Civilian Veto
Thanks, Eric!
Where'd Jan Perry Get Her Fat Ass?
L.A. City Council member Jan (the beefy one in the orange) Perry (Hefty! Hefty! Hefty! here in gray) is the self-appointed nanny behind the ban on fast food restaurants in South Central Los Angeles.
What, does she feel a wee bit guilty about zipping through the drive-thru on her way home? I mean, if fat asses on South Central residents come from fast food, that must be where she got hers.
And talk about disrespect: she's now telling South Central residents that they're such dimwitted losers that they can't figure out what to serve their kids for dinner. (And, as a commenter on the LA Times site pointed out, it's not like the fried chicken you get at Von's supermarket is lots healthier than the stuff at KFC.)
But, here's a thought: to what do we attribute the fat kids in Brentwood and Beverly Hills? Will we be closing down the Ivy and preventing Wolfgang Puck from opening any new establishments? Are French fries next? Will all that sizzles at Sizzler be blocks of tofu painted with grill marks?
Finally, what does this mean for residents, largely very poor? Well, I'm guessing that they'll have to spend more money driving across town to get to Mickey D's. And that they will lose the job opportunities they have and would've had at fast food restaurants in their neighborhood. Thank Jan Perry! (And, in the mean time, would somebody please explain the notion of the free market system to her?)
Molly Hennessy-Fiske and David Zahniser write for the LA Times:
A law that would bar fast-food restaurants from opening in South Los Angeles for at least a year sailed through the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday.The council approved the fast-food moratorium unanimously, despite complaints from representatives of McDonald's, Carl's Jr. and other companies, who said they were being unfairly targeted.
Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has pushed for a moratorium for six years, said the initiative would give the city time to craft measures to lure sit-down restaurants serving healthier food to a part of the city that desperately wants more of them.
Uh...this is Jan Perry's and the city's job why? I'm sorry...while I was napping, did somebody solve the crime problem, fix the schools and build a subway from the beach to downtown?
Moratoriums frequently last as long as two years at City Hall, to give planning officials enough time to craft new zoning rules. Perry said businesses can apply for a "hardship exemption" if they are intent on opening a fast-food restaurant.The councilwoman also said she expected city officials to come up with financial assistance for some restaurants.
"This will buy us time to aggressively market the district and show potential developers that we are not only open for business, but have some substantive incentives to make it worth their while to develop in South L.A.," she said.
Yeah, right. Let me be the first in line to throw my money down the shitter and open a restaurant serving cucumber sandwiches on little doilies, and offering wheatgrass juice with a side of carrots.
And let's get real, the problem isn't eating at fast food restaurants, it's what you eat at fast food restaurants -- or at any restaurant. Go to a Hollywood agency. I guarantee you there are fat people there, and I guarantee you they aren't taking the movie stars to lunch at The Home of the Whopper.
The real problem is our overreaching elected officials going into the fast food prevention business -- a business that's currently legal for anyone with the money who wants to start a restaurant.
What's next, arresting parents who buy their kids an ice cream cone?
And how many of you predict a Whole Foods going in on, say, Florence and Normandie?
Our Genius Plan For Immigration Enforcement
You won't believe this. We're telling illegals they should just...turn themselves in! Hernan Rozemberg writes for the San Antonio Express-News:
Scheduled to be unveiled next week, it was announced Sunday by Julie Myers, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in an interview with a Spanish-language television network.Myers told the network that "Operation Scheduled Departure" will allow illegal immigrants without criminal records a chance to literally "self-deport" by turning themselves in to her agents.
She said the idea derived from a common complaint voiced by immigrant detainees: If given the opportunity, they'd rather just go home than be holed up in immigration prisons.
Well, duh! They're saying this while in jail!
Under the new program, those still walking free will have the chance to walk into ICE offices, be processed and get a few weeks to arrange their affairs, pack their belongings and ship out of the country without being detained."The program basically gives an opportunity to those seeking an organized way to self-deport," Myers told Univisión anchor Jorge Ramos.
Myers said the program would allow immigrants to avoid the increasing risks of being picked up in a raid at home or at work, but would offer no additional incentives to turn themselves in -- no chance at qualifying for an amnesty, for example.
Look, I'm all for hiring the retarded and helping them lead productive lives, but can't we place people like Myers in a job at a bakery or something?
Bank Of America: The Arrogance And The Negligence
(The Sorrow And The Pity are all mine.)
The Sorrow: at how Bank of America's spectacular negligence led to over a month being sucked from my life, my peace of mind being taken from me, and how I will, perhaps for the rest of my life, be in jeopardy of arrest...all because they didn't do the most minimal amount of verification in the SEVEN times thieves used a fake driver's license in my name, with the wrong expiration date, to get thousands of dollars of my money from Bank of America's tellers.
The Pity: that I assumed that a major, major bank, the biggest bank in the USA, in fact, would have security measures in place that are a bit more sophisticated than...well, just hoping you are who you say you are before they hand over thousands of dollars of your money. My bad!
As most of you know, Bank of America is firing me as a customer of the end of July, (when they know I have a book due August 1); apparently because I complained too vociferously that they not only failed in their fiduciary duty to me, but because I complained equally vociferously that they have stonewalled me all the way in allowing me to get the video of the thieves and other information I need to protect myself.
My favorite reason they won't give me the video, and the only reason they've given me: "privacy" -- the privacy of...the thief!
Here's my most recent letter to Nereida Claudius of Bank of America, copied to ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com, the chairman, Kenneth D. Lewis, referencing these and other issues. Thought you might enjoy it:
Nereida,
See to it that I am not charged a fee for a cashiers check when I remove my money from Bank of America, per your firing me as a customer as of the end of July.Regarding your ridiculous e-mail suggesting employees and customers of the bank were supposedly in terror of me, I popped into my branch on Saturday, warmly greeted Jose, the manager, a really sweet and decent guy, and a big, strong guy at that, and told him what you suggested in your e-mail. As I was standing there, a skinny, bosomy redhead, in a beautiful dress and little heels and my big lovely hat, he laughed out loud at the idea that he was in any sort of fear, and said of course he wasn't afraid. (And come on, why else would this big, strong guy, who's protected by a security guard with a gun, open the locked door of the bank to talk to me?)
I find such suggestions by you to be "dirty pool," and I suggest you avoid them in the future. Your bank would do well, in light of its spectacular negligence in the way you dispensed my money without employing the most minimal safeguards, to bend over backward to be nice to me. And niceness, Ms. Claudius, doesn't mean politely stonewalling me for information I need to protect myself in the wake of your bank's negligence.
A question: What kind of investigation has your bank done to figure out why I was asked by OMITTED, who processed my IRA application WITHIN THE BRANCH, to give my driver's license number? I cannot call your fraud investigator, as you have prohibited him from talking to me -- yet another example of your bank keeping me from doing what I need to do to protect myself. I've read online on your own site that that is not your policy, to ask a longtime customer, making an IRA deposit IN a branch, for a driver's license number. Futhermore, your bank has the wrong expiration date on file for my driver's license, but, most hilariously, the employee I spoke to on the phone wouldn't give it to me for...security reasons! (Amy note added subsequent to posting this: The thieves also have the wrong expiry date. Could it be because the bank only has the old expiry date for me?)
Would that you took even the slightest precaution when dispensing my money to thieves! Instead, I am blocked from getting information about my own data your bank holds...and when I provided him with mother's maiden name and told him the date I put in my IRA, and read to him from the letter from Wendy Muir about how you at Bank of America COULDN'T MANAGE to get the IRA I deposited in my account on April 2 in by tax day....and then simply sent me a letter saying it would count for year 2008 instead...causing me even more aggravation than I already have, thanks to your bank, to get that cleaned up.
In fact, in every single occasion your employee OMITTED has done some business for me she has made errors -- like reopening my accounts and not linking them to my CD, causing the $20 service charge on my checking with *I* called to remove (you neatly said it was removed on the 24th...yes, because I wasted more of my time sweeping up in the wake of your bank's continuing negligence in serving me as a customer by calling your phone line in the middle of the evening). Additionally, when she said she couldn't put my IRA deposit into my existing accounts because they didn't mature when I was making my deposit, she took it upon herself to open a different kind of account, a money market account, for my IRA. While my experience with your bank's "security" has aged me, I'm sure, I'm still not 90 and needing money out of my account next week. I'm actually 44, and not planning on retiring for decades, thanks.
I need to know what kind of investigation your bank has done to know for sure that the data did not come out of your bank or my branch. I have investigated on my own, and seems the ONLY institution that has all the information the thieves had is your bank. The Franchise Tax Board, my auto insurer, and the DMV only have bits and pieces (no record of bank account number or SS# at the auto insurer, etc.)
I further DEMAND to know the extent of the investigation you've done within that branch and within your bank to see whether my information got out through you. And I demand this in a timely manner. I need to know today or by the end of the week.
Again, I have banked with you for almost 20 years (at some point, you took over my account from Security Pacific), and I have fulfilled all my obligations, and you have failed me most reprehensibly in having the most minimum protections -- while advertising your bank to be the epitome of security. This is a horrible lapse, and bad business.
Again, I will point out...in those seven times your tellers allowed my account to be violated by thieves, had they verified my signature even once, your security guards could've held the thieves for the police, and those fake driver's licenses in my name would likely be in a police evidence locker now (and the police would likely know how the thieves came upon my information -- and perhaps that's information your bank would rather not have come out??).
Chris Hoofnagle of Berkeley Law, one of the experts out there in identity theft, personally e-mailed me the other day to remind me that the thieves could commit crimes and I could be on the hook for them because the thieves are still out there with my driver's licenses.
To that I say: Thanks, Bank of America!
Death By Numbers
Don't get your hopes up about those "moderate Muslims." One third of British Muslims (and 60 percent of British Muslims who are active in Islamic societies) say it's okay to kill for Islam. From the Daily Mail:
Nearly one third of Muslim students believe it can be acceptable to kill in the name of religion, according to a survey published yesterday.It also found that 40 per cent want to see the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Britain, 40 per cent think it wrong for Muslim men and women to mix freely together, and 33 per cent want to see a worldwide Islamic government based on sharia law.
The findings were described by researchers at the Centre for Social Cohesion think tank, which commissioned the poll, as 'deeply alarming'.
But a prominent Muslim student group called the report 'weak and unrepresentative' and said it undermined 'positive work carried out by Islamic societies'.
The truth is, Britain, as the Brits have known it, will likely be over in my lifetime -- s soon as the Muslim immigrants, breeding like rats and often on the dole, to add insult to (death and) injury, become the majority, or enough of a majority. Goodbye Enlightenment, hello Sharia laws!
But, let's say you don't believe that will be the case. When 30 percent of Muslims in your society say it's okay to kill another segment of your population, your day-to-day lives change in a most ugly way. Riding the train, walking to work, going to a cafe or a public building...at what point will some religiously brainwashed nutcase, going for those 72 raisins (oh...I guess they tell them they're virgins) strap on a bomb vest and murder in the name of his primitive religion?
Of course, the women murdering in the name of Islam are even stupider, since they aren't even promised the raisins/virgins.
The Difference Between The Arabs And The Israelis
Notice that the cameras were given to the Palestinians by an Israeli organization, and that the Israeli official actually seems to care about human rights violations. Do you really think you get to live five minutes beyond shooting video of the horrible stuff that goes on in Arab countries?
Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You
How about if I make my business costs cheaper by making you pay some of them -- whether you like it or not?
That's what Ryan Kincer is in the business of, as a member of "The Executive Team" of a telephone surveying company called Datascension. Three times in a row last night, I got called by a bunch of jerks at Datascension, asking me to take some movie-watching survey. 
Now, I write odd hours, and steal naps in between. They're integral to my writing process. The last thing I need, especially when I have a book due and every moment counts, is to be awakened by some low-wage boiler room worker buying Ryan and his Executive Team Members bigger houses.
How would Ryan and friends like it, I wondered -- being interrupted by a person who doesn't know them and who has no personal interest in them whatsoever, save for, well, turning them into a blog item?
I scanned the exec list, did some phone number lookups. I wasn't quite sure which number belonged to the prez, so I went for the guy with the same last name. I found Chief Technical Officer Ryan Kincer's home phone number pronto in public records -- 951-736-3939 -- and gave him a call.
I informed Ryan that his company had hijacked my time and a phone line I pay for (and not for Datascension's benefit, believe it or not), and demanded to know why he thought it was okay to bother people at home so Datascension could make their marketing costs cheaper.
"We do not think it's okay to bother anybody," Ryan said, perhaps momentarily delusional about the business he's in. He then volunteered that they called me with an electronic dialer that generated a random sample of telephone numbers, apparently dialing until they hit a gooder. Just warms the cockles of your heart, doesn't it?
Why, Ryan, I asked, don't you do the polite, ethical and civilized thing, and write me a letter and ask whether I'd like to participate before you invade my home? Write me and ask whether I'm willing to donate my time and the use of my telephone equipment to a "Premier Data Solutions Company."
"People who hire us don't hire us to do that ... they just hire us to make these calls," Ryan explained -- as if that makes it all okay, treating my time and yours like it belongs to them.
So, Ryan...you're only as "ethical" as you're paid to be? Nice!
He bragged that Hollywood companies and other big companies use them -- as if that makes okay. Then he said they employ lots of people. Yeah? So do drug dealers with a booming business at the local elementary school.
And then, the best of all: Ryan claimed that "some people" want to be called by telemarketers. Yeah? Any of you feel that way? Even one of you? And let's see how well it worked out for this little old man.
I'm tired of people doing business by abuse, and I refuse to take it, if I can help it (in other words, if I can find the abuser's phone number without hiring a private detective). I suggest those of you who feel the same way follow my lead.
Felon Groovy?
Find out if the one you love has real convictions (the kind that require you to hand over your personal possessions, especially any sharp objects, to be put in a manila envelope).
For hours and hours of fun looking up friends, lovers and relatives, do some free lookups on criminalsearches.com.
For my own amusement, I looked up the woman Bank of America has put in charge of stonewalling me, uh, communicating with me. Just a traffic violation for her: "Red or stop, vehicles stop at limit line or X-walk," dismissed 11/19/2004.
It's The Fathers, Stupid
CNN published a piece with the title "Black and married: No, marriage isn't just for white people," probably in hopes of inflaming their way to some traffic. Camille Felton, a CNN copy editor, writes:
I'm an African-American woman who's married to an African-American man.Some people might consider me to be a rare find. I don't feel like an anomaly, but statistically, I am. According to U.S. Census records, I'm one of about 30% of black women who are married. My husband and I will be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary in August. We live in a suburb of Atlanta, with our two kids and a dog, in a house with a picket fence.
Just the other day we were having a discussion about relationships with a group of married and single friends. Someone asked us if we had any advice to give. I really don't. I don't think I have any special secret. I certainly can't tell anyone how or where to find a husband. We were kids when we met in church, and we started dating years later when I was in college. We may have a solid marriage because we're following the examples we grew up with, just as people say single parents are emulating the example of their single parents. My husband's parents have been married for more than 40 years. My parents are no longer together, but they didn't split until I was grown and had a family.
Here's the comment I left below Felton's piece. The more I think about it, the more I suspect it's the case:
The notion that marriage is just for whites is just a headline getter, and all the people remarking with ire at it are missing the point: Probably the reason for many of the problems in the black community is the lack of intact families and the lack of a father in the home. Fathers are very, very essential, despite what selfish "single-by-choice" mothers will tell you, whether they are 16-year-old black high school students or older, upper-class white women.
Disturbingly, there are now self-help books to tell women how to go about this:
Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom.
Bank Of America Bombshell: Is Your Money Safe?
I think I've uncovered a real bombshell about Bank of America and the reality of their "security."
For anyone new around here, here's the deal: In a single statement period, from May through June, Bank of America's tellers, on seven separate occasions, gave a total of $12,000 of my money to thieves -- thieves with a fake driver's license in my name, and with the wrong expiration date.
Shockingly, the level of security they employed seemed on par with that of an eight-year-old with a lemonade stand: B of A's tellers didn't verify that it was my signature. No PIN was required. Just the good old fake ID, and Bank of America's tellers handed over my money like lettuce. SEVEN times. Which, to me, suggests this failure to verify isn't teller negligence but procedure. POINT ONE.
I found out about the fraud as I was a few hours from my deadline when Debbie, the associate manager at the Dixon City, California Bank of America that last gave out my money, called me at home to ask if, perchance, I'd been a victim of fraud on my B of A account. I looked at my account, and about went into shock. At their branch alone, they'd given out $1,500 the Friday before (this was already Tuesday -- maybe it took them that long to figure it out).
I just couldn't believe it. I peppered her with questions. What did the thief look like? "African-American woman, heavy, with no teeth...teeth missing in front," Debbie told me. Wait. Missing teeth? MISSING TEETH? (i.e., suggesting, say, "CRACK WHORE" instead of "woman with thousands of dollars in the bank"). And still, they don't verify my sig, demand a PIN? I asked her if they got on the computer -- maybe asked the woman security questions -- you know, grandma's homeroom and all that?
Debbie told me something about how they tried to look on the computer for information about me and my account, and couldn't access any. As I wrote in my affidavit: "So...instead of making a 37-cent long distance call, they just handed over my money? To a lady with no front teeth. UNACCEPTABLE!" But, let's go back to that bit about the computer. This big, supposedly high-tech bank couldn't access my info on the computer? Let's call that POINT TWO.
Part of the travesty here is that Bank of America spends probably into the millions and millions of dollars to convince their customers that their accounts are very secure of B of A -- using both ad campaigns and the likes of B of A spokeslady Betty Riess, who brags to the media about Bank of America's...gag..."multiple layers of security." Right. And those would be what...asking the thieves whether they'd like my money in $10s, $20s or $100s?
Meanwhile, there are at least two women out there with a fake license in my name, leaving me open to being arrested for a crime I didn't commit, and potentially causing me numerous other serious problems. Had B of A done the most minimum due diligence to verify identity of people they gave $1000 or more on SEVEN SEPARATE OCCASIONS, in places I have never been and probably never will go, it's very likely these women would be in custody and those licenses in my name would be in a police evidence locker now.
And not only did B of A make me a victim through their absolutely spectacular negligence, they keep me a victim by refusing to give me the tape of the perps so I can track them down and have them prosecuted -- as I did twice in the past: when my pink 1960 Rambler got stolen by George Gomez, and when Leo Laine did a hit-and-run on my Honda Insight in the Whole Foods parking garage. (Many thanks to Whole Foods for giving me the tape so I could go after the fucker.)
