Category Archives: Technology

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

Corporate Incompetence or Evil? Investigation into Bile duct cancer spreads from Printing industry to Semiconductors and Metal industries. U.S. workers suffering same cancer!

“The research conducted in the United States shows that the hazardous nature of dichloromethane had been pointed out some time ago. The warning of the health hazard to humans was issued more than 20 years ago!“-Shinji Kumagai, University of Occupational and Environmental Health

Back at the end of June 2012, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced an investigation into the high rate of bile duct cancer among workers in the printing industry.  Now, they are warning the semiconductor and metals industries they will be investigated as well.

The common factor is a cleaning chemical called dichloromethane (aka methylene chloride).  “Dichloromethane is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity from studies in experimental animals.”-Report on Carcinogens, Twelfth Edition (2011)

According to a study by University of Occupational and Environmental Health, cancer rates among printing industry employees is 600 times higher than than the average Japanese man who dies from bile duct cancer!

The identification of dichloromethane, and other cleaning solvents, is leading investigators to look at other industries that also use those chemicals.

Japanese doctors will now question people who get bile duct cancer (or related cancers), as to what industry they work in.  Health officials are concerned that industries are not taking the proper precautions, such as proper ventilation of work place.

On 10 July 2012, a report by The Mainichi revealed that workers in certain U.S. industries suffer high rates of cancer.  The thing is the study was released back in 1990, not in U.S. publications but in a European magazine!  (Mortality update of cellulose fiber production workers)

U.S. health researchers studied 1,271 people who worked at a factory in South Carolina between 1954 and 1977.  Workers had developed liver cancer, from cancerous bile duct cells.  The mortality rate was 20 times higher than the U.S. average! The main culprit;  dichloromethane!

When Japanese health researchers read the study, more than a decade later, they decided to investigate Japanese industries. It was that initial study that revealed the outrageously high cancer rates of printing industry workers!

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? GE outsources innovation, spends millions building new China Innovation Center!

“These facilities…will play an instrumental role in building out much needed local innovation capabilities in the critical industries that are key to the region’s long term growth.”-Mark Hutchinson, president and CEO of GE Greater China

On 18 July 2012, unAmerican Corporate America giant, General Electric (GE), announced they’ve opened the China Innovation Center.

This as the Obama administration has been calling for more spending on innovation, but I thought he meant in the United States!  Here’s what he said: “We now live in a world where technology has made it possible for companies to take their business anywhere. If we want them to start here and stay here and hire here, we have to be able to out build and out educate and out innovate every other country on Earth.”-Barack Obama, September 2011

How can you “out innovate every other country on Earth”, when your own corporations are outsourcing the innovation?

The GE China Innovation Center in Xi’an cost $60 million USD to build.  I wounder if GE somehow got any U.S. taxpayer money, or some kind’o U.S. tax break, for their China project?

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Computer Trojan attacks both Iran & Israel! Is the coming War being manipulated by a shadow government?

“While the malware and infrastructure is very basic compared to other similar projects, the Madi attackers have been able to conduct a sustained surveillance operation against high profile victims.”-Nicolas Brulez, Kaspersky Lab

19 July 2012, several security companies have discovered a new trojan program that’s targeting several countries including Iran and Israel!

“Statistics from the sinkhole revealed that the victims were primarily business people working on Iranian and Israeli critical infrastructure projects, Israeli financial institutions, Middle Eastern engineering students, and various government agencies communicating in the Middle East.”-Seculert statement

The Madi (Mahdi) malware allows remote users to take data from Windows computers.  The fact that most of the programing is in Farsi leads computer security experts to believe it came from Iran, yet the strange thing is that the majority of computer infections are in Iran.

Is this really a covert CIA op using Iranians who’re sympathetic to U.S. interests, you know, use Iranians to spy on Iranians?

Idaho, Technology

S-70 Firehawk caught in rain storm, Pocatello Airport 2012

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After weeks of hot dry weather, and lots of wildfires, eastern Idaho gets hit with random thunder/rain storms!

