Mitt Romney is currently campaigning in Europe. Obama has held overseas fundraisers and famously spoke in Berlin during the last campaign.
Why? The world isn't electing the U.S. President. U.S. citizens are.
I think it speaks poorly of our candidates that they feel they need to court world opinion.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Criminal Protection Zones
I have this idea about criminal protection zones (also known by the Orwellian term "gun free zones"). I'll write up a legal document that states that the proprietor of the establishment shall assume full responsibility and liability for my safety from all criminal activity while I am disarmed on the property.
Think many proprietors will be willing to sign?
Yeah, me either.
Think many proprietors will be willing to sign?
Yeah, me either.
Illegal Immigrants Game Obama's Illegal Scheme! Who woulda thunk?
ICE, Border Patrol unions claim illegal immigrants exploiting 'dreamer' policy
Emphasis mine:
Wow, who could have predicted something like this could happen? Oh, yeah. Me.
Of course, this is exactly what Obama wants:
Emphasis mine:
"Prosecutorial discretion for dreamers is solely based on the individual's claims. Our orders are if an alien says they went to high school, then let them go," he said at a press conference with GOP senators. "Officers have been told that there is no burden for the alien to prove anything. ... At this point we don't even know why DHS has criteria at all, as there is no requirement or burden to prove anything on the part of the alien."
Wow, who could have predicted something like this could happen? Oh, yeah. Me.
Of course, this is exactly what Obama wants:
Crane cited one case in which, he said, an immigrant facing criminal charges was let go under the policy. Further, he complained that officers are "under threat of losing their jobs" if they defy the policy.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Warning: This Email Is Pandering
Just received from Obama for America (info@barackobama.com)
Seriously? I don't know where to begin. This appeal for donations insults my intelligence on so many levels. "Help re-elect Obama because CUTE PICTURES!" Is this the icanhazcheezburger approach to political persuasion? Or should I be more insulted at being treated like a fan-boy, "OMG! I get a chance to go to Obama's birfday party!!"
I suppose that's all you've got left when you can't possibly run on your record, your plans for next term ("Tax the rich! Spend lots of money! Free shit for everyone!"), or even successfully make your opponent look bad.
I give the guy a break, though, making anyone look bad next to Obama is a herculean task. I think that could only happen if Romney is found to have a memoir where he describes eating a dog. Oh, wait....
Subject: Warning: This picture is cute
Want to celebrate President Obama's birthday with him -- at the Obamas' house in Chicago?
Donate $5 or whatever you can to be automatically entered today.
Seriously? I don't know where to begin. This appeal for donations insults my intelligence on so many levels. "Help re-elect Obama because CUTE PICTURES!" Is this the icanhazcheezburger approach to political persuasion? Or should I be more insulted at being treated like a fan-boy, "OMG! I get a chance to go to Obama's birfday party!!"
I suppose that's all you've got left when you can't possibly run on your record, your plans for next term ("Tax the rich! Spend lots of money! Free shit for everyone!"), or even successfully make your opponent look bad.
I give the guy a break, though, making anyone look bad next to Obama is a herculean task. I think that could only happen if Romney is found to have a memoir where he describes eating a dog. Oh, wait....
Friday, July 20, 2012
Obama: Not Just An Insulting, Condescending Douche! A Liar,Too!
Obama calls 'you didn't build that' furor 'bogus,' as Romney releases new ad
Obama: "What I said was together we build roads and we build bridges."
No, asshole, that's not what you said.
Obama: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Complete quote, in context:
Obama: "What I said was together we build roads and we build bridges."
No, asshole, that's not what you said.
Obama: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Complete quote, in context:
“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me because they want to give something back,” the president said. “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.Apparently, you not only think people owe all their success to the government, you also think we're too stupid to realize when you lie to our faces.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Why I Am Mean To Customer Service Reps
I'm not always. If I actually want or need to get useful work out of them, I'm pleasant with them -- like any animal, if you abuse it, it just gets stubborn and refuses to work.
But when a large company has repeatedly failed its obligations and I want nothing more than vengeance on them, I'll berate the customer service reps ruthlessly.
The common line I hear from people is that it's not fair to take out your frustrations on the reps. They're usually doing their best and aren't personally responsible for causing your problem.
Well. Duh. The company designs it that way. More than half the point of customer service centers is to keep you, the customer, from bothering two classes of people: A) The technicians who know what they're doing and are busy doing it. B) The management people who actually make the rules and set the policies that are often the cause of your dissatisfaction.
They are hidden behind an impenetrable wall of hapless cannon fodder with limited technical skills and absolutely no authority at all. They're generally adequate for handling very simple problems, but as soon as you start to get off script, they freeze up like a dodo bird confronted with its first house cat.
You will never, ever be connected with someone with advanced expertise or advanced authority: the people responsible for fixing or causing your problem.
At some point you get so deep in customer service hell -- you've been disconnected, rerouted, forwarded, put on hold for so long you've memorized the catchy guitar riff in the hold music -- you stop caring about a solution. You just want revenge.
The rep is your only target. The rep has made the poor life choice of taking employment with Satan, Inc. Your only satisfaction is to make them regret that choice. It doesn't matter how conscientious, nice and hardworking they are, how hard they're trying to solve your problem. In fact, it's better for revenge purposes if they're very good, conscientious, hard-working employees. That's the kind of person you want to encourage to decide "Man, this sucks. There's got to be a better way to make a living than getting shouted at by angry douchebags over the phone." Every time you make a customer service rep consider polishing up his or her resume' you've scored a victory against Satan, Inc. It may be a small victory, and you may have made the customer service rep.'s day a little worse, but you're doing them a favor in the long run. There is a better way to make a living than shilling for Satan, Inc.
But when a large company has repeatedly failed its obligations and I want nothing more than vengeance on them, I'll berate the customer service reps ruthlessly.
The common line I hear from people is that it's not fair to take out your frustrations on the reps. They're usually doing their best and aren't personally responsible for causing your problem.
Well. Duh. The company designs it that way. More than half the point of customer service centers is to keep you, the customer, from bothering two classes of people: A) The technicians who know what they're doing and are busy doing it. B) The management people who actually make the rules and set the policies that are often the cause of your dissatisfaction.
