I Have Better Things To Do...

I’m getting so tired of businesses thinking that they are the only ones in my life and there’s no need for them to communicate logically and succinctly and EFFICIENTLY. Like I’ve got nothing better to do, nobody else to call, than them.  Here’s a communication with ChevronTexaco Card, via their web site, when I tried to download the QFX file so I could suck all my transactions into Quicken instead of having to type them all in (in descending chronological order:

___________________________________
Subject: Chevron and Texaco Visa Card Technical Support
Sent: September 16, 2009 02:44 AM EDT

You Wrote:

1)    When I clicked on Message Center I got:
       HTTP Status 500 -
       type Exception report
      message descriptionThe server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
      exception org.apache.jasper.JasperException:Java.lang.NullPointerException
      root cause java.lang.NullPointerException
      note The full stack traces of the exception and its root causes are available in the Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1 Patch03 logs.
      Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1 Patch03

2)   when I download my statement in QFX to Quicken Mac 2006 I get an OL-226 error. I'm told to check the CONNLOG. It says:
     20090915 23:31:55: Not all required fields present. Object: STMTTRN missing tag: DTPOSTED
     20090915 23:31:55: Not all required fields present. Object: STMTTRN missing tag: DTPOSTED
     20090915 23:31:55:
___________________________________
Subject:Re: Chevron and Texaco Visa Card Technical Support
Sent:September 17, 2009 03:05 AM EDT

Customer Service Wrote:

Dear Online Customer,
Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding your Chevron and Texaco Visa credit card, and the opportunity to be of service to you.

Please allow us to apologize for the problems you have faced with accessing our site. We appreciate the time and effort you've taken to provide your comments and suggestions. We are constantly striving to improve our Online Credit Center and will take your feedback into consideration.

Our goal is to deliver high quality service to all of our cardholders and we will investigate the concerns you have raised. Once again, we would like to thank you for your comments and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

We apologize for the inconvenience. We are aware of the issue and have been working to resolve the problem. You should be able to download your program again on September 16th. Thank you for your patience.
If you are still having problem with our online account service we ask that you contact us at 1 866 448 4367 and we will be happy to assist you. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to promptly addressing your concern when we are able to speak with you.

We appreciate you as a valued Chevron and Texaco customer. If you have any questions or if we may be of further assistance, please contact us via the Online Message Center.
Sincerely,
S. Pilli

Customer Service
Account is owned by GE Money Bank - Member FDIC

___________________________________
Subject: Re: Chevron and Texaco Visa Card Technical Support
Sent: September 17, 2009 04:56 AM EDT

You Wrote:

When you say 'download your program ' do you mean download my statement as a QFX file?

Today I had to go thru all my data in Quickbooks and delete duplicate entries that were imported from your site as CREDITS rather than CHARGES. I really hope you've fixed this.

___________________________________
Subject:Re: Chevron and Texaco Visa Card Technical Support
Sent:September 18, 2009 03:51 AM EDT

Customer Service Wrote:


Dear Online Customer,
Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding your Chevron and Texaco Visa credit card, and the opportunity to be of service to you.
Please be advised, due to the nature of your inquiry, we are unable to accommodate your email request. We ask that you contact us at 1-800- 243- 8766, regarding the online query, and we will be happy to assist you. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to promptly addressing your concern when we are able to speak with you.

We appreciate you as a valued Chevron and Texaco customer. If you have any questions or if we may be of further assistance, please contact us via the Online Message Center.
Sincerely,
S. Krishnadas

Customer Service
Account is owned by GE Money Bank - Member FDIC

__________________________________
Subject: Re: Chevron and Texaco Visa Card Technical Support
Sent: September 18, 2009 05:10 PM EDT

You Wrote:

What a crock of shit. All you had to do was tell me that there was still a problem with your QFX downloads. Instead you made me waste my time to call you, enter all that authentication stuff, only to be told that there's a problem and that you don't know when it will be fixed. Why didnt you just TELL ME THAT?

REALLY!

I'm ready to cancel my card. What stupidity. You think I've nothing better to do. All you had to do is say “Oops, the problem wasn't fixed on Sept 17 like we thought and we'll let you know when it is fixed. Sorry for the hassle.”

I am so angry.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does anyone REALLY believe ANY of these business when they say

• Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding your Chevron and Texaco Visa credit card, and the opportunity to be of service to you.
• We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to promptly addressing your concern when we are able to speak with you.
• Please allow us to apologize for the problems you have faced with accessing our site. We appreciate the time and effort you've taken to provide your comments and suggestions. We are constantly striving to improve our Online Credit Center and will take your feedback into consideration.
  

“look forward”? Right. “to being of service”? Nobody was of any service here at all. I was not served. I wasted my time with 3 “Message Center” messages and a phone call and all I got was an acknowledgement that there’s a problem with the downloads “because of our new web site” (what does a new web site have to do with improperly formatted QFX files?). This is not customer service.

I switched to this card from my Citi/Shell card, which had better fuel rebates, because Citi/Shell stopped allowing downloads of QFX files. I make a lot of mistakes with numbers getting switched around. The fewer times I have to type a number, the fewer mistakes.  Looks like Chevron/Texaco may now be in the same camp. But the reason for this posting is that nothing was accomplished by the exchange with them and they wasted my time.

The Death of The Religious Right

An excellent article, by columnist & radio show host Bill Press, it is viewable at WorldNet Daily. The last paragraph summarizes the article well:

In short, the dying influence of Christian Conservatives means that people of all faiths, or no faith at all, will feel comfortable participating in the political process- and not just those whjo subscribe to the narrow-minded, intolerant, mean-spirited brand of religion espoused by Dobson and robertson. And for that we collectively pray: Thank you Jesus.

As an aside, I'd like to point out to those who claim this to be a "Christian country", because it was initially settled by (narrow-minded, intolerant, mean-spirited) Christians like the Puritans and because the founding fathers were either religiously or ethnically Christian, that this logic also means that this is a "male" country (women had no real rights at the time and all the founders were "fathers") and that this is a "white" country (I know that there are a lot of people who would say Hallelujah to that and you can find out more about these bigots via the Southern Poverty Law Center).

This is neither. This is a FREE country. It became a country because its citizens were tired of taxation without representation (in Parliament) and they wanted their own say in their destiny. The USA may be of Christian heritage, simply because there were no free Hindus or Muslims in Western Europe at the time to be part of the process of forming a nation, but we exist so that no person has to follow the rules of any religion. Look at the middle east and the way women are treated there - they have no choice, in some places, as to whether they can drive a car or wear/not wear the clothes they desire. Many of these woman (say they) like it this way and others don't. If they had a choice in the matter they could dress and drive as they please. And don't tell me it's because of the Qu'ran because many Muslims interpret it without the social rules, just as many Jews and Christians interpret The Bible without the ancient Jewish laws of the old testament. Verbatim interpreters of The Bible would have stonings and sacrifices since they were allowed way back when (in the good old days when it was OK to crucify people). Those who want this to be a Christian theocracy should heed the old saying "Be careful what you ask for - you just might get it".

Tipping

It takes a book like "Etiquette" to explain when and whom to tip. It's silly enough that restaurants automatically tip large parties - aren't tips a way of showing your appreciation? How do you show your level of gratitude if someone does it for you?

Ok, I understand (though don't agree with) the fact that restaurant prices are computed with me paying most of the waitperson's salary. I think they should charge what it really costs to run the establishment & let me tack on a little sumthin' if I'm so inspired. It's easier to judge prices this way.

But that's eutopia. What brought up this diatribe? A tip jar at a sub shop saying "TIPS - pretty please". I though "hey, I'm the waiter here! I'm giving my order to the 'chef' and I'm carrying the food to the table. I'm preparing the drink and clearing the table. I should be tipping myself."

The 9" italian sub on wheat was $8. Not cheap. I don't understand where this sense of entitlement comes from.

Comparitive Analysis of Various Presidencies' Hurricane Responses

The source of this is unknown to me but believed to be reliable. Refuting evidence welcome...

President: Nixon

Danger: Category-5 Hurricane Camille
(August 1969)

Area: About the same area as that affected by Katrina

Response: Nixon prepared the National Guard in advance, ordering rescue ships from Tampa, FL and Houston, TX to stand waiting along with over a thousand regular military & 24+ helicopters to assist the Coast Guard and National Guard about as soon as the hurricane passed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

President: Bush the Elder

Danger: Hurricane Andrew (August 92)

Area: Florida

Response: In the middle of a re-election campaign, Bush ceased campaigning the day before the hurricane, went to Washington, and assembled one of the largest military forces ever mustered on U.S. soil. Seven thousand National Guard and 22,000 regular military were sent in with the necessary equipment shortly after the hurricane passed through.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

President: Clinton

Danger: Category-3 Hurricane Floyd (September 1999)

Area: Virginia and Carolinas

Response: Meeting with China's president Jiang in New Zealand, Clinton immediately declared the hurricane-affected areas as federal disasters, allowing the military and National Guard to move in and help. Clinton flew home immediately, one day before the hurricane hit, to help coordinate the rescue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

President: Bush the Lesser

Danger: Category-5 Hurricane Katrina (August 2005)

Area: Gulf Coast

Response: National Guard troops are down about 8,000 members because they are in Iraq with much of the necessary rescue equipment needed. Bush was on vacation,
riding his bike for two hours the day before the hurricane lands. On the day Katrina landed, Bush attended a birthday party for John McCain. The levees began to crack. While emergency 1.5-ton sandbags were ready to be placed to steady the levee and absorb water, there were insufficient numbers of helicopters and pilots to set them before the levees break. Nagin, the mayor of N.O., pleaded for federal-level assistance and got none. Bush went to San Diego to play guitar with a country singer and ended his vacation early -- but not until the next day, because he had tickets to a San Diego Padres game.