And here's where these Bank of America creeps were really big morons (well, in addition to firing me as a customer, after nearly 20 years, as of the end of July; apparently because I complained a bit too vociferously about how they failed their fiduciary duty to me). Get this: Had they given me the tape and data about the thieves, I would have been off like a police dog on the trail of a steak cookoff. By stonewalling me and treating like a bug they need to squash, they've kept my attention on them. Baaaad idea! Really bad idea!
Meanwhile, in early July, a Los Angeles friend was across the country, in the midwest, and needed to put his paycheck in his account. He went to a Bank of America, formerly LaSalle Bank (a chain acquired by B of A in October of 2007), in the town where he was working. Although they were officially B of A, they told him his paycheck would take a while to clear back in California because -- POINT THREE -- this Bank of America wouldn't be online with Bank of America's computer's until October (2008).
Hmmm. Odd. I was reminded of Debbie in Dixon and their not being able to access my account on the computer, and a suspicion starting taking shape in my head.
Why would it be that SEVEN TIMES, Bank of America's tellers would neglect to do the most rudimentary checking on the computer; say, pull up my signature and compare it with those presenting ID and asking for thousands of dollars in cash, and see if they even REMOTELY matched?
I mean, isn't that stunning? Not doing this once, twice...you could see putting that off to a laziness or poor teller training or just a random error. But, again, SEVEN times, in seven different locations in Texas and the middle of California, they just handed over my money to women with fake driver's licenses...and with the wrong expiration date?
I began to wonder...is it possible they didn't check on the computer because...maybe they couldn't check?
I decided to test Bank of America's security myself. Naturally, there was a disguise involved. I would put on a black wig, go down to Los Angeles' MacArthur Park, where you can get a fake driver's license for maybe $100 bucks, and get one in my own name, but sign really funny and put on the wrong expiration date...just like my fraudsters. Next, I would go to Bank of America and try to withdraw my own money and see if they'd give it to me. 
Problem: It's illegal to use fake ID in California, even if it's in your own name, and even if you're taking your own money. Sigh. A lawyer told me I'd have to get a waiver from Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley to be a "confidential informant" -- to investigate the bank. I decided to do that, and then I got the letter from B of A firing me as a customer. It was all I could do to find a new bank to move my money to, and make that happen - and when I have my book due for McGraw-Hill August 1 (it'll be a month late thanks to what I've gone through with these creeps at B of A).
So, it seemed I was kind of up a creek about doing any sort of test on their security. Meanwhile, I'd been blogging regularly about my B of A saga, and had gathered a few skeptics, among them "Jenn." Her friend, one of my blog commenters, left this -- we'll call it POINT FOUR - more verification negligence -- on my blog:
I've been sharing this story with my friend Jenn who banks with BofA, much like vlad she blamed the victim (Amy) and claimed her money was safe.We decided to test the system. Jenn* gave me her account number and her drivers license. We look nothing alike. I've got about five inches and forty pound on Jenn; my hair is brown while she's a blond bomb shell with a nose out of this world.
Like Amy, Jenn only makes infrequent ATM withdrawals for minimal amounts ($100 - $200). Wednesday I was in another town for business and walked into a local BofA to see if I could withdraw money from Jenn's account, I told them "my" account number asked for $500 and handed them her license. A few taps latter I was told the available balance was $398 because it looked like my mortgage with country wide had just gone through and would I like to take the $398? I took $300 signed and walked out.
Needless to say, Jenn is closing her account as I type and moving to a local credit union. Here's the best part, as I'm standing waiting for the money my phone rings, I answer "This is Carrie*" the bitch on the other side didn't even blink.
Granted I had a valid drivers license and account number but neither of those things belonged to me and I DON'T MATCH THE PICTURE AT ALL!!!! I was in a town the account owners wouldn't go to and I broke the ATM pattern as well as the typical amount. Further, I now know that they had mortgage, who they have it with and when the payments (and amount) is due.
Wow. I needed to see if this would happen again. My friend was in the midwest still, so I asked him to do something for me -- go to a teller window at Bank of America and try to withdraw money, and see if they verified his identity any more than they did that of my thieves or "Jenn's". Here are the directions I e-mailed him:
1. Use a withdrawal slip from the bank lobby and write your account number in.
2. Use only your driver's license to withdraw money. If they ask, and ONLY if they ask, you left your bank card in California.
3. Sign TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY from the way you usually sign. Mucho importante, as Marlon would say.
Well, he did this, and called me right after he left the bank. What he told me was shocking -- beyond what I'd suspected would happen. Let's call it POINT FIVE -- even more shocking negligence from B of A:
Him: I walked in bank, filled out the withdrawal slip and I brought it over to a lady, and had my driver's license in my hand. I got up there and she goes, "Oh out of state. Oh we have a special form, another form." And she filled out something on the top, and then I filled in my name, my address as it appears on the license...city, date, zip, and then, telephone number. So, I put in kind of like a couple of lazy digits. She asked me one point on my account number -- she couldn't read the way I made a five -- but you couldn't tell what the last few digits were on my phone. I signed it with the backward slant which made my signature somewhat different.But this is the significant part: I never had to show my driver's license and I got the money.
I had it (the license) in my hand. She saw it. It was there. At one point I put it on the counter, and then I put it in my hand, fully expecting that she would ask me for my license. She dialed into the computer and it must've told her something.
Me: What, that your account had money in it?
Him: She just basically took my word for it, who I was.
This was stunning. Does Bank of America simply HOPE you are who you say you are when you take out money from their tellers?
Is it actually impossible for them to check who you are on the computers?
The fact that the teller in the midwest didn't even make a show of checking suggests that this is the case. A caveat: Suggests. I don't know this for sure.
But, the combination of my account being violated SEVEN TIMES, without the most rudimentary signature matching any of those times, and then the girls' little prank, and then my friend's test...well, I had reason to believe I was onto something.
And then, one of my blog readers pointed me to this guy, Chris Hooley. Bank of America gave away $40K of his money in just one day. (Patriot Act notifications [for $10k and above}, anyone?) And check this out from Hooley's blog:
I saw the debit slip online, and this guy's signature wasn't even a remote attempt to copy mine.
Okay, let's be fair: maybe they hired the blind. Maybe that particular teller was negligent. Or...could I really be right? I mean, how do you give out thousands of dollars without even verifying a signature?
Bank of America bought all these banks all over the damn place. My question to myself: Is it possible that it's so costly to link them by computer, in the way they'd need to to verify signatures and other information, that Bank of America decided it's cheaper to just...HOPE it's you...and pay you out your $12K or $40K when it isn't?
The problem is, it's not cheaper for you -- as I can't even tell you what a daily nightmare your life becomes when your identity is stolen. I am paying the price for Bank of America's negligence, and that's not right.
And as I said before, had they done the most minimum checking -- just of my signature, forget making the person have a bankcard and a PIN -- they would likely have caught the perps and those licenses in my name would be with the cops now.
Oh, and by the way, I know there are problems with other banks, but I checked with my sister who banks at Wells Fargo. She said she went to take out some money...from her branch...and left her bankcard at home, but had her license. They refused to give her the money. From her own branch, where they presumably know her. I've talked to a number of people about this -- from experts to lay people -- and I hear stories like that again and again.
I started asking around about bank computer systems. Here's the word from one of the guys I spoke to:
Each bank as it grows uses independent computer systems that they purchase and use for a long, long time. When bank acquisitions are made then the acquired banks' different systems would need to be scrapped and replaced or there would need to be an adaptation made to sort of band-aid it into the new system. Developing and implementing new systems is incredibly costly...
Meanwhile, had a problem - I'm being thrown out of the bank at the end of the month, and I had to figure this out fast, while I still had accounts there. Saturday morning, was running late on going off to get a seat at my writing cafe, but I called B of A's phone line, and got chatty -- my usual way of Hoovering information out of people.
I talked to a rather on-the-ball sounding girl who said her name was Stephanie Sager (and I can't be sure about the spelling, as I was trying to be casual-ish and not to make her suspicious). I told her how I felt I could trust B of A with my money, and then how shocked I was when they let this happen to me seven times, and I told her how even more shocked I was that they didn't verify that it was my sig, or request a PIN, just forked my money over to two ladies with fake ID with the wrong expiry date.
I then got chatty about my suspicions about the computers. Could it be possible that Bank of America just HOPES it's you? And Stephanie, bless her little heart, gave me what I needed. Stephanie said, on July 26, 2008, probably around 8:45 a.m. -- POINT SIX -- California's accounts and the national database:
"California accounts aren't in the database nationally."
Whoa.
I picked at her a little more and she further explained that B of A's banks don't all have access to the same database.
Double whoa.
Unless Stephanie was wrong about this, it sounds like I might be right in my suspicion -- that when you go out of your metro area or maybe your state, Bank of America simply hopes it's you...at least for California residents.
As for the rest of you B of A customers across the nation...that will require more investigation.
In the mean time, here's what I'm wondering: Is it possible that ANY Bank of America customer could be victimized as I was, and is it possible that the only reason they haven't been is that...nobody's tried?
By The Retarded, For The Retarded
RFK, Jr. and Brendan Demelle have a piece up on HuffPo called "Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report."
Hilariously, as Dan Mitchell points out in a letter to media blogger Jim Romenesko, referencing "the most idiotic of recent idiocies":
This could be a great service if the column actually "unearthed" anything - which would take some work and perhaps even actual reporting. But, incredibly, nearly every single item they post is based on, and actually links to, a mainstream media story. They cite stories by The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, and many other mainstream media outlets as proof that the mainstream media isn't covering those stories.It's beyond bizarre. These men are not merely doubting reality -- they are using reality itself to cast doubt on reality. Even more disturbing, their audience doesn't even seem to notice. The comments section is full of people lauding the writers' efforts to "unearth" these stories, with many of them decrying the "MSM's" ignoring them.
Or maybe it's not the whole audience doing this, but only the commenters whom the Huffington Post has decided are fit to comment. I wrote a short note in the comments section of the latest "Unearthed" column, pointing out that nearly every item in it relied on and linked to a mainstream media story. This comment - which contained no offensive or insulting language (I did say the column was "silly") - was apparently rejected by the Huffington Post's moderators.
Whoopsy! Deleted a guy with media mojo! Suggestion: Next time, have one of your Soviet-style moderators Google the guy before you try to have him erased.
Why Does The Government Get To Tell Us What We Can And Can't See On TV?
Beyond the simple reality that people have seen naked female breasts for millennia, and then, in France, they've had huge pictures of tits in the subway for decades, and neither has caused civilization to backtrack until we're all large amoeba...what business is it of the government what can and can't be aired on television?
From Ayn Rand Institute, a call to end censorship on the airwaves:
Irvine, CA--The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the infamous Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine."In fact," said Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, "the government should put an end to the non-objective 'indecency' laws that permit the FCC to dictate what Americans can say and hear on the airwaves.
"The Supreme Court has defined 'indecency' as speech that 'depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities and organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.' But which Americans count--and don't count--as part of the community? Why are they king? And how are broadcasters to divine their supposedly shared standards?
"As the history of the government's anti-indecency regime has shown, these questions are unanswerable. The only way for broadcasters to play it safe is to engage in self-censorship, cutting any material regulators might declare indecent.
"And once the government becomes the enforcer of 'community standards,' no speech is safe. How long until the courts start rubber-stamping the Bible Belt's efforts to suppress the theory of evolution on the grounds that it is offensive, corrupts young minds, and undermines community values?
"It's time for the government to stop telling Americans what we can say and hear on the airwaves, and to protect our Constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech."
Your TV has an on-off button. You don't like what's on, I suggest you use it. Also, things are different these days from in the early days of television when there were just three channels. At the moment, I can get over 300 on Dish Network alone. And now, there's free full-length TV programming on the Internet, Hulu.com (P.S. "Arrested Development" is in stock -- free of charge, for your viewing pleasure).
You wanna know what's really obscene? Paying a bunch of bureaucrats to be my language and nudity nanny.
But what about The Chil-l-l-dren?! Here's a suggestion: If you have children, parent them, which, among, other things, involves restricting their television viewing.
I wasn't allowed to watch television growing up, save for the "Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday nights. I was forced to do other things: read books, make up stories, ride my bike, catch crayfish in the stream in the park, and pretend that I could fly.
Of course, these days, a lot of kids are too busy watching TV to do any of those things. As for their parents...if you don't have time to raise your children properly, perhaps you should have left them in a little basket on the steps of the firehouse with a note: "Please give the twins a good home!"
Be Interesting. People Will Read You.
As far as I can see from my blog commenters -- probably skewing more male than female in general -- I am not lacking for blog traffic because I have a vagina.
Yet, there's a big long whiney-whine in The New York Times by Kara Jesella on how terribly hard female bloggers have it. It seems they are, sniffle, sniffle, dismissed by, well, everyone.
And it seems even the blog comments section is a male lion's den, where the poor ladies are chewed up into little pieces -- when they aren't simply ignored. Jesella writes:
"Women get dismissed in ways that men don't," said Megan McArdle, an associate editor at The Atlantic Monthly who writes a blog about economic issues. She added that women are taught not to be aggressive and analytical in the way that the political blogosphere demands, and are more likely to receive blog comments on how they look, rather than what they say.
Women are "taught" not to be aggressive? Well, then, perhaps they should work on becoming more aggressive rather than simply boohooing about it. And yes, women are judged by their looks. It's an evolutionary thing that's been going on for, oh, 1.8 million years or so, somewhat predating blogging.
As for McArdle, I read her stuff from time to time. Girl power? Female solidarity? Uh, no...actually, I find her thoughtful and interesting. I read Eugene Volokh's blog for the same reason.
Jesella continues:
A few months before last year's conference, Kathy Sierra, a technology blogger, received death threats from commenters on a variety of blogs. It prompted a flurry of discussion at BlogHer about whether women were the targets of particularly vituperative online attacks.
I got a death threat when I was appearing on my pal Glenn Sacks' radio show. It happens from time to time when you become a public figure, especially if you say anything at all controversial. If you can't deal with it psychologically, and/or you can't figure out the number to dial to report it to the FBI, here's what you can do: Make your blog password-protected and only give the log-in to your mother, your two best friends, and your spinster aunt.
The truth is, a lot of female bloggers write highly dull, highly personal blogs about the intersection of their personal lives with those of their cats. I can't read that shit...can you?
As for one of those poor, downtrodden female bloggers...that Huffington lady...let's all have a good cry for how hard she has it.
Terms Of Overendearment
Joseph Epstein writes in the Weekly Standard on how parents these days are living in a permanent kindergarden of their own making, and are enslaved to some very short masters -- the "Kindergarchy," also known as their children:
Newspapers stories are beginning to report that, on the job, these people, raised under the Kindergarchy, don't tolerate criticism well, and need lots of praise to buck them up and get them through the day. A friend of mine, who works for a financial consulting firm, tells me that the brightest of the young men and women going into financial work he meets are almost all interested in hedge funds--they want big scores, 20 or so million before they reach 30. They didn't have to wait long for their toys or attention or anything else as children, so why should they wait for the world's prizes as adults?The consequences of so many years of endlessly attentive childrearing in young people can also be witnessed in many among them who act as if certain that they are deserving of the interest of the rest of us; they come off as very knowing. Lots of their conversation turns out to be chiefly about themselves, and much of it feels as if it is formulated to impress some dean of admissions with how very extraordinary they are. Despite all the effort that has been put into shaping these kids, things, somehow, don't seem quite to have worked out. Who would have thought that so much love in the home would result in such far from lovable children? But then, come to think of it, apart from their parents, who would have thought otherwise?
Well, in the words of Vladimir Illych Lenin, who had no children, what is to be done? Not very much, I suspect. When such seismic shifts in the culture as that represented by the rise of Kindergarchy take hold, there isn't much anyone can do but wait for things to work themselves out. My own hope is that the absurdity of current arrangements will in time be felt, and people will gradually realize the foolishness of continuing to lavish so much painstaking attention on their children. When that time comes, children will be allowed to relax, no longer under threat of suffocation by love from their parents, and grow up more on their own. Only then will parents once again be able to live their own lives, free to concentrate on their work, life's adult pleasures, and those responsibilities that fall well outside the prison of the permanent kindergarten they have themselves erected and have been forced to live in as hostages.
Epstein echoes some of what I wrote in this Advice Goddess column, Look Before You Sleep:
The parental "no" has officially joined the ranks of chronically missing items like The Holy Grail, Atlantis, and Britney Spears' underpants.You're supposed to be your kids' mom, not their full-time birthday clown. This means meeting their needs, as opposed to falling prey to their ransom demands; i.e., "Send in the chopper and the cupcakes or I'll scream my lungs out until spring!" If you're keeling over from reading "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" 40 times, it's because you didn't say no 39 times. "No" is also the correct response when besieged with requests for a chunky peanut butter sandwich with all the chunkies removed. But, children can be such finicky eaters! Correction: American children can be such finicky eaters, because their parents tend to confuse parenting with working room service at a five-star hotel. In France, on the other hand, the kids' meal is whatever the parents are eating; brains, livers, kidneys and all. And while the kids can pick out bits they don't like, their choice is clear: eat or starve.
Saying no to your kids will not turn them into meth-smoking, liquor store-robbing carjackers. Actually, throwing up a few boundaries might even serve to prevent this -- and less dire but extremely annoying outcomes (just what society needs, another 35-year-old snot who was denied nothing during childhood). Kids need to feel loved and secure -- and that doesn't take hours of mommy-and-me Lego. In fact, psychologist Judith Rich Harris writes that "anthropological data suggest...there may be something a little unnatural about adults playing with children." Anthropologist David F. Lancy notes that, beyond Western society, one "rarely" sees it. Regarding this apparent lack of a parental instinct for parent-child play, Harris writes, "This implies that children do not require play with an adult in order to develop normally."
I know, I know, that's not what The Cult Of The Child tells you -- when its proponents aren't too busy checking Amazon to see whether anybody's published "The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Children." The reality is, your family is better served by a stay-at-home mother than a stay-at-home martyr. Take the advice of the late British pediatrician Donald Winnicott, and avoid trying to be the perfect mother -- micromanaging your little darlings' every move ("Harvard or bust!") -- and just be a "good enough mother." Your kids can entertain themselves -- and will, if you suggest they do. Likewise, forget going for the Good Housekeeping Seal and just resolve to keep the health department from sealing up your house. Your kitchen counters don't need to be operating-room sterile. Just see to it that nothing walks across your lasagna.
Chris Rock On Cultural Differences
Via wikiquote, he does the shorthand version of Bill Cosby and Juan Williams on what's wrong with the black community:
Chinese people got dissed, they formed their own shit. Chinese people get dissed, it's like, "Fuck you ... Chinatown!" Okay?Italian people got dissed, they formed their own shit. Italian people get dissed, it's like, "Fuck you ... Little Italy!" All right?