They are hidden behind an impenetrable wall of hapless cannon fodder with limited technical skills and absolutely no authority at all. They're generally adequate for handling very simple problems, but as soon as you start to get off script, they freeze up like a dodo bird confronted with its first house cat.
You will never, ever be connected with someone with advanced expertise or advanced authority: the people responsible for fixing or causing your problem.
At some point you get so deep in customer service hell -- you've been disconnected, rerouted, forwarded, put on hold for so long you've memorized the catchy guitar riff in the hold music -- you stop caring about a solution. You just want revenge.
The rep is your only target. The rep has made the poor life choice of taking employment with Satan, Inc. Your only satisfaction is to make them regret that choice. It doesn't matter how conscientious, nice and hardworking they are, how hard they're trying to solve your problem. In fact, it's better for revenge purposes if they're very good, conscientious, hard-working employees. That's the kind of person you want to encourage to decide "Man, this sucks. There's got to be a better way to make a living than getting shouted at by angry douchebags over the phone." Every time you make a customer service rep consider polishing up his or her resume' you've scored a victory against Satan, Inc. It may be a small victory, and you may have made the customer service rep.'s day a little worse, but you're doing them a favor in the long run. There is a better way to make a living than shilling for Satan, Inc.
My AT&T Comedy of Errors
I am, not by choice, a subject of the AT&T telecommunications monopoly.
For background: I live in a very rural area. I cannot get a usable mobile phone signal inside my home with any provider (However, with Verizon, if I stand in my driveway and hold my arm and ankle just right, I can usually make a call. That wasn't the case with AT&T. You lose, AT&T.). I cannot get DSL/Uverse. I cannot get cable internet.
For years I used an ISDN line to access the internet. For all you young'uns, ISDN is sort of like DSL-Lite. It's a digital line, like DSL, but lower speed and it doesn't inherently, by itself, provide any actual internet access (despite its high cost). It's just a special type of digital phone line. You can hook up a special ISDN router to it and use it as one or two phone lines, or connect to a dial up internet service that supports ISDN and bond both the lines for data speeds up to 128 kilobits/sec. Not fast. It operates at longer ranges than DSL, however, which is why it is available to me while DSL is not.
The thing is, ISDN technology was snazzy and high-tech back in the late 80s. It's a specialized service and the phone companies that have served me over the years -- Ohio Bell, Ameritech, SBC, AT&T, each swallowing the other like bigger fish swallowing smaller fish -- each had a specialized department to deal with it. The regular support department is absolutely flummoxed anytime they are forced to deal with anything relating to ISDN.
But, remember how I said ISDN was snazzy and high-tech back in the 80s? The ISDN teams aren't exactly centers of bustling activity. They're more like sleepy back offices in the sub-basement of the annex of the Des Moines extension office, or something. I suspect they assign people there who are guilty of especially heinous crimes against the AT&T corporate heirarchy. The standard customer service reps have a hard time even finding the ISDN team. It's entirely possible that I'm the last residential ISDN customer in the nation.
The dialup ISPs that still support ISDN customers view us like a particularly scabrous, contagious form of leper, because we use far more resources than a typical dial-up internet customer (a vanishing breed themselves). A dual-channel ISDN connection takes up two ports on a dialup remote access server (RAS). Dialup internet companies usually assume one dialup port will service about 10 customers. Me, I tie up two ports almost all day, every day. They hate me. My newly-former ISP showed it by starting to ruthlessly bandwidth-limit me, while refusing to admit they were doing so. When I investigated alternatives, the cost for the kind of access-time I wanted was hundreds of dollars per month. ISPs really don't want to deal with ISDN anymore, unless they're paid a ridiculous premium.
Thus, reluctantly, I recently switched to satellite internet. Satellite internet has decent bandwidth, but very poor latency. Shooting your packet 150 miles into orbit and back down again, and then another round for the return packet, does terrible things to your latency. It means anything you do takes a couple seconds to get a response back. This is very bad for highly-interactive applications, which I have to use extensively in my work. But I make do.
Back to AT&T. They've tried to sell me DSL or Uverse repeatedly. It got to be a joke, eventually. A sales rep calls me up "We have Uverse in your area! Would you like to try it?" I politely (and by politely, I actually mean in a tone of ridicule, with a side helping of sarcasm), explain, "No. You really don't. You think you do, but the left side of your company doesn't know what the right side is doing."
Sometimes they investigate and discover I'm right. Sometimes their investigation skills suck and they inform me that, no they really do have it available for me now! Awesome, I say! Bring it on!
A day later, like clockwork, they call me to inform me that there are "technical issues" with my order and they are working to resolve them as quickly as possible. A day or two after that, they call to cancel the order.
What they were doing last year was shipping the DSL modem as soon as they placed the order, regardless of the fact that they couldn't actually provide me the service. Once or twice they shipped it without return address stickers. Anyway, according to them, it became my problem to ship the modems back to them, after they failed to honor their commitment to me.
More than once, they failed to be able to find the modems I had shipped back to me and started sending me past due notices, on one occasions turning me over to a collection agency for the cost of a modem I didn't even have anymore.
I don't know if any of you are like me, but when a company actively solicits your business, then fails to be able to deliver on the business it talked you into signing up for, and ships you equipment that's useless to you -- that it should have known you wouldn't be able to use, then puts the burden on you to return the equipment, then sics a collection agent on you ... wow. My anger burned like the fires of hell. I couldn't be civil on the phone to any AT&T employee for more than about 10 seconds, no less the collection agent. There are probably special notations in my account file at AT&T: "Huge, flaming, foul-mouthed douche." Those notations are correct.
It was kind of like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. Except, after the first couple times, I stopped believing them and just let them sign me up to screw with them. Sort of like if Charlie Brown started punting Lucy instead.
That kind of sets the tone for my relationship with AT&T. The company that can't even provide me with basic 768 kilobit/sec DSL service that people in the cities would turn up their nose at. They've left me in a data communications wasteland. I'd be thrilled if I could get crappy DSL service that was outdated back in 2000. Instead I'm stuck with 80s technology or the incredible suck of satellite internet.
Sucking satellite it is (expensive sucking, I might add).