SBC Thinks They ARE The Internet

SBC: We Own The Internet, So Google Should Pay Up

techdirt.com 10/31/05

It's become pretty clear that Kevin Martin's FCC has no problem considering "competition" in the broadband space to mean incumbent telcos vs. incumbent cable companies. So far, the FCC has done just about everything possible to make it much harder for any third parties to get into the game. So is it really any surprise to hear the CEO of SBC, Ed Whitacre, in an interview suggest that it's only a matter of time before they start going after any of the services that make the internet useful to try to make them pay up to remain reachable? When asked about companies like Google, Yahoo and Vonage, he says: "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!" In other words, he's talking about going well beyond blocking some ports like BellSouth, to actually blocking out websites and services unless they first pay SBC a fee. It certainly has the feel of extortion: pay up or no one on our network will be able to reach your website. If you thought that mess Level 3 and Cogent was problematic, just wait until you can't access Google from SBC, because Google fails to pay up SBC's "connection" fees. What Whitacre seems to be forgetting is that it's all of these services and the ability to connect that makes the internet access worthwhile. Now who was just saying that network neutrality wasn't needed? Notice that the only reason this is possible now is because there's less competition in the broadband space, not more. If there were real competition, SBC would never even dare to suggest that they might cut off a Google, Yahoo or Vonage.

A DIFFERENT Kind of PayPal Phishing Attempt

Just about anyone has received, by now, email attempts to convince you that you need to reset your bank or Paypal or eBay account info or you account will be closed. These are called PHISHING attempts and, if you click on the link they provide, you'll be taken to a fine crafted imitation of the web site for the institution you THINK has contacted you; yet the site belongs to the thief and, once you enter your account info, the thief now has it.

Lesson: never click on an email link to go somewhere to log in. If you're not sure if the email is legit, ask the apparent sender (your bank, PayPal, etc). However, they never do this kind of thing and they NEVER ask for your password and if they REALLY wanted you to change your password, they'd make it so that, the next time you log in to their site, you'd be asked THEN to change it.

Here's one I haven't seen so far and it's particularly egregious because it involves a completed eBay sale and, if I hadn't wondered about it, I'd have lost the stuff I went to sell AND the money I was to have received.

---

---

From: "paypal care"
To: noamsane@theidealist.net
Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 12:39:38 -0500
Subject: paypal payment confirmation 1D # 12B2 3209 N567 890H

You've got cash!

Dear Mr. Sane,

Mrs.Sharon Isaac, just sent you money with PayPal.

Mrs.Sharon Isaac, is a Verified buyer.

---

Payment Details

Ebay item:   1234567890

Amount: $550.00 USD

Transaction ID: 12B2 3209 N567 890H

Note:  This PayPal® payment has been deducted from the buyer's
account and has been "APPROVED" but will not be credited to your
account until the shipment tracking number is sent to our customers service
for shipment verification so as to secure both the seller and the buyer.

(paypal-verified@consultant.com)       Status : Confirmed

---

Shipping Information:

Address: Verified.

Address Status: Confirmed

---

Thank you for using PayPal!

The PayPal Team

PAYPAL PAYMENT VERIFIED
PayPal Email ID PP307

Protect Your Account Info

Make sure you never provide your password to fraudulent
websites.



To safely and securely access the PayPal website or your account, open
a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in the
PayPal URL (https://www.paypal.com/us/) to be sure you are on the real
PayPal site.



PayPal will never ask you to enter your password in an email.  For more
information on protecting yourself from fraud, please review our Security Tips
at https://www.paypal.com/us/securitytips

Protect Your Password:   You should never give your PayPal password
to anyone, including PayPal employees.

 

[In here are a ton of empty lines, most of
which I've removed, inserted so you wont see the signature of their
web email provider but pushing it WAY down so you'd have to scroll to
see it- a sure tip off that this is a fake]

 

 

--

___________________________________________________________

Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com

http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

Big Brother Is Listening

The FCC says "....consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Read analysis about this scary notion here:
http://news.com.com/2061-10804_3-5884130.html?tag=nefd.aon

and right from the horse's mouth in this PDF doc:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-151A1.pdf

RELATED:
Here's an example of what it takes to get the gummint to keep its nose out of your technology. Until the Carterphone case in 1968, Ma Bell (The Phone Company, or AT&T, which owned almost all of the phone switching network in the USA until the breakup by Judge Green around 1984) had the legal right to control everything that touched the phone system or even a phone itself. You could not interface your phone line with an answering machine, a PBX, a fax machine, a radio system or anything else even a shoulder rest device that attaches to the handset without their approval and, for the 1st 4 examples, without interface equipment you had to rent from them (this was a perfect monopoly as you had no other sources). Well, in the late 1940's, Ma Bell got the FCC to disallow an item called "Hush-a-Phone", which was a "cup-like device … which snaps on to a telephone instrument and makes for privacy of conversation, office quiet and a quiet telephone circuit". The FCC ruled that this product, because it caused distortion of the audio of YOUR call is 'deleterious to the telephone system and injures the service rendered by it' and The Commission's job was to ensure that this kind of thing didn't happen. Well, it wasn't like Hush-a-Phone was sending dangerous voltages into the phone network; it was doing the same thing as cupping your hand around the transmitter (which has the same deleterious effect). In other words, if you chose to reduce the quality of your call to improve its security, that was your business as long as you used your hands. Add a passive 3rd party item to the mix and you were ruining the phone system.

In this article you'll see it took an ruling by the US Court of Appeals (99 U.S. App. D.C. 190; 238 F.2d 266; 1956 U.S. App. LEXIS 4023) to confirm that this was YOUR business and the government (and Ma Bell) had no right to intervene. This is almost SILLY. And I'll bet that Ma Bell had a competing product you could rent from them that would do the same thing.

http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/hush-a-phone.htm

When Is Your Money Not Your Money

Answer: when you've generated a credit on your credit card.

I was shopping recently and bought something with my VISA card. The vendor rang it up wrong and couldn't just cancel the transaction but had to generate a credit. I went to re-buy the item (rung up correctly) and the transaction was denied. I called the credit card company and they were, thankfully, watching out for abuse, and the two large charges at the same place had locked out my account to prevent fraud.

I asked the lady at the CC company to let me make the 2nd purchase. She, I guess, was willing to accept its validity by having the checker run the charge through at that exact moment (I suppose the fact that I had proven my ID with her satisfied her). In no less than 5 seconds she saw the exact amount of the new sale amount. I was amazed at technology (remember when the clerk had to CALL the credit card company on the phone for sales over a certain amount and was given an "authorization number" to write on the "charge slip"?) but it made me ask "If your computers can get the debit so quickly, why didn't they get the credit just as fast, which would've cancelled out the FIRST transaction so your system wouldn't have raised a flag?" She said she didn't know; credits take up to 48 hours.

What a racket! Even if they only get $100,000 a day in credits (I'll bet it's more) think of the INTEREST they've earned on YOUR money! For that two days, your money is theirs; you do not have any merchandise or services since you've given the stuff back to the merchant yet you don't have your money either! The credit card company or bank has it!

Now, it's not like you could have earned interest on that money but you could have spent it. If you bought one item for the total amount of your remaining credit limit and then returned the item, you still couldn't have bought anything more until the credit went through.

Since I don't know how the credit card system works, I'm not sure who's making interest on whose money, but it looks like a wild scheme!

Nostradamus Works at National Geographic (and more on Katrina)

Click here to see an article in National Geographic last year that seems to describe everything that's happened to The Big Easy. It's scary.

Dear Sri Lanka: Thanks for your offer of $25,000 to help the poor folks in the Gulf area. Please keep it. You're still dealing with the aftermath of a tsunami from last December. $25,000 is probably a big chunk of change for you. We have people here who own multiple houses, airplanes, expensive jewels, multiple cars just because they collect them, and make millions of dollars a year. Please ask one of them to send the $25,000 on your behalf; it's their country and they should be able to help.

Dear Sweden: thanks for the C-130 Hercules full of supplies, especially the water treatment system, that you can't actually get AIRBORNE because of our government's unwillingness to bypass the usual international rules and let you actually deliver the goods. Please send them to the kind folks at Sri Lanka who would probably LOVE to have them and would offer no red tape.

I'm essentially a pacifist but I also have an angry side that emerges when I see people taking advantage of the misfortune of others. I don't think we should be in Iraq. I DO think we should have a shoot-to-kill policy for looters in the Gulf states. These opportunists know exactly what they're doing. They're not worth saving. New Orleans is like the lawless Old West right now so horse thieves should face Frontier Justice. Just, be careful of those stealing for survival; I have no problem with people breaking into a store for essentials but I have no patience for those seen stealing wide screen TVs and bicycles (CNN). In an AP story many people who had taken things for survival said they intended to let the proprietors know so they can pay later.

In the same Shoot-To-Kill category are those running scams aimed at those who would contribute money to help the victims. Again, these insects know exactly what they're doing and not only are they taking advantage of the kindness of others, they're also stealing from those in need. I say trace the IP address, send a SWAT team over, and shoot the bastard sitting in his underwear at his monitor editing news service photos of desperate people for his bogus sites, in his nice, dry, home.