I don't care what country you go into: you will not find Little Africa anywhere. What, the ghetto? Little burnt-up Africa?
Then Again, There's Always The Silent Treatment
There's just something I find a little terrifying about this Culver City hair salon name, and the uber-glam fluorescent lighting doesn't help matters.
Don't Call Me, The Cops Won't Call You
Sorry, but what about me says it would be wise to fuck with me?
Yet, in addition to sleepless nights thanks to my ongoing battle with the creeps at Bank of America who gave my money to thieves with fake ID SEVEN times, I've been getting sporadic wake-up calls. Now, wake-up calls could be a helpful thing, if they came when I actually needed to wake up. Unfortunately, these were coming at around 2 or 3 a.m., often on my deadline days, and I'd bolt up in bed all scared, and then the adrenaline rush would keep me awake...meaning I'd finally go to sleep just in time to wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. Yeah, if it isn't Bank of America keeping me tossing and turning, it's some asshole perv.
One afternoon, the guy called when Gregg happened to be here. "I wanna eat your pussy," he said. "Here, talk to my boyfriend," I said, and then called across the room to Gregg, "Honey, this guy says he wants to eat my pussy," and handed Gregg the phone. Gregg, who is a big guy-guy from Detroit, said something, I can't remember what, exactly, but it was big guy-guy from Detroit-sounding, and the guy stopped calling for a while -- before he started my wake-up calls, the asshole.
Call in the middle of the afternoon, I'm annoyed. Fuck up my work, I'm pissed. I called the LAPD, made a police report, per the phone company's requirements, put a trap and trace on my phone for $5 a month and waited for the dumbshit to reach out and perv someone. Me, specifically.
Well, a couple Sundays ago, the idiot called. The phone shrilled, I bolted up in bed at 2:41 a.m., Sunday, July 6. I called the cops and the phone company, to give them the cops' fax number. Clever girl that I am, when they asked me for the fax number, I said, "Uh, actually, there are two," and gave them mine, too. Unfortunately, it seems they have a clever girl or two working at the phone company, too, and they only sent it to the detective.
So...yet again, I'm the victim, and this time, I'm not allowed to protect myself by knowing who the person is who's making harassing calls to me. Great. A detective friend of mine suggested I take a restraining order out on the guy, but I don't think I can do that on the proof of one call.
Anyway, about a week later, a detective in the precinct area where I live rang the guy who's number the call came from, and then called me. She gave me the guy's name, but wouldn't give me his address or phone (it took me about five seconds to pull up on Google). He's apparently two years younger than I am and lives...eeeeuw!...about a quarter mile from me. Creeeepeeee!
Get this: He tells the detective it wasn't him, and he thinks somebody had his phone (it was his cellphone the calls were made on). Right. At 2:41 a.m. on that Sunday...and in the wee hours in general...multiple times? Of course, I can't be sure it was the same person all those times since I only just now got the trap and trace...but 2:41 a.m. did kinda fit the pattern! The detective actually asks him to call back with that person's name. She waits and waits, about a week and surprise! He doesn't call! And that's that for the police. The detective then calls me back and says he's changed his number -- the cell phone number the calls were made on. And says, because of that, she says she's sure it's him. (Ya think?)
Unfortunately, there was no pic of the guy online, and they say I have to get a photograph of him via the DMV by hiring a private detective. Great. I called the numbers I found online in public records but, if I'm right about the numbers I called to hear the guy's voice, he has a privacy minder on his phone. (Isn't that rich!) The guy I'm pretty sure is his brother seems to have the same privacy minder. I tried finding out who he is by asking around at the local coffee place, without any luck, and I'll soon ask around at the local bar.
I'll also see if I can pull the guy's identity from the DMV -- they let you do that in cases of hit-and-run, etc. Maybe the detective was wrong about that.
Meanwhile, I'll be home writing my book and working to pull what must be a giant kick me sign off my back, and write, "Sorry, wrong address, undeliverable," and drop it into a mailbox.
Way To Go, Bank Of America!
Another ID theft victim, Chris Hooley, experiences the reality of Bank of America's "multiple layers of security."
It started after he lost his wallet -- odd, since the guy doesn't exactly sound like a flake (we spoke on the phone for quite some time Thursday night), and himself finds it improbable that he dropped it.
Hooley reports on his blog that he cancelled his debit card, and figured his bank card would be "useless."
Poor dear. At Bank of America? In my case, all the thieves needed was a fake driver's license in my name with the wrong expiration date. No PIN required. No signature matched. Nope. It seems the bank's "security" amounted to just HOPING it was me.
Well, lookie here...sound familiar? Hooley writes that the cops caught the per at Best Buy, and called him to let Hooley know the thief had his ID ("two forms of identification with (his) information on it"). Hooley writes:
At the time, I thought they got the sucker before he could do any real damage. But just to be safe, I checked with Bank of America. I was shocked to see my account was overdrawn by almost $300. Last I checked, I had almost 40k in there.A quick review turned up 5 suspicious transactions. Two were deposits, and three were withdrawals. All five transactions occurred *inside* five different Bank of America banking centers. What amazed me most is the final two transactions. A withdrawal of 26k. And later that day, another withdrawal of 12.5k. Way to spot suspicious activity Bank of America. They handed the guy almost 40k in cash in one day.
Further analysis showed the first two transactions where not just deposits. They were checks written to me, Christopher Hooley. The first one was $6200. The guy kept $5k and left $1200 in my account. The next one was a day later at a different center for $7500. Again, the guy kept $5k. I saw the debit slip online, and this guy's signature wasn't even a remote attempt to copy mine. To make matters worse, it turns out he was forging checks from another valley business, who subsequently called the police on ME!
After seeing his writing, all of the sudden it felt personal. That was MY name, written as sloppily as I had ever seen it.
Apparently, the SEVEN times B of A gave my money to thieves with only a fake driver's license in my name...no PIN required, no reciting the number of gramma's homeroom, no signature match...well, it's starting to seem quite possible that wasn't just a seven-time fluke, huh?
By the way, the transactions on this guy's account, over $10K, should've triggered Patriot Act protections. I wonder if they did, or how to find out whether they did. Anybody who has a little time on their hands might do a little Google lookie-see on that...and P.S. I can use all the help I can get on this B of A thing...anybody who's a B of A customer who wants to do a little (entirely legal!) research for me on this, please contact me via e-mail at adviceamy at a o l dot com.
Meanwhile, Bank of America continues to spend bazillions on advertising to lull me and other customers into believing our money is secure with them. And in my experience, it is -- providing nobody goes up to a teller window with a fake ID in your name and asks for large sums of your money.
Lemme tell you -- I've found out more than I'm revealing here. (Perhaps suspecting that is why they're firing me as a customer as of the end of July -- or perhaps it's just that, after almost 20 years following through on my obligations as a customer, they got a mite upset when I didn't just take my head pat and go away after my account was so easily violated...SEVEN separate times!)
Is it just me, or do they seem real confused as to who the victim is here, and who's guilty of SPECTACULAR negligence, vis a vis the perception of security they try to convey?
In Chris' words -- which is what I've found to be true as well, both in my own experience, and in the experience of three people who've run tests for me on the security there (and, P.S., the as-of-yet-untold story is especially shocking):
The moral of this story is, if you want to steal somebody's identity, you don't need to mess with all that online stuff. Just get somebody's info, make a fake license with your picture on it, and walk right into any Bank of America branch and just ask them to hand you the money in cash. It doesn't matter if you look like a doper, or even if you're on drugs at the time. Doesn't even matter if you know your victim's signature. All you need is their name, address, license number, and SSN and you can clean out any Bank of America account!
For anyone as disgusted about this as I am who wants to drop Bank of America a line, the chairman's e-mail address is:
ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com
Isn't it time we tell these companies they can't treat their customers with this level of apparent contempt? As for showing them this, too...again, behind the scenes, there's all sorts of stuff I'm working on that I'm not able to mention here right now.
Need Your Help With My Homework
Anybody know the comic who talks about how when you've got a wife or girlfriend, and you've got your eye on some new girl, that you should remember that the new girl is eventually going to have loads of annoying problems just like the old girl...she's just the new, exciting girl now?
Your assistance would be much appreciated.
Maybe It's The TSA That's Killing The Airlines
A 2002 Fox News column by InstaPundit Glenn Harlan Reynolds that still holds up today -- railing at the absurd ridiculousness of the TSA:
Call it the revenge of the tweezer people. The backlash against senseless -- and useless -- airport security rules is building up into something nasty.How nasty? Enough that some people are leading airport revolts against dumb security delays, while a popular Web site catering to frequent flyers is distributing "Impeach Norman Mineta" bumperstickers.
The anger that travelers feel toward airline security measures -- like the confiscation of G.I. Joe nailclippers and tweezers, or "random" searches that seem to target mostly white-haired old women or whoever's the first person in line -- is real. It could blossom into a political force.
...But Mineta's biggest risk probably doesn't come from the millions of irritated travelers who would like to take home his scalp. It comes from the millions of irritated travelers who have decided that they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more.
They're not going to take the plane, that is, because all the hassles involved in searching passengers for tweezers have not only made flying unpleasant -- they've increased delays.
That's changed people's calculations. Trips that were feasible when you could arrive at the airport a half-hour before your flight just aren't feasible if you have to be there two hours early. I know that I've passed up some trips that I would have taken in the old days, because I could have flown to another city, given a speech or had a meeting, and returned home the same night to sleep in my own bed. That's almost never possible any more.
Reynolds reposted the link to his piece in response to a CBS/Chicago story by Pam Zekman about a 71-year-old disabled man named Robert Perry who was stripped on his bottom half to his undershorts and left on display for other passengers by the TSA:
"He yelled at me to get the belt off. 'I told you to get the belt off.' So I took the belt off. He ran his hands down over and pulled the pants down, they went down around my ankle," Perry said.At that point, Perry was standing in his underwear in public view. He asked to see a supervisor. That made things worse.
"She was yelling 'I have power, I have power, I have power," Perry said. The power to stop him from flying to Florida with his wife that day to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
"It makes you feel like you have no rights," Perry said.
There's always the right to send the airlines into bankruptcy by staying home!
You ever get the idea that the government is the economy's worst enemy?
Bush-League Economics
George Bush had an answer, at a closed-door Republican fundraiser, for why our economy's in the shitter. Via Jack Cafferty on CNN, Bush's response:
"Wall Street got drunk - it's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off your TV cameras. It got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is: how long will it sober up."
LYT's Blogging Comic-Con
Nikki Finke has provided our man LYT (Luke Y. Thompson) with a room with a view of the massive geekfest in San Diego on her blog, Deadline Hollywood. Here's his preview post.
Clearly, if he isn't allowed to interview somebody he wants to talk to, he'll just intimidate the information out of them.
(The truth is, he's really quite sweet, but don't let it get around.)
Whistle Your Way To Jail
In yet another report of P.C. gone mad, a college in the UK is taking steps to protect construction workers from -- get this, college girls who whistle at them. It's like a piece from The Onion, only it's pathetic, not funny. Rupert Neate writes in The Telegraph:
A further education college is having to protect builders from wolf-whistling girls, in a reversal of traditional gender stereotypes.Officials at West Kent College in Tonbridge, Kent, sent an email to all pupils warning that the behaviour was "totally unacceptable", and saying any students caught harassing contractors would face disciplinary action.
...Meanwhile new laws could see wolf-whistling builders placed on the sex offenders register. The Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill will create a new offence of "communicating indecently", punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
The legislation is intended to punish sexual harassment by text, emails and letters, but ministers also aim to include sexually explicit comments to strangers. It is expected that the law would only apply to persistent offenders.
At the moment, workmen who repeatedly make obscene comments to passers-by can be convicted of a breach of the peace.
I mean, come on...is whistling, a form of junior-high hazing by adults, really that damaging? And if you're a guy and a woman whistles at you...are you upset? As commenter John Robinson wrote on the site:
Oh, I'm glad I live in America, where college girls are still free to make suggestive and inappropriate remarks to workmen (or, indeed, to any man).
My personal favorite line from a guy on the street, from when I lived in NYC, of course:
"Never seen a body like that on a white woman!"
Whoops...I think I might've even said "thank you" instead of flagging down a cop to have him arrested.
thanks, lujlp
Tender Is The Nightmare
I just posted my Advice Goddess column, and this particular letter's from a scolder. Here it is:
Women these days think they have the luxury of being picky about men, and you encourage them. You ran a letter from "Almost A Bride," the woman whose fiance has difficulty dealing with conflict. She said, "I'm in my late 40s, and don't want to end up alone. No man is perfect, right?" I have news for her: If she doesn't marry him, she probably will end up alone. I read about a study of women over 65 who'd been married: 25 percent were still married, 50 percent were divorced or separated, and 25 percent were widowed. The article also stated that 70 percent of girls in high school would work full time their entire lives. So much for the marrying the guy and being a full-time mommy dream! Face reality, ladies!--Realist
An excerpt from my answer:
Imagine shopping for dinner the way you suggest shopping for a husband: "Oh, look! A piece of rotting meat that's fallen on the grocery store floor! I'll take it!"
The rest is here, plus comments.
Bill Cosby Wakes Up Black America
Others, like NPR's Juan Williams, follow, in this City Journal piece by editor Myron Magnet, author of The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass
With a 50 percent high school dropout rate and a 70 percent illegitimacy rate, with African-Americans committing half the nation's murders though only 13 percent of the population, black America--especially the poorer part of it--is in trouble. "We cannot blame white people," Cosby asserted in his incendiary speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board school desegregation decision. "It's not what they're doing to us. It's what we're not doing." As Jesse Jackson used to say, Cosby recalls, "No one can save us from us but us."
As for Williams' thoughts on the sorry state of black America:
If black leaders really wanted to help the black poor, Williams argues, they'd combat the "cultural belief that being 'authentically black' does not allow for high quality intellectual engagement in school," as columnist Joseph H. Brown put it....If black leaders really wanted to help the black poor, they'd stop decrying "police brutality and the increasing number of black people in jail" and focus instead "on having black people take personal responsibility for the exorbitant amount of crime committed by black people against other black people" (which accounts for the exorbitant number of African-Americans in jail). But they don't. As Cosby pointed out to Williams, the NAACP has its headquarters in murder-ridden Baltimore, but "I've never once heard the NAACP say, 'Let's do something about this.' " Indeed, Williams notes, "they never marched or organized, or even criticized the criminals." Nor did they exhort poor black people to stop smoking crack.
But black crime devastates African-American communities. Residents live with "a sense of an enemy within. That enemy is a neighbor, a friend, possibly a child, any of whom is capable of robbing or assaulting them." In some cities, like Baltimore, drug dealers still terrorize entire neighborhoods, which resemble Sadr City. The thugs are as vicious as Sadr City militiamen, too. Williams tells of a Baltimore woman who testified against drug dealers operating outside her house in 2002. The next day, gangbangers firebombed her house, though she managed to put out the flames. Two weeks later, they firebombed her house again, this time kicking in the front door and dousing the staircase with gasoline, incinerating the woman, her husband, and their five kids. As she was dying, the woman fruitlessly screamed, "Help me get my children out!"
Even as old-style racism fades, Williams says, the black-crime epidemic is incubating a new racism. The crime "gives credence to the racist stereotype of black people, especially young black men, as a race of marauding, jobless thugs"--a stereotype that even Jesse Jackson shares. "There is nothing so painful to me at this stage of my life," Jackson said in 1993, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery and then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." This grim development makes it all the more urgent for black leaders to say that "the black criminal is no friend of black progress."
Lack of fathers is a big part of it -- one of the gifts of the welfare movement, making it easy to be a single black mother, and, in turn, removing the stigma. We literally paid for the ruin of black society, and the Reverend Wrights of the black community were right in line for their pieces of silver for the maintenance of the black victim-industrial complex. Thanks, but I'll sing along with Cosby, if you don't mind.
And please don't swallow the idea that poverty creates thuggerhood. Just look at the Asian community -- like the Koreans who emigrate to this country and work night and day running small grocery stores in New York City. And on a related note, here's a piece from the LA Times on why Asians do better in school than Latinos.
Sean Connery Accused Of Parenting!
UPI reports on an accusation by Connery's ex-wife in her autobio:
EDINBURGH, Scotland, July 20 (UPI) -- Scottish actor Sean Connery stopped giving his son money to force him to make his own way in life, the actor's former wife says.Diane Cilento alleged the former star of the James Bond movie series said several years ago he would no longer give his son Jason any money as part of his goal of teaching the young man how to earn a living on his own, The Sunday Times of London reported.
If you've ever known kids who knew they'd come into lots and lots of money, you probably know kids who grew up to be aimless and filled with anomie. It's not a nice thing parents do, giving kids everything.
via The Corner
The Little Bitty Titty Committee
Very funny friend of a friend, comedian Tig Notaro, the cop on Sarah Silverman, is performing tomorrow in L.A. at Largo, which has just moved. I can't go but maybe you can.
Tig Notaro & Friends (Janeane Garofalo, Eddie Pepitone, and more)
Largo at The Coronet Theater
Tuesday July 22, 9pm
366 N. La Cienega Blvd.
RSVP: 310.855.0350
Why Do Parents Think Their Needs Get To Come First?
An e-mail I got yesterday -- like far too many e-mail I get:
My life has suddenly become a soap opera and I'm bewildered about what to do about it. My best friend of many years recently declared his love for me and would want to marry me. Sure, I love him--he IS my best friend--but.... Then a guy I broke up with 15 years ago (he was jealous and controlling) found me via Google and once again, I was hit with a declaration of undying love. (Ours was not a sexual relationship, but it was passionate and fiery and I do miss that.) Add to the mix the case of mistaken identity on an email recycling list I am on and I have Guy # 3 calling me sexy and doing his darndest to get in my pants (I met him in person when he told me where he worked and his attention is flattering, if a bit shocking.)The kicker is that I am a 40 yr old mother of 4 who has been married for 15 years (albeit not altogether happily.) I don't know what I did to garner such devotion from three men I am not married to--and why the one I AM married to couldn't care less what I look like (I am a size 4 I fought hard to get back to after the children), spends all of his time at work (the world will come to a screeching halt if he's not there type) and who is not at all a friend to me during the day but demands his share of sex that I "owe" him because I am the wife.
I busy myself with the children, a parttime job and a volunteer job that gives me all the validation I need to feel like a worthy human being, but I want this from my husband. He refuses to see that there is any problem in our marriage (if it's not a problem to HIM, it isn't a problem) and will not go to counseling. I am wondering how much more of this I am expected to tolerate.