So I try to disconnect my ISDN line (because it's effing expensive) and get the number assigned to a standard POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line, because that number has been my work number for more than a dozen years. It's on all my business cards and a prime contact with me for all kinds of customers and associates.
That's a bridge too far for AT&T customer service. I filed the first orders for disconnect and transfer of the number back on June 25. The weekend everything was supposed to be done, we had the massive storm-related and telephone and power outages and I was without power or phone for three days, so I decided to give them a few days grace before harassing them. A week goes by. No phone service. I call and try to get it resolved. I'm getting nowhere, shuffled around, but after about a half hour on hold, I have to be somewhere, so I have to simply hang up. I'm flying out of town on business the next day, so I have to let it go for another week.
I get back from my business trip. Still no phone service. No attempt from AT&T to contact me to explain to me why they aren't doing their job.
I've spent several hours on hold over the past two days. Going from person to person. First, nobody in regular customer service knows how to file an ISDN disconnect correctly. Nobody even seems to know that they needed to connect me with the ISDN center (my contact number for the ISDN center, 1-800-TEAMDATA, has been non-functional for years -- I had no way of contacting them on my own). Finally, late on the first day, they get me the number of the ISDN center and a rep. there seems to know how to do a disconnect (insert chorus of angels singing Handel's Messiah).
He then says I need to talk to customer service and make a brand new order for the new POTS service -- the old one can't be corrected. I contact customer service. This is apparently a gargantuan task, which for unknown reasons requires a credit check (Seriously? After 25 years as your customer for multiple lines?). After an hour on hold, they tell me they're having "problems with my order" (Some variation on "problems with your order" is by far the most common phrase I hear from AT&T reps.) and they'll call me back.
I just got off the phone a few minutes ago. An actual human tech is actually coming to my house! As we speak! He really doesn't know the area at all and is struggling with the directions (weird, because we have local telephone linemen), and I fully expect that when he arrives his visit will be a comedy of errors. "Um, what was I supposed to do?" "That hasn't been provisioned back at the main office, there's nothing I can do!" "AT&T will charge you $1,000 for my services!" or other such absurdities. Quick, efficient, sensible service is not something I expect from AT&T.
Once this whole ordeal is over, what am I, as a consumer to do? Normally, when a business is this egregiously, consistently incompetent, you stop doing business with them, the old "vote with your wallet" routine -- that's why I switched my mobile phone from AT&T to Verizon after my contract was up this past winter: almost entirely due to spite and anger at AT&T over the other ways they've failed me. If I had a mechanic who screwed up this bad "Dude! You took two weeks to change my muffler, you're charging me for head gaskets you didn't install and you sicced a collection agency on me for the price of the head gaskets I didn't need and you never installed!" I'd never do business with him again.
I don't have that option with AT&T. I can't exactly go to "the other landline telephone company." There isn't any. And I need a landline still, because I can't make or receive mobile calls in the house. AT&T refuses to take any responsibility for its serial failings beyond having hapless, powerless drones tell me how sorry they are. How about you pony up your remorse in cold, hard cash, AT&T?
Like that's going to happen. Seriously, the day I can get reliable mobile service in the house, I'll tell AT&T to take their landlines and shove them. I'll deal with the inconvenience to my business contacts -- they generally have my mobile number, too, anyway. I would love to be done with AT&T completely. What a friggin' joke of a company. Actually, they're a joke on their good days. On their bad days, they're arrogant bullies.
From what I understand, once they can offer me DSL, I can actually get some other company to provide and administer it, over their lines, and screw them out of that too. Which I'd do. In a heartbeat. Or some cable company could extend their digital cable out that far. Not likely, but I can hope. Either way, it's adios, AT&T, when that happens.
Update: *Ding!* *Ding!* *Ding!* It's "That hasn't been provisioned back at the main office, there's nothing I can do!" for the WIN! To be fair, it that was only a partial response. He was able to do all the physical wiring, but, no, the line still hasn't been provisioned back at the data center and it was "too late" to have them do it today. (I thought they ran a 24/7 operation. Who knew?). I'm supposed to have phone service tomorrow. Then again, I was supposed to have phone service more than two weeks ago.
In other slight annoyances, my farm yard driveway has an 18-foot double gate that always remains shut and latched. He left and left it standing open without telling me. Asshole. It's a farm. See the horses there? The cattle? The goats? There was no livestock in the yard at the moment, true, nor even the dogs. I purposely kept the dogs inside because they get fat if they gorge on telephone repairmen. But that doesn't mean there can't be or won't be. The farmyard is kind of like an "air lock" area that serves as a gateway or access point to different pastures -- if I'd let the goats or cattle through without noticing the front gate was open and they dashed off that way, it could be a pain to herd them back (especially the goats, they're too smart to herd easily), and also, the dogs are usually allowed to freely run in the yard. If I hadn't checked before letting the dogs out, I could have ended up with one dead on the highway -- I have a couple that aren't very savvy that way. Thanks for the complete lack of consideration, jerk. It would have taken you 30 seconds to get out of your truck and fasten the gate behind you.
Update 2: I have to give the tech credit, my phone was up and running the next day as he said. That is probably due to him being a tech who's used to actually doing things and working for a living, instead of a phone drone. He still shoulda shut my gate.
I got an automated phone call that week from AT&T asking to participate in a survey to rate my experience. Unfortunately, the survey is entirely predicated on the idea that any problem you might have must be the fault of the individual customer service rep, not the company, structurally. The only way to get a response is to ruthlessly downrate the individual, even if they did a good job (I did this on one of my previous evaluations and actually got a call). Even then, on the call, they're not equipped to do anything but take complaints against the individual. AT&T as an entity refuses all guilt. You leave the conversation feeling confident that your complaints against how AT&T is structured and how they give such short shrift to rural customers on offered servicess will be filed away and never looked at again. This time, I didn't feel like going to the bother, so I just straight 5'd the survey questions (on a scale of 1-9, one being the worst), and left an abbreviated voice commentary excoriating the company as a whole.
For background: I live in a very rural area. I cannot get a usable mobile phone signal inside my home with any provider (However, with Verizon, if I stand in my driveway and hold my arm and ankle just right, I can usually make a call. That wasn't the case with AT&T. You lose, AT&T.). I cannot get DSL/Uverse. I cannot get cable internet.
