I was none too happy when my mortgage got sold to CIti a little more than a year ago, from a nice friendly small bank to the arrogant behemouth that is Citigroup.  And this only leaves me with the question of whether I want to take the time to find another bank and pay the closing costs just to get away from them.

However, in all the negativity on the subject, something has gotten lost, and I don’t think (well I know, but I didn’t want to overstate it) many quite understand the gravity of the situation, and why it wasn’t just an “easy” decision for lawmakers to just tell these companies to, “go ahead and fail,” or  ”you made your your own bed.”  It just isn’t, as much as we would like to think it is, to untie these situations from the rest of the economy because of the scale of it all.

A car dealer not far from my home, Bigelow Motors, had been in business for 66 years.  It had weathered upturns and downturns many times over the years, but they were basically forced to close their doors this past week.  The reason?  They lost their line of credit.

In my own business, there are times that I need credit to cover the time between when I secure the supplies I need and the time my client pays me.  Without that line of credit, I am seriously hampered in what I can do and what orders I can complete.  

This is a common way of doing business for companies big and small (only the size of the line of credit changes).  From small corner delis that need to cover stock to mega corporation deals, there is very little that is done “in cash” because income and outlay do not always line up nice and neatly.

Obviously, the impact on business also affects employment as well.  Everybody at that car dealership I mentioned earlier is out looking for a job now.  Unemployment is up all over the place, and would only get worse as businesses need to either cut back or shut down because they are not able to conduct business as usual.

So, just understand, it was not a “no-brainer” to just vote this bill down. (Well, it was in that crazy first draft sent over from President Bush, but that was pretty much obvious to everybody except I guess President Bush and Treasury Secretary Pauson).  Is it ideal?  No.  Did it have to be as quickly as it was?  Unfortunately, Yes.

While people joke around now about how it hasn’t fixed everything already, this plan it going to take time to actually start having an effect, so even now we are still in crisis, but everyday that it waited is more time until implementation takes effect, and the more business that are apt to fail if this wasn’t passed in some form.

What I think a lot of people are shocked with, it that they got a good look at how Washington works.  The sort of wheeling and dealing (and pork additions) that happened here goes on constantly.  It is “how things work” and while this is no secret, it was clearly (and expensively) on display here.

I guess what I am trying to say here is, that I am not saying you shouldn’t be angry about what is going on.  I sure am.  But be angry at the right people, for the right reasons.  Look to former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and his slipping in of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) that enabled things like the Enron collapse, and the bundling of “derivatives” that helped make this mortgage crisis possible.  Be angry that this same Phill Gramm is on John McCain’s short list to be Treasurer of the United States.  Be angry at those that politicized this process and demanded pork for their vote.  But don’t take a “yes” vote in and of itself to be the whole reason.  This really wasn’t an easy situation for anyone to swallow, and there are valid reasons to have voted for the bailout.  The damage has long since been done, and now it needed to be fixed to keep the situation from getting worse.

The part that was most galling (to me anyway) was a statement by Kirk Saville, a Hershey’s spokesman, who said (emphasis added by me):

There are high-quality oils available which are equal to or better than cocoa butter in taste, nutrition, texture and function, and are preferred by consumers.

Preferred by consumers?  Preferred? I don’t think so, Kirk.   Oh, yeah take out the Cocoa Butter which actually has some nutritional benefit, and lets replace it with hydrogenated corn oil instead.  Screw the fact that we take chocolate and actually make it unhealthy… it is healthy for profits.  What this really means is, I think we can get away with it, and nobody will notice.

In the Biography of Milton Hershey that can be found at hersheypa.com

He took great pride in the growth of the school, the town, and his business. For the rest of his life, he always placed the quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits.

Well, obviously Milton is no longer in charge of the Heshey’s chocolate company.  Hershey has done an end run around the issue.  So, they can’t call their imitation chocolate “chocolate” but that didn’t stop them from making the change in a number of their products.  According the the post on CandyBlog, a number of Hershey’s products are no longer milk chocolate, but instead are now “chocolate flavored candy.”