I never thought I'd be in a marriage where I was so devalued and lonely. It has crushed my spirit and the flattery from even strangers boosts my sagging self esteem so I don't discourage any of it. I'm sure I should....any ideas? I thought my husband would be my "soft place to fall" but he isn't interested in that. He thinks that because he is out saving the world (he's in the military), that that is how you show love to your wife and family. Sure, I am grateful to be free because of him, but it isn't really what I need...is it selfish to want something a bit more specific??
Here's the answer I dashed off:
is it selfish to want something a bit more specific??Yes, because you have children. If you didn't, I'd tell you to go experiment and have some fun, but you owe it to your kids to provide them with an intact family, and put effort into making that family and your marriage the best it can possibly be...and if it meant so much to you to have a passionate love affair -- as it does to me -- you shouldn't have had kids, and the obligations that ensue.
When they're grown up and in college, then you can consider divorcing your husband and going after something new. Now, you'll have to put effort into the marriage you have. See a marriage counselor if you have to, talk sweetly to your husband about how you can make your marriage better (go out for dinner or something -- don't do this in a moment of confrontation, tell him how much you love him and how you need to bring back what you had when you were dating), and think of going to one of John Gottman's marriage weekends. He's the best in the biz at knowing what keeps people married.
If your "spirit" continues to be crushed, find ways to prop it up. Sorry -- once you had sex without birth control, you lost the right to have your spirit come first.
I particularly loved this line: "I am wondering how much more of this I am expected to tolerate."
Hey, lady, the 9:15 bus should be coming through any minute. Just toss those four kids under and you'll be free to be on your way.
Will Bank Of America's Tellers Give Your Money To Just Anyone?
It seems, as in my experience, the answer to that is "Well, pretty much, yes."
In the wake of Bank of America's tellers, on SEVEN occasions, giving $12,000 total of my money to thieves armed with a fake driver's license in my name with the wrong expiration date, with no PIN number, no bank card, and no matching of my signature, a commenter here writes on this entry:
I've been sharing this story with my friend Jenn who banks with BofA, much like vlad she blamed the victim (Amy) and claimed her money was safe. We decided to test the system. Jenn* gave me her account number and her drivers license. We look nothing alike. I've got about five inches and forty pound on Jenn; my hair is brown while she's a blond bomb shell with a nose out of this world. Like Amy, Jenn only makes infrequent ATM withdrawals for minimal amounts ($100 - $200). Wednesday I was in another town for business and walked into a local BofA to see if I could withdraw money from Jenn's account, I told them "my" account number asked for $500 and handed them her license. A few taps latter I was told the available balance was $398 because it looked like my mortgage with country wide had just gone through and would I like to take the $398? I took $300 signed and walked out. Needless to say, Jenn is closing her account as I type and moving to a local credit union. Here's the best part, as I'm standing waiting for the money my phone rings, I answer "This is Carrie*" the bitch on the other side didn't even blink. Granted I had a valid drivers license and account number but neither of those things belonged to me and I DON'T MATCH THE PICTURE AT ALL!!!! I was in a town the account owners wouldn't go to and I broke the ATM pattern as well as the typical amount. Further, I now know that they had mortgage, who they have it with and when the payments (and amount) is due.Amy's case obviously isn't an isolated case and as frequent readers of this blog (I've seen both Vald and Snake comment before) you should know that Amy's not going to bend over and ask for more. Would you prefer she kept this information to herself? I personally am glad she's a bulldog and isn't going to let them get away with this shit. And no Amy, you're not boring me with this; I want to know what's happening! I find it disgusting that you would defend the bank and bait Amy (when she has better things to be doing) when, as Amy said, the bank is guilt of "flagrant negligence".
*names changed :)
Pamela Geller At Atlas Shrugs Claims Obama Birth Certificate A Forgery
What do you think? Here's an excerpt from Atlas reader techdude's analysis (pictures at the link) -- with a counterpoint from Strata-Sphere linked below:
During the course of my analysis several calls were made to various departments in the Hawaiian State Government in an attempt to better understand the process and procedures used to create, print, and distribute copies of the COLB form. While I was brushed off or hung up upon by almost all of the people I contacted I did manage to talk with a computer technician who was familiar with the computers and printers used by the Department of Health and the clerk's offices. He was unwilling to give any specific details but did provide enough information to work with. The COLB certificates are printed directly in the clerk's office at the time they are requested. The system uses a standard laser printer and the border is printed at the same time as the text and other images on top of preprinted security paper. He stated the border is a vector image and would appear crisp and defined. When asked if a COLB can be printed off center he said it was not possible and any misfeed would simply jam in the printer. When asked if he had seen the images on-line he replied that he had - and that there is "no way" they had printed something that looked like that which further backed up my conclusions. Now let's start to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The KOS image security border pattern does not match any known specimen from any known year. It does not match the pre-2006 nor does it match the post-2006 certificate patterns. The placement of the text in all of the pre-2006 and post-2006 certificates are almost identical pixel location matches while the image's text placement does not match any known specimen from any known year. The shape and kerning of the fonts used in the 2006 through 2008 certificates are identical while the shape and kerning of the fonts used in the image does not match any known specimen. The KOS image shows clear signs of tampering such as the mismatch in RGB and error levels, visible indications of the previous location of the erased security border, easily detectable patterns of repeating flaws around the new security border, EXIF data that says the image was last saved with Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh, and finally a technician from Hawaii who confirms it just looks wrong.There are two obvious scenarios used to create the image that can be ascertained from evidence. Either a real COLB was scanned into Photoshop and digitally edited or a real COLB was first scanned to obtain the graphic layout then blanked by soaking the document in solvent to remove the toner. After rescanning the blank page to a separate image the graphics from the previously obtained scan could then be easily applied to the blank scan after some editing and rebuilding. It would also explain why date stamp bleeds through the paper and the various bits of toner located around the image as well as the remnants of the previous location of a security border.
So as I have been saying repeatedly since I first compared the KOS images to the Decosta image using the same tests and measurements - the image is a horrible forgery.
More on techdude's analysis here. Further background and speculation here (although there's some wacky stuff about the age of the mother making a difference as far as citizenship goes).
COUNTERPOINT: Another blogger, The Strata-Sphere, cries bull, and says "The Obama 'Forged Birth Certificate' Myth Is Busted." Right? Wrong? Inconclusive? A commenter there -- combat18 -- actually an anti-Obama person, makes a good point:
I think you are all missing the issue. The documents you are debating are all recreations, not the original birth certificate. In 1961 birth certificates were completed by attending physicians, their staff, or the hospital, with the document filed with the appropriate State or county officials. A copy of an original birth certificate would appear different from that certifcate recreated from records in a new form. I don't know the State of Hawaii or Oahu County proceedures, but none of the documents presented were created in 1961. Back then, birth certificates were blank forms that were filled in with handwriting or a typewriter. Today, most birth certifcates are actually abstracts that are provided to those who request them and a seal affixed. I would suggest all seek out the original birth certificate. But, of course, if there is one, then this is all for naught.
And even Little Green Footballs feels this is a non-story.
Meanwhile, there are accusations that McCain's Panama Canal Zone birth rules him out as a candidate for prez.
I'm entirely underthrilled with McCain (see Matt Welch's book on the guy, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick
"I'm Lobotomized As Hell..."
No, not me. Of course, I'm as mad as hell, and yes, same old same old, at the way Bank of America's tellers, on seven occasions, gave my money to thieves with a fake driver's license in my name and the wrong expiration date...no PIN, no signature verified...and then how Bank of America fired me as a customer, as if I'm the wrong one, not the wronged one.
I'm also angry at the way you and I are expected to bail out all the wild mortgage, banking, and finance speculators. I live within my means, rent because I can't afford to own in Los Angeles, treat my credit card like a debit card, and I'm wildly frugal. For example, I needed glasses for night-driving, and rather than having the prescription filled the way most people do, by paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars at some eyeglass place locally, I invested $39.95, including postage, to get my prescription filled at eyeglassdirect.com. Okay, truth be told, I actually spent $48.95, but I wasn't counting the actual frames, since I bought them on the beach for $9 years ago, pulled them out of a drawer, snapped out the lenses and mailed them off -- and whoops, there's another $1.95 or so right there.
Yes, after all my wild frugality, I'm expected to pay for the greedy and/or stupid who bought McMansions way beyond their means and those who made it their business to encourage and enable them to do it through fraud and other nefarious means?
I'm wondering something else, and James Grant is wondering it too, in the WSJ: Where the hell is all the outrage? The subhead says it pretty well:
Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage. But today Wall Street's damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence, from a too-tolerant populace, argues James Grant
An excerpt from Grant's piece:
Late in the spring of 2007, American banks paid an average of 4.35% on three-month certificates of deposit. Then came the mortgage mess, and the Fed's crash program of interest-rate therapy. Today, a three-month CD yields just 2.65%, or little more than half the measured rate of inflation. It wasn't the nation's small savers who brought down Bear Stearns, or tried to fob off subprime mortgages as "triple-A." Yet it's the savers who took a pay cut -- and the savers who, today, in the heat of a presidential election year, are holding their tongues.Possibly, there aren't enough thrifty voters in the 50 states to constitute a respectable quorum. But what about the rest of us, the uncounted improvident? Have we, too, not suffered at the hands of what used to be called The Interests? Have the stewards of other people's money not made a hash of high finance? Did they not enrich themselves in boom times, only to pass the cup to us, the taxpayers, in the bust? Where is the people's wrath?
The American people are famously slow to anger, but they are outdoing themselves in long suffering today. In the wake of the "greatest failure of ratings and risk management ever," to quote the considered judgment of the mortgage-research department of UBS, Wall Street wears a political bullseye. Yet the politicians take no pot shots.
Barack Obama, the silver-tongued herald of change, forgettably told a crowd in Madison, Wis., some months back, that he will "listen to Main Street, not just to Wall Street." John McCain, the angrier of the two presumptive presidential contenders, has staked out a principled position against greed and obscene profits but has gone no further to call the errant bankers and brokers to account.
The most blistering attack on the ancient target of American populism was served up last October by the then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, William Poole. "We are going to take it out of the hides of Wall Street," muttered Mr. Poole into an open microphone, apparently much to his own chagrin.
If by "we," Mr. Poole meant his employer, he was off the mark, for the Fed has burnished Wall Street's hide more than skinned it. The shareholders of Bear Stearns were ruined, it's true, but Wall Street called the loss a bargain in view of the risks that an insolvent Bear would have presented to the derivatives-laced financial system. To facilitate the rescue of that system, the Fed has sacrificed the quality of its own balance sheet. In June 2007, Treasury securities constituted 92% of the Fed's earning assets. Nowadays, they amount to just 54%. In their place are, among other things, loans to the nation's banks and brokerage firms, the very institutions whose share prices have been in a tailspin. Such lending has risen from no part of the Fed's assets on the eve of the crisis to 22% today. Once upon a time, economists taught that a currency draws its strength from the balance sheet of the central bank that issues it. I expect that this doctrine, which went out with the gold standard, will have its day again.
Meanwhile, let's have more of this:
And let's call it what it is -- not FDIC insurance but FD You and Me Insurance -- because it's your hard-earned dollars and mine that are going to bail out IndyMac and all the rest.
But, hey, if we're going to be in the bailout business, where's mine? I bought KooKooRoo stock that really tanked a few years back. Do you think the government will give me my $800 back? If not, why not? Everybody else is getting their booboos fixed.
Jews And Christians Are Still "Apes And Swine"
Saudi Arabian textbooks haven't changed. Charles Lewis writes in The National Post:
Despite a promise to remove attacks on other faiths from the public school curriculum, Saudi Arabia's state-produced textbooks still refer to Jews and Christians as apes and swine, insist that Jews conspire to take over the world and on Judgment Day "the rocks or the trees" will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews, says the Washington-based Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.The textbooks, used by five million students in the kingdom every year, as well as in many Saudi-funded institutions outside the country, also attack homosexuals and Muslims who do not practice a fundamentalist form of Islam.
It's tragic that, in light of the oil crisis of the 70s, these car companies in Detroit simply threw ugly, poorly engineered econoboxes at us, and there was no real move to cut the leash to these reprehensible Saudis and the rest...those who'd still be a bunch of goatherds without plumbing, warring amongst themselves, but for our need for their black gold
Bugs Mohammed
Think Sesame Street with beheadings, Mr. Rogers with a bomb vest instead of a golf sweater, how to turn your Hot Wheels into a death car -- all the stuff you need to know to get to heaven, per the Quran's dictate to convert or kill the infidels:
Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war. 9:5
Not surprisingly, you'll find TV for Muslim children somewhat different from TV for children of parents with Enlightenment values. Via MEMRITV, check out the Hamas children's show, "The Pioneers of Tomorrow," which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 11, 2008, and in which they debate whether to chop off bunny's hand or his ear for stealing.
Here's the show.
Transcript here.
Who I Want To Be When I Grow Up
See photo. Or guess. Hint: There's a TEN in there somewhere.
Working For Eric Alterman Does Pay A Little Better
As I wrote before, you've gotta love it: The Nation, the magazine crying out for the poor and disenfranchised, apparently sees to it only the rich and enfranchised, who don't need a summer job making at least minimum wage, can get a leg up in journalism.
The blog item? "Eric Alterman has an intern."
I don't know whether he has one again this year, but last year he did. And according to what I read on The Nation's site at the time:
If this kid is a Nation intern, he makes $150 a week...for working 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., five days a week...which comes to...a little over $3.75 an hour.
What kind of person works for even less than an intern at The Nation? Check this out -- "Eco-Missionaries Subject Third World to Moonbattery":
Having decided that it would be hurtful to Gaia for the Third World to rise up out of poverty, condescending eco-missionaries have taken their moonbattery on the road to places like Haiti, where the picturesque peasants are expected to generate electricity in an Earth-friendly manner: by pedal-powered generator....The Haitians are pedaling 6 hours for $1.50. This comes to 25¢ per hour.
But, wait, there's more! As a commenter on Moonbattery.com points out -- right in line with Gary Taubes' point that exercise doesn't make you thin; it makes you hungry:
It takes around 600 calories per hour to do recumbent-bike style aerobic exerciseIt thus takes around 3,600 calories of energy (i.e. "food") to power that stupid light bulb.
If 3,600 cals of food costs more than $1.50 then the bicycle results in a net negative wage per hour.
I have a package of pasta here which cost $1.80 and has 1,600 cals worth of food in it. I will assume this is, roughly speaking, the cheapest source of calories available. That is around $4.00 for 3,600 calories.
So one could conclude that the Haitains have to PAY an extra net $2.50 to use the LED lights rather than getting the kerosene lamps.
I wonder if there'd be a good black market business opportunity in back-channeling the kerosene lamps to the Haitians, since it should be worth, say, $2.00 to them to not have to buy extra food to be able to pedal the bikes.
Genius.
For whatever money it took The Great White Hope in the photo to fly to Haiti to watch Joe Negro peddle that bike...couldn't they have just chipped in for a truckload of kerosene?
thanks, Martin!
Here's What Bank Of America Has Set Me Up For
In short, a need for bail money. My own. (More on that below.)
What am I guilty of? Well, only being dim enough to believe, in light of the bazillions of advertising and PR dollars Bank of America spends bragging about how secure their customers' money is, that they would require more than a single piece of fake ID and my account number before letting their tellers dispense thousands of my dollars to thieves.
Citing "privacy" -- meaning that they're protecting the thieves' privacy!...and knowing that the police rarely pursue cases like mine, and/or have very limited time and resources -- Bank of America has refused, over and over again, on the phone and in writing, to give me tape of the perps to whom their tellers gave $12,000 of my money on seven separate occasions.
(And yes, they're refusing despite my past track record in tracking down two criminals: my car thief and my hit-and-run driver, both of whom were subsequently prosecuted. And, this, despite the fact that I'm probably a wee bit more motivated than their investigators and the police to find the thieves.)
Shockingly, each of these seven times the thieves asked tellers for my money, no PIN was required. No bank card. Just a fake driver's license in my name with the wrong expiration date. SEVEN times. In places I never have been and probably never will go, and utterly, totally off-pattern for me in terms of both teller window withdrawals and the large individual sums (I take out $200 out of the ATM every now and then to use for the few cash purchases I make, like breakfast or lunch at a cafe, or lunch for my editorial assistant and me).
Had Bank of America done the most minimum due diligence to verify identification, the perps would likely be in custody now and the fake driver's licenses in my name would likely be in a police evidence locker. And I'd likely know where the information on those ID's came from.
Meanwhile, I've demanded to get the information about every person at the bank who electronically accessed my account because I want to know if that was the source of the data leak. You'd think Bank of America, with all they've let happen to me, would be bending over like limbo dancers to get me what I ask for -- the electronic account data, and the copies of my signature I've asked for as well, so I could see whether the thieves managed to forge some facsimile of mine. So far, no dice. Can you believe this?!
Oh, and did I mention that the perps went on to Target and K-Mart and Wal-Mart and Target again to apply for instant credit in my name, and tried to reopen my closed Macy's account? That's been a major time-suck, and will continue to be, despite my security freeze on my credit bureau accounts. (P.S. I recommend a credit bureau freeze for everyone.)
My life has been just hellish since this happened. I'm a slave to Bank of America's negligence, and pretty much every day, I spend hours trying to clean up after this. My book will be at least a month late because of the hell I've been put through, and am continuing to be put through.
What's next, I wonder? And then I hear stories like this. A woman I know told me of this other woman in New York who was pulled over and arrested -- not for a crime she'd committed, but for a murder committed by the woman who stole her identity. I found a story just like it on MSNBC, "The Dark Side Of Identity Theft," by Bob Sullivan:
March 9, 2003 - Malcolm Byrd was home with his two children on a Saturday night when a knock came at the door. Three Rock County, Wis., sheriff's officers were there with a warrant for Byrd's arrest. Cocaine possession, with intent to distribute, it said. Byrd tried to tell them that they had the wrong man, that it was a case of mistaken identity, that he was a victim of identity theft. But they wouldn't listen. Instead they put him in handcuffs and drove him away. Again.It was nothing new for Byrd, who has spent much of the past five years trying -- unsuccessfully -- to talk skeptical police officers out of arresting him. But this time, it was worse. Two days later, he was still in jail.
This is the worst-case scenario for identity theft victims. Losing your clean credit history is one thing; losing your freedom is another. And victims of America's fastest-growing crime are discovering they often have much more to worry about than the hundreds of hours of paperwork necessary to clean up the financial mess associated with ID theft. Sometimes, they have to worry about ending up in jail -- again and again.