For years I used an ISDN line to access the internet. For all you young'uns, ISDN is sort of like DSL-Lite. It's a digital line, like DSL, but lower speed and it doesn't inherently, by itself, provide any actual internet access (despite its high cost). It's just a special type of digital phone line. You can hook up a special ISDN router to it and use it as one or two phone lines, or connect to a dial up internet service that supports ISDN and bond both the lines for data speeds up to 128 kilobits/sec. Not fast. It operates at longer ranges than DSL, however, which is why it is available to me while DSL is not.
The thing is, ISDN technology was snazzy and high-tech back in the late 80s. It's a specialized service and the phone companies that have served me over the years -- Ohio Bell, Ameritech, SBC, AT&T, each swallowing the other like bigger fish swallowing smaller fish -- each had a specialized department to deal with it. The regular support department is absolutely flummoxed anytime they are forced to deal with anything relating to ISDN.
But, remember how I said ISDN was snazzy and high-tech back in the 80s? The ISDN teams aren't exactly centers of bustling activity. They're more like sleepy back offices in the sub-basement of the annex of the Des Moines extension office, or something. I suspect they assign people there who are guilty of especially heinous crimes against the AT&T corporate heirarchy. The standard customer service reps have a hard time even finding the ISDN team. It's entirely possible that I'm the last residential ISDN customer in the nation.
The dialup ISPs that still support ISDN customers view us like a particularly scabrous, contagious form of leper, because we use far more resources than a typical dial-up internet customer (a vanishing breed themselves). A dual-channel ISDN connection takes up two ports on a dialup remote access server (RAS). Dialup internet companies usually assume one dialup port will service about 10 customers. Me, I tie up two ports almost all day, every day. They hate me. My newly-former ISP showed it by starting to ruthlessly bandwidth-limit me, while refusing to admit they were doing so. When I investigated alternatives, the cost for the kind of access-time I wanted was hundreds of dollars per month. ISPs really don't want to deal with ISDN anymore, unless they're paid a ridiculous premium.
Thus, reluctantly, I recently switched to satellite internet. Satellite internet has decent bandwidth, but very poor latency. Shooting your packet 150 miles into orbit and back down again, and then another round for the return packet, does terrible things to your latency. It means anything you do takes a couple seconds to get a response back. This is very bad for highly-interactive applications, which I have to use extensively in my work. But I make do.
Back to AT&T. They've tried to sell me DSL or Uverse repeatedly. It got to be a joke, eventually. A sales rep calls me up "We have Uverse in your area! Would you like to try it?" I politely (and by politely, I actually mean in a tone of ridicule, with a side helping of sarcasm), explain, "No. You really don't. You think you do, but the left side of your company doesn't know what the right side is doing."
Sometimes they investigate and discover I'm right. Sometimes their investigation skills suck and they inform me that, no they really do have it available for me now! Awesome, I say! Bring it on!
A day later, like clockwork, they call me to inform me that there are "technical issues" with my order and they are working to resolve them as quickly as possible. A day or two after that, they call to cancel the order.
What they were doing last year was shipping the DSL modem as soon as they placed the order, regardless of the fact that they couldn't actually provide me the service. Once or twice they shipped it without return address stickers. Anyway, according to them, it became my problem to ship the modems back to them, after they failed to honor their commitment to me.
More than once, they failed to be able to find the modems I had shipped back to me and started sending me past due notices, on one occasions turning me over to a collection agency for the cost of a modem I didn't even have anymore.
I don't know if any of you are like me, but when a company actively solicits your business, then fails to be able to deliver on the business it talked you into signing up for, and ships you equipment that's useless to you -- that it should have known you wouldn't be able to use, then puts the burden on you to return the equipment, then sics a collection agent on you ... wow. My anger burned like the fires of hell. I couldn't be civil on the phone to any AT&T employee for more than about 10 seconds, no less the collection agent. There are probably special notations in my account file at AT&T: "Huge, flaming, foul-mouthed douche." Those notations are correct.
It was kind of like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. Except, after the first couple times, I stopped believing them and just let them sign me up to screw with them. Sort of like if Charlie Brown started punting Lucy instead.
That kind of sets the tone for my relationship with AT&T. The company that can't even provide me with basic 768 kilobit/sec DSL service that people in the cities would turn up their nose at. They've left me in a data communications wasteland. I'd be thrilled if I could get crappy DSL service that was outdated back in 2000. Instead I'm stuck with 80s technology or the incredible suck of satellite internet.
Sucking satellite it is (expensive sucking, I might add).
So I try to disconnect my ISDN line (because it's effing expensive) and get the number assigned to a standard POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line, because that number has been my work number for more than a dozen years. It's on all my business cards and a prime contact with me for all kinds of customers and associates.
That's a bridge too far for AT&T customer service. I filed the first orders for disconnect and transfer of the number back on June 25. The weekend everything was supposed to be done, we had the massive storm-related and telephone and power outages and I was without power or phone for three days, so I decided to give them a few days grace before harassing them. A week goes by. No phone service. I call and try to get it resolved. I'm getting nowhere, shuffled around, but after about a half hour on hold, I have to be somewhere, so I have to simply hang up. I'm flying out of town on business the next day, so I have to let it go for another week.
I get back from my business trip. Still no phone service. No attempt from AT&T to contact me to explain to me why they aren't doing their job.
I've spent several hours on hold over the past two days. Going from person to person. First, nobody in regular customer service knows how to file an ISDN disconnect correctly. Nobody even seems to know that they needed to connect me with the ISDN center (my contact number for the ISDN center, 1-800-TEAMDATA, has been non-functional for years -- I had no way of contacting them on my own). Finally, late on the first day, they get me the number of the ISDN center and a rep. there seems to know how to do a disconnect (insert chorus of angels singing Handel's Messiah).
He then says I need to talk to customer service and make a brand new order for the new POTS service -- the old one can't be corrected. I contact customer service. This is apparently a gargantuan task, which for unknown reasons requires a credit check (Seriously? After 25 years as your customer for multiple lines?). After an hour on hold, they tell me they're having "problems with my order" (Some variation on "problems with your order" is by far the most common phrase I hear from AT&T reps.) and they'll call me back.
