[Quote:]

“I was out shopping with my daughter, Z and her brother yesterday, trying to use those dreaded gift cards, the one of interest was from Best Buy.

While they are looking for music, I see the new Tony Bennett CD, kind of a Duets and I decide to spring for the fifteen bucks.

We get to the car and I pop it in and see “Bad Disk” on my player. I tried unsuccessfully three times to get it to work, but alas, it must have been a bad disk. So I walk back into the store with my three minute old receipt and show it to the door guard who shows me to the return line. Now I have owned this thing for three minutes and I just want to swap it out. It is three days after xmas and I really do not want to go through the entire return process so when I finally get to the front of the line; the customer service trainer is waiting on me. I tell him, forget it, just give me my money back, it is a bad disk.

He tells me there are state and federal laws against them refunding my money at which I literally laugh out loud. I said there are no such laws. He claimed there were and I said, if you believe that you are a fool. Then I asked to see a copy of the law at which point the “manager” showed up. He said that he would show me the law it was right out the front door and If I did not leave, they would have me arrested for trespassing. At this point the manager says I can have another disk or be arrested for trespassing. I asked again to check the CD, it was a bad CD.

I am thinking this is a riot, let’s just see where this goes.

Sure enough, he calls 911 for a trespasser in his store.

I am literally laughing out loud. I go back to the car where the kids are and explain that I will be a few more minutes. I get my phone and call my wife and tell her what is going on.

Then I call corporate in MN. I explain what is going on and the “senior customer consultant” tell me to please hold after he agrees that it is an out of control situation. The first question that corporate asked me was if they actually checked the CD to see if it was bad. I told him that they did not check it in spite of my requests.

About this time the manager comes to me and says that it looks like the cops ain’t coming so he will give me the money back.

Now the cops show up, (three officers in two cars!) I have the customer service people refunding my money, the three cops looking for me, and me on hold with corporate.

I get my money then approach the cops and explain my side of the story. They just shake their head. I apologize for the store manager wasting their resources. I was kind of hoping that they would arrest me.

I finally get the guy from corporate back on the line and he commits to calling me tomorrow with resolution.

Turns out it wasn’t a call from him I got today, the store manager called. I went over the details with her and after what seems like a thirty minute discussion she admitted there is not a federal or state law against a store refunding a customer for a defective product. She then asked what it would take to make it right, I told her to think about it and call me back. She did call back later today and offered me a twenty five dollar gift card. I asked her to donate it to Salvation Army and guess what, they can’t do that either.”

[Quote:]

Hang on a second.  I’m sure I have the answer to that question around here someplace.

Smaller government!  That’s it.  Republicans have always stood for smaller government that promotes that good American “rugged individualism.”

President Bush’s second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.

Okay, maybe not.  But fiscal responsibility.  That’s always been a Republican issue.

Faced with a potential government shutdown, the Senate votes to raise the nation’s debt limit for the fourth time in five years.

So money’s not their thing.  Thank goodness they know how to manage the military.

The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,” a retired Army general said yesterday.

Well, if nothing else, you can always count on Republicans to be tough on crime.  Republicans have run on that agenda since the first goggle-eyed proto-Gingrich crawled out of the primordial ooze.  They’ve pushed for longer sentences, for extending adult punishment to younger and younger offenders, for increasing the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty, and for more and more prisons to house the increasing population of the incarcerated.  Oh, and they’ve reduced funding for public defenders and for rehabilitation programs.  You can’t coddle criminals.  Only by being tough with these people will they know you mean business.

That’s why, after a decade of steep decline, crime statistics are heading… up.

Violent crime rose in cities and towns across the country in the first half of 2006, according to preliminary data from the FBI. The findings signal that a long period of declining crime in the United States is not just at an end, it’s heading in the other direction.

[Quote:]

At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday as they prepared to celebrate Islam’s biggest holiday, their first without Saddam Hussein.

The bombings came hours after Saddam was hanged in Baghdad for ordering the killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday’s violence was not unusually high for Iraq, nor did it appear to be in retaliation for the execution.

So, what exactly does “not unusually high” mean, these days?

The military reported the deaths of six more American troops,

[..]

In Baghdad, 12 bodies bearing signs of torture were also found in various parts of the city, police said.

Two car bombs detonated one after another in a religiously mixed neighborhood of northwest Baghdad, killing 37 civilians and wounding 76, police said.