"This is the ultimate humiliation, the ultimate nightmare if you ask me," said Jim Doyle, president of Internet Crimes Inc., and co-founder of the New York City Police Department's Computer Investigation and Technology Unit. "And it falls on the victim to clear up the criminal record."
Again, this is where Bank of America has wronged me, and wronged so many other customers -- first, in failing so spectacularly in their fiduciary duty to protect their customers' money, and second, doing so in the wake of their extensive efforts to assure their customers and potential customers that their money is safe with them.
And still, in addition to potentially being arrested, I wake up in the middle of the night worried about other ways I'm being victimized -- despite having frozen my credit in 2005. For example, there's this from this Bankrate.com piece on myths about credit freezes:
13. Credit freezes prevent identity theft.
They should block identity thieves from opening new accounts in your name and taking out loans, but if the lender, service provider, landlord or insurance company doesn't look at your credit report, then credit could get issued in your name, utility accounts could be opened, apartments could be issued and insurance policies could be obtained in your name.
I am screwed in so many ways; again, because Bank of America was so stunningly and so repeatedly negligent in verifying identification.
Meanwhile, while I meant to research other banks and get out of BofA as soon as I turned in my book to the publisher, BofA is firing me as a customer as of the end of July; apparently, for complaining a little too vociferously about their negligence, and their stonewalling me and preventing me from protecting myself in the wake of their negligence. More time-suck! Thanks, BofA!
Perhaps they're behaving this way because they know a little something -- something I read in a chapter on Bank of America in the book Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity
Corporate defense lawyers get paid handsomely by the hour to delay, distract, and ultimately destroy individual plaintiffs. They maintain an unwavering focus on the endgame: making an example of the upstart plaintiff to discourage other individuals from filing similar lawsuits.
Identity theft lawyers do not typically take these cases on contingency. The lawyer I'd want to use, Mari Frank, charges $500 an hour, and you'd better hope she gets them to settle. I actually spoke to her on the phone for almost an hour (although she didn't charge me; I think she just felt really sorry for me). She's fantastic, but I'm a middle-class newspaper columnist and author, and $500 an hour is just not in the budget.
Feel free to write Bank of America president Kenneth D. Lewis to tell him what you think of the way they do business:
ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com
For other victims of identity theft, Mari Frank has also written a terrific book -- complete with all the letters you need to send, for example, to stores and credit bureaus and scumbags at banks who seem more interested in protecting the bank than being accountable for failing, most spectacularly, to protect their customers.
Here's a link to her book: From Victim To Victor: A Step By Step Guide For Ending the Nightmare of Identity Theft, Second Edition with CD
Raspberry Beret
You Owe Money!
As do I. Guess who's paying for IndyMac? Yep, you got it. The fancy name for it is "the Deposit Insurance Fund" -- aka Joe and Jane Taxpayer:
Based on preliminary analysis, the estimated cost of the resolution to the Deposit Insurance Fund is between $4 and $8 billion. IndyMac Bank, F.S.B. is the fifth FDIC-insured failure of the year. The last FDIC-insured failure in California was the Southern Pacific Bank, Torrance, on February 7, 2003.
And then some people who were depositors are paying, too:
At the time of closing, IndyMac Bank, F.S.B. had about $1 billion of potentially uninsured deposits held by approximately 10,000 depositors. The FDIC will begin contacting customers with uninsured deposits to arrange an appointment with an FDIC claims agent on Monday. Customers can contact the FDIC for an appointment using the toll-free number above. The FDIC will pay uninsured depositors an advance dividend equal to 50 percent of the uninsured amount.
Well, they're paying a bit. We're picking up the rest. How charming.
And the payout has just begun, with other banks sure to follow.
Me? I rent because I can't afford to buy in the Los Angeles Market.
Yet, my money wasn't safe either, although my bank hasn't gone under -- it's just been incredibly negligent, and failed in its fiduciary duty to me in a most spectacular way.
For those of you who just dropped in in the Instalaunch, I'm being fired by my bank, Bank of America, as of the end of July; apparently because I complained a bit too vociferously after their tellers gave $12,000 of my money, on seven separate occasions, to thieves...not requiring a bankcard or a PIN...just a fake driver's license in my name with the wrong expiration date.
Bank of America continues to behave most reprehensibly to me, as if I'm the perp, not the victim. But, I've discovered what I think is a bombshell about the bank, and I'm looking for the right investigative reporter to give it to. (I don't have the banking expertise to write it, and I have a book due August 1, which I've actually lost about a month's work on, thanks to all I've had to go through in the wake of BofA not doing the most minimum due diligence to verify ID.)
Her Husband Had Sex With Her When She Was 10
CNN writes about this like it's some anomaly -- the 10-year-old girl in Yemen, married to a man three times her age, who, she says, routinely beat and raped her:
"I didn't want to sleep with him, but he forced me to. He hit me, insulted me."As she plays marbles with her brothers and sister, Nujood is a portrait of innocence, with a shy smile and a playful nature.
But what happened evokes anger and shame. Asked if what she went through was torture, she nods quietly.
... Nujood's parents, like so many others in Yemen, struck a social bargain when they decided to have their daughter wed. More than half of all Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, according to Oxfam International, a nonprofit group that fights global poverty and injustice.
Many times girls are forced to marry older men, including some who already have at least one wife, Oxfam said. According to tribal customs, the girls are no longer viewed as a financial or moral burden to their parents.
"There is always a fear that the girl will do something to dishonor the family: She will run away with a guy, she will have relations with a boy. So this is always the phobia that the families have," said Suha Bashren of Oxfam International.
...The Yemeni government is holding legal and religious workshops to try to deal with the issue of early marriage. But experts say marrying off a young daughter is generally still seen as the right thing to do.
"A lot of people in the public don't think that this is wrong or that what happened to her was abuse," Bashren said.
And for good reason. Here's the comment I left on CNN's site:
The Quran talks about how Muhammed married his wife Aisha when she was six and had sex with her when she was nine, and Muslims believe whatever Muhammed did is correct and right and to be emulated.It isn't just custom in Yemen that is the problem; it is Islam itself that is the root of the problem.
Moreover, if women, in Islam, weren't seen (as per Quran dictates) as little more than objects for men, with half the rights of a man, and all the charming rest, they might actually become full people with jobs, and maybe even careers...and thus not need to be sold off like an object to some dirty old fucker.
Let's All Brand Together
Pretty soon, all the surburban housewives will be getting pictures of their minivans tattooed on their hindquarters. Probably for at least a few of them, with the tedious popularity of tattoos, it will be the only empty "canvas" left on their bodies. Emily Hill writes for The Guardian about how tattoos have become the norm, and for the most "normal" of people:
Once upon a time tattoos were - as the French say - "for criminals and Germans". Now they are in Vogue - literally, starting on p152. "They walk among us, people. The tattooed," the article on "How tattoos stopped being taboo" begins. "Once you start looking, start taking note ... everyone's got a tattoo these days."...According to a 2006 poll, one in four American adults (a full 30 million of them) boast an inking. Soon enough your mother will get one - the highest rise in tat-demand is apparently among middle-aged women. When the housewives of Surrey first started pitching up at a new boutique in Selfridges, paying for the label of their favourite French wine to be reproduced on their skin, the Tattoo Club of Great Britain promised the "beginning of the end". That was five years ago and saying the tattoo is "socially acceptable" doesn't quite cover it - you've probably got more friends who have a tattooist than have a dentist.
Unlike a half-hour date with your molars, however, most tattoos don't seem to have a point. Whereas you can buy a three-volume encyclopaedia on Russian prisoner tattoos and there are whole indexes on the meaning of sailor designs, most people don't tend to get tattoos to help them survive life on a penal colony or express solidarity with their fellow seadogs, but for spurious and slightly nutty reasons - especially as many of the designs would look better on a pirate. Most of the Vogue article is filled with the author regretting all the tattoos she's had already, before rounding off the piece by promising to get a new and better one to cover "the inside of my forearm, from wrist to elbow". This after she's delved into the experience of singer Alice Temple, who has a skull across her entire back ("It was 15 hours of intense, horrifying pain. Across my spine. And kidneys. For 15 hours.") And that of artist Rachel Feinstein who now "regrets" her tattoo of "a vagina in her armpit with ants emerging out of it killing a dragonfly on her shoulder".
Knowing better than to get a tattoo takes accepting that you are sometimes, perhaps frequently, an idiot. It's bad enough when your idiocy can be pulled up on Google. Do you really need to turn one of your armpits into the secret sexual fantasy of the Orkin Man?
Or, in this girl's case, is it possible she was just trying to shock her mother?
Not Everybody Should Go To College
I was talking about this last night with a friend who substitute-taught school once in Oakland, California -- for four days, and then quit in disgust -- about how there should be more emphasis on vocational education for kids.
Here's a story in the Daily Mail about the super-rich who made their fortunes without going to college. Laura Clark writes:
They graduated from the University of Life and went on to accumulate massive wealth.An alternative Rich List published today shows that missing out on traditional prestige qualifications is no barrier to extraordinary success.
The list features entrepreneurs such as John Caudwell, John Frieda, Gordon Ramsay, Deborah Meaden of Dragons' Den fame, and Dame Vivienne Westwood, who all served time as apprentices or took vocational training.
As for my friend, on one of her four days, she was told that her only job was to see that she had the same number of students at the end of the day that she had at the beginning. At one point, this required getting one student to keep another student from escaping out the window.
Lovely.
Of course, while it's nice that these people above got wealthy without a college degree -- yes, somehow, they were able to make it without filling their brains with post-structuralism and all sorts of other hooha -- what's with the way we look down on people in workaday jobs?
I'm reminded of a passage from a book I'm reading, recommended by Crid, Theodore Dalrymple's In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
First is the assumption that there is something wrong, humiliating, even dishonorable about low-paid, unskilled labor (though by low-paid in the modern context, be it remembered, we do not mean starvation wages)....Second is the evident disdain for supermarket shelf-stacking as an activity. Does the author, I wonder, never shop in a supermarket? Would she prefer that supermarket shelves remain unstacked and all the goods piled in a great heap, for shoppers to clamber over as rubbish tips in the Third World are clambered over by the very poor, seeking what is valuable or desired among the dross?
Dalrymple is responding to an article in The Guardian by Madeleine Bunting -- specifically, to this passage:
So when a girl at 17 decides to go ahead and have a baby, there is no tragedy of lost opportunity other than the local checkout till waiting for her low-paid labour. Why is it that in Labour's crusade against teenage pregnancy, it can't recognise that some of these teen mums are making reasonable - even moral - decisions about what they value in life, and what they want to do with their lives? How did opting for baby and motherhood over shelf-stacking ever become a tragedy?
Dalrymple continues:
Snobbish disdain for such menial but productive activities could scarcely be more clearly implied than by the writer above; and it is precisely this disdain, rather than anything intrinsic in the task, that renders it humiliating.
Getting High On Advil
Cathy Seipp wrote in reason about ridiculous prohibitions by schools of asthma inhalers. This idiocy was repeated by an Arizona school that searched a female student for...get this...ibuprofen. From ABC News in Australia:
A divided US appeals court has ruled an Arizona school violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old student by conducting a strip search for ibuprofen.Suspecting that a student had violated a policy against prescription or over-the-counter drugs without permission, public school officials in Safford, Arizona, ordered a search of Savana Redding.
A school nurse had her remove her clothes, including her bra, and shake her underwear to see if Ms Redding was hiding anything.
The 2003 search, prompted by a tip from another girl, did not find ibuprofen, which is found in common medications like Advil and Motrin to treat pain like cramps and headaches.
...In a dissenting opinion, Justice Michael Daly Hawkins wrote: "We should resist using our independent judgment to determine what infractions are so harmful as to justify significantly intrusive searches."
"Seemingly innocuous items can, in the hands of creative adolescents, present serious threats.
"Admittedly, ibuprofen is one of the mildest drugs children could choose to abuse. But that does not mean it is never harmful."
Like debilitating cramps are good for you. Asshats.
via ifeminist
A Pilot Doesn't Need A Butter Knife To Bring Down A Plane
But, never mind using logic, it's the TSA we're talking about. Patrick Smith, Salon's "Ask the Pilot," details their incredible stupidity in refusing to let him through security, in full pilot regalia, right after he'd flown a flight, with the exact same knife they give out on the plane.
I mean, why would he steer the plane into a building or the ground when he can try really hard to stab himself to death with a knife that barely puts a dent in butter? Smith writes:
With that, she grabs the knife out of the bin and walks over to one of her colleagues, a portly fellow with a mustache seated at the end of the checkpoint in a folding chair. I follow her over."This guy wants to bring this through."
The man in the chair looks up lazily. "Is it serrated?" he asks.
She hands it to him. He looks at it quickly, then addresses me.
"No, this is no good. You can't take this."
"Why not?"
"It's serrated." He is talking about the little row of teeth along the edge. Truth be told, the knife in question, which I've had for years, is actually smaller and less sharp than the knives currently handed out by my airline to its first- and business-class customers. You'd be hard-pressed to cut a slice of toast with it.
"Oh, come on. It is not."
"What do you call these?" He runs his finger along the minuscule serrations.
"Those ... but ... they ... it ..."
"No serrated knives. You can't take this."
"But sir, how can it not be allowed when it's the same knife they give you on the plane!"
"Those are the rules."
"That's impossible. Can I please speak to a supervisor?"
"I am the supervisor."
There are those moments in life when time stands still and the air around you seems to solidify. You stand there in an amber of absurdity, waiting for the crowd to burst out laughing and the "Candid Camera" guy to appear from around the corner.
Except the supervisor is dead serious.
Realizing that I'm not getting my knife back, I try for the consolation prize, which is getting the man to admit, if nothing else, that the rule makes no sense. "Come on," I argue. "The purpose of confiscating knives is to keep people from bringing them onto planes, right? But every person on my flight was legally handed one of these knives with their meals. How can you ... I mean ... it just ... At least admit to me that it's a dumb rule."
"It's not a dumb rule."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't."
And so on, until he asks me to leave.
People keep talking about gas costs and luggage surcharges and the like bringing down the airline industry. From what I hear, the main thing keeping so many people from flying is how unbelievably stupid and filled with stupid indignities it is, from start to finish, and the TSA is perp number one in that division.
My favorite TSA moment -- not one I experienced, but it did happen at Detroit Metro: When a hijab-wearing TSA chick felt up an elderly nun in full nun regalia.
As for a review of our "security," let's turn to actual experts, the Israelis. Here's a quote from one from the WSJ:
"The United States does not have a security system, it has a system for bothering people," says Israeli security consultant Shlomo Dror.
Yeah, that's pretty much the size of it, any way you slice it with your dull and now probably trash-compacted airline meal knife.
A Douchebag And His Messages
Douchebag Phone Message - Watch more free videos
via holy taco
America The Humorless
I've been fired from papers a number of times for my humor, like for the column on a woman who gained 80 lbs. during her pregnancy and just didn't feel like losing it, and felt her husband should just deal. The firing offense? This line:
A man doesn't buy a sports car expecting it to morph into a cargo van.
Bruce Estes, managing editor of The Ithaca Journal, dumped my column after readers complained about this line:
Sex isn't special. Monkeys do it, and not because somebody bought them flowers or expensive jewelry.
Here are a few words on the New Yorker cover from editor David Remnick, and a few words more, from Paul Lewis in The Guardian:
The magazine's editor, David Remnick, believes the image "holds up a mirror" to the absurd and often malicious rumours that have stuck to his [Obama's] campaign. And he believes his readers are intelligent enough to get the joke.Rather depressingly, it has been suggested that people won't understand the point of cartoon, titled "The Politics of Fear", and that the cover should have included a caption.
A caption? What would it have said? 'The New Yorker would like to inform readers that the above depiction is supposed to be funny. We don't really think Obama is a terrorist and we like Michelle's hairstyle as it is. Just in case any of you should think us unpatriotic, we remind readers that the Stars and the Stripes should be kept away from fire at all times.'
British papers are much more fun to read than papers in the U.S. because they aren't such nannies about what's printed over there. Or such ninnies.
Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that editors over there aren't afraid to publish writing and art that would appeal to an audience with a reading and intelligence level above "deeply learning disabled."
Asshat At Work
You know those signs that say "Men At Work" or "Men Working"? Well, in the case of construction crews, that's usually the case, according to a piece by Tony Zizza on ifeminist. He writes:
Now, guess how many of the 6.3 million road construction workers in this country are women? Try 2.4 percent on for size.
Yet, this dipshit woman from Atlanta raised a stink to force the city to change the signs. More from Zizza's piece:
Cynthia Good, whose publication features professional women, believes subtle discrimination has gone on in the Atlanta Public Works because there are 50 "Men At Work" and "Men Working" signs the city has posted alongside work areas. She raised a stink with the city, especially with Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Gov. Sonny Purdue. She even vandalized city property by painting "wo" onto a "Men At Work" sign. Surely, the Atlanta police did not treat her like they would have if anyone else vandalized city property.
And now, according to a story by Eric Stirgus in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Public Works officials are replacing 50 "Men Working" with signs that say "Workers Ahead." It will cost $22 to cover over some of the old signs and $144 to buy new signs, said Public Works spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith said.Good, founding editor of Atlanta-based PINK Magazine, a publication that focuses on professional women, said she's not stopping with Atlanta.
"We're calling on the rest of the nation to follow suit and make a statement that we will not accept these subtle forms of discrimination," said Good, 48.
Zizza takes a far more sensible approach;
I think there are a plethora of issues women need to be concerned with that ought to take precedence over this asinine sign situation. What about doing something about the fact that there are too many prescriptions being written for Gardasil? What about doing something about the fact there are too many young women being labeled with a subjective mental disorder? What about doing something about the fact that too many young women have become genuinely mean, if not the next Deborah Lafave in our lovely public school system?We've got to get our priorities in line with reality. Our hyper-sensitivity is making a mockery out of real gender issues. Political correctness has turned our culture into a whiner-thon 24/7. Cynthia Good is apparently the latest contestant. Once the male road construction workers who make up 97.6 percent of that 6.3 million workforce see "Workers" only road signs throughout the country, I wonder if the remaining 2.4 percent female workforce and Cynthia Good will try figuring out why in 2008 there is still not so subtle bias against men in family court.
Of course, what Good really needs is a sign to let people know where she's working so they can steer clear. I suggest something along the lines of a big asterisk -- * -- to indicate a big rectum.
Too Submissive To Be French!