Click on pics (by AAron B. Hutchins) to make bigger:

EAST IDAHO WILDFIRES 2012: MAINTENANCE DAY FOR SKYCRANE FIRE FIGHTER @ POCATELLO AIRPORT

Idaho, Technology

East Idaho Wildfires 2012: Maintenance day for Skycrane fire fighter @ Pocatello Airport

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Photos by AAron B. Hutchins. Pics get bigger when you click on them:

EAST IDAHO WILDFIRES 2012: CURRENT FIRES FOR 12 JULY

BUSY 30 MINUTES AT POCATELLO AIRPORT, AS FIRE FIGHTING AIRCRAFT FLY INTO ACTION

SIKORSKY SKYCRANE LEAVES POCATELLO AIRPORT FOR COX’S WELL FIRE

Idaho, Technology

East Idaho Wildfire 2012: Busy 30 minutes at Pocatello Airport, as fire fighting aircraft fly into action

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The following pics (which you can make bigger by clicking on them) were taken by AAron B. Hutchins, within a thirty minutes period, at the Pocatello Regional Airport (USFS Air Tanker Base), on 12JUL2012, between 11:30 hours and 12:00 hours.

Remember, these pics were taken within a 30 minute period.

EAST IDAHO WILDFIRES 2012: MORE NEW FIRES ON 11 JULY, FIRE NEAR NUKE REACTOR, CRATERS OF THE MOON

Crews preping S-64 Skycrane to join in battle against Cox’s Well Fire. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins, 10JUL2012.

SIKORSKY SKYCRANE LEAVES POCATELLO AIRPORT FOR COX’S WELL FIRE

Idaho, Technology

East Idaho Wildfires 2012: Sikorsky Skycrane leaves Pocatello Airport for Cox’s Well Fire

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Click on pics (by AAron B. Hutchins) to make them bigger:

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, Opinion, Technology, U.S.

Corporate & Government Incompetence: Hoku Corp “restructuring” code for going bust! Pocatello wasted hundreds of thousands on tax breaks! Hundreds of hoped for jobs down the drain! Who’s gonna buy those new homes now Mr Mayor?

On 05 July 2012, NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) ordered an end to trading of Hoku stock, pending “additional information”.

NASDAQ requires that companies traded in their exchange can not go below one U.S. dollar per share for a set period of time, or that company will be de-listed.  But Hoku Corp was guaranteed doom when, at the beginning of June, a “do not trade” warning was issued to investors!

Rumors are now rampant that Hoku will declare bankruptcy, but get a clue, when a company announces it’s “restructuring” it’s a real good chance that bankruptcy is close behind.

I’ve been following the slow motion Hoku Materials train wreck in Pocatello, Idaho, since day one.  This was because I learned that some of the board members of Hoku have a history of starting up corporations on paper, then folding them for technical reasons after selling off stock in the paper corps.

You can search my posts, but briefly; the city of Pocatello, and Bannock County, bent over backwards to get the company to settle in the area, including I believe a $200,000 property tax break on land which only cost $200,000.  This was unprecedented for Pocatello, because they had been actually running off businesses, and good paying jobs, because they (city officials) refused to make concessions (the big job loss that started the whole decline for the Pocatello/Chubbuck was refusing to give Union Pacific more land to make Pocatello UP’s new huge Pacific Northwest depot!) .

From day one of construction Hoku has failed to pay contractors on time, or at all! The big guy, JH Kelly, is now using legal action to seize the property!

Hoku was also consistently late paying their massive electric bills to Idaho Power.  At one point Tianwei New Energy Holdings announced at the end of 2011 that polysilicon production had begun, however, Idaho Power refused to provide the electricity because Hoku had not met its contractual obligations, so no production was ever started!

Hoku turned to Chinese companies to bail them out of their financial woes.  They became a subsidiary of Tianwei New Energy Holdings, which is an affiliate of China South Industries Group Corporation (CSGC).  All of Hoku Material’s contracts are with Chinese solar product companies hoping to increase their business in the United States.

The hopes of Chinese solar companies, and indirectly Hoku, were finally dashed because the Obama Administration imposed high tariffs on any Chinese made solar power product!

At least 120 of the 150 Hoku Materials employees were laid off, but the massive 50 football fields long polysilicon factory (built at the end of a dead end residential road, those people are not happy) was to employ several hundreds of people once it got up and running.  One year, I remember, in one of the monthly city of Chubbuck newsletters the incompetent mayor excitedly reminding people of the boom in home sales when the factory was finished. It was in response to residents questioning the allowing of new home developments, when the housing market was so bad.