Another 31 people died and 58 were injured when a bomb planted on a minibus exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad, said Issa Mohammed, director of the morgue in the neighboring town of Najaf.

I shudder to think what AP would call “unusually high”…

[Quote:]

When a pipeline bursts around here, which would be a rare occurrence, people stay as far away as possible and the environmental impact is immediately the biggest concern. Not so much in Nigeria, where a petrol pipeline burst is just an opportunity to scoop up as much free fuel as possible in whatever vessel you can find.

No smoking please.

[Quote:]

A gasoline pipeline ruptured by thieves exploded into a blazing inferno Tuesday as scavengers collected the fuel in a poor neighborhood, killing at least 260 people in the latest oil-industry disaster to strike Africa’s biggest petroleum producer.

[Quote:]

France is the land of protest but, these days, most French revolutions are of the conservative variety. The French mostly demonstrate against the new. A shadowy group based in the west of France hopes to push French immobilism to a novel level. The group, called Fonacon, is planning a demonstration against the New Year.

Supporters are being urged to turn out in the streets on Nantes on the evening of 31 December, not to celebrate the coming of 2007 but to protest against it. Financial backing, and lots of food and drink, have been promised by a number of cultural festivals based in the west of France.

“Stop 2007. It must not pass. All in the street against 2007,” are the slogans on the group’s website, Fonacon.net.

“If 2007 happens regardless, which is unlikely, we will hire a fleet of special trains to go to Paris next year and demonstrate on the Champs Elysées against 2008,” said one of the organisers.

[Quote:]

‘They killed him, is that possible?’ Abu Hamza, a muscled Sunni insurgent in his early thirties asked in disbelief. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ he continued, resting his head on his palm. The TV channel repeated the scenes many times, cut before the actual execution moment and followed by television scenes of jubilant Shia men and boys dancing, accompanied by patriotic songs. ‘Those Shia, they killed him on the day of the Eid just to humiliate us,’ said Abu Hamza.

Abu A’isha, a mid-level commander of an insurgency group in west Baghdad, short, stout, in his forties and dressed in a blue tracksuit, was more calm. ‘It’s better for the jihad,’ he explained. ‘Every time the mujahideen do an operation they say it’s the people of Saddam. Where is Saddam now? Let’s see if his death will affect the jihad. Of course it won’t.’ He added: ‘The resistance is led by the Islamists, and we don’t love Saddam. It’s good that he is out of the picture. Now things will be clearer.

‘There will be some hardcore Baathists who might demonstrate in the streets, go do a couple of attacks on the Americans, but it’s over for them,’ said Abu Hamza. This is the final declaration of the civil war, if anyone had any doubts left,’ added Abu A’isha. ‘I am sure there will be demonstrations in Adhamiya [the largely Sunni neighbourhood where Saddam was seen before the fall of Baghdad in 2003].’

But the streets in Sunni neighbourhoods, like most of Baghdad, yesterday remained calm and half deserted. A few cars drove quickly through the Sunni neighbourhoods of Seliekh and Adhamiya in north Baghdad. The city had an air of anxiety and anticipation.

‘People are anxious. Saddam has been dead for a long time now. He is a page that was flipped four years ago. People are more worried about civil war,’ said Hameed, a Sunni former officer. ‘They are more worried about storing food and kerosene in case of a curfew than worrying about Saddam.’

[Quote:]

The clock’s counting down good riddance to 2006, and a crowd of thirsty revelers encircles you, the designated popper of the cork.

But how will you free the bubbly from its bottle to greet the new year? You can always go manual, or geek out with a gadget like the single-squeeze Descorjet.

But perhaps you want to start 2007 feeling a little more jaunty than usual. Maybe you feel like living life on the edge — the edge of a saber.

If so, it might be time to try champagne sabering, the delicate art of decapitating bottles of champagne.

and here is another tutorial…

[Quote:]

Shotaro Shimomura XXI (1883-1944) was Chairman of The Daimaru Inc., a department store chain that traces its roots to a single store opened in Kyoto in 1717. Mr. Shimomura was named President of the company in 1907 and toured Europe and the United States the following year to study the management of department stores. He took these photographs on a subsequent trip around the world in 1934 and 1935, prior to establishing a subsidiary trading company.