Look at the list of ingredients from a package of the original “Milk Chocolate” Kissables.

Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1 & carnauba wax.

Now look at the “Chocolate Candy” Kissables:

Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1, yellow 6), corn syrup, resinous glaze, salt, carnauba wax, pgpr and vanillin.

See anything missing? Yup, that is right, no Milk Chocolate in it any longer. The same is true for Whatchamacallits, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackle.  Why hasn’t anybody noticed?  Because Hershey went to great lengths to make it so that it is difficult to notice.  (And in part, thanks to a slight change in labeling law on what has to be called “imitation” ).  Products that once bore the words “Milk Chocolate” now instead are listed as “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey.”

Actually, it seems in once case apparently it did get noticed, where Almond Joy was returned to Milk Chocolate after comsumers complained.

Fortunately (so far) Hershey Bars, Kisses, and Reese’s Peanut butter cups remain unaffected and are still Milk Chocolate products. Tell Hershey what you think of their faux chocolate, because messing with our chocolate is just plain wrong.

What has upset me more though is Flickr’s response, or more correctly their lack of response.   After all, this wasn’t a common, grab a picture and use it sort of thing (which, btw it amazes me how many big corporation have been caught doing this).  This was a company using Flickr’s own API, to download images and sell them.  I expected some sort of response, even if they didn’t plan to make changes to the API, at least to clarify that this company did things wrong and didn’t use the API correctly.  Instead… silence.

Now, I love Flickr.  I have a pro account, I have bought pro accoutns for other people as gifts.  But I am uncomfortable with them right now.  I am certainly not, until they do or say something, going to upload any high res. photos to their site, and I am debating on what I should do with the photos that are already there.  Do, I pull them down?  Take the time to make low res. versions of all of them and replace what is there?  What about you?  Have you changed how you have used Flickr?

For those of you running Windows, if you have updated your iTunes virus to version 7.7 then go take a look in your Control Panel.   You will find a new icon for  MobileMe Preferences has be snuck onto your computer.  If you click on it, you will be directed on how to sign up for the service you did not ask for from an applet that was snuck onto your computer via an update.  If that isn’t virus like activity, I don’t know what is.

If Microsoft (or just about any other company for that matter) played the same games Apple does (do you remember when they snuck a “beacon” into iTunes that calls home without notifying the user that it was in there?), then the company would be publicly flogged (A similar “game” essentially squashed RealAudio back when their player was popular).  But Apple some how gets away with it.

No doubt, I will get e-mails from Apple apologist trying to justify this, but I am sorry there is no excuse for the games they play and it is time they get called on it.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Last week, the Associated Press sent the Drudge Retort seven DMCA takedown notices, demanding that the site remove excerpts of AP articles ranging from 33 to 79 words that were linked through to authorized copies of the AP stories.

See what I did there?  I quoted another source, attributed it to them, and linked to the full article, providing potentially more traffic to them.  I did not steal their story, I followed what has been considered Fair Use, even before the days of the Internet.  Before you would have a Reference Page, Foot Notes, etc.  You needed to ensure your credited and cited your sources, but it has always been fair use to quote another source.

Not so according to the AP.  They want you to link to them, AND NOTHING ELSE.  After the inital lashback against their tactics, the A.P. backed off (sort of) according to the New York Times.

 After that, however, the news association convened a meeting of its executives at which it decided to suspend its efforts to challenge blogs until it creates a more thoughtful standard.

“We don’t want to cast a pall over the blogosphere by being heavy-handed, so we have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Mr. Kennedy said the company was going to meet with representatives of the Media Bloggers Association, a trade group, and others. He said he hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so that guidelines can be released soon.

Now, reading this at first, it sounds like maybe they learned their lesson, but in “hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so guidelines can be released soon” tells me that they are only trying to find a new tactic, because after all there are already guidelines in place as I said earlier.  It is known as Fair Use and it is already codified by the U.S. Copyright Office.