So who’s gonna buy those new homes now Mr Mayor?

 SOLAR COMPANY HOKU CORPORATION STOCK now WORTHLESS 

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, Technology, U.S.

Economic Recovery? Japan’s Elpida gets owned by Idaho’s Micron! Take over of Taiwan’s Rexchip in the works. Expect higher prices for your gadgets!

“Under the proposed arrangement with Powerchip, if Micron entered into an agreement to acquire Elpida, Micron would have the right to purchase the Rexchip shares held by Powerchip.”-Dan Francisco, Micron Technology

03 July 2012, failed Japanese microchip maker, Elpida Memory, has agreed to become a subsidiary of Idaho’s Micron Technology.  Of course, the U.S. main stream media says it’ll be good for the U.S. economy.

Elpida was a major supplier to Apple.

The major move makes Idaho’s Micron one of three chip makers who’ll dominate 90% of the World’s memory chip market!  The other two are Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

In recent years the memory chip market got flooded with so many chips that the bottom fell out, and even Micron was adversely affected (once the biggest employer in the Boise, Idaho, not anymore).

The result was a dog eat dog situation between international chip makers.  In 2007, Pocatello, Idaho’s AMI Semiconductor (not necessarily memory chips, but the same thing happened with this industry) was taken over by Arizona based ON Semiconductor.  Following that ON went on to take over dozens of other companies right on up to February 2011.

“The DRAM industry is heading towards an oligopolistic market. The emergence of three major DRAM players will help DRAM chip prices gradually stabilize, bidding farewell to the price-slashing competition of the past.”-Trendforce, Taiwanese technology research company

So when market prices drop too low, when there are just too many chip makers out there, the only recourse is for companies to merge or be taken over. The result will reduce the amount of competition, and soon memory chip prices will rise making our high tech gadgets more expensive (of course people will lose their jobs as well).

Micron is also in the final stages of taking over Taiwan based Rexchip Electronics. The approval of the sale is conditional upon Micron’s take over of Elpida.  A company called Powerchip is selling its controling shares of Rexchip to Micron.  Already the price of Rexchip stocks has jumped 58% since 29 June!

“The deal will reduce price volatility as Micron will have tighter control over capacity expansion and investment plans as it needs to integrate Elpida and Rexchip.”-Song Myung-sub, HI Investment & Securities

The amazing thing about Micron’s take overs is that Micron has lost billions of dollars in the past couple of years. So where’d they get the money to initiate these take over moves?

 

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, Technology, U.S.

Global Class War: Hungary taxes potato chips last year, now adds cell phone calls! Nebraska already suffering with highest cell phone tax rate in United States!

In September 2011, Hungary joined several countries placing extra taxes on snacks like potato chips.  Full of crap western news media said it was an effort to fight obesity, but a recent Japanese report straight up said it was a way for the Hungarian government to raise more money to pay its out of control debts!

In May 2012, Hungary also passed an extra tax on cell phones calls!  It’s called the voice-traffic levy.  The Hungarian government hopes the new phone tax will create at least $133.6 million USD this year.

NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reporting that Hungary was forced to create the extra tax under demands from the European Union.  But some people have switched to using smartphones which can make calls through the internet.  Hungarian officials did not tax internet based calls.

Here in the U.S. state of Idaho, groceries are already taxed.  It’s fun to watch people from out of state go into shock when they find out they have to pay tax on groceries.

Idahoans are not happy about the decades old grocery tax.  Political leaders have tried to throw us a bone by allowing a grocery credit on the end of year tax filings.  But woe to them that try to add extra taxes on snacky foods in the name of forcing us to be healthy, when in reality they just want to steal more of our increasingly limited money.

But wait, there’s more!  According to a 2011 Money article, Nebraska leads the U.S. with the highest cell phone tax rates!  Combined federal, state and local cell phone tax rates amounted to 23.69% in 2011!!!

Idaho’s state and local tax rate was 2.2% (not counting federal taxes).

“Cellphone users are overtaxed relative to consumers of other goods, and at risk of double taxation. Additionally, the wide number of taxing authorities and the wide variety in rates makes tracking problematic and burdensome.” -Joseph Henchman, Tax Foundation Director of State Projects

The reason this is class warfare is that these kinds of taxes do not affect the elitist wealthy, they target the overwhelming majority of citizens who are not rich!