Dear World Citizens: to my fellow Americans, and especially you thoughtful people in other countries, who are giving your hard earned money to agencies to help the victims of Katrina; PLEASE be careful where you send your money. Is there really a good reason to send money to anyone other than the American Red Cross, The United Way, or, for those wishing to help a Christian-based organization, The Salvation Army? These folks have been helping others in need for decades and they have the infrastructure in place to do it efficiently. You don't need to go to www.katrinaaid.com or whatever. FEMA has a list of recognized charities if these 3 won't do. Also see here for more on scams:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9188106/ http://news.com.com/Online+scams+emerge+in+Katrinas+wake/2100-7349_3-5845695.html

There are multiple missing-persons registration sites. I heard of at least 3 on the cable news channels. These orgs need to get together and share their databases (or just boil it down to one database that's accessed by as many sites as want it) for people registering their whereabouts, people looking for missing people, and people posting names of the missing.

Have Search Engines Sucking on your Websites...

In order to raise rankings of their web sites in search engines, eTailers are now using Blogs to create undeserved apparent popularity. An example tool is Feature Blog. This program/hoster creates a blog for you, automatically (i.e. without your having to actually WRITE anything) by collecting links to articles at other sites that have keywords in them that have something to do with what you're selling.

Example: http://www.featureblog.com/blogs/obesity/ Open that page an click on one of the links near the bottom. Now you come up with a page full of links having something to do with obesity. No original content here, nothing to benefit their fellow man because all of the content was already writeen by others (and anyone could find the same stuff by using a regualr search engine). In fact, I found that some of the links are dead because the target articles aren't present any more.

Here's more on this sort of thing from David Sifry..

Anything for a buck. Seems like, if nobody's going to your site, there might be another reason.

The End is Nigh

Hurricane Katrina and this nebula's extended central digit (as observed by the well missed Dave Barry) mean we're pretty much out of time. Do I hear trumpets (no it's just a lone saxophonist on some street corner in the galaxy)?

Pat, Have You Been Talking To God Again? (add'l comments 9/1)

As per AP, on his 700 Club TV show (I missed yesterday's show, dammit), Religious Right leader & schizophrenic Pat Robertson, who says that Venezuela is a "launching pad for communist infiltration & Muslim extremism" (yes, I too think of Catholic South America as being a major Islamic fundie breeding ground) said "If [President Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really aught to go ahead and do it." I'm sure HBO's Bill Maher & The Comedy Channel's Daily Show with Jon Stewart aught to have a ball with this one.

Who are YOU Pat, to suggest that another human be killed because of his political stance? I'd like to see him and Castro out of power but, short of their countries attacking us or harboring terrorists, they are sovereign states (like Iraq) whom we have no right to attack just because we're the righteous US.

Maybe your tuner's a little off, Pat; maybe that was former Prez James Monroe you were chatting with.

---

9/1/05

Cox News Service reports that the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the "Hip Hop Caucus" (are they kidding?), and others rallied outside the CBN offices demanding that the FCC look into revoking CBN's license.

It's good to see other religious leaders (though does the "Hip Hop Caucus" have any believability with a name like that?) speaking out against Pat's idiocy. Guys like Pat give REAL Christians a bad rep (who was it who blasted Islam? Was that Pat or one of his pals?).

Two problems, Len. First, as far as I know, CBN is a network and not a licensee, so the FCC has no jurisdiction. They COULD fine CBN affiliates but not CBN. Len and crew compared this situation to the Janet Jackson "Wardrobe Malfunction" of last years' Hyperbole. Ain't the same thing, folks. However silly it might be to get excited about something so dumb and harmless as a part of the body showing on TV (kids all over were permanently, psychologically, damaged; many joined the Hip Hop Caucus), the point was that someone had done something considered obscene on a show transmitted on The Public's resources called Broadcast Television channels. The FCC has a duty to control these resources (even if it wastes its time and our tax dollars going after channels that aired Bono saying "Fucking" - nobody's been threatened for playing on plublic radio channels "...who the fuck are you..." from Who Are You by The Who).

Secondly, Pat has a right to say whatever he wants as long as it isn't libelous (and I don't think foreigners like Senor Chavez are protected by US libel laws) or advocating violence or the overthrow of the gummint. In fact, letting him SAY these things helps him look worse and worse, so let him dig a hole. You can't get ANY government organization to prosecute someone for a stupid statement like that.

I understand that Chavez asked the US gummint to arrest Pat for his comment; sorry Hugo, but in THIS country, we can say what we want, we can state our opinions, as long as it doesn't allege an untruth about someone or try to cause disruption of society.

Don't Try This While On Drugs

An outstanding optical illusion. This gave me the spins. And I don't do drugs...

I can't imagine having dropped some acid a few hours ago and then looking at this. "Bummer, please?"

What I can't figure out is how people come up with stuff like this. Was it serendipity or did this person actually try to design something to do what this does without knowing if such an effect exists?

While I'm at it, here's the blog of the woman who digs up interesting stuff like this on the web: http://hyatts.org/BecBlog/Archives/2004_09.html

Witnessing Made EASY!

Most Christians want to witness, but many never do. With Chik tracts, it's so easy you'll ENJOY it! Click the title to learn how!

"Daddy, can we go out and witness again?"
"OK, kids! Just be home before The Rapture!"
"Oh, Daddeeeee..."

Are YOU too SHY to witness? Don't let your religious reluctance keep YOU from YOUR reward! Click here to learn how Chik Tracts can make you spew forth with fire-retardant brimstone! And, NO, fellas, these Chik Tracts aren't pickup lines!

Yes, you TOO can take up people's valuable time trying to convince them that all the time they've spent contemplating life and the universe is wrong and that they're goin' on down if they don't turn it around. Save souls, meet new people, and get much needed cardio-pulmonary exercise witnessing... the CHIK Way!

What's More Rude: Cellphone Jabberers or Jammers?

It amazes me that people would actually believe it would be LEGAL to operate a device whose sole purpose is to INTERFERE with a licensed device. They do make cell phone "jammers" and people who are upset by people talking on their cell phones in place they should not (in terms of etiquette) are using them to silence the "offender" rather than asking them to speak quietly or elsewhere. Imagine how the jammer would feel when they found out the person they jammed was a doctor who'd been paged by the hospital because a patient was DYING.

The entire FCC document (a Word doc, number DA-05-1776, June 27, 2005) confirming that such equipment is illegal is at this link. It's called

Sale or Use of Transmitters Designed to Prevent, Jam or Interfere with Cell Phone Communications is Prohibited in the United States

Here's the essence of the document:

In response to multiple inquiries concerning the sale and use of transmitters designed to prevent, jam or interfere with the operation of cellular and personal communications service (PCS) telephones, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is issuing this Public Notice to make clear that the marketing, sale, or operation of this type of equipment is unlawful. Anyone involved with such activities may be subject to forfeitures, fines or even criminal prosecution.


Cellular and PCS telephones provide valuable wireless communications services to the American public for business and personal communications. Recently, however, the FCC has seen a growing interest in devices -- called “cellular jammers” or “cell phone jammers” -- designed to deliberately jam or disrupt wireless communications. Inquiries about the use of cellular jammers are often accompanied by comments that the use of wireless phones in public places is disruptive and annoying. Advertisements for cellular jammers suggest that the devices may be used on commuter trains, in theaters, hotels, restaurants and other locations the public frequents.

I've had people occasionally use cell phones in manners that were, I felt, not courteous. And not being someone who lives in a big city where folks are on subways and buses a lot, maybe I haven't been as directly affected by this as other have. But it seems to me the answer is far worse than the problem. Nobody has the right to interfere with your communications but they have the right to ask you to take them elsewhere.

Security Alert: ATMs With Criminal Add-ons To Steal Your Info

According to U Texas, thieves are placing their own scanners in front of the slots where you insert your card on ATMs. Read this and be cautious. The bastards are SO BUSY making up ways to ruin our lives; why can't they work on a cure for AIDS or something instead?

http://www.utexas.edu/admin/utpd/atm.html

Mindless Utterances

This is a brief diatribe on automatic, mindless phrases that people, at least here in The States, use in general speech and which really bug me. Overuse of inappropriate terms can dilute their meaning when used INTENTIONALLY.

The one I just got from my waitron here at Denny's is "NOT A PROBLEM". This has taken the place of "OK" which seems to me a lot easier to use. I'm sure she didn't mean to say that another order might have been a pain. "I asked for coffee, not tea. Can you get me some coffee, please?" "Not a problem, you picky bastard." I can understand its use when a service provider wants to emphasize the fact that your request is not only going to be handled, but gladly or cheerfully. "I need to get this shipped to NY by tomorrow; sorry I'm getting it to you so late." "Not a problem! We pride ourselves in handling last minute requests cheerfully."

Yesterday at the bank, I found myself trying to guess when the young lady would say ACTUALLY the next time. It doesn't mean "on the contrary" or "in fact" much of the time these days. It's just a mindless separator and I find myself sort of cringing (internally) each time I hear it. I actually don't like the fact that it wastes time getting to the point. I actually wish people wouldn't use it.

DEFINITELY has become something like ACTUALLY; it's an affirmation but with a kick. Someone on Home and Garden TV was going through a store and each time she'd look at a piece of furniture she'd say, "That's definitely a nice table". "I'm definitely a savvy shopper". I don't think that ONCE it was being used to emphasize that THIS item or THIS concept was "the one" or "a perfect example". Each item was "definitely" something or another. I definitely wish they'd actually stop using words like this over and over.