On a bit of a side note, I would love to know who decided that the Media Bloggers Association should have the right to negotiate this.  I mean, no offense to Mr. Cox and those that are already members, but I don’t know you.  You stopped accepting memberships, because you don’t even have a clear set of policies (by your own admission), and while you may very well have the best interest of bloggers in general, I do not find this to be an acceptable situation.  Suffice it to say, as an independent blogger, and not a member of your organization, I do not find that I will feel obligated to follow any guidelines set forth by this meeting and your “agreements” with the Associated Press.

It is also probably germane to point out that the Associated Press is owned by its 1,500 daily newspaper members… those very same people that have not yet been able to find a way to use the web properly and continue to bleed red ink (while blaming the Internet in general and Bloggers specifically for their eroding fortunes).  These same people that fight and attempt to keep bloggers from getting credentials because they are not part of the media.  Seems to me, they want to have their cake and eat it too.

They point to things like the old outdated definition that a “recession” is 2 or more quarters of decline in the country’s Gross Domestic Product.  Most economists however do no like this definition since it does not take into consideration unemployment rates or consumer confidence.  There are of course a couple of problems with this.

First and foremost is the fact that “domestic” companies no longer directly reflect on how strong the economy locally is since so much production has been moved overseas or “outsourced.” So while Mattel can can reap huge profits selling us lead paint based products, the benefits are not seen in the domestic job market since all these toxic products are made in China where they can pay slave wages and not worry about silly little things like safety standards which only “erode profits.”

Finally, any attempts by workers here to try and unionize and earn a fair wage are thwarted by union busting activites. Wal-Mart is well known for hiring consultants that threaten workers trying to unionize, and even (as much as it pains me to say it), Starbucks has seemed to taken to firing employees that are active in unionizing efforts there. Wal-Mart doesn’t surprise me since they tend to be ruthless with everybody, vendors and employees alike. Starbucks on the other hand makes a big deal over their “fair trade coffee.” So essentially, they are concerned with workers getting a “fair wage” in some third world country for picking the beans, but here at home, well that is a different story all together.

I am getting a bit off topic, but really the point is, I am not surprised that the “well to do” (and those that blindly follow them regardless of their own reality) do not see a recession. They look at their stock portfolio, and as long as Mr CEO is turning in 15% and up growth in the stock, they couldn’t care less how it is done. Unions have garnered a bad reputation (some of it admittedly it deserved), but are really there to even the playing field to give the workers some bargaining strength against these large corporations that couldn’t care less about workers. Workers here are viewed, not as assets, but as “expenses” and that is just wrong. And of course, if you are not struggling to make ends meet, you don’t care that your meal dollar isn’t stretching because food companies are making products smaller while keeping the prices the same, because as long as those stocks are profitable, well you will just buy more food.

By these definitions, there will never be a “recession” again. Idiots will continue to tell us how we are doing “well” but just don’t know it. There used to a joke that went something like, a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours. It is overly simplistic, but I think explains the chasm in opinions quite well.

Maybe the government should have just let Bear Stearns fail and go insolvent. Maybe then some of these people would have gotten a clue that there is a problem. As a parent this lack of vision scares the hell out of me. Not only for me, but for the children of tomorrow. As we become a “service” society, we are heading towards a two tier model. There will be those that “have” (the bosses, CEOs and other executive types) and those that serve them (wait staff, valets, security guards, etc) and nothing in between. The middle class will be wiped out, outsourced overseas and be told that it didn’t happen.

As I was coming home, TheWife calls me and says the our patio set is “broken” (I really must speak to her about her ability to understate a situation). I arrived home to find that the tempered glass top of our patio set had shattered into nothing but a chards of glass. I mean tiny. The pieces were so small that you could fit two or three of them on a dime. I found this quite baffling. Now granted tempered glass is supposed to break in a way that prevents thos huge sharp edges from forming, but in the past, I had only seen the tiny pieces at point of impact when something broke the glass, and the rest sort of hung together in a “sheet” of broken pieces. In this case the entire tabletop was completely in chards. I did my best Gil Grissom imitation (other than taking photos… dammit), looking for a cause. There were no rocks, sticks, branches from a tree or other projectiles within the rubble. The ring that protects the center hold where the umbrella goes had fallen straight down and landed on the leg of the table, so obviously the table came straight down, and not at some angle. There was no blood to indicate that a squirrel or other animal had landed on it crashing through. I even entertained the notion that since I live in the flight path of Newark Liberty International Airport that it was a case of “blue ice” and that in the midday sun, it had just melted… but even that would have left some sort of residue from the dye (and or contained waste…ewww). No, nothing seemed to fit.

