8:00 PM Public Hearing on proposed subdivision revisions to require all subdivision curbs be granite, roads be amphibian/reptile-friendly, and require open culverts above streams, amend permit applications, and change fees. These changes will add some cost to roads and housing, primarily in outlying areas where most homes are done in subdivisions with large street frontages. The changes will make projects more attractive, provide clear environmental benefits, and reduce maintenance costs.
What caught my eye was proposal to make all new "roads be amphibian/reptile-friendly". Not that the roads should allow the likes of Dick Cheney (an acknowledged reptile) to use them or any Democratic congressman (definite more spineless amphibian material). It's more that wildlife of any small squishy sort can cross the road at its own pace. Like the old joke:
Q: Why did the spotted salamanders cross the road? A: Because the thoughtless humans destroyed most of their habitat and divided it with roads and developments, and they have no other way to get to places in order to find mates or food or shelter.
The real answer is to make sure that turtles and frogs and the like can go under the road through animal friendly conduits or tunnels and hopefully also make it hard for them to cross the road except at the cross-walks so-to-speak.
The Pioneer Valley is famous for the Amherst Salamander Crossing which helps the amphibians spawn and has long ago spawned a local band of the same name.
Leobardo Camacho, the mexican shoe vendor, has repaid the money I loaned him!
Thanks to Kiva I was able to give him a micro-loan using microfinance. Kiva facilitates this. I provide the captal. A local lender provides the actual loan which Leobardo pays over a year or so plus interest. I don't get interest myself, but I do get the warm fuzzy feeling and I also get my lowly $50 back. He actually borrowed $1200, so I was just one of several lenders who were pooled together by Kiva. Also, I used PayPal money to do all this, and since PayPal is a scam of sorts, I figured I would actually put the money I got from that junk I sold on EBay to good use.
Earlier this year Kiva was oversubscribed. They had too many people willing to loan money. Hopefully they have caught up with demand. If you'd like a Kiva "invite", so you too can join, just ask me and I'll send you one.
I own stock in GENERAL ELECTRIC. Or at least I have a broker who has arranged for this. But it's all abstract. Like the stock itself. It's in my IRA - I think. My IRA is something I wont be touching for at least 20 years, probably more. And who knows if I will even own part of GENERAL ELECTRIC by then. And I buy GE lightbulbs and appliances and occasionally watch GE programs, since they own 80% of NBC. I watch so little TV nowadays that all I remember is that they air SNL which I did watch when I had nothing better to do on a SN. So I get to call it GE, since we're on such good terms. In 2006, GE made $163 billion making them the largest media company regardless of how much media they actually own.
I've been meaning to do this for a while. Write about my proxy statement, that is. I get them emailed to me occasionally, and sometimes they contain gibberish and sometimes they reflect the times. Sometimes they contain virtually nothing.
GE has a reputation for being evil, so their proxy contains good blog fodder. The complete proxy statement is below. It's a form, so you just check some boxes and if you own 300 shares and there are (really) about 10 billion shares outstanding, then I get 3.0 × 10-10 of the votes which is a very small say in things of such import.
So let's take a quick look at the proxy statement below.
First off you get to vote for the board of directors. These are the people who are supposed to oversee that things are on the up-and-up. Many of them have names straight out of Harry Potter, like ANN M. FUDGE and JAMES I. CASH, JR. Some of them are famous powerful people who have long ago sold their souls and got quite a bargain in the process, like Senator SAM NUNN who on this ballot doesn't use his title. He gives the company an air of legitimacy as if the company that invented the monthly electric bill would even need that. But mostly, Nunn gives the company access. Also, many of these board members on on the boards of other companies as is true for those companies in turn. It is a nice perk for these guys who get to meet a few times a year and reap huge benefits. The meetings and the benefits are a matter of public record for the public companies.
GE is the target of many many shareholder initiatives. Some involve accountability, some involve the fact that this huge company which makes weapons and owns Chris Matthews. In the ballot below you see that the Board doesn't want to make annual reports on their share of Global Warming and doesn't want any more accountability than they are legally required. You have to read another document to find the details, but you get the idea. And who would blame them. Corporations need to make profit for shareholders or not exist. It's their prime directive.
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY Annual Meeting
Vote Your Shares
Meeting Date: 04/23/2008 for holders as of 02/25/2008
As your vote is very important, we recommend that all voting instructions be received at least one business day prior to the voting cut-off time stated in the information circular. Scroll down for proxy instructions and voting.