I just love this. As most of Europe bends over for Islam, all the while apologizing that they haven't bent over quite far enough, the French have told a citizenship-seeking Muslim woman to take herself and the giant pup tent covering her back from whence they came. For Reuters, Estelle Shirbon writes:
PARIS (Reuters) - France has denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes, a legal ruling showed on Friday.The case will reignite debate about how to reconcile freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the French constitution, and other fundamental rights, which many in France feel are being challenged by the way of life of some Muslims.
Le Monde newspaper said it was the first time a Muslim applicant had been rejected for reasons to do with personal religious practice.
"She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes," said a ruling by the Council of State handed down last month and sent to Reuters on Friday to confirm a report in Le Monde.
...She wears a black burqa that covers all her body except her eyes, which are visible through a narrow slit, and lives in "total submission" to her husband and male relatives, according to reports by social services. Le Monde said the woman is 32.
thanks, lujlp, and Alain Q.
I'll Have A Pastrami Therapistwich
Where do you get your therapist referrals? This lady advertises next to the vastly overpriced sandwiches on the menu at Jerry's/Marina Del Rey, where we went after the movies last night.
Big Boobed Bimbos For Justice
It's not that big boobs make you dumb; in fact, epidemiologist William Lassek and evolutionary psychologist Steve Gaulin have found evidence to the contrary -- that women who have "bimbo bodies" are smarter and have smarter children.
Unfortunately, a number of British women with big boobs -- those mentioned in the article below -- are pretty damn dim. They just don't understand why Marks & Spencer's bras for bigger boobs costs a little more money. (Uh...because they're, like, engineered like a Sherman Tank crossed with Fort Knox crossed with the Golden Gate Bridge?)
Lucy Ballinger writes for The Daily Mail that this bunch of apparently commie idiot ladies are actually...get this!...protesting...and demanding that Marks & Spencer charge the same amount for the much-more heavily constructed big boob bras that it does for the less-engineered littler boob ones:
...members of a new group on the social networking site Facebook called Busts 4 Justice have stopped buying full-priced bras from the store in protest.Its founder Beckie Williams, a 25-year-old children's writer from Brighton, said: 'It is like having a tax on bigger breasts. I hover on the brink of where the bras get more expensive so I noticed the difference in price.
'I started trying to cram myself into the smaller sizes and realised that it was ridiculous - M&S says it needs to charge more because of the construction of the bra, but different sizes of jeans must have to be constructed with different types of workmanship, I don't see how bras are any different.'
Most British women wear bras of a DD size or larger. M&S sells some designs in sizes ranging from a 30DD to 42J cup.
Earlier this week, M&S executives came under fire from shareholders who told the annual meeting that their fashion ranges were aimed at too young a clientele and offered too much cleavage for the chain's loyal older customers.
Many of them linked the plunging necklines to the store's fall in sales.
Or could it be the plunging IQ's of some of their customers?
Take it from one who knows. Bras By Boeing isn't far from the truth. Of course I should pay more, and do.
What's next, demanding that they charge the same for a Mercedes as they do for a Ford Focus?
Life In The Pentacostalgon
An atheist soldier and his suit against the Pentagon. Via CNN.
S Car Go
Simca, Paris.
Bailout Bonding
Who's for bailing out the lenders and the people who got the bad loans? Certainly not me. And, I'm guessing, not you, either. Do you know anybody who's in favor? Tim Cavanaugh in reason on who's behind a bailout:
In May, during consideration of a mortgage-rescue bill sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told the L.A. Times that his constituent mail was running "50 to 1: 'Don't bail these people out.' "Is McCarthy just another aloof Republican? For his sake I hope not: His district, Bakersfield, ranks eighth nationwide in the number of foreclosure filings per household, according to the foreclosure-tracking company RealtyTrac. Now this great country is not lacking in areas that have been designated "foreclosure epicenters." Yet even in Bakersfield, which may actually deserve that title, bailout supporters are as rare as hens' teeth. So who is for this thing?
That would be, first, the media, which have repeatedly expressed shock at the "surprising amount of opposition" to a mortgage rescue (The New York Times, in December), hoped that the housing crisis might "overcome bailout resistance in both parties and the public" (financial columnist Lou Barnes, in March), and puzzled over the "curious coalition opposed to a state rescue for mortgage borrowers" (Financial Times, in April). And second, the politicians: As of this writing, some version of the bailout plan appears likely to reach the president's desk and receive his signature.
The American majority, on this handout and others, appears to hold very different views. Unfortunately, that distributed sense of fiscal responsibility doesn't count for much against the concentrated strength of lobbyists, media buttinskis, and politicians who don't want to get fired for not looking busy. But hey, a guy can dream. I mean, it's not possible for democratically elected officials to go on thwarting the will of the people forever, is it?
Yeah, you can count me one of the "curious coalition opposed to a state rescue for mortgage borrowers." You?
Girls Just Wanna Have Guns
It's very educational, and especially hilarious because they're saying stuff you don't often hear from girls.
Which girl's your fave?
P.S. As seen in Jackie Brown, just a bit of it, in passing...
...with one of the great ad slogans of all time, spoken by Samuel L. Jackson: "AK-47...When you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherfucker in the room."
"When This Old World Starts Getting You Down..."
My kinda roof. Even on a gray day. Or, actually, especially on a gray day.
Taken in February, on the Métro, crossing the Seine from the Left Bank to the Right.
Bank Of America: Share The Hate
Commenter Ben L. from Minnesota is one of a number of people who've commented or e-mailed that they'd like to give Bank of America a piece of their mind about the way they've treated me -- firing me as a customer when I have a book due August 1; apparently for complaining a little too vigorously in the wake of their handing thieves a total of $12,000 of my money on seven separate occasions.
Meanwhile, their spokeslady, Betty Riess, brags to the press that they have "mutiple layers of security." In my experience, to give the Dixon City, California branch as an example, that meant their teller gave $1,500 of my money to a woman with missing teeth and a fake driver's license in my name with the wrong expiration date.
I've been waking up in the middle of the night worried since this happened. I woke up Friday morning at around 2:30 a.m., and finally got out of bed at around 3:30 a.m. after tossing and turning for an hour, and wrote the awful Nereida Claudius, VP, Executive Customer Relations, who is now the only person at Bank of America who will talk to me. All calls are routed to her. No one else will help me.
So, last week, for example, when I, e-mailed fraud investigator Robert Melofsky in Dallas to ask if my PIN had been used by the thief...something that's been giving me sleepless nights since then, he didn't write back, and didn't write back when I wrote him again on Monday, and finally wrote back to say Nereida Claudius was the only one who could deal with me.
I write Nereida Claudius, and hear nothing, and hear nothing, and, after finding the e-mail address of Kenneth D. Lewis, head of Bank of America, I even e-mail him. Nothing. Finally, Claudius e-mails me back claiming that she's been on jury duty!
Here, there's one person who will deal with me, and only one, in all of Bank of America, and I have to wait a week, and be up nights worried about whether these thieves have my PIN because she's allegedly out on jury duty. Disgusting. Reprehensible.
I think a number of you who comment here feel as I do -- that they've behaved unconscionably. To that end, Ben L. has written a letter, which maybe others of you would like to send as well. Kenneth D. Lewis' e-mail address, along with those of others high up in BofA, is below. A few in the know suggest e-mail is better than snail mail, in terms of having him read it.
Kenneth D. Lewis
Bank of America
100 North Tryon Street
Charlotte, NC 28255
ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com
Dear Mr. Lewis,
I am writing you today because I wanted to let you know that I am not currently a Bank of America customer, but more importantly, that I will go out of my way to make sure I am NEVER a Bank of America customer.
You see, it seems that on seven (7) different occasions, Bank of America tellers gave out $12,000 of Ms. Amy Alkon's money to an identity thief. I invite you to read all about Ms. Alkon's ordeal with your bank here:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/bank-of-america.html
As if the complete and utter failure of your bank's security measures were not bad enough to deter me as a customer, the way you have thus far handled Ms. Alkon's case really did you in. It is as if your bank is trying to work against her in cleaning up this mess, and it is completely unacceptable.
I hope you realize that Bank of America's actions in this matter will be costing you plenty in the form of lost business. I urge you to reconsider the way you handle security failures, and work WITH the victims of those failures, not against them.
Sincerely,
A former potential customer
Via Consumerist, one of my absolute favorite sites:
Here are 18 working Bank of America executive/employee email addresses. A Consumerist reader launched a EECB (executive email carpet bomb) that got his overdraft fees refunded; these were the ones that didn't bounce back, plus some more we found recently.ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com, colleen.haggerty@bankofamerica.com, britney.w.sheehan@bankofamerica.com, nicole.nastacie@bankofamerica.com, joe.price@bankofamerica.com, keith.banks@bankofamerica.com, michael.jones@bankofamerica.com, liam.e.mcgee@bankofamerica.com, brian.t.moynihan@bankofamerica.com, jeffrey.r.carney@bankofamerica.com, amy.brinkley@bankofamerica.com, steele.alphin@bankofamerica.com, liam.e.mcgee@bankofamerica.com, bradford.r.dinsmore@bankofamerica.com, michelle.shepherd@bankofamerica.com, diane.morais@bankofamerica.com, maryellen.baker@bankofamerica.com
My e-mail to Ken Lewis from July 8, 2008 (I've left out the e-mail to Claudius for space reasons):
Mr. Lewis, This (scroll down below) is an e-mail I sent this morning to Nereida Claudius of your bank.After banking with you for almost 20 years, and following through on all my obligations to you, you're firing me as a customer. Perhaps you know this -- since I faxed you a blog item I posted about how your bank failed, and most spectacularly, in its fiduciary duty to me.
Here's the link to a series of the blog items I've posted about what I've been going through with your bank. If you'd like to see the comments from me and my readers, click on the date links above each post for the original entry.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/bank-of-america.html
I was raised to admit my mistakes and correct them. I would've thought your bank would have taken my complaint seriously, and used it to make your customers' accounts safer. Instead, your employees have stonewalled me and treated me like I have done something wrong by asking them to help me protect myself from further damage, not to mention installing protections to keep other customers from going through what I have.
On July 2, 2008, I received a letter from Claudius telling me you were booting me as a customer at the end of July -- this, when Claudius knows I have a book due on August 1, and have already lost a great deal of time thanks to your bank's negligence. This sure seems to me like a revenge move on your bank's part -- pretty sick considering all I've been through thanks to your tellers' repeated failure (on seven occasions) to do the most minimum due diligence in allowing access to my money and account. Furthermore, from my investigation into where the data breach might have occurred, it seems quite possible that it happened within your bank and/or the branch I bank at.
You may reach me at 310-XXX-XXXX (in Los Angeles, on Pacific Time). I hope this isn't the way you think it's appropriate to do business. I await your call. -Amy Alkon
No call. Not surprised. And again, had they done the minimum due diligence to verify whether the thief was me the very first time, she might be in jail now and the fake license might be in a police evidence locker somewhere.
They treat me as if I'm the criminal here, not the victim of their extreme negligence, and it just shocks me to my core.
Sent to Ken Lewis July 9:
Subject: Amy Alkon - still need to know if thief has my PIN numberI can't get a return call from Nereida Claudius, and nobody else at your bank will talk to me and give me the information I need -- they just say she's dealing with anything that has to do with me...but she won't return my calls or e-mails.
After almost 20 years banking with your bank, I'm being treated like a criminal -- when the requests I'm making are an attempt to clean up after your extraordinary and repeated failures in following through in your fiduciary duty to me.
I demand to know whether the thieves had my PIN number by the end of the business day today, Wednesday, July 9, and furthermore, to be made aware of any other information the thieves have about me and my financial and personal history that might be putting me in further jeopardy. -Amy Alkon
Lo and behold, demanding something from these creeps worked. Although, I've got to laugh (and bitterly) at how they "consider this matter closed." How lovely for them! For me, the time-suck and upset continues. Tomorrow, after spending time I should be spending writing my book, which is due August 1, on researching what bank I will go to in the wake of their firing me as a customer as of the end of July, I will go open a new account. Yes, in time I need to spend writing, I will leave and go sit in a chair at a bank and deal with paperwork that I would certainly have dealt with when it was convenient for me, not for Bank of America to unceremoniously dump me as a customer.
Oh, and did I mention that my IRA for tax year 2007, which I put in the bank on April 2, thinking that it would be nice if I wasn't part of the rush at the end of the tax year, they screwed up, too? From the time from April 2 to tax day, the somehow couldn't manage to get that money in my account. Instead of fixing that, they sent me a letter saying my money didn't get in in time, and would be in there for tax year 2008. More time-suck on my part, and it's been corrected.
Here's Claudius' letter back in response to my demand to Lewis, it seems:
July 9, 2008 Dear Ms. Alkon, Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your most recent inquiries. I was on jury duty service and unfortunately unable to access my e-mail or telephone in order to place an out of office message. Ms. Alkon, on June 30, 2008 I forwarded you correspondence addressing your inquiries to date, and informing you of our determination to terminate our relationship. My letter stated that Bank of America considered this matter closed, a position which has not changed. However, in consideration of your additional concerns it is my pleasure to provide you with the following information:* I have obtained confirmation that your personal identification number (PIN) was not utilized when the fraudulent transactions were processed against your account.* The fax number that you may utilize to forward the correspondence from Kaiser is 206.585.9773.
In accordance with the assurances contained in my letter of June 30, once I receive a copy of the notification from Kaiser I will address the electronic payment request that was returned unpaid and refund any associated fees.
As stated previously, we consider this matter closed, aside from providing the letter to Kaiser. I will do this as soon as I receive the information from you. To the extent you may have additional questions, we request that any further communications be directed to me in writing. I am the person who has been assigned this matter and other associates will not be able to respond to you with any substantive information.
Sincerely,
Nereida Claudius
VP; Operations Team Lead
Executive Customer Relations
Office of the Chairman
Friday morning's e-mail to Nereida, sent at 3:35 a.m., after I'd been awake for an hour, worrying:
Nereida,
In case you think it's hyperbole that I can't sleep nights, thanks to the way your bank failed in your fiduciary duty to me, and allowed, for example, a woman with missing teeth and a fake driver's license with the wrong expiration date!! to withdraw $1,500 from my account from the Dixon City branch...along with all the other disgusting violations...check out the time-stamp of this e-mail, which should be shortly after 3:30 a.m.I've been up since 2:30 a.m., when I sat up, wondering, among other things, whether I should ask you for an Orange County address to send my certified letter to you, demanding documentation, per the Fair Credit law, rather than this ridiculous Tampa address you send your FedExes from.
So...as long as I'm up -- and, thank your bank's "security" procedures for that -- please do give me an Orange County address to send my certified letter to you at, since it's rather silly that it travel from me in Los Angeles to you in Orange County via Tampa, and take all that extra time.
-Amy Alkon, victim of Bank of America's laxness in it's fiduciary duty to me, after nearly 20 years of having every dime of my money in your bank
A friend with a news background who's a producer of a national show is going to call me this weekend to suggest who at the networks I should pitch this story to, and how. If you know of others who've been treated similarly by Bank of America, please send them my way.
Oh, and an interesting little detail that may explain how they just let thieves walk out, time and time again, with my money.
The associate manager in Dixon, when I asked her whether they checked my signature or other information on their computers, made a remark about how they couldn't access them. I thought that was odd...perhaps some one-time glitch. I mean, this is a major bank that's been swallowing up banks across the country for quite some time.
Well, Gregg was in Detroit the other day, and went to the BofA there, formerly LaSalle Bank (announced to become BofA in April 2007) to do some banking. He said they told him they aren't on Bank of America's computers and won't be until October.
My question: If I go into that branch in Detroit and want to access my money, from my account in California, do they tell me I can't have it...do they call the bank and ask to have my signature and other information faxed to them...or do they just cross their fingers, hope it's me, and hand over the cash?
Two Married Parents, Their One-Year-Old Daughter
They're married, to each other, and have a one-year-old kid. You'd think they'd be able to get that family plan health insurance all the other married parents with kids are able to avail themselves of. But, whoops, they're lesbians. So, even though they've been together 10 years, and were married (in Canada, since the nutters, mostly, are still preventing it here), they're getting screwed by Blue Cross. Gene Warner writes for the Buffalo News:
When a Buffalo lesbian couple was denied spousal health care benefits in February following their marriage in Canada two years ago, BlueCross BlueShield denied their human rights guaranteed under state law, a civil liberties group claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.The New York Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jeanne Kornowicz, a school psychologist in the Cheektowaga Central Schools, and her spouse, Joy Higgins. The couple married in Ontario in April 2006, and they have a 1-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Higgins.
..."All we want is for our family to be treated fairly," Kornowicz stated. "It's heartbreaking that we need to go to court so our family can find some security."
According to the lawsuit, Kornowicz asked the Cheektowaga Central Schools to provide health coverage for her spouse in February after learning about an NYCLU victory in a similar lawsuit against Monroe County.
The school district sought to grant Kornowicz's request, but BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York failed to provide the spousal coverage, according to the lawsuit.
When BlueCross did that, it violated two key principles in state law, the lawsuit argues. One principle is the state's "marriage recognition rule," recognizing valid samesex marriages performed in Massachusetts, Ontario and now California.
The other is the prohibition against sexual orientation discrimination found in the state's Human Rights Law.
"This is a case about an insurance company's refusal to treat a lesbian couple's marriage the same way that it treats all other marriages under the contract it holds with an employer school district," the lawsuit claims in its complaint.
Look, I'm sorry if you believe that The Imaginary Friend, through some man in a black frock who isn't allowed to have sex, is supposedly telling you homosexuality is wrong. There are important rights and protections, especially for parents, that come with marriage, and gays and lesbians need and deserve those rights and protections, same as straight people.
You should be able to do or prohibit whatever you want through your house of superstition, uh...worship...but granting of rights should be a secular deal, and not based on biblical blarney.
It's The Ending I Loved
Simply a great visual.
No, It's A Moron Hole
The guy should be irate at himself for being a county commissioner who is apparently completely clueless about stuff they teach you in fifth grade science. And then there's the judge who joined in. Check this out, from the Dallas Morning News City Hall Blog, from a discussion between county commissioners about traffic ticket collections:
Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."
That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.
Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.
Perhaps what Dallas taxpayers really need is Wite Out to take these two off the list of local public officials. Oh, and that's not a racist term, it's an office supply.
And perhaps what these two should be focusing their time on is education -- starting with their own remedial education, in summer school.
Nozzle Rage
See below for one reason I drive a hybrid Honda Insight -- the unofficial official car of OPEC haters.
I spent $228 on gas last year. You?
Their website is here.