The table, was one I had purchased from K-Mart a couple of years ago, one of their Martha Stewart line of tables. I was talking about it this week to somebody, and decided to look up some information on Tempered Glass, and at first found this article discussing how when tempered glass is compromised in some way that it can seem like it just “explodes.” Back into Google for a search of “Tempered Glass Exploding” and there… the first article up (at least at the time I did the search), was this little piece called, “Sounds of Summer: Martha Stewart Tables Shattering.” Turns out, this “phenomenon” that had struck our table was not at all uncommon.

There is apparently even a class action lawsuit that is in the works against Martha Stewart Living Omnipedia and JRA Funiture.  However, JRA Funiture filed Chapter 7 Bakruptcy (total liquidation) last year, so at least they are no longer the source (depending on inventories of course) of the tables, but it also means no recovery for the Class Action Lawsuit either.

I’d like to think that with JRA Funiture out of business that this is the end of the situation, but to be honest, reading how Sears (and/or Kmart) and Martha Stewart Living have not even (so far as I can tell) acknowledged this as a problem, outside of saying they will work with consumers under warranty, leaves me a little ill at ease with them, leaving me doubting whether I want to trust them again.  Problem is, at least the old sets were also farmed out under different names to other chains as well.  JRA’s funiture was also sold under the Hampton Bay name at Home Depot, as well as being carried by Sam’s Club, Target and Safeway. (Only Home Depot has has a similar report of an exploding table that I have been able to find so far).

If you have (or had) one of these sets,  if your table is still under warranty you can call K-mart Customer Service about it at 866-562-7848 (though K-Mart has not specifically said they will honor the manufacturer’s warranty) or Home Depot (who will honor the warranty) at 800-585-9969.  Other than that you are probably out of luck.  So what does this all mean?  I guess, most of all be careful if you are going to buy a glass top patio set from a discount retailer.  In my case, I am thinking a nice teak set might be in our future instead of risking it with glass again.

Whenever I am in a store like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. I almost always wind up helping or explaining something to another customer. Either because the sales associate doesn’t know the information, or is trying to push something on a customer that isn’t really quite right for them. I guess now I had better be careful, because there have been times that I have badmouthed a product, or spoken about how overpriced it was at a given establishment. When somebody did that at Best Buy recently however, apparently they called the cops on him.

When I first read about a new study that says teens don’t worry about losing their hearing. My first reaction was, “Duh… Ya think?” But as I thought about it a little more, I seem to remember hearing and reading about such thing when I was a teen (yes… all those years ago), because of the sudden popularity of the Walkman. Now I don’t doubt that the damage that can be done with today’s stronger earphones, especially with noise cancellation. But I don’t see “everybody” being deaf from those Walkan’s now, so I am kind of thinking that these studies are overstating things, just a tad.

Being a father of a little girl, I was quite outraged by the message presented at the website missbimbo.com. But Tracee from So Sioux Me has done such a good job, and expressed exactly what I was thinking, it would probably be best if you just read her post.

How funny is THAT Department – The RIAA who has no problems with suing and attempting to collect a $220,000 award in the one (and only) file-sharing suit they have won, from a woman that allegedly shared 24 songs.  But now they are mad and think it is excessive that they have been ordered to pay $298,000 in attorney’s fees on a case they didn’t win.

A worm in the Apple - I am sure there are plenty of Apple Fan-boys that thought nothing about Apple trying to sneak Safari onto iTunes users machines, but if you think you are safer using Safari, you are sadly mistaken.