I just got off the phone a few minutes ago. An actual human tech is actually coming to my house! As we speak! He really doesn't know the area at all and is struggling with the directions (weird, because we have local telephone linemen), and I fully expect that when he arrives his visit will be a comedy of errors. "Um, what was I supposed to do?" "That hasn't been provisioned back at the main office, there's nothing I can do!" "AT&T will charge you $1,000 for my services!" or other such absurdities. Quick, efficient, sensible service is not something I expect from AT&T.
Once this whole ordeal is over, what am I, as a consumer to do? Normally, when a business is this egregiously, consistently incompetent, you stop doing business with them, the old "vote with your wallet" routine -- that's why I switched my mobile phone from AT&T to Verizon after my contract was up this past winter: almost entirely due to spite and anger at AT&T over the other ways they've failed me. If I had a mechanic who screwed up this bad "Dude! You took two weeks to change my muffler, you're charging me for head gaskets you didn't install and you sicced a collection agency on me for the price of the head gaskets I didn't need and you never installed!" I'd never do business with him again.
I don't have that option with AT&T. I can't exactly go to "the other landline telephone company." There isn't any. And I need a landline still, because I can't make or receive mobile calls in the house. AT&T refuses to take any responsibility for its serial failings beyond having hapless, powerless drones tell me how sorry they are. How about you pony up your remorse in cold, hard cash, AT&T?
Like that's going to happen. Seriously, the day I can get reliable mobile service in the house, I'll tell AT&T to take their landlines and shove them. I'll deal with the inconvenience to my business contacts -- they generally have my mobile number, too, anyway. I would love to be done with AT&T completely. What a friggin' joke of a company. Actually, they're a joke on their good days. On their bad days, they're arrogant bullies.
From what I understand, once they can offer me DSL, I can actually get some other company to provide and administer it, over their lines, and screw them out of that too. Which I'd do. In a heartbeat. Or some cable company could extend their digital cable out that far. Not likely, but I can hope. Either way, it's adios, AT&T, when that happens.
Update: *Ding!* *Ding!* *Ding!* It's "That hasn't been provisioned back at the main office, there's nothing I can do!" for the WIN! To be fair, it that was only a partial response. He was able to do all the physical wiring, but, no, the line still hasn't been provisioned back at the data center and it was "too late" to have them do it today. (I thought they ran a 24/7 operation. Who knew?). I'm supposed to have phone service tomorrow. Then again, I was supposed to have phone service more than two weeks ago.
In other slight annoyances, my farm yard driveway has an 18-foot double gate that always remains shut and latched. He left and left it standing open without telling me. Asshole. It's a farm. See the horses there? The cattle? The goats? There was no livestock in the yard at the moment, true, nor even the dogs. I purposely kept the dogs inside because they get fat if they gorge on telephone repairmen. But that doesn't mean there can't be or won't be. The farmyard is kind of like an "air lock" area that serves as a gateway or access point to different pastures -- if I'd let the goats or cattle through without noticing the front gate was open and they dashed off that way, it could be a pain to herd them back (especially the goats, they're too smart to herd easily), and also, the dogs are usually allowed to freely run in the yard. If I hadn't checked before letting the dogs out, I could have ended up with one dead on the highway -- I have a couple that aren't very savvy that way. Thanks for the complete lack of consideration, jerk. It would have taken you 30 seconds to get out of your truck and fasten the gate behind you.
Update 2: I have to give the tech credit, my phone was up and running the next day as he said. That is probably due to him being a tech who's used to actually doing things and working for a living, instead of a phone drone. He still shoulda shut my gate.
I got an automated phone call that week from AT&T asking to participate in a survey to rate my experience. Unfortunately, the survey is entirely predicated on the idea that any problem you might have must be the fault of the individual customer service rep, not the company, structurally. The only way to get a response is to ruthlessly downrate the individual, even if they did a good job (I did this on one of my previous evaluations and actually got a call). Even then, on the call, they're not equipped to do anything but take complaints against the individual. AT&T as an entity refuses all guilt. You leave the conversation feeling confident that your complaints against how AT&T is structured and how they give such short shrift to rural customers on offered servicess will be filed away and never looked at again. This time, I didn't feel like going to the bother, so I just straight 5'd the survey questions (on a scale of 1-9, one being the worst), and left an abbreviated voice commentary excoriating the company as a whole.
The Latest From BarackObama.com! Is That A Tingle I Feel Going Up My Leg?
From Rufus Gifford at BarackObama.com:
Let's be fair though. Pretending to enjoy the company of peasants probably isn't Obama's idea of "fun," so it's a work day for him. Bummer birthday, dude. Hope you get some time off later. Maybe after November 6.
Have you ever gotten to do something so cool you're almost jealous of yourself?Me: Um, no. Being jealous of myself would be stupid.
Pretty sure this would count:Me: So you're saying it's going to be stupid?
On August 12th, just three weeks before the Democratic National Convention and 12 weeks before Election Day, President Obama will have a few friends over to mark his 51st birthday -- in the backyard of his Chicago home.Me: Oh! Be still my heart! Me, a mere peon, a peasant, a proletarian worker, a member of the unwashed masses, one possibly known to occasionally cling bitterly to my gun or my Bible? Me? I am invited to tread on the hallowed turf of President Obama's Chicago home? The same home he purchased with the "help" of felon Tony Rezko (not that His Eminence knew about anything shady Mr. Rezko was involved in, oh no)? I am invited to bask in the presence of The One? To -- should I be able to find the breath and the courage -- possibly actually speak with Him?
And you're invited.
Make a donation today of $3 or whatever you can to be automatically entered for a chance to be there -- flight and hotel paid for.Me: Oh, I'm not really "invited" in the sense of, you know, being invited. I just get to buy a raffle ticket. Yay.