Hey, Detroit, how about getting in a time machine, going back to the oil crisis 70s, and coming up with some alternative energies? Did we really need to be Saudi Arabia's bitch?
via Instapundit
Death Spawn
Muslim women in Pakistan show how little they and their children have to live for, thanks to the death cult they think of as their religion. Zeeshan Haider writes for Reuters that women at Pakistan's Red Mosque popped by to pledge their children as suicidal murderers:
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - About 2,000 Islamist women gathered at the radical Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital on Wednesday and vowed to raise their children for holy war, days after a suicide bomber killed 18 people after a similar rally.Chanting slogans of "jihad is our way", burqa-clad women, some with babies, listened to fiery speeches from the daughter of the mosque's jailed cleric on the eve of the anniversary of a commando raid on the complex in which more than 100 people died.
"Our mujahideen (fighters) laid down their lives for the enforcement of the Islamic system in Pakistan. We are left behind to carry forward their mission," the daughter of cleric Abdul Aziz told the tightly guarded rally in the mosque compound.
Look! A little barbarian.
It's Racist To Hate Spicy Food
England is just going totally down the tubes. Every week it's something else, reflecting their apparent shame at being English and Western, but dressed up as multi-culti concern.
Last week, it was appeasing Muslims who can't deal with dogs in Western society. My solution: go back to the primitive land you come from; the Brits' solution, make the dogs wear little booties when they search suspected Muslim terrorists' homes for bombs!
Just up the pike, there was the apology Scottish police were forced to make after they put out the cutest ad with a puppy on it -- because it supposedly showed insensitivity to Muslims. And what if it did? Again, if you have weird religious prohibitions against dogs (but see the link above for the reality on that), guess what: You shouldn't move to a culture where everybody, including the police, has a doggie.
Finally, this week in English shame and stupidity, they may brand toddlers racist if they turn up their little noses or say "yuk!" to spicy (i.e. foreign) cuisine. Rosa Prince writes for The Independent:
The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.
The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.
Yes, I confess: I'm a hater. Can't eat anything with the slightest spice in it. And, another point against me: I love dogs, although I now feel a bit of shame for dressing mine up. Please know that it's just because I'm really weird, and had bad Barbies as a child, not because I'm an appeaser.
(This little T-shirt was a present from my friend and lawyer Melissa, and comes from HipDoggie.com, which has a lot of cute clothes for micromutties, and none of them are tiny burkhas.)
Husband And Knife
I just posted the most unbelievable letter, and my reponse to it, in my Advice Goddess columns section. Here's the letter:
It took me two years to get a divorce from my husband, a jerk I was married to for only 13 months, after knowing him for just nine weeks. (I was 38 and increasingly desperate to get married and have a baby.) I basically gave up on "equitable distribution" because I ran out of steam, but he agreed in our divorce decree and in court, under oath, to give me $7,000 of his retirement monies. Two years and numerous legal letters later, he has yet to comply. Meanwhile, he just published his first novel and is doing readings at local bookstores. I'd like to show up at the last one, and when he's done, stand up and ask when he plans to pay me. So...out of curiosity, what would you do? Looking forward to a pithy response!--Plotting
An excerpt from my response:
"Equitable distribution" after 13 months and no kids? To me, it's a wave goodbye. But, he signed off on giving you that $7K, so he should pony up. And sure, try to get it, but factor in how much that's costing you, and maybe shift your focus to having a future of your own instead of destroying his. If you ever loved him, how do you behave this way? For real resolution, look to yourself: If he's such a bad guy, why did you marry him? What did you refuse to see? Hmmm, perhaps that the correct answer to "How do I love thee?" isn't "I'm 38 and increasingly desperate to get married and have a baby."
And for the record, I don't usually do this -- in fact, I've never done it -- but this horrible woman told me who her ex, the author, was in her e-mail, and I tracked down his e-mail address and wrote him, and asked him to call me immediately, which he did, as I had some important confidential information for him. He was most grateful that I told him, and put the bookstore on alert -- although the woman wrote me back after my first scathing response to her e-mail, and said she wasn't going to go through with it (disrupting his reading).
The entire entry is here, plus comments.
The Kids Come Last
Christie Brinkley says having "a big, happy family" is the most important thing to her -- except, of course, when getting revenge on her cheating husband comes first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.
Quick, Christie, throw those kids under the bus! Anything to get revenge. And then make yourself out to be a suffering saint. Here, from a Tom Leonard piece in the Telegraph/UK, the subhead:
The model Christie Brinkley has told a court how it was a "nightmare" to put on a brave face and throw a birthday party with 30 children after learning that her husband was having an affair with a teenager.
That's what you do if you're a parent, dear -- put on a brave face about adult dramas so you don't ruin your kid's birthday.
And come on, so he cheated on you. He didn't cheat on you and then send you and your entire family to Auschwitz. What could possibly justify putting your kids through a public divorce?
Ahh...always better to place the blame on someone other than oneself! More from the story:
Brinkley, once one of world's most famous models, married the architect in 1996, following a whirlwind courtship of about five months.
Asshole. You had a kid then, too (with Billy Joel) -- and thus, an obligation not to act like a hormone-addled 14-year-old idiot, marrying a guy you barely knew.
It's about time a judge saw Brinkley's behavior in having this proceeding opened up to the media for what it is: a form of child abuse.
Islam Itself Is Holding Muslims Back
Terrific essay via thereligionofpeace.com, Islam Caused Islamic World Decline, by Andrew Stunich. An excerpt that gets into the background something I often explain about Islam, that being a true Muslim, per the Quran, necessitates the conversion or killing of all "infidels." More on the necessary inflexibility and primitiveness of Islam throughout his piece, and how that holds Muslims back in myriad ways. But first, that excerpt:
Islam is a revealed religion with a distinct set of unchanging rules and guidelines to follow. It is not a religion that is supposed to "come from within" like some new age religion. It seems quite incongruous to claim that one believes that Muhammad was Allah's prophet and therefore profess to be a Muslim and then reject clear Islamic doctrine as established by Muhammad when the Qur'an demands that Muslims obey Muhammad and follow his "perfect" example. The religion is named Islam, meaning submission, because its founder, Muhammad, claimed that is the word Allah said to him in several alleged revelations. (Fn 1) Otherwise, the religion would surely have been known as Muhammadanism or something similar thereto.I applaud on moral grounds any Muslim that rejects the violent and hateful aspects of Islamic doctrine, but it seems that at a certain level of modification from the Islam Muhammad preached and practiced, one ceases to be a Muslim. We would all be better served if adherents to evolved or reformed versions of Islam would more accurately self-identify under some other designation.
Instead, we see Ahmadiyya Muslims, many Sufi Muslims, and Bahai Muslims all believing they are "Muslims" when they have deviated so far from the religion Muhammad preached and practiced that Muhammad would hardly consider them Muslims. Muhammad once ordered a mosque, whose members were practicing a heretical form of Islam, burned and his followers burned it to the ground with the heretical Muslims inside thereby establishing in Islamic doctrine that schisms were not only not to be tolerated, but should be violently suppressed. (Fn 2)
Sikhs should be praised for admitting that they are adherents of a new religion that combines aspects of Islam and Hinduism. Many Muslim sects should follow the Sikh's example as it would help alleviate much of the confusion that arises whenever Islam is analyzed and it would limit fundamentalist Islam's ability to hide its true nature.
Because so many Muslims do not practice fundamentalist Islam, the religion often masks its true nature very effectively. Any religion, no mater how clear its doctrines, varies in practice depending upon the nature of the culture where it is practiced. This principle is especially true for Islam. Islam is a syncretic religion that incorporates beliefs from other religions, particularly Arabian Paganism, Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Because it is already a syncretic religion, Islam has historically readily absorbed increased influence from the other religions previously practiced by new Muslim converts in specific regions. The most well known being the Islam practiced by many Shiite Muslims. Over time, Islam often shed the increased influence in some regions as the old religions in various locales faded from memory, but in some regions, such as Iran, the influence of the prior culture and religion leaves a permanent mark that can greatly alter Islam--not always for the better as exemplified by Iran's Islamic government.
Sometimes, however, the foregoing process does improve Islam with the unfortunate result that fundamentalist Islam, with the help of religiously sanctioned deception known as taquiya, often evades full blame for its extremely violent and hateful doctrines. As will be shown below, real or fundamentalist Islam started as an extremely aggressive, warrior religion and its beginnings set the stage for the Islamic world's eventual decline.
Bank Of America's Contempt For The Customer
Meant to post this tomorrow, and without my home phone number, which I've since removed. It's an e-mail I sent to Nereida.Claudius@bankofamerica.com, in the wake of their tellers giving out $12,000 of my money, in seven separate occasions, to at least two women with a fake driver's license in my name, and the wrong expiration date.
Apparently because I didn't just walk away with a head pat and a change of account, they've sent me a letter telling me they're firing me as a customer as of the end of August. This causes me even further hardship than they are already causing me daily, through failing to have even the most basic security measures in place.
My e-mail from this morning follows:
Subject: I need your fax number to send you the Kaiser letter
Please e-mail your fax number to me so I can send you the letter with the $25 charge from Kaiser. After all your bank has put me through, and now firing me as a customer because I complained (correctly) that you failed in your most basic fiduciary duty to me, I suggest you not suck up any more time of mine than you already have.
Furthermore, when you told me in the past that your investigators were "working with" the police, you probably didn't think I would check with the police to see whether that was the case. It wasn't. I called the detective in West LA in charge of whether anything even gets done with cases, and she told me nobody had even opened my case file and your investigators had not even called.
The only reason any cops are pursuing this is because I got advice on how to schmooze the detective in being interested in taking my case by pointing out that it was atypical, seemed solvable, and that I had done a great deal of legwork, and was willing to do a great deal more.
I am shocked that, instead of using my complaints as an impetus to institute protections for your customers, the bank instead treats me like a nuisance to be dispensed with. Did you notice me wailing and complaining BEFORE your bank let me be violated, seven times, when your tellers dispensed $12,000 of my money to women with a fake driver's license in my name and the wrong expiration date? I'm not a bad person or a bad customer. I'm a wronged person and wronged customer.
My book is due at McGraw-Hill August 1, and you know that, since I've mentioned this to you numerous times. For me to switch banks right now is a great hardship. I need to have my checking and savings maintained with you through September end so I won't have my Kaiser account with another black mark on it for the direct deposit not going through. (I had to reapply for that - another time suck.) I'm spending hours and hours a week cleaning up after your bank's failure to protect me. Pretty much every day, I spend an hour or more on this. My life doesn't belong to Bank of America, but I've become a hostage to your bank's unbelievable negligence.
And let me again point out, had your bank done the most minimum due diligence the first time a woman came in with only a fake driver's license in my name, and verified that she was not me (by having computer systems for this in place, as well as policy), it's likely that the woman would have been taken into custody, I would've been notified, and the fake driver's license in my name would be in a police evidence locker somewhere. Instead, it was used multiple times to apply for instant credit in my name in stores like Target and Wal-Mart. I now have to clear that from my credit reports, because each credit application brings down my credit score.
About your bank's computer systems, my boyfriend went to a Bank of America in Detroit today, and found that they aren't on your computers. The Dixon City manager also told me she couldn't access my information on the computer (signature, etc.). I'm guessing this isn't something your customers know, that Bank of America in Detroit probably can't look to verify my signature in the computer. Is that what happened in Texas, too? Is it just cheaper for your bank to not have systems for verification in place, and just pay out money to victims and hope they go quietly, with a pat on the head and a change of account number?
Furthermore, I've e-mailed Robert Melofsky -- I need to know whether the woman also had my PIN number. This is giving me a great deal of worry. You owe me this information. I suggest you get it to me, because it's yet another worry I'm up nights about.
Furthermore, I've had a long talk with Mari Frank, THE identity theft expert, and I'll be sending you a certified letter she's drawn up, per the Fair Credit law, I believe, to get all the information (including video) I've been requesting from your bank from the start so I could track down these thieves who are putting me in jeopardy of being charged with a crime and in numerous other arenas. I will be requesting electronic records of who accessed my account within Bank of America, every deposit slip and other piece of information, and video of the perps, among other things.
Your bank allowed me to be victimized in THE most substantial way. I suggest you look up the term "Fiduciary Duty," because you had and have one to me, and dumping me as a customer was not the appropriate response for your failures to guard my money and data.
I don't understand how you and other Bank of America employees can feel good about working for a company that behaves as this one does. I have been a customer of your bank for nearly 20 years, and followed through on my obligations, and this is how you repay me?
I await your reply. -Amy Alkon
The Primitive Belief In The Imaginary Friend
When I was a kid, I was amazed by how people looked with cow-eyed approval on the bible story of Abraham almost sacrificing his kid Isaac to prove his belief in god, and the notion that it was right to do whatever "god" supposedly said to do.
(Hello? Fever and hallucinations, anyone? That is, if the story is anything more than a tall tale. But, no, according to a bunch of bible nutters writing me, and also group-praying that "god" won't drop-kick heathen little me to "hell," the Bible is The Word Of God. How do they know this? They just do.)
Anyway, I was reminded of the primitive idiocy of the Abraham and Isaac story by a blog item I saw the other day.
Godless Zone put up a terrific post on the seven bible school students killed in a flash flood in New Zealand, and the one who survived:
The young boy who survived attributes his survival to prayer. Are we to believe that in the more than half hour that the students sat hung onto to a canyon wall that none of them prayed? Should we assume that these fundamentalist Christians were without faith and never once asked God to save them the same way this one boy did?Yet the one boy lived and all the others died horrible deaths. God gets the credit for saving the life of the one but none of the blame for killing the other seven. If God consented to save the one boy then God had to have ignored the other seven. They call this merciful and loving. That is just sick.
The one boy lived because the water crashed him into a pile of logs and he was able to pull himself up onto them and hold on. The others weren't so lucky. It was luck. It was the pure randomness of falling in the water at the right spot at the right time so that he was pushed in one direction while the deceased were pushed in another direction.
If this was God acting then we have to assume that God was responsible for killing six students and the teacher.
The headmaster of the school implores the students to have faith. Did not the students clinging to the canyon wall also have faith?
And the one parent, no doubt in mourning but still thinking irrationally, said this was a "test" of his faith. Think about that as well. Who is administering that test? Surely it would have to be God.
What he is saying, or seeming to say, is that God drowned his daughter for the sole purpose of seeing if this man would still have faith in God. What kind of monstrous deity would do that?
Also, what kind of megalomaniacal little jerk would need people to go to a big hall and kneel every Sunday and say, "God, you're, like, totally cool. The greatest ever!" Pretending for a moment that there's evidence "god" actually exists (there actually isn't)...is this the mark of a diety deserving of respect, or a giant teenage boy with an ego problem?
Hah! Underparenting Can Get Expensive
A woman the size of a piano, her sister, and her four unruly brats were booted off a Southwest flight. Here's the CNN footage. Since the woman actually admits there was a problem, and since removing passengers and their loud, unruly brats is a pretty rare thing for any airline, I'd love to hear the reality from a passenger on that plane, which I'm guessing had to be pretty bad.
Here from KIRO Seattle is the text:
Slaughter said they were left stranded at the Phoenix airport with no money and no lodging.This was the first flight for the children. Slaughter admitted the children were loud and kept getting up and walking around the plane.
"The children were out of control on the flight you know, they were restless, excited and worked up and they are kids," said Slaughter.
The family said flight attendants asked them to quiet the children twice, but they didn't expect to be booted off the flight
"I am furious about it. I can't believe they could do something like that and then leave us completely stranded with no money no way to get anywhere," Slaughter said.
Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Christi Day told KIRO-7:
"They were being disruptive and unruly on the plane, and for the safety of our customers and the flight crew, we decided to not allow them to travel on to Seattle at that time. Typically if it's a threatening behavior, it's not safe to travel 30,000 feet in the air in a contained environment."
The family said police officers bought them food and Motel 6 donated a hotel room for the night.
The children's grandmother said she had to pay $2,000 to book last-minute tickets on Alaska Airlines. They said they didn't have any problems on that three-hour flight.
As for what I have to say about this sort of thing...Fly Southwest! Fly Southwest!
Reading, Writing, and Bowing Down To Allah
Schooling in England has changed these days. A non-Muslim boy can get detention for refusing to bow down to Allah. A Daily Mail reporter writes:
Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.
A parent, Karen Williams, told the reporter:
"I haven't got a problem with them teaching my child other religions and a small amount of information doesn't do any harm."But not only did they have to pray, the teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said 'we are now going out to pray to Allah'.
"Then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshment break because of the teacher.
"Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right.
"They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."
"My child has been forced to pray to Allah in a school lesson." The grandfather of one of the pupils in the class said: "It's absolutely disgusting, there's no other way of putting it.
If you really want kids to understand Islam, a religion which has a holy book that commands Muslims to convert or kill all of us infidels, perhaps you should have them strap on belts of explosives. Or go out in the courtyard and slaughter all the homosexuals in the employ of the school. Or teach them that a woman has only half the value of a man, or how Mohammed married his wife at 6 and had sex with her when she was 9, and how anything Mohammed did is considered by Muslims to be holy and right. There's so much to learn about Islam, and so little of it is at all in tune with Enlightenment values.
via Instapundit
Beware Of Goodreads
Address book hijackers strike again.
It seems this website, Goodreads.com, does business the unscrupulous way, by hijacking the e-mail address books of its users, and causing them much agony, as they must explain to numerous friends and very, very distant acquaintances, who they are, and that they didn't e-mail them...they were victimized by Goodreads.
Nancy Rommelmann blogged that she'd been looking for a classics book club, and asked a friend, who recommended goodreads.com:
...it asked me to set up a profile, which I did, and then it asked, do you want to see who on your yahoo! email list is already a member? And I clicked sure, and saw four people, and unclicked one who is a business acquaintence, and clicked, in order to be goodread "friends" with the other three, all well and good. And four minutes later, I get an email from a friend saying, she's pretty busy but maybe she'll look into it, and then another, and then another notice saying I am now friends with Luke Ford, and I realize, holy fucking crap, goodreads has sent an email to everyone on my email list, 168 people, some of whom I haven't emailed with in years, and editors at magazines with whom I have only the most professional of relationships, and people who, I imagine, are just going to be baffled to have me asking, "do we like the same books?" If any of you are reading this, my apologies, really. Also, has anyone else ever inadvertantly done this?
Jackie Danicki responded to Nancy's question:
Sadly, yes. It's NOT your fault, Nancy. These sites deliberately scam people out of their contact book details, unbeknownst to the user. They are to be avoided at all costs. Add Goodreads to the list.