Why isn’t that the case any longer?  Why do special interest groups always get their way?  (Yes, I know it is all about the money and re-election funds… it was a rhetorical question.  Just follow… OK?)  An excellent example is the recent first in the country RFID laws passed in Washington State.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, RFID chips are being put into and used in “everything” now, or at least they will be very soon.  That “touch-less” Gas-N-Go card you have from the Station?  RFID,  Those new “intelligent” passports that are coming?  RFID, the new digital Drivers Licenses that are being rolled out?  RFID.  Even some of those frequent shoppers cards.  You have a lot of information that is now accessible, just by walking past an RFID reader set to grab that information.

Now rightly, there is cause for concern, and the laws they were pushing in Washington made sense.  There were basically two parts; the first is making it illegal for anybody to attempt to access your information for fraudulent purposes.  Rather obvious, and somewhat redundant, since fraud is already illegal, but I guess this would be another tacked on charge, or perhaps you can simply be arrested for “attempted” fraud.  Whatever, I don’t have a problem with that.  If somebody is “skimming” my information, then sure he should get in trouble for it without me having to be an actual fraud victim.  But then there is the second part of the law, or more correctly, the original bill… because it never made it into the law.

That part, required retailers and other businesses to only gather information about you on an opt-in basis.  As is always the case… it seems, the retailers and their lobbyist fought this part of the law, and eventually got it pulled out.  So, now skimming is only illegal for an individual; corporations that are skimming are free to gather information about you, how long you shopped in their stores, where in the store you went, how much time you spent in each section, just by strategically placing some RFID scanners, and you will be none the wiser as they gather this information.

But don’t worry, I am sure some company will come out with some sort of RFID blocking wallet, that will be ugly, cumbersome and expensive, but will “protect” you from the “snoops.”  Yup that is right, to have the privacy you should expect by default… you will have it.  As long as you pay for it.  (Maybe!)

On the heels of this incident, in December Congress approved legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale or distribution of drain covers that don’t meet anti-entrapment safety standards.” It was called the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act [pdf], the named for the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, who was killed when she was trapped by the suction of a drain in 2002!

Now, I don’t understand why this wasn’t already a law, because it seems so brain-dead obvious to me as a parent, but can somebody explain to me, even after the first incident, and when people started lobbying for this law in 2002, it took 5 freakin’ years to get this written into law?  Now, I am willing to bet if I left it at that, I would have somebody come along and say “there’s a war on and Congress had ‘more important’ things to contend with.”  But if that is the case, then can somebody explain to me why Abigail Taylor had to die when over those same five years Congress sat back,  played IM games with Pages, stuffed freezers full of cash, taking bribes, and making medical diagnosis via videotape.  They had “the time” to do it, but it seems unless there is enough dead children for them to stop taking donations from corporations that are too cheap to manufacture these things safely, they just allow it to go on.

But it certainly seems that those days of propaganda planting being kept out of our news streams is history. Oh sure, it has been blatantly obvious for some time that the Faux News Channel is little more than “right wing mouthpiece” and tries to twist things to fit that image, but certain talk shows hosts aside (*cough* Hannity, O’Reilly *cough*) the data is usually twisted but not typically made up. Not so in this recent false article planted in Time Magazine. Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com has done a nice job of comparing the unsubstantiated (false) claims in the Time article piece, with something that the author of the Time article couldn’t be bothered with, facts and numbers.

It is really sad, that you now have to be critical about everything you read.  It is at a point where I trust very few sources of information outside my blogroll.  I may not agree with all of you all the time, but at least there, I know if people don’t know, they don’t know, they don’t just make up the facts as they go along.

It really is a sad place we are in right now.

Rounding out the Dumbass Picture – So while we waste billions of dollars in a war of questionable value (to anybody that is not an oil barron, the value to them has been immense), the NASA budget was kept so tight, that when the Shuttles are retired 2010, that the United States , during a 5 year (at least) window will have to rely on Russia to send people to the International Space Station. By the time he is done, is there anything Bush will not have screwed up?