To vote via telephone call 1-800-603-2119
Proxy Ballot:
Directors' Recommendations: Choose this if you would like to vote your shares following directors' recommendations. See below or refer to the proxy statement for the detailed recommendations. Please read them carefully.
A1.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: JAMES I. CASH, JR.
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A2.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: SIR WILLIAM M. CASTELL
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A3.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ANN M. FUDGE
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A4.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: CLAUDIO X. GONZALEZ
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A5.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: SUSAN HOCKFIELD
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A6.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: JEFFREY R. IMMELT
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A7.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ANDREA JUNG
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A8.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ALAN G. (A.G.) LAFLEY
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A9.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ROBERT W. LANE
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A10.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: RALPH S. LARSEN
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A11.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ROCHELLE B. LAZARUS
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A12.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: JAMES J. MULVA
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A13.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: SAM NUNN
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A14.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ROGER S. PENSKE
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A15.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: ROBERT J. SWIERINGA
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
A16.
ELECTION OF DIRECTOR: DOUGLAS A. WARNER III
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
B.
RATIFICATION OF KPMG
Directors Recommend: FOR
For Against Abstain
01.
CUMULATIVE VOTING
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
02.
SEPARATE THE ROLES OF CEO AND CHAIRMAN
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
03.
RECOUP UNEARNED MANAGEMENT BONUSES
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
04.
CURB OVER-EXTENDED DIRECTORS
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
05.
REPORT ON CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
06.
GLOBAL WARMING REPORT
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
07.
ADVISORY VOTE ON EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
Directors Recommend: AGAINST
For Against Abstain
Legal Proxy:
Choose this only if you plan to attend and vote your shares at the meeting.
IMPORTANT: By choosing this option, we are precluded from voting your shares on your behalf. A Legal Proxy covering your securities will be issued to you. Your Legal Proxy must be presented at the meeting for your shares to be represented. Do not make any other marks on this ballot.
DO NOT use this option if you hold shares directly with the issuer, rather than through a bank or broker.
You should blog about this. Why do they work? DO they work? How do they work, are they run on ads?
I hate them and love them. Not like my 400 grains of rice will feed even a single person. It's kind of insulting. But it's fun to do, too.
My reply:
The vocabulary game is fun. I agree in giving food to the hungry. You give 20 grains of rice per round of the game. There are 29,000 grains of rice per pound. That means 1,450 rounds of the rice vocabulary game per pound of rice. A pound of rice probably costs about $1 a pound. This is probably actually be lower, since large rice purchases for humanitarian reasons is made by the ton. There are ads on that game, but they only get real money if you click-through. If people click-through one percent of the time, then they perhaps get 10 cents per click-through or 14 click-throughs per pound of rice. 14 times 10 cents is $1.40 which is more than the cost of a pound of rice.
So, it is possible for someone to pay for the rice and maybe even make a little money at the same time. The rice for the poor is supposed to be guaranteed, but the ad revenue is not, since someone has to click on the ads. So if I were to guess, the owner of this site is either giving all the ad revenue to the rice people or perhaps a portion like 75 percent.
My conclusion is if you like the game and want to work on your vocabulary, then go ahead and use freerice.com without feeling guilty.
We are blessed with our new home to have it located adjacent to 600 acres of protected woodlands.
As such we do get wildlife. This includes: mice, usually found dead - smushed or rotted; bear, visiting as they do, rather oblivious to this whole "people" thing; snakes, along the driveway; chipmunks everywhere; and birds, at the feeder, under the feeder, nearby looking hopefully at the feeder with squirrels not far behind. Of course many of the animals like the snakes, bears, and chipmunks have disappeared for the season.
We've been seeing deer tracks around the house, because the snow leaves a perfect surface to tell who's been coming by. Back in November our neighbor told us how some deer were in their front yard playing tag with their bird-eating cat. It was only recently that we have actually seen deer on the property. About three weeks ago, some house guests noticed deer right out our kitchen window. I guess we needed new eyes to scope them out. There were three of them. Only a few days later, I saw another one taking its time munching on bark in the woods. I snapped a quick photo where you can just make it out.
Then last week, Sasha noticed a woodpecker and alerted me while I was in the shower. I had seen a Downy Woodpecker at the feeder once, so I was not in much of a hurry to see this one myself. When I finally saw it a few minutes later, I was awestruck. This was a male Pileated Woodpecker which is about 19 inches tall. That's huge. That's about the height of a newborn baby - up to your knee. We're talking Woody Woodpecker with the red head. It wasn't at the feeder, it was making it's own feeder out of an oak in the yard. After a while, it threw up it's wings like a costumed caped super-hero and peeled off into the woods skipping from tree to tree.