Look, campaigns are hard work, both for the President and the millions of people like you who are building it on the ground. When you factor in the ridiculous amounts of money the Romney campaign and pro-Romney super PACs are raising, we're going to have to work even harder to win than we did in 2008.Me: Hmm. The way I work those odds, the only ones guaranteed to be having fun that day are Obama, his family and the sort of people who don't have to buy a raffle ticket to get an invitation to that party. Plus one token peasant. Millions of loyal, hardworking Obama supporters? Not so much. Pat yourselves on the back, though. Better luck next time.
Let's have some fun together before the final push to Election Day.
Let's be fair though. Pretending to enjoy the company of peasants probably isn't Obama's idea of "fun," so it's a work day for him. Bummer birthday, dude. Hope you get some time off later. Maybe after November 6.
The New Puritanism
Former porn star now reportedly working as EMT in Virginia
This story is just one of several I've noted in recent years where women -- it is almost always women -- have faced loss of their jobs when previous "unsuitable" job choices have come to light. These choices have been everything from Hooter's girl, to pin-up calendar girl, to modeling for nude photos or art, to stripper, to porn actress.
In each case, the woman has engaged in entirely legal behavior in the past, and is now pursuing a tamer, more "respectable" forms of employment.
Don't we all consider that a good thing? If you disapprove of those activities, shouldn't you commend a young woman for changing her life and going into an admirable career like teaching (that's usually the situation) or, in thise case, EMT? It's not like these women are taking their clothes off in the classroom or on emergency calls. I cannot imagine in what possible way the woman's previous career as a porn actress could make her unsuitable to be an EMT.
Yet time after time we see these woman hounded from their jobs. Is it the kind, moral or humane thing to do to chase a woman from an honorable, respectable career because in the past she made a perfectly legal choice that you disagree with? Should we slap scarlet "A"s on these women's chests and never allow them to show their faces in "polite" society again?
As a Christian, a bedrock of my faith is a belief in the idea of redemption. Throughout the Bible from Abraham, to the prostitute Rahab, to King David, to the prostitute Jesus saved from stoning, to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to Paul (the self-described "foremost of sinners") we see the story replayed again and again of people who have done terrible, immoral things yet have found redemption and forgiveness from God, and changed their lives. Jesus didn't come and spend his time among the rich and the powerful. He lived and died and make his followers and apostles among the poor, the humble, the outcasts.
What does that say about the sort of people who would drive a young woman from her teaching job, not due to any current behavior, but for past sins?
The argument seems to be in the teaching case that "the children" will not have respect for the young woman or be able to learn effectively if they learn of her background or see her pictures on the internet. Seriously? First, if the kids are searching porno sites on the internet, then they're obviously not exactly Mommy and Daddy's little angels themselves, are they? Any lack of respect they display is their own behavioral problem not the teacher's and it's the job of the school administration and the parents to stand behind the teacher and not blame the teacher's past on students' current bad behavior.
What kind of message does it send to the students if the woman is fired from her job? To me what it tells them that any woman who has ever engaged in disapproved behavior is forever a disreputable whore, not worthy of their respect. What we should be teaching them instead is "Sit down. Shut up. Pay attention. Your teacher's past life is none of your business, you little animal, and it doesn't entitle you to leer, to mouth off or to be disruptive."
I'm not going to get crude about it -- hardcore pornography isn't my thing in the first place -- but Harmony Rose is, as porn actresses often are, a very attractive young lady. It's certainly no drawback in my book if the EMT who shows up to help me has a pretty face -- it might cheer me up in what are likely to be dire circumstances. If I'm laying on the ground due to an accident or a heart attack, I'm certainly not judging the past choices of a young woman who has trained hard to learn the skills she's now using to tend to me.
I look at the pictures you see if you Google Harmony Rose, and I read her bio on IMDB, and I honestly just feel sorry for the poor girl. Some important people in her life -- her father, chief among them, because it's really a father's duty to establish a healthy self-respect and sexual identity in his daughters, by modeling for them how a man should treat a woman -- let her down big time if she thought that her best course in life was explicit pornography. I know she probably doesn't share my view of her porn career, and that's OK with me. I wouldn't criticize her for it or judge her for it if I met her. It was a perfectly legal choice, and her past is her own business. But I'd congratulate her on working hard to be an EMT, and I'd support her in that effort. I wouldn't try to tear her down or get her fired.
This story is just one of several I've noted in recent years where women -- it is almost always women -- have faced loss of their jobs when previous "unsuitable" job choices have come to light. These choices have been everything from Hooter's girl, to pin-up calendar girl, to modeling for nude photos or art, to stripper, to porn actress.
In each case, the woman has engaged in entirely legal behavior in the past, and is now pursuing a tamer, more "respectable" forms of employment.
Don't we all consider that a good thing? If you disapprove of those activities, shouldn't you commend a young woman for changing her life and going into an admirable career like teaching (that's usually the situation) or, in thise case, EMT? It's not like these women are taking their clothes off in the classroom or on emergency calls. I cannot imagine in what possible way the woman's previous career as a porn actress could make her unsuitable to be an EMT.
Yet time after time we see these woman hounded from their jobs. Is it the kind, moral or humane thing to do to chase a woman from an honorable, respectable career because in the past she made a perfectly legal choice that you disagree with? Should we slap scarlet "A"s on these women's chests and never allow them to show their faces in "polite" society again?
As a Christian, a bedrock of my faith is a belief in the idea of redemption. Throughout the Bible from Abraham, to the prostitute Rahab, to King David, to the prostitute Jesus saved from stoning, to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to Paul (the self-described "foremost of sinners") we see the story replayed again and again of people who have done terrible, immoral things yet have found redemption and forgiveness from God, and changed their lives. Jesus didn't come and spend his time among the rich and the powerful. He lived and died and make his followers and apostles among the poor, the humble, the outcasts.
What does that say about the sort of people who would drive a young woman from her teaching job, not due to any current behavior, but for past sins?
The argument seems to be in the teaching case that "the children" will not have respect for the young woman or be able to learn effectively if they learn of her background or see her pictures on the internet. Seriously? First, if the kids are searching porno sites on the internet, then they're obviously not exactly Mommy and Daddy's little angels themselves, are they? Any lack of respect they display is their own behavioral problem not the teacher's and it's the job of the school administration and the parents to stand behind the teacher and not blame the teacher's past on students' current bad behavior.