EXACTLY is another affirmation I've been hearing overused for years. It's actually, definitely, a word that just means "Yes" or "OK" most of the time rather than "just as you've described" or "I couldn't have put it better myself".

IF YOU COULD is a conditional statement made without a resolution phrase. IF you're going to provide a condition, THEN you need to say what the result of that condition's occurring will be. It was made popular (I'm sorry to say) in a funny movie called "Office Space". A stereotypical manager wanders around the office dropping in on his employees' cubicles with requests for tasks but he doesn't just say "Bob, I need the Smith report this afternoon" "The Smith report that I'm actually supposed to finish today and is essential to my job?" "Exactly" "Not a problem; I'll definitely have it done". The manager instead will say "Yeah. Ah, Bob, if you could get me the Smith report this afternoon, that'd be great". So now, I hear people, especially, it seems, on voicemail messages, just using the condition. For example: "Noam, if you could call me back at 555-1212. Thanks (beep)". "If you could hand me that shotgun over there? Thanks" It often seems to be said with the inflection of a question though it's not interrogatory.

Folks, I ain't perfect. I hate the fact that I throw in "uh" and "um" in lieu of damned SILENCE when my speech center is cogitating. But I do think we've learned to just filter thru noises like that; when the mindless noise is WORDS we have to listen to see if they're germane. I just wish everyone could hear themselves on tape (OK, on data) and think about what they're saying.

Crappy Customer Service: Example 1

I'm getting REALLY tired of poor support and customer service. I'm going to start posting (until I get sued, at least) examples of crappy customer service and tech support including businesses that don't reply to your emails and don't call you back and treat you like dirt.

Today's story, boys and girls, is about TECH SUPPORT. I think that companies use support as the item they can adjust to affect price since so many things, especially computers, have such low margins because the competition is so great. It's good to be given a choice; say, faster CPU vs. faster hard drive. We, the customers can decide how much we want to pay by comparing features. But you can't compare support quality. It's something you find out the hard way, too late. How can you choose between 2 different products when one has good support and one has abysmal support; it's not something they place in the tech specs:

POWER: 110VAC 60Hz
WEIGHT: 30 lbs
SUPPORT: terrible

I don't think that companies should be saying to themselves "we can lower this price on THIS product line by reducing the level or support". This is exactly what happened with my Dell Inspiron laptop; (beside that fact that the unit was in the shop 3 times in 2 years) the support was terrible. Someone once told me that Dell's business model for the consumer lines is to, essentially, keep the customer with the problem at bay long enough that they'll eventually go away and PAY to have the warranted unit serviced out of frustration. Well, even though Consumer Reports shows their desktop support to be better than their laptop support, I'm basing my impression of Dell as a whole on this one product. My last 2 server purchases were HP and IBM (didn't even consider Dell) and for this new laptop purchase a Dell was never considered. I will NEVER recommend Dell products for my IT customers. You blew it, Dell.

It's not fair for manufacturers to be messing with a parameter we can't test or compare. When someone says "support" that's got to mean something we can count on. Maybe the FTC should standardize 3 levels of "support" so we can pick which we want:

• TOP: "Treat It Like It Was Our Own Problem" Support
• MIDDLE: "Treat It Like It Was An In-law's Problem" Support
• BOTTOM: "Wait For Customer To Threaten Bodily Harm First" Support

The Example For Today

HP has a nice support system where they can interrogate your machine via an ActiveX control over the Web so that the agent knows what you've got then responds to you via a text interface on their web page. It loses its benefit when they take an hour twenty to pretty much do what you already did. I recognize that these folks have to switch tracks quickly and often from one case to another and I couldn't do it well but that's why I'm not doing it. I also realize that many customers are just CLUELESS and the tech needs to be sure nothing got skipped. But I think this example shows how silly it can get.

The "issue" (I hate that term in this context; how about problem or error or even "challenge", if you must) was that my brand new laptop's Synaptics Touchpad wouldn't do its cool "scroll" action on some I.E. web pages and all Firefox pages.

The names have been changed since my intent is not to be mean-spirited or personal; other than that I swear that I have edited nothing.

---

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:06 PM] -- Status Message
Your request has been received by the Technical Support Center, and has
been put in the Abandoned queue until a support analyst is available.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] --
For reference, your Case ID is 3211122582

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "First Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] – "First Agent
Hello Mr. Sane, thank you for contacting HP and for your interest in our Active Chat online support. My name is First Agent, and I see you have a question regarding your notebook. I'm going to take a few moments to
review your information and will message you back, very soon.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] -- "First Agent"
Since when are you facing the issue?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:08 PM] -- Noam Sane
Since the unit arrived

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:08 PM] -- "First Agent"
Does the issue occur in safe mode?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:10 PM] -- Noam Sane
I don't know. It is working right now on your web page but if I close IE
and reopen a web page it will not work. I also have Firefox open and
it's not working there, either.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:10 PM] -- "First Agent"
Please check if the issue occurs in safe mode?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:11 PM] -- "First Agent"
To enter safe mode follow the below steps:
1. Start your computer and then press and hold down F8 until the Windows
Advanced Options menu appears.
2. Use the up arrow and down arrow keys to select safe mode, and then
press enter.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:13 PM] -- Noam Sane
How do I find you again? I'll have to close this session

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:14 PM] -- "First Agent"
Please add this page to your Favorites so you may come back to this
conversation. [remember this for later]

[I rebooted in Safe Mode then rebooted back to Normal boot]
[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:30 PM] -- Noam Sane
When I used SafeMode the Synaptics driver didn't load so the scroll function didn't work ANYPLACE. [why did they make me do this if the driver doesn't load?]

When I used the FAVORITES link to return here it didn't work. I did a screenshot of the JavaScript error if you want it. [This is what I wanted you to remember; their web site has JavaScript errors]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:30 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "First Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:31 PM] -- "First Agent"
Hi Mr. Sane, my name is First Agent with the Instant Support group and I will be
taking over your case from here. Please give me a few moments to review
your case and I will be with you shortly.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:34 PM] -- "First Agent"
Uninstall the mouse driver and install the Synaptics Touchpad Driver
from the following link:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/locate/64_6132.html

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:35 PM] -- Noam Sane
ok. do u want that error screenshot?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:36 PM] -- "First Agent"
Sure!

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:36 PM] -- Noam Sane
how do i email it to u?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:37 PM] -- "First Agent"
You can send it to first.agent@hp.com

[I returned after loading the latest driver in a brand new laptop; the date on the new driver was months ago]
[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:49 PM] -- Noam Sane
I think IE is OK but Firefox still doesn't work. Any other ideas?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:50 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "Second Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:50 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Hi Mr. Sane, my name is Second Agent with the Instant Support group and I will be
taking over your case from here. Please give me a few moments to review
your case and I will be with you shortly.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:54 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Mr. Sane please give me 3-5 minutes to research on this issue.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:58 PM] -- Noam Sane
The Mozilla web site says:

Synaptics Touchpad Scrolling

Mozilla supports synaptics touchpad scrolling, but it may not be enabled by default with older drivers. You can upgrade your driver at the synaptics download page.

But I have the latest driver. Not sure what else could be wrong

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:00 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Mr. Sane please give me 3-5 minutes to research on this issue.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:06 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Does the issue occurred in Safe mode? [The case log he's theoretically been reading since 10:50 says that's the first thing we did]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:09 PM] --Noam Sane
no because the driver doesn't load in safe mode

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:09 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Does it gives any error message?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11doesn't] -- Noam Sane
no. it simply doesn't scroll, primarily in Firefox

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:12 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Have you uninstalled the synaptics driver?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:13 PM] -- Noam Sane
you already had me install the latest driver

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:14 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Have you performed a system restore to a previous date when the notebook was working fine? [This reminds me of the Dell "tech" who was asking me kindly to be plugging the computer into the wall outlet. This is one of those things they have you do to get you off their back]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:16 PM] -- Noam Sane
no because i just got the notebook. the scroll has never worked fine

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:17 PM] -- "Second Agent"
In order to eliminate the possibility of Operating System causing the
issue, I recommend reinstalling the Operating System from the CDs
shipped along with the notebook. [This is ANOTHER one of those things they have you do to get you off their back. Reinstall the OS because a mouse driver isn't working properly]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:18 PM] -- Noam Sane
No. I will email Synaptics for advice. [This is an example of where the customer is frustrated and goes to handle it on his own as he should have done from the beginning]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:20 PM] -- "Second Agent"
You could check with Synaptics and perform the reinstallation if required.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:24 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Is there anything else I can assist you with?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:24 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Mr. Sane for some reason I am stepping out of my desk. I will assign this
chat to my colleague. [Up to now I have refrained from making fun of different cultures' use of English but I just couldn't resist pointing this out. It has nothing to do with support, just humor and I couldn't have come up with that if I'd tried]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:25 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "First Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:25 PM] -- "First Agent"
Hi Mr. Sane, my name is First Agent with the Instant Support group and I will be
taking over your case from here. Please give me a few moments to review
your case and I will be with you shortly.

---

[Ultimately, I went to Synaptics' web site and got the generic v8 driver vs. the v7 driver HP had. This fixed the problem but introduced an minor new quirk: when WinXP boots, the touchpad doesn't work at the login page! Once I login it's OK. Just for the geeks a'wonderin'.]