Craptastic Comcastic – I am so glad that I was able to drop Comcast, first for DSL, and now for FIOS. Of course, the immediate benefit was lower cost for superior service (despite it claims, I never got the upload/download speeds the claimed unless I was online in the middle of the night). But, now new bits continue to leak out how Comcast is screwing their customers. Back in early 2006 many Vonage users were having problem that were using Comcast. At the time it was (mostly) assumed that it was just the quality (or lack of it) that received most of the blame, and the possibility that it was done on purpose, was considered a conspiracy theory. Since then of course, is the fact proven by the Associated Press that Comcast is forging packets and blocking P2P programs like BitTorrent. Then yesterday came news about being charged $2 to get Comcast to stop sending junk mail. Now in fairness, once this was exposed, Comcast quickly issues an apology and credit for the “mistake” to that customer. But I would love to know how many people made a similar request and did not notice or did not complain about the fee. And people wonder why Net Neutrality Laws are so desperately needed?

The end if “Smiling Bob” (I hope) – The founder of Berkley Premium Neutraceuticals, distributor of products like Enzyte, the “male enhancement” product seen with those annoying “Smiling Bob” commercials, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.  The charges stem predominantly from refusing to cancel orders  (once people realized they had duped), and not from the fact that they preyed on idiots that actually believed the stupid and outlandish claims made.  I suspect those that have been duped are too embarrassed to file a claim in civil courts that they had been duped and bought pills looking to “enhance” themselves.

It is still legal tender… isn’t it? – When you get on a bus, or pay a toll on most roads, there is a sign that says “No pennies.”  I doubt there was such a sign in the school cafeteria, where students, protesting over having their lunch period shortened, paid for their $2 lunch in pennies, and then received detention for it.  The school district finally backed down, after complaints from some parents  that the punishment was too harsh, although I fail to understand on what grounds there was punishment at all.  Yes, they slowed the lunch line down, that was the whole point.  But it was done in a non-violent (a big deal these days it seems) and legal way.  Legal.  While not worth much, the penny is still legal tender, so what did this kids do wrong?  The principal said that it was a “prank” and not a “protest”  (presumably to try and justify the detention), but what exactly is a “prank” about it, other than it being annoying?

Why I hate people from Alaska – You remember Sen. Stevens (R-Alaska), of “The Internet is a series of tubes” fame?  Well, he is at it again, along with apparently equally dimwitted Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Senator Olympia Snow (R-Washington), who have introduced a bill to outlaw the already illegal practice of phishing.  Sounds a bit like yet another Bridge to Nowhere.  Of course I can’t but wonder, if it doesn’t pass if Stevens will throw another one of his hissy fits and threaten to quit the Senate.  Of course, I can always dream.

Your rights trampled in the name of profits – It seems Monsanto is on a tear again, pushing for lawmakers to get rid of your right to select milk not tainted with synthetic growth hormones.  Whether or not you believe or care about the rBST/rBGH controvery or not, you should care about your rights, as this is not the only product that is being targeted by large companies to get labeling stripped to keep the consumer in the dark.  Contact your representatives, and tell them, you have a right to know.

Emeril going green – Emeril is coming to the Discovery Channel with a new eco-friendly food show.  The show reportedly will be set in Whole Foods Markets and will feature organic, free range and natural foods.

And how about now? – Yes, I know I can understand if you are tired of me mentioning TheMeatrix, and Sustainable Table, and other food “activist” type things, because how could farms possibly be as bad as it is show in that little animated movie… right?  Well what about this video?  That is not fiction!  That is not “a demonstration” or even a theoretical re-enactment.   No cute little animation here.  This is the actual goings on that lead to the single largest recall of beef (to date) in the United States. [Via Sustainable Table Blog]

The White House’s argument has been that the 40 some odd law suits currently pending in the courts could cause finanacial hardship for the telcos.  Well gee, how does the old saying go?  Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine?  (yea I know, I am paraphrasing).  Perhaps they should have thought of this before they went ahead and broke the law.

So what Senators do the telcos own?  (And if your Senator is on this list, you may wish to contact him/her and ask Why they are supporting and providing immunity for criminals!)

