.

The dam is broken.

In the end, just over one million humans are likely to be represented by a collective bargaining arrangement.

Time to face a hard reality: Amazon’s time as a free market, “at will” employer… is at an end, here. May the goddesses save them, if she deems it fitting that she do so….

Onward, smiling — cool breezes, and yet sunny biking by the lake up next.

नमस्ते

Well — This Will Eat Into Mastriano’s Vote Total, In Pennsylvania, In November 2022.

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Lately, Andrew Torba — who runs the dying Gab dot com social media hate platform — has been trying to pick fights with journalists who ask him for comment on his FEC forms.

He has said on his site that he will not talk to any journalist, unless he knows them to be committed “Christians” first. [But Scott apparently thinks what’s good criticism of the left, is not so good (in equal measure) for… these hard right malign morons.]

Charming.

In any event, a journalist who would not so affirm (as Christian and whyte, first) asked Torba to explain… on the record, what he was being paid for by the hard right white nationalist Mastriano campaign in Pennsylvania. [Torba has ALSO contributed $$$ through the WINRED PAC to that campaign, in this cycle.]

But lately, Mastriano’s campaign is saying it is paying Torba’s Gab $5,000 per quarter for “media consulting”.

Torba’s readers, and the voting public — in Pennsylvania need to know that. The law, BTW — specifically 11 CFR § 100.6, requires this disclosure.

He might not want people thinking that he is being bribed to support Mastriano’s campaign, or that his money has been returned to him, as a payoff of a loan from Gab by Mastriano.

Jes sayin’… HILARIOUS.

These malign idiots like Torba and Mastriano know nothing of the applicable US FEC law, but want to run a parallel nation nonetheless, inside our “e pluribus unum” nation — as a “Christian — whites only” nation.

Me? Hard pass. Vote ’em all down.

If Martin Shkreli “Threads The Needle” — And Eventually Reaches A Briefing Schedule, In The Second Circuit…

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As a bit of background, we’ve covered the Trump financier / Thomas Barrack (stealing from the taxpayers — via secret UAE deals, against US interests, while working for Trump) felony case, in Brooklyn… closely. Barrack, a billionaire many times over, benefited by over $367 million — by secretly selling out his nation, while working as an advisor to Tangerine. He will go to jail. But he argued last week that a Supremes case decided last month, called Ruan — means he must go free.

Martin is likely to try a similar gambit, in his Second Circuit appeal (should he ever get to a briefing), so I cover now why people like Barrack and Shkreli are wrong — about what Ruan actually means.

Here it is, in seven pages of context, from the Brooklyn AUSAs — and a bit:

…The defendants are wrong. Ruan addressed a different statute in a different context, did not establish a new approach to analyzing the mens rea requirements of criminal statutes, and is entirely consistent with this Court’s reasoning in its denial of Grimes’s motion to dismiss the indictment (the “Motion to Dismiss”). The defendants’ contention that “specific intent should be read into Section 951 in the face of legislative silence” because of Ruan (Mot. at 3) is flatly contradicted by Ruan itself, which reaffirmed a long line of cases providing that general intent is typically read into statutes that are silent as to mens rea. See Ruan, 2022 WL 2295024 at *6. Contrary to announcing a change in controlling law, as required to warrant reconsideration, Ruan only underscores that this Court applied the law correctly in its decision….

Ruan addressed a provision of the Controlled Substances Act that prohibited the knowing or intentional manufacture, distribution, or dispensation of controlled substances, such as opioids, “except as authorized.” See generally Ruan, 2022 WL 2295024. As in Rehaif, the Supreme Court, applying “ordinary and longstanding scienter requirements” to the “except as authorized” clause, held that when a criminal defendant “meets the burden of producing evidence that” he is authorized to dispense controlled substances, the burden shifts to the government to prove that the defendant distributed the controlled substance knowing that the dispensation at issue was actually without authorization. Id. at **5-6 (“§841’s ‘knowing and intentionally’ mens rea applies to the ‘except as authorized’ clause”). Notably, Ruan did not hold that the government must allege and prove that a defendant was aware of the legal prohibition on manufacturing, distributing, or dispensing controlled substances without such authorization….

Violating the antitrust laws, in the way Martin was found to have, at trial in Manhattan did not require the FTC to prove specific intent, as it was a civil, not criminal matter.

And, in any event, his own calls and emails plainly establish that he specifically intended to violate the applicable law, in creating his monopoly on Daraprim.

So as I’ve long said… any appeal is… DOA.

Onward, to a sunny cool Wednesday bike ride, by the clear lake waters… smile.

नमस्ते

Primitive Amazonia: Missed A Count By One Item; Got Written Up…

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In fact, at just one facility, Amazon managers logged over 13,000 such “write ups” — in a single year.

[Frankly, this highly punitive, micro-managing approach to line supervision was completely discredited. . . by the end of the 19th Century, as not driving overall company profitability, over any longer time frame measured.]

Here’s Reuters on it:

…Amazon worker Gerald Bryson had hand-counted thousands of items in his warehouse’s inventory over three days when his manager showed him a “Supportive Feedback Document”….

Bryson had made 22 errors, the 2018 write-up said, including tallying 19 products in a storage bin that in fact had 20.

If Bryson erred like this six times within a year, the notice stated, he would be fired from the Staten Island warehouse, one of Amazon’s largest in the United States….

Internal Amazon documents, previously unreported, reveal how routinely the company measured workers’ performance in minute detail and admonished those who fell even slightly short of expectations — sometimes before their shift ended. In a single year ending April 2020, the company issued more than 13,000 so-called “disciplines” in Bryson’s warehouse alone, one lawyer for Amazon said in court papers….

Astounding — that a company of this size and scope still relies on discredited Bad Management 101 theories of supervision. Bezos apparently thought good customer experiences come primarily from… abused, fearful line workers.

The empirical data (over decades), in no manner supports this errant view. All in all, pretty stupid, that.

नमस्ते