"SuperMax" Prisons

I heard a story on NPR today about a suit to decide whether there should be
stricter hearings on whether an inmate should be sent to a "SuperMax" prison.
Super Maximum security prisons are in close to 40 states (and 2 are federally
operated). Inmates are in solitary confinement for most of the day and the
cells have no windows.

Isn't it strange that there has to be a term for what is apparently MORE THAN
MAXIMUM? Maximum means all, the highest quantity possible, 100%. How can you
have more than all?

This isn't just an exercise in semantics folks. I'm asking why maximum security
prisons aren't MAXIMUM already. We've got people in there for terrible crimes
(that just miss the death penalty) and they're running outside drug operations
from inside and sneaking in dope and weapons. Is this a college dorm
or a prison for bad people? If it's the latter, why aren't all maximum security prisons
"super max" instead of giving these people room and board at taxpayer expense?

FCC: There is no separate CELL PHONE Do Not Call List

Federal Communications Commission News Media Contact:Rosemary Kimball
For Immediate Release: at (202) 418-0511
April 15, 2005 e-mail: rosemary.kimball@fcc.gov


THE TRUTH ABOUT CELL PHONES
AND THE NATIONAL DO NOT CALL REGISTRY

If you’ve received an e-mail telling you that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls as a result of a new cell phone number database, rest assured that this is not the case. Telemarketing to cell phone numbers has always been illegal in most cases and will continue to be so. In response to recent e-mail campaigns urging consumers to place their cell phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission issue this advisory to give consumers the facts.

One e-mail making the rounds says:

"JUST A REMINDER...In a few weeks, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS... To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS..."

Another version claims:


"The Federal Trade Commission has set up a "do not call" list. It is called a cell phone registry. To be included on the "do not call" list, you must call from the number you wish to register."

Here’s what you need to know about the National Do Not Call Registry program:


* FCC regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers are barred from calling consumers on their cell phones without their consent.


* The federal government does not maintain a national cell phone registry. Personal cell phone users have always been able to add their numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry — the same Registry consumers use to register their land lines — either online at www.donotcall.gov or by calling toll-free 1-888-382-1222 from the telephone number they wish to register. Registrations become effective within 31 days of signing up and are active for five years. There is no cut-off date or deadline for registrations.

* Business-to-business calls are not covered under the Registry.

For More Information

To learn more about the National Do Not Call Registry and the rules that enforce it, visit the FTC at www.ftc.gov or the FCC at www.fcc.gov . For more information about a planned "wireless 411" directory, visit http://www.qsent.com/wireless411/index.shtml.

- The FCC -

---

November 2005 Update: This directory is going to be Opt-In (we know how well THAT works with spam). Read more at Snopes.com

Hey! Let's Teach ASTROLOGY in Science Class!

A Letter-to-the-Editor in the March 2005 edition of Church and State.

Teach Astrology Too?
In response to "intelligent design" being taught in the school districts of Cobb County, Ga., and Harrisburg, Pa., ("'Intelligent Design' Challenged In Pa. Public Schools," January Church & State), I feel very strongly that astrology should be taught alongside astronomy in those same schools. The children of our country have just as much of a right to learn about reading their future in the stars as learning about the "designer" that created the stars in the first place. Just because there's no observable evidence that astrology works, doesn't mean that it can't - one must have faith. Surely the "designer" placed the stars in the heavens so that we may see signs and omens.

Consider the commonalities:

Evolution - Fossils and evidence found all over the world
Astronomy - Evidence found all over the universe

Compare to:

"Intelligent Design" - No evidence found anywhere, but people believe in it
Astrology - No evidence found anywhere, but people believe in it

No, there is no scientific basis for astrology. Just like "intelligent design," astrology is based on faith, and if one faith can be taught in our public schools, then surely there's room for one more. As a matter of fact, parents who live in those school districts that teach "intelligent design" should insist on it. In the courts, if necessary.

-Tina Norwood
Houston, Texas

Thanks Tina! An excellent point.>

Arkansas Deserves Its Reputation

2/19/05 LITTLE ROCK, AP -- The Arkansas House voted down a resolution Friday that would have reaffirmed the Legislature's support for the principle of the separation of church and state.

The resolution failed by a vote of 39-44. Rep. Buddy Blair, D-Fort Smith, offered the measure. He said he was fed up with what he called religious undertones in the business of the 85th General Assembly.

Seventeen House members did not vote on the resolution. [SCAREDY CATS]

Rep. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said he voted against the resolution because he didn't view it as necessary. He said he does not perceive a problem.

Lamoureux also said the founding fathers "wanted Christian beliefs."

Iraqi Elections

Quote from an AP story Jan 31 2004:" 'This vote is for my country, not about religion' Shiite says". A recent release from Al-Zarqawi's insurgent, Islamic fundamentalist organization, said, in essence, "democracy is evil - we should be governed by the Qu'ran".

Meanwhile, in the US, Christian funamentalists are trying to return teacher-led Christian prayer to the public schools and are working to change our CONSTITUTION such that it states that the US is a CHRISTIAN COUNTRY.

The Iraqi eletions and the fundamentalists who would derail them for an Iranian-style theocracy flashes at us like a bright neon sign saying DANGER! yet a large percentage of my fellow citizens are unable/unwilling to see it, blinded by religious zeal.

So, who's the "emerglng" nation, REALLY?

Reason 1 Dogma 0

Of Theories And Fiction

Dear Fundamentalists,

A theory explains something such that it can be shown repeatedly. It may not be an absolute fact because we may not know all the aspects of it, and it may later be proven wrong, but it explains everything it's related to, today. You can't say "Evolution is just a theory... and should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered without saying that for ALL theories. And you don't need to study a theory carefully to be able to accept it; to wit, Einstein's Theory of Relativity. We haven't projected any matter near the speed of light yet so we can't prove or disprove the theory, and I don't think most people have the BRAINS to study it "carefully and critically". Those who are interested in it and its ramifications accept it because it's the best answer so far.

Can you explain gravity? Scientists can't. But a Mr. Newton became aware of its presence and people have tried to explain it via theories for centruies. It benefits (or hinders) each of us the same way every day even though it's just a lowly "theory". Why aren't you putting stickers in books warning students that gravity is only a theory and not a fact? Because it doesn't conflict with your religious texts; or, more accurately, the way YOU INTERPRET your religious texts.

The word science comes from the latin word for knowledge. Scientists are trying to gain knowledge of our world, most of which has NOT been left in a convenient collection of writings as have your religious texts. What you have in Genesis is a story; there's not one item in there that can be tested and shown to be or not be repeatable via the scientific method.

In this country, you have the sacred RIGHT to believe as you wish. You do NOT have the right to say that the articles of your faith are fact and must be taught as science. Please get this through your thick skulls.

First we had Cobb County, GA (see below) and now we have the Dover (PA) School Board. You people WORRY me.

---

*ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Since 2002, Dr. Kenneth Miller has been upset that biology textbooks he has written are slapped with a warning sticker by the time they appear in suburban Atlanta schools. Evolution, the stickers say, is "a theory, not a fact."*

"What it tells students is that we're certain of everything else in this book except evolution," said Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, who with Joseph S. Levine has authored three texts for high schoolers.

On Thursday, Miller -- along with fellow teachers and scientists -- cheered a federal judge's ruling that ordered the Cobb County school board to immediately remove the stickers and never again hand them out in any form.

"Obviously, this is quite a victory for good science education," said Benjamin Z. Freed, an anthropology professor at Atlanta's Emory University and chairman of Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education.

But some parents and religious conservatives decried the ruling as another in a string of what opponents call activist judges overruling the wishes of elected officials -- often on matters of religion.

"It's another example of how the bench is dictating to people what symbols they can display, if they can pray or not pray or if they can teach a particular subject," said Sadie Fields, head of the Georgia chapter of the Christian Coalition.

The Georgia case is one of several battles waged in recent years throughout the nation over what role evolution should play in science books.

The school district just north of Atlanta approved the stickers after more than 2,000 parents complained the textbooks presented evolution as fact, without mentioning rival ideas about the beginnings of life.

During four days of testimony in federal court last November, the school system defended the warning stickers as a show of tolerance, not religious activism as some parents claimed. Its attorneys argued the school board had made a good-faith effort to address questions that inevitably arise during the teaching of evolution.

The stickers read, "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

Scientists, several of whom testified in the case, say the sticker confuses the scientific term "theory" with the word's common usage and inappropriately combines science with personal religious belief.

"Many of us hold deeply personal religious ideals as well," Freed said. "But for a science teacher in a public school to introduce religion into a science class would fall way outside the ideals of any organization of scientists or science educators."

A group of parents and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the stickers in court, arguing they violate the Constitution's separation of church and state.

Jeffrey Selman, whose son was a second-grader in Cobb County schools at the time, called Thursday's ruling a "shot across the bow" of religious fundamentalists he says are attempting to introduce their beliefs in the classroom.

"I got what I wanted; I got the stickers removed," said Selman.

The school board issued a statement saying members are disappointed by the ruling and are meeting with lawyers to decide whether to appeal. The Cobb school system has 30 days to appeal.

Cell Carriers Have Us Over A Barrel For Directory Assistance Calls

An open letter to the California PUC:

I already knew that Verizon et al had us over a barrel charging $1.25 a minute for directory assistance. Today I found out that airtime ALSO applies to these calls. If the agent looking up the number takes 2 minutes (rare but possible) I get billed 2 minutes of airtime in addition to that inflated rate.

This is silly. On a landline I can dial 411 and be billed, I think 95¢, per min (still a big chunk but less) and not be charged for how long it takes.