[Quote:]

via
The meeting’s in 5 minutes, and your boss asked you to find a statistic online to prove a point. Like that the tobacco consumption in Brazil is decreasing, or that most seniors prefer cats to dogs. Whatever it is, we’re now here to help you create valid-looking statistics in an instant!

[Quote:]

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is still at large — but that’s not a failure of White House policy, says Frances Fragos Townsend. As she explained to CNN’s White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we’re going to get him. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.

[Quote:]

At holiday dinner my inlaw’s inlaw in law, a New Jersey state prosecutor, told us that prosecutors now ask all potential jurors if we ever read “progressive blogs,” and reject us from juries if the answer is “Yes.” Meanwhile, if a perp has been, say, involved in an assault which nearly removed the nose from the victim’s face, prosecutors are working closely with armed services recruiters to offer him the chance to avoid trial and punishment by accepting recruitment.

So here’s where we are as a society: If you hold solid, progressive, core American values – the kind our nation was founded on and for – and you use the blogs to inform and refine those values, you are no longer a “peer” fit to judge others before the law. And if you are dragged before the courts, rightly or wrongly, you can count on your progressive peers having no representation on your jury.

But if you are a violent thug, our prosecutorial system will bend over backwards to see to it that you have a premier opportunity to represent America to the inhabitants of other lands. Apparently there’s been a long history of “rehabilitating” criminals by steering them into the forces rather than into trial and incarceration. But recruiters are especially anxious to exploit this resource today to fill the ranks. So you take kids from the street, who have most likely already been traumatized before their own expression of violent psychosis brought them before criminal justice, and send them to a war zone so that they can experience even more trauma, commit more mayhem, and contaminate their fellow troops with their attitude.

[Quote:]

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,�? stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’�?

[Quote:]

Take a look at this article which I pulled from the New York Times archive. It appeared on page one on April 25, 1975. It’s about a famous speech Gerald Ford gave in which he declared the Vietnam War over:

Ford Says Indochina War Is Finished for America

By RICHARD L. MADDEN

NEW ORLEANS, April 25 — President Ford, calling on the nation to develop an agenda for the future, declared today that the war in Indochina was finished “as far as America is concerned.”

Mr. Ford urged the beginning of what he called “a great national reconciliation” and added:

“We are saddened, indeed, by events in Indochina. But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership in the world. Some seem to feel that if we do not suceed in everything everywhere, then we have succeeded in nothing nowhere.”…

The President made his remarks in a speech to more than 4,500 members of the student body of Tulane University, who greeted his appearance and speech in the campus field house with prolonged and enthusiastic applause, particularly his comment that the war was finished as far as this nation was concerned….

“Today, American can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam,” Mr. Ford said.

“But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished — as far as America is concerned,” he said.

This well-known speech highlights a key aspect of Gerald Ford’s legacy: His performance at the end of the Vietnam War. Yet if you read all the pieces lauding Ford, you’ll find that this aspect of his Presidency — his handling of the war’s aftermath — is not very high at all on the list of things that are praised by Washington’s wisest commentators.

This speech, for instance, was not mentioned in David Broder’s column deifying Ford today. There was no mention of it in George Will’s column on Ford, no mention in Robert Novak’s column on him, and no mention in the Washington Post‘s grand and sweeping farewell editorial. In fact, neither Broder’s nor Will’s column even contained the words “Vietnam” or “Indochina.” Nor did Novak or the Post editorial make any mention of Ford’s declaration that the Vietnam war was over.

Instead, those worthies spent most of their ink praising Ford for his “civility” or “decency” — that is, mostly towards themselves and others in Washington, D.C.

This strikes me as exceedingly strange — and very revealing. Whatever the verdict on Ford’s performance in the aftermath of Vietnam, Ford’s handling of the end of the war would seem to be one of the aspects of his Presidency that has direct relevance to our current situation. It clearly bears most directly on the thing that matters to the American people more than any other issue right now — that is, the Iraq war. After all, at this moment we’re all awaiting a speech from another President about another seemingly hopeless quagmire that continues to claim the lives of Americans with no end in sight. While the historical parallels are far from perfect, many of Ford’s phrases then have profound resonance in the current debate.

So why do we hear so little praise or discussion of this aspect of Ford’s legacy? None of these commentators could spare a single word on it. None of these commentators thought to ask whether that speech on Vietnam, or his handling of the end of the war in general — rather than his “civility” — might contain guidelines or lessons that D.C.’s current leadership might learn something from, or even might usefully contemplate in the context of the current quagmire. Instead, they were mainly preoccupied with drawing lessons for the present from how nicely behaved Ford was to them and their class of D.C. insiders.