What kind of message does it send to the students if the woman is fired from her job? To me what it tells them that any woman who has ever engaged in disapproved behavior is forever a disreputable whore, not worthy of their respect. What we should be teaching them instead is "Sit down. Shut up. Pay attention. Your teacher's past life is none of your business, you little animal, and it doesn't entitle you to leer, to mouth off or to be disruptive."
I'm not going to get crude about it -- hardcore pornography isn't my thing in the first place -- but Harmony Rose is, as porn actresses often are, a very attractive young lady. It's certainly no drawback in my book if the EMT who shows up to help me has a pretty face -- it might cheer me up in what are likely to be dire circumstances. If I'm laying on the ground due to an accident or a heart attack, I'm certainly not judging the past choices of a young woman who has trained hard to learn the skills she's now using to tend to me.
I look at the pictures you see if you Google Harmony Rose, and I read her bio on IMDB, and I honestly just feel sorry for the poor girl. Some important people in her life -- her father, chief among them, because it's really a father's duty to establish a healthy self-respect and sexual identity in his daughters, by modeling for them how a man should treat a woman -- let her down big time if she thought that her best course in life was explicit pornography. I know she probably doesn't share my view of her porn career, and that's OK with me. I wouldn't criticize her for it or judge her for it if I met her. It was a perfectly legal choice, and her past is her own business. But I'd congratulate her on working hard to be an EMT, and I'd support her in that effort. I wouldn't try to tear her down or get her fired.
Monday, July 16, 2012
You Didn't Hit That!
The New York Post reports that Obama wedding registry fund-raising strategy not a hit with brides.
Imagine that! In the scheme, Obama "asks couples to request campaign donations from their guests in lieu of wedding gifts."
Given my previous post regarding Obama's "You didn't build that" statement, maybe Obama could educate newlywed couples with a speech on the theme of "You didn't marry that!" or "You didn't hit that!" to make them understand that the couples really owe society -- especially the Obama campaign -- for their marriages.
Here's my sample speech. Just trying to be helpful, Barack, buddy, really. Because you didn't write those speeches on your own, you know!
That will be a big hit, don't you think?
Imagine that! In the scheme, Obama "asks couples to request campaign donations from their guests in lieu of wedding gifts."
Given my previous post regarding Obama's "You didn't build that" statement, maybe Obama could educate newlywed couples with a speech on the theme of "You didn't marry that!" or "You didn't hit that!" to make them understand that the couples really owe society -- especially the Obama campaign -- for their marriages.
Here's my sample speech. Just trying to be helpful, Barack, buddy, really. Because you didn't write those speeches on your own, you know!
“If you’ve married the love of your life, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart and so handsome. There are a lot of smart people out there. There are a lot of handsome people out there. It must be because I wooed harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardwooing people out there.
“If you got married, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great wingman somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create those unbelievable romantic dates that allowed your love to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges for you to drive on to get to those dates. If you’ve got a spouse, you didn’t bag that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “eHarmony.com didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the dating companies could match perfect soulmates on the Internet.”
That will be a big hit, don't you think?
Sunday, July 15, 2012
You Really Want To Go There, Obama?
Obama to business owners: 'You didn't build that'
As a small businessman, I could respond to this huge slap in the face with a detailed rebuttal, citing the value of ingenuity and individual initiative and creativity, citing the incredible amount of hard work it takes to build a successful small business, and the value it brings to its employees and customers as well as its owners. But the heck with that. I won't waste my wisdom on anyone who is a big enough ass and a big enough idiot to make the proposition Obama makes. I'll just say this.
Fuck you, Obama. I goddamn well did build that. It's not yours. I don't owe you or the government anything I haven't already paid for. My teachers got paid, my laborers got paid, I paid all my taxes and all my utility bills. My balance sheet is fucking clean. My business would not exist if my wife and I hadn't created it and put hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours into it. I'm sure as hell not going to share credit for that. Fuck you.
As a small businessman, I could respond to this huge slap in the face with a detailed rebuttal, citing the value of ingenuity and individual initiative and creativity, citing the incredible amount of hard work it takes to build a successful small business, and the value it brings to its employees and customers as well as its owners. But the heck with that. I won't waste my wisdom on anyone who is a big enough ass and a big enough idiot to make the proposition Obama makes. I'll just say this.
Fuck you, Obama. I goddamn well did build that. It's not yours. I don't owe you or the government anything I haven't already paid for. My teachers got paid, my laborers got paid, I paid all my taxes and all my utility bills. My balance sheet is fucking clean. My business would not exist if my wife and I hadn't created it and put hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours into it. I'm sure as hell not going to share credit for that. Fuck you.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
'Robin Hood Tax' insulting to Robin Hood
Lefties have been sullying the good name of Robin Hood for years by promoting the "steal from the rich, give to the poor" lines, when in actuality Robin Hood stole from the government and gave to the poor, but naming a tax after him is beyond the pale!
The citizens of Nottingham were suffering under excessive taxation by Prince John (to pay for King Richard's ruinous crusades and policies, but that's another topic), enforced by ye olde villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
So, naming a tax after Robin Hood, the great anti-tax champion of English myth, is Orwellian in its reversal of meaning.
The so-called Robin Hood tax is a 0.03% tax on financial transactions. I find it ominous that the Robin Hood Tax booster site's "How this Works" page is extremely vague regarding how this would be implemented and what financial transactions it would apply to. Also that the page uses the language of the 1% versus the 99% is a hint that this tax is more about class warfare than sound fiscal policy.
The page says "That money could provide funding for jobs to kickstart the economy and get America back on its feet." Hmm, really? Because it is the private sector that creates jobs, exactly how is it efficient to take money away from the job creators and filter it through the government in order to create jobs? Are there people out there who still believe that the government is the engine of job creation? The idea was ludicrous on its face even before it had been so thoroughly debunked in practice by the current financial crisis and the failed stimulus bill.
No, what that money will really be used for is to fund government spending, at the cost of jobs. It's simple fact, you don't take money away from wealth generators and expect to create jobs.