I used to be able to dial a remote directory assistance number, like 1-540-555-1212, and let them handle the request for free. Now, no matter what I dial, Verizon gets the request. We should be allowed to dial around the cell carrier’s own, monopolistic directory assistance service; if not, we don't have a free market.

What's more, Verizon et al are charging me partly for the ability to look up INFORMATION like "Please find me a Chinese Restaurant at 4th and Vine". What if I JUST need a number? Also, their database (not provided by any of the RBOCs) often has wrong info; last month I spent many mins on the phone asking for the # for an Office Depot to see if they were open. By the time they swore there was none in downtown, I was walking thru the front door of that non-existent store. I later tried SBC 411 and they got it right away. That's not the first time Verizon 411 has had bad info and yet I paid a premium for it.

Thanks and Happy New Year

Noam Sane
Idealist.
================Addendum 1/14/06===================
The article at the following URL, a year after my post above, offers alternatives for cell phone directory assistance. Noam.

http://www.nydailynews.com/business/story/381147p-323648c.html

The TRUSTED COMPUTING Initiative: Losing Control of Your PC

Big Brother is 20 Years Late

Parts 1-5 of a 25 section article by By Ross Anderson of the UK, Date August 2003.  Original: http://www.againsttcpa.com/tcpa-faq-en.html

>
Trusted Computing' Frequently Asked Questions

- TC / TCG / LaGrande / NGSCB / Longhorn / Palladium / TCPA -

Version 1.1 (August 2003)

Ross Anderson

1. What is TC - this trusted computing' business?

 The Trusted Computing Group
(TCG) is an alliance of Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP and AMD which promotes a standard for a more secure' PC. Their definition of security' is controversial; machines built according to their specification will be more trustworthy from the point of view of software vendors and the content industry, but will be less trustworthy from the point of view of their owners. In effect, the TCG specification will transfer the ultimate control of your PC from you to whoever wrote the software it happens to be running. (Yes, even more so than at present.)

 The TCG project is known by a number of names. Trusted computing' was the original one, and is still used by IBM, while Microsoft calls it trustworthy computing' and the Free Software Foundation calls it treacherous computing'. Hereafter I'll just call it TC, which you can pronounce according to taste. Other names you may see include TCPA (TCG's name before it incorporated), Palladium (the old Microsoft name for the version due to ship in 2004) and NGSCB (the new Microsoft name). Intel has just started calling it safer computing'. Many observers believe that this confusion is deliberate - the promoters want to deflect attention from what TC actually does.

2. What does TC do, in ordinary English?

TC provides a computing platform on which you can't tamper with the application software, and where these applications can communicate securely with their authors and with each other. The original motivation was
digital rights management
(DRM): Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a TC platform, but which you won't be able to copy. The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing possibilities will open up.



 TC will also make it much harder for you to run unlicensed software. In the first version of TC, pirate software could be detected and deleted remotely. Since then, Microsoft has sometimes denied that it intended TC to do this, but at
WEIS 2003
a senior Microsoft manager refused to deny that fighting piracy was a goal: Helping people to run stolen software just isn't our aim in life', he said. The mechanisms now proposed are more subtle, though. TC will protect application software
registration mechanisms, so that unlicensed software will be locked out of the new ecology. Furthermore, TC apps will work better with other TC apps, so people will get less value from old non-TC apps (including pirate apps). Also, some TC apps may reject data from old apps whose serial numbers have been blacklisted. If Microsoft believes that your copy of Office is a pirate copy, and your local government moves to TC, then the documents you file with them may be unreadable. TC will also make it easier for people to rent software rather than buy it; and if you stop paying the rent, then not only does the software stop working but so may the files it created. So if you stop paying for upgrades to Media Player, you may lose access to all the songs you bought using it.



 For years, Bill Gates has dreamed of finding a way to
make the Chinese pay for software: TC looks like being the answer to his prayer.



 There are many other possibilities. Governments will be able to arrange things so that all Word documents created on civil servants' PCs are born classified' and can't be leaked electronically to journalists. Auction sites might insist that you use trusted proxy software for bidding, so that you can't bid tactically at the auction. Cheating at computer games could be made more difficult.

 There are some gotchas too. For example, TC can support remote censorship. In its simplest form, applications may be designed to delete pirated music under remote control. For example, if a protected song is extracted from a hacked TC platform and made available on the web as an MP3 file, then TC-compliant media player software may detect it using a watermark, report it, and be instructed remotely to delete it (as well as all other material that came through that platform). This business model, called traitor tracing, has been researched extensively by Microsoft (and others). In general, digital objects created using TC systems remain under the control of their creators, rather than under the control of the person who owns the machine on which they happen to be stored (as at present). So someone who writes a paper that a court decides is defamatory can be compelled to censor it - and the software company that wrote the word processor could be ordered to do the deletion if she refuses. Given such possibilities, we can expect TC to be used to suppress everything from pornography to writings that criticise political leaders.



 The gotcha for businesses is that your software suppliers can make it much harder for you to switch to their competitors' products. At a simple level, Word could encrypt all your documents using keys that only Microsoft products have access to; this would mean that you could only read them using Microsoft products, not with any competing word processor. Such blatant lock-in might be prohibited by the competition authorities, but there are subtler lock-in strategies that are much harder to regulate. (I'll explain some of them below.)



 3. So I won't be able to play MP3s on my computer any more?



 With existing MP3s, you may be all right for some time. Microsoft says that TC won't make anything suddenly stop working. But a recent software update for Windows Media Player has caused
controversy  by insisting that users agree to future anti-piracy measures, which may include measures that delete pirated content found on your computer. Also, some programs that give people more control over their PCs, such as
VMware
and
Total Recorder, are not going to work properly under TC. So you may have to use a different player - and if your player will play pirate MP3s, then it may not be authorised to play the new, protected, titles.



 It is up to an application to set the security policy for its files, using an online policy server. So Media Player will determine what sort of conditions get attached to protected titles. I expect Microsoft will do all sorts of deals with the content providers, who will experiment with all sorts of business models. You might get CDs that are a third of the price but which you can only play three times; if you pay the other two-thirds, you'd get full rights. You might be allowed to lend your copy of some digital music to a friend, but then your own backup copy won't be playable until your friend gives you the main copy back. More likely, you'll not be able to lend music at all. Creeping digital lockdown will make life inconvenient in many niggling ways; for example, regional coding might stop you watching the Polish version of a movie if your PC was bought outside Europe.



 This could all be done today - Microsoft would just have to download a patch into your player - but once TC makes it hard for people to tamper with the player software, and easy for Microsoft and the music industry to control what players will work at all with new releases, it will be harder for you to escape. Control of media player software is so important that the EU antitrust authorities are
proposing
to penalise Microsoft for its anticompetitive behaviour by compelling it to unbundle Media Player, or include competing players in Windows. TC will greatly increase the depth and scope of media control.



 4. How does TC work?



TC provides for a monitoring and reporting component to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of TC emphasised the role of a Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. The current version has five components - the Fritz chip, a curtained memory' feature in the CPU, a security kernel in the operating system (the Nexus' in Microsoft language), a security kernel in each TC application (the NCA' in Microsoft-speak) and a back-end infrastructure of online security servers maintained by hardware and software vendors to tie the whole thing together.

 The initial version of TC had Fritz supervising the boot process, so that the PC ended up in a predictable state, with known hardware and software. The current version has Fritz as a passive monitoring component that stores the hash of the machine state on start-up. This hash is computed using details of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc). If the machine ends up in the approved state, Fritz will make available to the operating system the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt TC applications and data. If it ends up in the wrong state, the hash will be wrong and Fritz won't release the right key. The machine may still be able to run non-TC apps and access non-TC data, but protected material will be unavailable.



 The operating system security kernel (the Nexus') bridges the gap between the Fritz chip and the application security components (the NCAs'). It checks that the hardware components are on the TCG approved list, that the software components have been signed, and that none of them has a serial number that has been revoked. If there are significant changes to the PC's configuration, the machine must go online to be re-certified: the operating system manages this. The result is a PC booted into a known state with an approved combination of hardware and software (whose licences have not expired). Finally, the Nexus works together with new curtained memory' features in the CPU to stop any TC app from reading or writing another TC app's data. These new features are called Lagrande Technology' (LT) for the Intel CPUs and TrustZone' for the ARM.



 Once the machine is in an approved state, with a TC app loaded and shielded from interference by any other software, Fritz will certify this to third parties. For example, he will do an authentication protocol with Disney to prove that his machine is a suitable recipient of Snow White'. This will mean certifying that the PC is currently running an authorised application program - MediaPlayer, DisneyPlayer, whatever - with its NCA properly loaded and shielded by curtained memory against debuggers or other tools that could be used to rip the content. The Disney server then sends encrypted data, with a key that Fritz will use to unseal it. Fritz makes the key available only to the authorised application and only so long as the environment remains trustworthy'. For this purpose, trustworthy' is defined by the security policy downloaded from a server under the control of the application owner. This means that Disney can decide to release its premium content only to a media player whose author agrees to enforce certain conditions. These might include restrictions on what hardware and software you use, or where in the world you're located. They can involve payment: Disney might insist, for example, that the application collect a dollar every time you view the movie. The application itself can be rented too. The possibilities seem to be limited only by the marketers' imagination.



 5. What else can TC be used for?



 TC can also be used to implement much stronger access controls on confidential documents. These are already available in a primitive form in
Windows Server 2003, under the name of Enterprise rights management' and people are experimenting with them.