I left a comment on Jackie's site, and then on Nancy's...right behind the comment from Lizzy on both:
Saturday night, I got an e-mail from Lizzy, who I don't think I actually know. Maybe she's a friend of Nancy's? (I see she commented above.) But the e-mail made it sound like I'm on Goodreads -- I'm not, and I'm worried and upset that I just typed my e-mail address in there like I forgot my password, and had joined but had forgotten.This is very sneaky and very creepy, since I'm not actually on there, and I resent the hell out of it.
Here's the e-mail below. Lizzy, do I know you, and did you intentionally send this to me? Or did they hijack your address book and Nancy's perhaps? (I deleted my actual personal e-mail address from the code below, and substituted in DELETED.)
hi amy,
Nice to see you on Goodreads. I'm interested to see what you've been reading lately.
http://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?e=DELETED@aol.com&i=LTM2MDY1MTY5ODE6MzEx &n=amy&utm_medium=email&utm_source=invite
- Lizzy
(Lizzy.caston@DELETED.com)
The creeps at Mamasource do something similar, the address book hijacking thing:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/01/28/spam_grows_on_t.html
Everybody should boycott sites with such business practices. How embarrassing to have an e-mail go out to editors and business contacts -- and in my case, if they managed to rob me of my personal data, also to anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists around the world...people I need to take me seriously.
Goodreads' founder, Otis (Chandler, by the way, grandson of the former LA Times co-owner/publisher of the same name), left a comment on Jackie's site about how they will mend their ways:
Hi Jackie,Hope this isn't strange, but we saw your post and wanted to respond. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. We have tried to make our address book importers as clear as possible, and will use the feedback in your post to continue to do so. We are dedicated to creating a quality experience for our reading community, and we hope you don't hold this against us (too much).
sincerely,
Otis
-
Founder
Goodreads.com
How sincere is the young Mr. Chandler? Well, when I went back to blog this, I noticed Jackie's blog item, and his comment on it, were from Fall, 2007 -- September 30 and October 1, 2007.
And Lizzy, who it turns out I met briefly through Nancy when I was up in Portland, posted another comment last night:
Ah yes, Goodreads absolutely and totally tricked me tonight when I went to update my profile/contacts. I wonder if I will lose clients or business because of the way they have their website set up? If so, yes, I will be even more ticked.I am horrified and embarrassed that this email from goodreads went out and goodreads has caused me hours and weeks worth of damage control time explaining to business and personal contacts that no, I didn't mean to add you to an auto robot email.
Really ticked off. So ticked that I canceled my account and have gone over to LibraryThing which is a site that is 1000 times better, bigger and nicer than Goodreads.
Goodreads is selfish and rude, that's the only way to explain it. And since they have had issues and complaints with this as far back as fall of 2007 and haven't changed then I can only loathe them more and no longer have patience or respect for them. At all. I wonder if they even care or realize the grief they caused me tonight?
Finally, here's the comment Jackie, no dumb cluck, posted in response to Otis' back in October, 2007:
Otis, I don't believe you. I don't give credibility to people who speak PR bullshit, and I am very certain that this was a deliberate 'strategy' on your part to acquire new users. I'd bet anything. I've worked on websites for years, and before user registration goes live there is a rigorous QA process during which testers go through scripts and ensure that it is all kosher and user-friendly. I find it impossible to believe that your QA testers did not tell you how badly your registration sucks. Nor do I believe that you had no idea, until you read my blog, that people would not like you spamming their entire contacts database.In short, pull the other one, liar. I hope your business is destroyed.
Not soon e-fucking-nough.
UPDATE: Lizzy, who is hopping mad about Goodreads, just sent me these other people's complaints about the site's business practices:
http://entertheoctopus.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/goodreads-not-so-great/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/redcarpet/2619422288/
http://andywhitman.blogspot.com/2007/09/goodreads-and-bad-spam.html
http://www.appscout.com/2007/08/goodreads_makes_user_hate_her.php
http://www.mickipedia.com/?p=1174
UPDATE AGAIN:
Ah, it seems, through public records, I've found Mr. Chandler's home phone number in Santa Monica. Thanks to that New York Times wedding announcement, linked above, I learned he lived there:
OTIS CHANDLER
953 4TH ST
SANTA MONICA, CA 90403
(310) 260-0145
If you're one of the many whose life has been fucked up by this company, whose time has been stolen, and who's now answering numerous e-mails like Lizzy is, from people who want to know, "Do I know you? Why did you e-mail me?" I suggest calling Otis Chandler to let him know how pissed off you are.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Number is "no longer in service." Just called it. Got Otis Chandler's number? Pass it on.
Carrey On, My Wayward Ho
Or something like that. Why I love Jim Carrey, and have, since the days of Mad TV.
Of course, as lujlp points out, Carrey was on In Living Color, not Mad TV.
Supreme Court Justice Breyer Wants To Be Your Daddy
I detest those people who say, for example, that drinking should be banned or curtailed for all because some drive drunk. We have punishments for people who do drive drunk. And yes, it's true that some innocent people will be killed because of drunk drivers -- but banning alcohol won't make drunk driving disappear.
The same goes for the laws against handguns. Supreme Court Justice Breyer appears to have the reasoning skills of a box turtle, contending that the Second Amendment rights of all should be yanked because some might use guns unwisely. Tom Knott writes in The Washington Times about Breyer's support for the D.C. handgun ban:
Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in exercising his support of the city's handgun ban that was overturned last week, wrote that "if a resident has a handgun in the home that he can use for self-defense, then he has a handgun in the home that he can use to commit suicide or engage in acts of domestic violence."...Justice Breyer's position encapsulates the thinking that impinges on individual liberty in this nation. It is the kind of thinking that has resulted in the smoking ban, the trans-fat ban, the seat-belt law, the helmet law, warning signs galore to spare companies from the litigious-minded, cameras that record our every move and all kinds of intrusive nonsense in airport terminals.
The motivation behind the thinking is to save lives, because if a law can save just one life, then the infringement on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will have been worth it. Better yet, if you are a lawmaker, the thinking leads to an infinite number of legislative possibilities.
Yet try as they might, lawmakers cannot legislate death out of the human experience. But they always can give it the good old political try and come across as all-caring and at one with the majority of constituents.
In fact, what Breyer's position, as law, ensures, is that innocent people will be killed. Because guess what? There's been a ban on guns in D.C. for eons, and that hasn't prevented the criminals from getting their hands on them -- just those ordinary citizens the criminals rob, rape, and murder. Check out the D.C. gun homicides map here.
About As Effective As Praying For An End To Stupidity
Religious idiots are praying for an end to high oil prices. From an Allison Aldrich and Keriann Hopkins story on CNSNews.com:
The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country.
What's next, a big finger reaches down from the sky to the gas station sign that reads $4.77 a gallon, and peels off the 4?
Three Dim Bulbs: Penn, Teller and Alkon
On Sunday, on my entry about "Private Jet Aficionado Laurie David On "Greening Our Airports," I wrote:
Ever wonder why I never blog about climate change or global warming or whatever we're supposed to call it? It's because I study evolutionary psychology pretty seriously but I really don't know a rat's ass about physics or climatology. (Doesn't seem to stop Laurie!) Meanwhile, I've been meaning to put up a piece by reason's Ron Bailey on the subject, as he's someone I trust to be impartial judge of the science.
In yesterday's LA Times, there was something similar from Penn Jillette, and his partner, Teller, like me, "professional skeptics," and two guys I respect. They were speaking at the gathering of professional skeptics thrown by another guy I respect, and whose work I've written about, James Randi. Jillette writes:
Teller and I are always honored to be invited. We don't wear our usual matching gray suits, and Teller doesn't stay in his silent character. Teller chats up a storm. It's not a gig; it's hanging out with friends. During our loose Q&A period this year, someone asked us about global warming, or climate change, or however they're branding it now. Teller and I were both silent on stage for a bit too long, and then I said I didn't know.I elaborated on "I don't know" quite a bit. I said that Al Gore was so annoying (that's scientifically provable, right?) that I really wanted to doubt anything he was hyping, but I just didn't know. I also emphasized that really smart friends, who knew a lot more than me, were convinced of global warming. I ended my long-winded rambling (I most often have a silent partner) very clearly with "I don't know." I did that because ... I don't know. Teller chimed in with something about Gore's selling of "indulgences" being BS, and then said he didn't know either. Penn & Teller don't know jack about global warming ... next question.
The next day, I heard that one of the non-famous, non-groovy, non-scientist speakers had used me as an example of someone who let his emotions make him believe things that are wrong. OK. People who aren't used to public speaking get excited and go off half-cocked. I'm used to public speaking and I go off half-cocked. I live half-cocked. Cut her some slack.
Later, I was asked about a Newsweek blog she wrote. Reading it bugged me more than hearing about it. She ends with: "But here was Penn, a great friend to the skeptic community, basically saying, 'Don't bother me with scientific evidence, I'm going to make up my mind about global warming based on my disdain for Al Gore.' ... Which just goes to show, not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics are immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things."
Is there no ignorance allowed on this one subject? I took my children to see the film "Wall-E." This wonderful family entertainment opens with the given that mankind destroyed Earth. You can't turn on the TV without seeing someone hating ourselves for what we've done to the planet and preaching the end of the world. Maybe they're right, but is there no room for "maybe"? There's a lot of evidence, but global warming encompasses a lot of complicated points: Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad? Can we fix it? Is government-forced conservation the only way to fix it?
To be fair (and it's always important to be fair when one is being mean-spirited, sanctimonious and self-righteous), "I don't know" can be a very bad answer when it is disingenuous. You can't answer "I don't know if that happened" about the Holocaust.
But the climate of the whole world is more complicated. I'm not a scientist, and I haven't spent my life studying weather. I'm trying to learn what I can, and while I'm working on it, isn't it OK to say "I don't know"?
I mean, at least in front of a bunch of friendly skeptics?
Let's have more of this, thanks.
Bank America Is Firing Me As A Customer
I got the FedEx telling me they're terminating me as a customer when I picked up the mail on Wednesday.
I guess I complained too much about how they neglected their fiduciary duty to me when their tellers gave out $12,000 of my money to at least two ladies with a fake driver's license in my name, and with the wrong expiration date. And on SEVEN different occasions!
So, now, less than a month away from the deadline for my book, in addition to the daily nightmares I deal with thanks to BofA's ridiculously lax "security," I have a new BofA-created chore...finding and moving all my accounts to another bank before July 31.
That's when they dump me and my checking, savings, CDs, IRAs, and the contents of my safe deposit box on the street...or whatever they do to customers who get repeatedly robbed and don't just keep quiet after being given a new account number, an apology, and a headpat.
My neighbor suggests a credit union: SAG-AFTRA's, since I'm a member. Problem: they're all the way across town, and I need to access my bank branch in a hurry sometimes.
I thought of First Federal of California, because they (eventually) let Gary Musselman open an account there, in the Main Street/Santa Monica branch, and ended up being quite nice to him. And they're a community bank and they seem to get good reviews from their customers. But, then, it seems they don't really support Mac for online banking. (You have to use Explorer 5.5 or up. Microsoft stopped doing Explorer for Mac. I have 5.2, and went on Microsoft's site and found only up to 4.5.)
Anybody got any experience with WaMu? I'm looking for an institution that doesn't seem to have contempt for the people who bank with them...and might even treat them the way the old manager, John Angello, at my branch of Bank of America used to treat me: Like I was a valued customer.
Sooo...anybody got any suggestions. Bank suggestions or any other suggestions?
And not to worry..BofA isn't going to get away with this -- well, not in my case, anyway. (Every day, I hear new stories about people with similar or other BofA nightmares originating in a kind of contempt for the customer and for sensible business practices that I've experienced.)
They've now eaten a substantial part of my time and my general peace of mind, when, if they'd applied the "multiple layers of security" they brag to the press that they have, the perp with the ID in my name would likely have been caught the first time she tried to financially ass-rape me, and that fake license she used to apply for instant credit at Target and Walmart and Kmart might now be in a police evidence locker somewhere.
Oh, and if you haven't done it already -- take it from me: Freeze your credit bureau accounts.
And, finally, if you know anybody who works for Bank of America, do me a favor, will ya? Ask them how they sleep nights.
Follow Your Tax Dollars
We spend $2.4 billion a year on the Drug Enforcement Administration. Over at The Monitoring The Future project, a bunch of dudes from University of Michigan's School of Social Research did a little look-see into how all our anti-drug billions have been working out. (I copied the summary text below from the reason entry by Jacob Sullum on the DEA's 35th birthday):
Percentage of 12th-graders who reported using marijuana in the previous year1975: 40
2007: 31.7
Percentage of 12th-graders who reported using cocaine in the previous year
1975: 5.6
2007: 5.2
Percentage of 12th-graders who reported using heroin in the previous year
1975: 1
2007: 0.9
And while pot use is down, Sullum reminds people that today's pot is super-pot compared to the pot of yesteryear, "by and large, not even strong enough to get them high." Sullum calls today's pot "so strong that it's a different, far more dangerous drug":
From the DEA's perspective, a shift from large numbers smoking mostly inert material to smaller numbers smoking one-hit-is-plenty superweed can hardly be counted as a success.
Perhaps we should "Just say no!" to pouring more billions down the shitter?
Why I Love, Love, Love Judge Judy
Down to my chromosomes.
Readers of my columnsometimes write me all irate at how "mean" I am to people who e-mail me for advice. People who e-mail me for advice often thank me for being the one person who told it to them straight.
Retarded Things People Do
Somebody sent a friend of mine an e-mail pressuring her to write to Fox News to protest something they said about Obama.
My friend doesn't get a lot of this kind of e-mail, or much e-mail at all, and she was peeved: "It's kind of presumptuous to assume that just because it's your politics, it's someone else's," she said. "Of course, I do live in San Francisco, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Down here, a woman who manages a business I patronize told me a few weeks ago that she's a mmphhhphhhh. A what? A mmmphhhhhh! Oh, I get it...a conservative. Around these parts, people whisper it so low, you'd think they're confessing to being baby rapists.
As for a whole bunch of Democrats e-mailing Fox to complain about their coverage of Obama -- does anyone with an IQ over the speed limit think that's going to change their reporting an iota?
And no, in case you're wondering, I'm not going to change the title of this blog item to "Mentally Challenged Things People Do." So save your carpal tunnels, and don't bother e-mailing me to complain.
Little Photoshop Of Horrors
It's a little old, but I found this absolutely hilarious.
"Hold On A Sec, Ya Hag"
The word police are out in force against Obama for telling a Detroit TV reporter "Hold on a sec, sweetie." Aren't we over this already? Shouldn't we be? Dan Harris writes on ABC:
Hours later, Obama left Agar a voicemail, apologizing for not answering her question and for calling her "sweetie.""That's a bad habit of mine," Obama said in the message. "I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front."
It apparently is a habit. In an earlier campaign stop, Obama said to a woman, "Sweetie, if I start with a picture I will never get out of here."
And then: "Sweetie if I start doing autographs I just won't be & I am really late."
While the extent of the political fallout over Obama's use of the word is unclear, his "habit" has become fodder for talk shows and bloggers.
On "The View," Whoopie Goldberg said that it wasn't such a big deal. "And what he meant to say I believe was with no disrespect, 'cause I call everyone sweetie if I don't know their name," she said.
When men throw out words like sweetie or honey or girl in movies like "9 to 5" or "Anchorman," it is portrayed as supremely condescending.
Well, check your clocks, ladies...it isn't 1972. Older men sometimes call me sweetie, darlin', or honey, and if they aren't snarling it, why take offense? In fact, I usually don't even take notice of it, except to find it kind of cute, the same way I find older men who call themselves "gents," like the guy who just sent me an e-mail subject headered "Mature Gent Still Has Drive."
Of course, it helps that I don't feel powerless or like a victim, which means I'm not going to feel victimized or "disempowered" (or whatever the wymyn call it) by being called "honey" or "sweetie."
Other women, and younger women who've managed to get themselves brainwashed by feminists, don't see it my way. Here's a commenter on ABC's site:
Women of this country should unite and start standing together. Aren't you tired of being dismissed as "sweetie"? As "hon, can you go get me some coffee"? Having to sit on the OUTSIDE of most boardrooms because the infamous glass ceiling still exists? I for one working am shocked as to how young women have no idea! Coming from a company where there is a 25% Female to 75% Male ratio, I have looked as sexism straight in the face!!! Do you think that Obama will fix the fact that a woman gets paid 25-30% less than a man, with the exact same qualifications and experience, simply because she's a woman? HELL NO! Women, young and old, single or single moms everywhere should be uniting. But no, we'd rather continue to have our destinies and rights be controlled by men. I will NEVER vote Obama in as President and so will about 30% of us women that believe it's time to make a stand. Obama has portrayed his sexist demeanor in this campaign time and again, and the undertones are there. The "Sweetie" comment was yet another sign. But does the media report on the topic of Sexism, of course not. However, they seem to have no issues reporting on Racism!!!! We should just call Obama "Boy" and see how he likes it.
Ah, a Hillary voter. Whatta surprise. And trotting out the same old tired (wrong) stats about wage disparities. Ladies, when you work seven days a week, like a BARREN! girl like me, you'll make much more money. Also, it helps if you don't do what far too many women do -- take the first salary offer they're made.
But, hey, I'm all for people being called what they want to be called, whether it's Petunia, Buttwipe, or Your Majesty. Ask nicely, and I'm sure people will refrain from using terms of endearment to address you, and instead use more appropriate language. Something you'll find less insulting, and more accurate; perhaps "Disagreeable old bitch"?
Lara Logan On What's Really Happening In Iraq
2006 version -- and worth seeing, despite the date:
2008 version:
Beating A Debt Horse
Just posted my Advice Goddess column -- my response to this nitwit:
My boyfriend of two years has been living with his parents for four years. He's 49, and first said he had an apartment near them but never wanted me to come over. I soon caught on, and he confessed he was ashamed of being in debt and living at home. I gave him another chance because we get along well, except for money. (I'm frugal and he can't hang onto a dollar.) The biggie happened last week. I discovered he'd actually lived in his parents' basement with his wife and kids for several years before they divorced. I don't know if I'm more upset because he lied or because he put his wife and kids in a basement for so long.
--Angry Girlfriend
An excerpt from my answer:
Come on...you're angry because you found out the guy stashed his wife and kids in a basement? His live wife and kids, not their mummified corpses? This is the kind of thing men who are chronically broke are forced to do. Maybe what's really eating you is what a bad investment you've made: putting in two years with a guy for whom moving up in the world means going from his parents' basement into his parents' garage. In his defense, at least he has the decency, if not to put a roof over his kids' heads, then to mooch one.
The entire thing is here, plus comments.