The page goes on "So it's time for justice for ordinary families and businesses. For American families faced with a choice between buying food or paying the heating bill." Again, really? How dumb do they think I am? I'm an ordinary American. Well, maybe not so ordinary, because I'm in the declining percentage that pays more in taxes than I receive in government services. I also own stocks, in my 401k, as millions of other "ordinary families" do. This tax will steal from my 401k and put no money in my pocket. It won't help pay the heating bill or the food bill (because I'm not on government subsidized HEAP utility payments or Food Stamps -- I pay for my own damn heat and food, thank you).
Nowhere does the page explain exactly how this bill will give "justice" to ordinary families or help them pay their heating or food bills without increasing their dependency on the state. Increased dependency is not justice in any sense of the word!
A tax on financial transactions would simply be deferred throughout the rest of the economy. If commodity trading is 0.03% more expensive for the traders, then commodity prices will be approximately 0.03% more expensive to consumers in order to account for the added expense! That means oil, gas, basic foodstuffs -- it will come right back and hit "ordinary families" in the pocket book.
I work for a subsidiary of Boeing. If Boeing stock is 0.03% more expensive to trade, thus financially impacting Boeing, that hurts me, the Boeing employee. It hurts people who invest in Boeing and people who might be hired by Boeing. It hurts other companies that do business with Boeing. All it does is give more power to the government, which for starters has to take a cut of whatever money the tax generates to pay the tax collectors and regulators necessary to implement the law. Then the money gets spent by government on things that don't generate wealth or create jobs -- the "social safety net" that's looking every day less like a "safety net" and more like a net trap.
People don't need handouts, they need jobs, but every time you raise taxes you take money away from the people who create jobs and give it to the people who give handouts. Government handouts don't raise people out of poverty, they just make them more settled and comfortable in their poverty. Jobs raise people out of poverty. Companies, big and small create jobs, not government. Wall Street funds the companies that create jobs. Stealing from Wall Street is stealing from the wealth and prosperity of the nation.
Robin Hood would have had no part of this.
The citizens of Nottingham were suffering under excessive taxation by Prince John (to pay for King Richard's ruinous crusades and policies, but that's another topic), enforced by ye olde villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
So, naming a tax after Robin Hood, the great anti-tax champion of English myth, is Orwellian in its reversal of meaning.
The so-called Robin Hood tax is a 0.03% tax on financial transactions. I find it ominous that the Robin Hood Tax booster site's "How this Works" page is extremely vague regarding how this would be implemented and what financial transactions it would apply to. Also that the page uses the language of the 1% versus the 99% is a hint that this tax is more about class warfare than sound fiscal policy.
The page says "That money could provide funding for jobs to kickstart the economy and get America back on its feet." Hmm, really? Because it is the private sector that creates jobs, exactly how is it efficient to take money away from the job creators and filter it through the government in order to create jobs? Are there people out there who still believe that the government is the engine of job creation? The idea was ludicrous on its face even before it had been so thoroughly debunked in practice by the current financial crisis and the failed stimulus bill.
No, what that money will really be used for is to fund government spending, at the cost of jobs. It's simple fact, you don't take money away from wealth generators and expect to create jobs.
The page goes on "So it's time for justice for ordinary families and businesses. For American families faced with a choice between buying food or paying the heating bill." Again, really? How dumb do they think I am? I'm an ordinary American. Well, maybe not so ordinary, because I'm in the declining percentage that pays more in taxes than I receive in government services. I also own stocks, in my 401k, as millions of other "ordinary families" do. This tax will steal from my 401k and put no money in my pocket. It won't help pay the heating bill or the food bill (because I'm not on government subsidized HEAP utility payments or Food Stamps -- I pay for my own damn heat and food, thank you).
Nowhere does the page explain exactly how this bill will give "justice" to ordinary families or help them pay their heating or food bills without increasing their dependency on the state. Increased dependency is not justice in any sense of the word!
A tax on financial transactions would simply be deferred throughout the rest of the economy. If commodity trading is 0.03% more expensive for the traders, then commodity prices will be approximately 0.03% more expensive to consumers in order to account for the added expense! That means oil, gas, basic foodstuffs -- it will come right back and hit "ordinary families" in the pocket book.
I work for a subsidiary of Boeing. If Boeing stock is 0.03% more expensive to trade, thus financially impacting Boeing, that hurts me, the Boeing employee. It hurts people who invest in Boeing and people who might be hired by Boeing. It hurts other companies that do business with Boeing. All it does is give more power to the government, which for starters has to take a cut of whatever money the tax generates to pay the tax collectors and regulators necessary to implement the law. Then the money gets spent by government on things that don't generate wealth or create jobs -- the "social safety net" that's looking every day less like a "safety net" and more like a net trap.
People don't need handouts, they need jobs, but every time you raise taxes you take money away from the people who create jobs and give it to the people who give handouts. Government handouts don't raise people out of poverty, they just make them more settled and comfortable in their poverty. Jobs raise people out of poverty. Companies, big and small create jobs, not government. Wall Street funds the companies that create jobs. Stealing from Wall Street is stealing from the wealth and prosperity of the nation.
Robin Hood would have had no part of this.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Playing Games With My Son's Life
My son will be deploying to Afghanistan again in a couple months and this week he made the off-hand comment that the Rules of Engagement have changed since last time he was there. Then, someone with a two-way radio was presumed to be a hostile and could be shot. Now, that person has to be presumed to be non-hostile.
We're not talking about someone strolling on their way to the grocery with a two-way radio to keep in touch with their kids. What every soldier there understands is that men with two-way radios are spotters. They're setting the troops up for an ambush or a manually-triggered IED. Now they have to just let those guys go, let them deliver their murderous message, and hope they can handle whatever is coming.
Bastards sitting safely behind desks in air conditioned offices made that rule. My son, in a dusty HumVee on a chunk of barren Afghani road, has to live or die by it.
We're not talking about someone strolling on their way to the grocery with a two-way radio to keep in touch with their kids. What every soldier there understands is that men with two-way radios are spotters. They're setting the troops up for an ambush or a manually-triggered IED. Now they have to just let those guys go, let them deliver their murderous message, and hope they can handle whatever is coming.
Bastards sitting safely behind desks in air conditioned offices made that rule. My son, in a dusty HumVee on a chunk of barren Afghani road, has to live or die by it.
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