 One selling point is
automatic document destruction. Following embarrassing email disclosures in the recent anti-trust case, Microsoft implemented a policy that all internal emails are destroyed after 6 months. TC will make this easily available to all corporates that use Microsoft platforms. (Think of how useful that would have been for Arthur Andersen during the Enron case.) It can also be used to ensure that company documents can only be read on company PCs, unless a suitably authorised person clears them for export. TC can also implement fancier controls: for example, if you send an email that causes embarrassment to your boss, he can broadcast a cancellation message that will cause it to be deleted wherever it's got to. You can also work across domains: for example, a company might specify that its legal correspondence only be seen by three named partners in its law firm and their secretaries. (A law firm might resist this because the other partners in the firm are jointly liable; there will be many interesting negotiations as people try to reduce traditional trust relationships to programmed rules.)

 TC is also aimed at payment systems. One of the Microsoft visions is that much of the functionality now built on top of bank cards may move into software once the applications can be made tamper-resistant. This leads to a future in which we pay for books that we read, and music we listen to, at the rate of so many pennies per page or per minute. The broadband industry is
pushing this vision; meanwhile some far-sighted people in the music industry are starting to get scared at the prospect of Microsoft charging a percentage on all their sales. Even if micropayments don't work out as a business model - and there are
some persuasive arguments
why they won't - there will be some sea-changes in online payment, with spillover effects for the user. If, in ten years' time, it's inconvenient to shop online with a credit card unless you use a TC platform, that will be tough on Mac and GNU/linux users.

 The appeal of TC to government systems people is based on ERM being used to implement mandatory access control' - making access control decisions independent of user wishes but based simply on their status. For example, an army might arrange that its soldiers can only create Word documents marked as Confidential' or above, and that only a TC PC with a certificate issued by its own security agency can read such a document. That way, soldiers can't send documents to the press (or email home, either). Such rigidity doesn't work very well in large complex organisations like governments, as the access controls get in the way of people doing their work, but governments say they want it, and so no doubt they will have to learn the hard way. (Mandatory access control can be more useful for smaller organisations with more focused missions: for example, a cocaine smuggling ring can arrange that the spreadsheet with this month's shipment details can be read only by five named PCs, and only until the end of the month. Then the keys used to encrypt it will expire, and the Fritz chips on those five machines will never make them available to anybody at all, ever again.

Can Dr. Laura Break It All Down?

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have
learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual
lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly
states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They
claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus
21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? I COULD use the extra cash.

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her
period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2
clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill
him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I
don't agree. Can you settle this? If I'm having dinner with a ghay person and someone eating oysters Rockefeller, who gets it first? And, if both are good followers of the Old Testament and its ancient Jewish laws, shouldn't they be shooting each other? Less work for me to do but just as much mess to clean up.

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my
vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? Can I squeak by with contacts?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair
around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me
unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different
crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two
different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Signed, Your devoted, mindless, disciple and adoring fan. (anon)
==============================================

From my friend Robert in Hillcrest, a considerably gay community. As per Lev 18:22, it looks like he’s going to have to kill or, at least, shun an awful lot of his customers, but bad business is a small price to pay for being an informed, verbatim, Bible interpreter. I do see a bit of a conundrum related to point 3) (not unlike the buttered-cat array some of you may have heard of): I work on The Sabbath but nobody knows it (I gamble online), so I should smite myself. Problem is that suicide is also a sin... Hmmm.

U.S. firms now need OK to publish authors from nations under sanction

By Scott Martelle

Times Staff Writer

Dec 7 2004

In the summer of 1956, Russian poet Boris Pasternak - a favorite of the

recently deceased Joseph Stalin - delivered his epic "Doctor Zhivago"

manuscript to a Soviet publishing house, hoping for a warm reception and

a fast track to readers who had shared Russia's torturous half-century

of revolution and war, oppression and terror.

Instead, Pasternak received one of the all-time classic rejection

letters: A 10,000-word missive that stopped just short of accusing him

of treason. It was left to foreign publishers to give his smuggled

manuscript life, offering the West a peek into the soul of the Cold War

enemy, winning Pasternak the 1958 Nobel in literature and providing

Hollywood with an epic film.

These days, Pasternak might not fare so well.

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal

Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American firms from

publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless

they first get U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the 1st

Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian

regimes cannot be published freely in the United States, a country that

prides itself as the international beacon of free expression.

"It strikes me as very odd," said Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law

professor at Pepperdine University and former constitutional legal

counsel to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "I think the

government has an uphill struggle to justify this constitutionally."

Several groups, led by the PEN American Center and including Arcade

Publishing, have filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York seeking

to overturn the regulations, which cover writers in Iran, Sudan, Cuba,

North Korea and, until recently, Iraq.

Violations carry severe reprisals - publishing houses can be fined $1

million and individual violators face up to 10 years in prison and a

$250,000 fine.

"Historically, the United States has served as a megaphone for

dissidents from other countries," said Ed Davis of New York, a lawyer

leading the PEN legal challenge. "Now we're not able to hear from

dissidents."

Yet more than dissident voices are affected.

The regulations already have led publishers to scrap plans for volumes

on Cuban architecture and birds, and publishers complain that the rules

threaten the intellectual breadth and independence of academic journals.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has joined the lawsuit,

arguing that the rules preclude American publishers from helping craft

her memoirs of surviving Iran's Islamic revolution and her efforts to

defend human rights in Iranian courts.

In a further wrinkle, even if publishers obtain a license for a book -

something they are loathe to do - they believe the regulations bar them

from advertising it, forcing readers to find the dissident works on

their own.

"It's absolutely against the 1st Amendment," fumed Arcade editor Richard

Seaver, who hopes to publish an anthology of Iranian short stories.

"We're not going to ask permission [to publish]. That reeks of

censorship. And 'censorship' is a word that gets my hackles up very

quickly."

Officials from the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees OFAC,

declined comment on the lawsuit, but spokeswoman Molly Millerwise

described the sanctions as "a very important part of our overall

national security."

"These are countries that pose serious threats to the United States, to

our economy and security and our well being around the globe,"

Millerwise said, adding that publishers can still bring dissident

writers to American readers as long as they first apply for a license.

"The licensing is a very important part of the sanctions policy because

it allows people to engage with these countries," Millerwise said.

"Anyone is free to apply to OFAC for a license."

Critics say they shouldn't have to.

"We have a long tradition of not accepting prior restraint," said Wendy

Strothman of Boston, who hopes to serve as Ebadi's literary agent should

the regulations be struck down. "The notion of getting a license seems

to me to be completely counter to the spirit of the 1st Amendment.. It's

really, for me, mostly about the notion of freedom of expression."

Strothman found the logic behind the restrictions perplexing.

"It strikes me as incredible irony that we worry about the value of our

intelligence system while cutting off the voices of people we should be

hearing from," she said. "We need to be hearing what people on the

street are thinking around the world."

The literature that might be lost to American readers is impossible to

measure, but in recent months the bestseller lists have been dominated

by Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran," a memoir she wrote in

exile. And Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, "Persepolis: The Story of a

Childhood," written and published after her family left Iran for France,

has found an international audience.

Tom Miller, author of "Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through

Castro's Cuba," said the regulations not only "nullify the 1st

Amendment" but would dampen the hopes of censored Cuban writers.

"It would be all the more depressing," said Miller, who travels to Cuba

several times a year under U.S. licenses for journalistic, academic or

cultural purposes. "There are two places Cubans get published outside of

Cuba - Spain and the States. To cut that short list in half is

devastating. In the U.S., it means less artistic and literary infusion

from overseas."

Curt Goering, deputy executive director for the Amnesty International

human rights monitoring group, criticized the regulations as "a

violation of some fundamental human rights."

Goering said international covenants recognize the right of people to

receive and distribute information regardless of political boundaries.

"It's yet another example of the hypocrisy of this administration on

human rights," Goering said, adding that while the U.S. defends its role

in Iraq as a defense of liberty at home it is "blocking" publication of

dissident voices.

Kmiec, who is not part of the legal challenge, said the 1st Amendment -

and subsequent court rulings - generally preclude the government from

restricting publications before they are made.

"It does allow for limitations where there are clear and present dangers

and compelling foreign policy or other interests that can be tangibly

and authentically demonstrated," Kmiec said. "But short of that special

application and very rare circumstance, government censorship is

properly off-limits. These efforts to restrain in advance are almost

sure to fail."

The dispute centers on a Treasury Department interpretation this year of

regulations rooted in the 1917 "Trading With the Enemy Act," which

allows the president to bar transactions with people or businesses in

nations during times of war or national emergency. A 1988 amendment by

Rep. Howard Berman (D-North Hollywood) relaxed the act to effectively

give publishers an exemption while maintaining restrictions on general

trade.

In April, OFAC regulators amended an earlier interpretation to advise

academic publishers that they can make minor changes to works already

published in sanctioned countries and reissue them.

But the regulators said editors cannot provide broader services

considered basic to publishing, such as commissioning works, making

"substantive" changes to texts, or adding illustrations.

The regulations seem shaded by Joseph Heller's classic novel "Catch-22."

American publishers are allowed to reissue, for example, Cuban communist

propaganda or officially approved books but not original works by

writers whom the Cuban government has stifled.

In a letter to Treasury officials this past spring, Berman described the

regulations as "patently absurd" and said they form a "narrow and

misguided interpretation of the law."