Healthy priorities, huh?

[Quote:]

The state of Florida tortured 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson to death for trespassing. The teen had been sentenced to probation in 2005 for taking a joy ride in a Jeep Cherokee that his cousins stole from his grandmother. Later that year, he crossed the grounds of a school on his way to visit a friend, a violation of his probation. His parents were given a choice between sending him to boot camp and sending him to juvenile detention. They chose boot camp, believing, as many Americans do, that “tough love�? was more likely to rehabilitate him than prison.

Less than three hours after his admission to Florida’s Bay County Sheriff’s Boot Camp on January 5, 2006, Anderson was no longer breathing. He was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead early the next morning.

A video recorded by the camp shows up to 10 of the sheriff’s “drill instructors�? punching, kicking, slamming to the ground, and dragging the limp body of the unresisting adolescent. Anderson had reported difficulty breathing while running the last of 16 required laps on a track, a complaint that was interpreted as defiance. When he stopped breathing entirely, this too was seen as a ruse.

Ammonia was shoved in the boy’s face; this tactic apparently had been used previously to shock other boys perceived as resistant into returning to exercises. The guards also applied what they called “pressure points�? to Anderson’s head with their hands, one of many “pain compliance�? methods they had been instructed to impose on children who didn’t immediately do as they were told.

All the while, a nurse in a white uniform stood by, looking bored. At one point she examined the boy with a stethoscope, then allowed the beating to continue until he was unconscious. An autopsy report issued in May—after an initial, disputed report erroneously attributed Anderson’s death to a blood disorder—concluded that he had died of suffocation, due to the combined effects of ammonia and the guards’ covering his mouth and nose.

Every time a child dies in a tough love program, politicians say—as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush initially did on hearing of Anderson’s death—that it is “one tragic incident�? that should not be used to justify shutting such programs down. But there have now been nearly three dozen such deaths and thousands of reports of severe abuse in programs that use corporal punishment, brutal emotional attacks, isolation, and physical restraint in an attempt to reform troubled teenagers.

Tough love has become a billion-dollar industry. Several hundred programs, both public and private, use the approach. Somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 teenagers are currently held in treatment programs based on the belief that adolescents must be broken (mentally, and often physically as well) before they can be fixed. Exact numbers are impossible to determine, because no one keeps track of the kids in these programs, most of which are privately run. The typical way to end up in a government-run program, such as the camp where Martin Lee Anderson was killed, is for a court to give you the option of going there instead of prison. The typical way to end up in a private program is to be sent there by your parents, though judges and public schools have been known to send kids to private boot camps as well. Since they offer “treatment,�? some of the private centers are covered by health insurance.

[Quote:]

EDGE.org publisher John Brockman gathered predictions for technology’s future from seven people — Steve Ballmer, Ned Sherman, Rafat Ali, Kevin Werbach, Chris Anderson, Hank Barry, Chris Anderson — and their responses are in the LA Times today. John’s own thoughts are in the mix, too.

[..]

Ballmer had this and this only to say about 2007, “You’ll be back in control.”

How viciously will this man have to insult his customers before they just go away? The Vista licensing agreement is being described as the “world’s longest suicide note.” Has Steve read it? Did you know that it goes WAY beyond DRM on content… to the extent of reserving the right remotely to disable YOUR hardware should MS decide at some time in the future that it’s not up to snuff? “Back” in control? Does he imply that I am already out of control? Suppose I am, how much of that is due to his handiwork?

Never mind Steve. I have converted one of my old machines to Linux and so have begun the process of stepping away from my 23 years of MS experience to make his arrogantly worded prediction come true — at least for me. By the end of ’07 I hope to be running none of his products anywhere in my life.

[Quote:]

Note: The above screen capture is from a 2005 Fox News Channel appearance. The image has been re-inserted on November 15th, 10 business days after filing a counter-notice (PDF) in response to a DMCA takedown notice filed by Michael Crook which forced its removal soon after it was originally published.

Are you a blogger or webmaster who tried to cover the story of DMCA fraudmeister, Michael Crook, only to be served a DMCA takedown notice by him? Maybe you covered the antics he’s performed with websites he owns such as forsakethetroops.org, craigslist-perverts.org, racismworks.com, or denytheholocaust.com.

