Cities are investigating, workers are on strike, but it's not all good news for Verizon US telecoms giant Verizon is once again facing government scrutiny for a rollout of its network services in a major US city. The city of Philadelphia mayor's office has put out an open call to citizens asking if they have the ability to get Verizon FiOS, its fastest home fiber service. The campaign is part of an effort by …
Verizon, like all the US ISP monopolies have an amazing track record of funding politicians who pass legislation that hobble the competition. The history between Comcast and Chattanooga makes for interesting reading.
Ultimately Comcast lost there, but the state of Tennessee didn't make it easy.
I wonder if the mayor of Philadelphia is coming up for re-election. Expensive those elections aren't they?
We took a several year delay in getting FIOS in our area just south of Philly, due to the contract with the city and a further delay introduced by various townships holding up deployment for "gifts" like lighting from Verizon going through their townships.
I'm sure some envelopes were passing the desks as well, stuffed with green paper.
Delaware County and Philadelphia county are both lousy with corruption.
The "incumbents" have siphoned off "how much?" to "improve services", and have actually delivered "WTF?". Oh yeah, the C-Levels are enriched - "I forgot". And, let's not hurt the politicos, eh?
When will the customers (no - not "consumers") get what their tax dollars have been paid for?
/disgust
Don't forget the assholes of AT&T! Those guys suck pretty fucking hard too; shit customer service, overpriced contracts, all data routed through AT&T goes right to NSA. Fuck these assholes! Right "up" there with Comcrap. Verizon? Never done business with them, never gonna do business with them.
Belgian prison guards are on strike. Inmate priviledges have been restricted to a minimum. A judge has now ordered that as long as these 'inhuman conditions' persist (read : as long as the strike lasts) prisoners are entitled to 1000 Euro per day (yes, you read that right) damages for as long as these reduced priviledges persist.
I'm seriously contemplating having myself incarcerated.
Belgian prisons are already badly overcrowded hotbeds of radicalisation and the strike means that some prisoners are not only confined to overcrowded cells but are not getting showers, changes of clothes or even regular meals in some cases, Basic hygiene and food are not "privileges". Belgium's fractured and fractious state clearly needs some incentive to sort this out. Given that the only other avenue of redress would have been to release the affected prisoners from custody. this seems to me like the only practical way the judge could send a strong message to the parties to the dispute.
Prisoners seem to be one of a growing number of subhuman underclasses - along with people on benefits and immigrants - who are being written out of mainstream society and excluded from the same rights as everyone else. If that's how you want the game to be played, prepare for the time that your next on the list.
Warm Braw spake:
Prisoners seem to be one of a growing number of subhuman underclasses - along with people on benefits and immigrants - who are being written out of mainstream society and excluded from the same rights as everyone else.
While prisons should be humane, people who are imprisoned are there specifically to exclude them from everyone else. They have been convicted of being incapable keeping to the code of behavior embraced by the remainder of mainstream society and have been deprived of a subset of the rights enjoyed by everyone else as a result*.
Prison should be unpleasant to discourage recidivism. It also must allow for rehabilitation and provide opportunities for those incarcerated to learn skills to either aid them to function appropriately within mainstream society upon release, or to contribute to society from prison if they are serving a whole life order.
*Yes, I am aware of the issues in justice systems around the globe, particularly in those countries where justice is not only blind, but bound, gagged, and buried in a shallow grave. This is not the situation I am discussing.
Prisoners seem to be one of a growing number of subhuman underclasses - along with people on benefits and immigrants - who are being written out of mainstream society and excluded from the same rights as everyone else.
Got bad news for you. It's always been this way. The human race is rather insane that way.
I've had FiOS in three places over seven years in Center City in Philly (what we call downtown for some reason) and the streets along which is did not pass at the start of the year are all being dug up at the moment. Obviously though they waited until all of the affected streets had been nicely resurfaced with lovely new Tarmac before coming along and carving the trenches out. That's my taxpayer dollars being hauled off in dump trucks.
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