"It is in our national interest to support the dissemination of American

ideas and values, especially in nations with oppressive regimes," Berman

said. "At the same time, [the Berman amendment] is intended to ensure

the right of American citizens to have access to a wide range of

information and satisfy their curiosity about the world around them."

Had the current Treasury regulations been in place during the Cold War,

such dissidents as Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vaclav Havel

could not have been published unlicensed in the U.S.

But they were published. And while those writers faced severe reprisals

at home - including years of prison camps - knowing that the outside

world was listening helped keep their hopes alive.

"It was like a constant life support," said Serguei Oushakine, a

doctoral candidate in anthropology at New York's Columbia University and

a former Russian culture professor at Altai State Technical University

in Barnaul, Siberia.

Oushakine said the dissidents' Cold War-era writings in the samizdat -

the underground Russian self-publishing network - and the tamizdat -

works published abroad - infused the political culture of the 1970s and

1980s. Dissident voices helped inform eventual reformers such as Mikhail

Gorbachev, who "took some of the dissidents' ideas for granted."

"These publications provided an immediate influx of literature and ideas

when changes started happening," Oushakine said. "[They] formed a

certain pool of people who could act as moral authorities of some kind

in a situation when previous hierarchies collapsed."

Without them, he believes, perestroika would not have been possible and

the collapse of the former Soviet regime would have unfolded much

differently and much more slowly.

"If you take this long view, I think such a publishing was extremely

important and necessary for the Soviet Union," Oushakine said. "And I

think it could be useful for countries like Iran, Cuba or North Korea."

I'm So Disheartened

I'm afraid: will they pass a law that everyone has to go to church now? This election has lost us a lot of freedoms and rights. All the anti-gay marriage state constitutional amendment propositions passed. How hateful. Netherlands anyone?

No On CA Prop 66: California Deputy District Attorney

I’ve never written something about politics like this before.  I usually take a pessimistic view of such things, then assume that somehow American society will manage to muddle along anyway.  But this proposition demands an exception - it’s so damn important.

I sincerely, wholeheartedly, urge those of you who are California voters to vote “No” on Proposition 66.  It is a terrible bill, and while many people reasonably deplore the Three Strikes law, this “cure” is dreadful.  My reasons for this position follow.

(expires 11/3/04)

REASONS:

1. Read the expanded voter-pamphlet analysis against Prop 66.   It gives a pretty good explanation of how the law would work.

2.  Here are just a few scenarios from SOME of the crimes that would no longer be “serious or violent” felonies, justifying enhancement of the sentence either by 3-strikes or other rules now on the books:

-Residential burglary, if the resident is not at home.   The sentence range for this is 2, 4 or 6 years.  The burglar who hits your house is eligible for parole after a maximum of 3 years, because of “good-time/work-time” credits.  (See below.)  If he pleads guilty at an early stage, it’s likely to be a lot less than that.  What it he hits your neighbor’s house, too?  Legally, he can only be sentenced to 16 months for each additional residential burglary after the first one.  What if he’s a nice, cuddly, 1st-offense burglar?  They rarely get more than the low term of 2 years (eligible for parole after 1) and very often get probation.   What if he gets out and does it again?  Same thing again – a maximum of 2, 4 or 6 years divided by 2, with no extra time for repeating the offense.   In fact, this is one of the worst things about the proposition – it strips away increased sentencing for recidivists in any of these categories.

-Unarmed robbery.  Sentence 2, 3 or 5 years.  So if it turns out that the guy simulated a gun or used a fake one to take your wallet it’s not a serious or violent felony, and he won’t be locked up more than 2 1/2 years.

-Torching a commercial building, car, boat, or anything but an occupied dwelling, if the firebug doesn’t actually cause great bodily injury to anyone in the process.

-Gangsters extorting money, running dope rings, dealing arms or beating people up to proclaim their power.

-Unintentional infliction of great bodily injury. Now, this sounds sensible at first, but consider this scenario: drunk driver creams you and puts you in a wheelchair for life.  Not a serious or violent felony.  Nor is it if you get creamed by someone fleeing the police.  Repeat drunk drivers can keep hurting people without getting stiffer punishment for the repetition, so long as they don’t intend to put you in that wheelchair when they decide to blow through red lights at 120 mph.

And that’s just a tiny sampling of them, folks.   

3.  But doesn’t the bill include stiffer punishment for child molesters?  Not significantly. It raises the maximum basic sentence for certain crimes from 8 years to 12, but sex crimes punishment is already tremendously complicated, and this just makes it worse.  Beside, first-time molesters rarely get the maximum sentence anyway in the real world.


4.  A Worm’s-Eye View of 3-Strikes History:

For many decades, California has not put enough money into the criminal justice system to actually handle our criminal caseload the way that most people expect.  For reasons of economy, and to provide an incentive to prisoners to behave themselves while in prison, the Board of Prison Terms began giving inmates “good-time/work-time” credits against their sentences that grew and grew, until now a reasonably well-behaved prisoner doing time for anything but a serious or violent or 3-strikes felony serves no more than 1/2 of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.  Also, you should know that any time that he spends in jail waiting for trial gets counted towards his sentence, although he only gets 1/3 off for this period of time.

If that parolee keeps his nose clean for a year after release for any crime but murder, his parole is discharged at that point and he’s a free man.  Even if he violates parole, he can only be sent back for a maximum of one year for each violation.

Now, that’s AFTER he’s actually been convicted and sentenced in the courts.

Court dockets are crowded, too, so DA’s routinely offer the softest, most reduced sentences to those who will plead guilty early.  (Commonly known as “plea-bargaining”, a practice that has a very bad name with most folks outside the criminal law business, but the system would collapse without it.)  And if a judge believes either that: 1.  An accused deserves lighter punishment than is offered by the DA, or, 2.  S/he can move more cases off the docket  by undercutting the DA and promising an even lower deal, that judge can do so, regardless of the DA’s opposition.    Judicial undercutting happens A LOT, and corrupts the entire process.  That’s how you get situations like the Polly Klaas case – truly horrendous criminals kept getting out on short sentences, because that was how the system worked.   Plead guilty, and you can get a fraction of the sentence you’d get if you went to trial.  

OK, so there was a big uproar about the Polly Klaas case, and the 3-strikes law was born.  In my view it was a flawed solution to  the problem, but not as flawed as the news media makes it out to be.

There’s a lot of talk about petty thieves or minor dopers (with a long history of serious crimes) getting life terms, and it’s nearly always false, now.   In the early days of the 3-strikes law it happened, but a California Supreme Court decision about 8 years ago gave  judges  the power to dismiss the strikes if they feel that it’s appropriate to do so.   In my office, we routinely dismiss strikes if the new offense is minor.  Remember too  the incentive to judges for undercutting, to get one more case off their docket.
  
The media have repeatedly mischaracterized these cases because it’s so deliciously shocking to think that someone is going to prison for life for stealing a loaf of bread.  Wow, what a story!   It’s fiction.  

In over 20 years of practice, I’ve never seen a first-time dope possessor go to prison unless he repeatedly violated probation; and even the first-time sellers get probation unless they’re dealing kilos.    (And “dope” here means cocaine or heroin, not marijuana, speed, or pills, which carry far less punishment)    In fact with Prop 36 now, this is what happens to a first-offender arrested for possession for personal use:  1.  He gets deferred entry of judgment, which means that if he completes a drug program on the lines of traffic school, and doesn’t get arrested again for 18 months, the case is dismissed.  2.  If he screws up on DEJ too many times, he’s then eligible for Prop 36 – a slightly more rigorous program, which results in dismissal, again, if he satisfactorily completes it.  What if he screws up now on Prop 36?  He gets a stern talking-to, and gets put on probation again.  And again?  Another stern talking-to.  He can’t actually be jailed until his 3d violation of probation.   It’s exceedingly rare now that we ever see a dope-possessor go to prison, but it’s not because they’re all being rehabilitated, just that they keep getting put on probation over and over until the 3-year probationary period is up.

5.   The effect of the bill is to release thousands of felons from prison early, and keep them from staying there very long if they repeat their offenses.   Guess where they go?  Back into our neighborhoods.  Will they be rehabilitated?  Considering that recidivism statistics are usually about 80%, it’s unlikely.   There’s a lot of talk about the costs of keeping people incarcerated, but only rarely do you hear about the savings to society by preventing the crimes that prisoners would commit if they were free to commit them.  California’s crime rate is actually coming down, and many people believe that 3-strikes has something to do with that.

The economics of crime not committed is significant.  Perhaps there are diminishing returns in some cases, but let’s take the example of the drunk driver who injures people unintentionally – that can be millions of dollars per collision, not to mention the grief and suffering to victims whose lives are irrevocably changed.

In sum, Proposition 66 is a terrible law in counter-reaction to what many people believe is a bad law.  Please vote “NO”.

It's Not a FACT, it's a FAITH

The title says it all. I'll fight for your right to believe as you wish but DON'T forget that it's a faith based on information that not everyone accepts as "gospel". Your right to believe as you wish should be as precious to you as my right to be unsure because someone else, of similar sect, will come along and say that YOUR version of
   The Bible
   The Qu'ran
   The Pentateuch
   The Bhagavad-Gita
   Secular Humanism (there are already 2 major organizations, in a minor tug-of-war, with somewhat different approaches)
   Athiest Tracts
is the WRONG one and may force you to practise THEIR form.

Don't come knocking at MY door to tell me that if I don't believe your way I'm going to hell (or similar). That's insulting and shows you're not thinking for yourself.