Did you choose to comply with his DMCA notices in order to avoid the possibility of legal action? If so, then your story could help 10 Zen Monkeys and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in our civil lawsuit against Crook.

[Quote:]

Microsoft together with AMD gave out some really nice Christmas presents to a bunch of bloggers this year. Brandon LeBlanc got one, Scott Beale got one, Barb Bowman got one, Mauricio Freitas got one, Mitch Denny got one, Zen.Heavengames got one, plus many other bloggers who did not even write about it (shame on them). They seem to have covered everyone from A-list to Z-list, a first in the industry with such a valuable gift, kudos for thinking about the little guys.

No, I’m not on any of those lists. And with how I feel about Microsoft, I wouldn’t have accepted it.

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[Quote:]

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called “premium content”, typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources.

Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost.

These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it’s not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server).

This document analyses the cost involved in Vista’s content protection, and the collateral
damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.

[Quote:]

Over 170 buses in Richmond, Virginia USA have one of three signs with Arabic writing promoting silly sayings like, “Paper, Scissors, Rock” and “Paper or Plastic.” The bus company has been getting calls from riders wanting to know what the signs mean.
Sometimes when people see or hear a language they do not understand it scares them. Muslims stare fear and mistrust in the face almost daily. With these bus signs Rethink Bias is saying that even though we fear what we don’t understand we are able to overcome that fear by learning about others. We can rethink bias, but it starts with learning about our neighbours.

“As soon as people see Arabic, they immediately make an association with terrorism,�? said the Rev. C. Douglas Smith, executive director of the interfaith center. “That’s probably because since 9/11, not only is fear overwhelming us, but that’s how we’re being trained to think.�?

The signs were placed in all 170 Greater Richmond Transit Company buses on Nov. 27, and many buses will continue to display them at least through the end of January. The signs have also been posted at the University of Richmond and at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Besides the “paper or plastic�? sign, there are two others, one the Arabic version of the “I’m a little tea pot�? rhyme and the other roughly translating to the English equivalent of “rock, paper, scissors,�? the children’s game.

[Quote:]

A steep rise in drug overdose deaths in Los Angeles is being blamed on an influx of highly potent heroin from Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times cited figures from experts saying that heroin-related fatalities in the city and surrounding areas soared by around 75 percent in three years from 137 in 2002 to 239 in 2005.

Drug users over 40 who lack the resilience to deal with an unexpectedly strong dose were the most vulnerable, according to the Los Angeles County Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology.

Afghan heroin, which is notable for its purity, is rapidly overtaking lower-grade Mexian heroin, the Times reported.

Gee, I wonder how that war is going…

[Quote:]

The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded without little competition.

Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.

In January, investigators will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total work.

“Based on their track record, it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw another billion more in waste,” said Clark Kent Ervin, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general from 2003-2004. “I don’t think sufficient progress has been made.”

[Quote:]

The largest employer in the world announced on Dec. 15 that it lost about $450 billion in fiscal 2006. Its auditor found that its financial statements were unreliable and that its controls were inadequate for the 10th straight year. On top of that, the entity’s total liabilities and unfunded commitments rose to about $50 trillion, up from $20 trillion in just six years.

If this announcement related to a private company, the news would have been on the front page of major newspapers. Unfortunately, such was not the case — even though the entity is the U.S. government.

To put the figures in perspective, $50 trillion is $440,000 per American household and is more than nine times as much as the median household income.

Amazing that the Chief Accounting Officer of America’s largest employer is reduced to writing letters to the editor of newspapers to try and bring attention to the fiscal insolvency of the company he audits…

[Quote:]

Beginning early next year, Verizon Wireless will allow placement of banner advertisements on news, weather, sports and other Internet sites that users visit and display on their mobile phones, company executives said.

The development is a substantive and symbolic advance toward the widespread appearance of marketing messages on the smallest of screens. Advertisers have been increasing the amount they spent on mobile marketing, despite lingering questions about the effectiveness of ads on portable phones.

[..]

The interest of advertisers in the medium stems from a theory that ads placed on mobile phones could create a particularly intimate bond with consumers.

Any advertiser that really thinks I want an intimate bond with him is welcome to come to my door. I’ve got a nice baseball bat I would like to introduce to his knees.