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)

P.S.  Regardless of what your political leaning are… YES!  The Telcos are criminals.  If they weren’t, they would not need the cover of being given immunity.

We have clothes, dolls, I was one of the fortunate parents that was able to get tickets (at face value) for the concert, and  Santa Claus even came across with the Digital Blue 718 Disney Mix Stick Hannah Montan Mp3 Player (a compromise between me wanting her to have her own music player, and TheWife thinking she was too young for a “real” MP3 player).

Now of course, since our TV rarely leaves the Disney Channel, I of course knew that the Hannah Montana 3D movie was coming.  I was somewhat hoping (fine I was in denial) that since she went to the actual concert, she would not be interested in going to see the movie.  Of course this was NOT the case.  But fine I thought, it is just a movie.

What I didn’t anticipate (and did not see in the commercials until this past week) is that this movie is being release for “1 week only.”  Which in many of the theaters (at least around here) means they are only showing it 1 or 2 days.   Then TheWife informs me that tickets are $15!!!  $15 for a movie that is barely over an hour long!  But things don’t stop there.  No, since there are only a total of 6 shows over two days, the closest theater to us that is showing the movie is SOLD OUT!  TheWife was actually considering (before I found tickets at another theater) trying to buy tickets through a ticket broker.  Can you imagine this?  Scalping tickets to a movie?

Fortunately as I said, I was able to find tickets at another theater, because there was no way I was “paying up” for tickets to the movie.  So, TheWife and LatteGirl will get to see Hannah in 3D (Noooo, I’m not going… not at $15 per).  And I am left to ponder, is Disney out of their freakin’ minds?  Or am I?

This of course leads to the potential for labels from those that do not use cloned animals to mark their products as such. But let us look for a second at an issue that I have mentioned here before, the use of synthetic hormones in milk. Dairies that have chosen to not use Monsanto’s rBGH/rBST should under the same theory be “free” to let consumers know that they produce a product that does not use these hormones, giving consumers that would rather not use them a choice. Simple enough, right? Wrong! Monsanto tried the court route, with mixed results, certainly not good enough for them. Suddenly now there appears to be a genuine campaign to get these labels removed, so that consumers will not be allowed to chose for themselves.

Is this what the FDA means by “free to label or mark their products?”  The simple fact is, that they assume an uneducated consumer is the best consumer, because that means more profits at the expense of your health… not that you would know it, because the FDA… who is supposed to be watching out for the best interest of the people, are all too quickly giving in to pressure from politics and big business.

It is coming to a point, where regardless of how careful you are or try to be with what you feed your family, these corporations have the money to take away your right to know what it is that you are eating.  If this all sounds “anti-business” it isn’t.  It is about anti-corrupt-businesses.  Businesses like Monsanto that have no ethics and cheat and lie to the public and try to buy off politicians.  Heck, I have all the respect in the world for companies like Burger King.  Are they selling products that are, well questionable in nutritional value and awful in regards to fat?  Of course.  And they make no bones about it.  They tell you simply the way it is.  We cater to fat people with big appetites.  Sure, a bacon cheeseburger is loaded with fat.  But if you are a big person, with a big appetite, and want something that has 5 layers of cheese, burger and bacon, and want to consume all that fat in one sitting, then we are happy to serve you.  It is not healthy.  It is not smart.  But they aren’t trying to get lawmakers to ban health food stores for “misleading customers by claiming that their tofu is a better choice” as their defense.  It is disgusting… but it is honest.   You want to eat that… you know what you are getting and are making a choice.

Unfortunately, when it comes to cloning (and unless we can stop it soon milk as well), you can’t make such a choice.

If you look at the Terms and Conditions that have been modified since they were sued (and lost) for terminating customers for using “too much bandwith” on their unlimited data plans they now clearly specify:

Anyone using more than 5 GB per line in a given month is presumed to be using the service in a manner prohibited above, and we reserve the right to immediately terminate the service of any such person without notice. 

They have apparently stopped using the word unlimited on some of their advertising, but when you go to sign up (or renew) a plan, the price still includes “unlimited” in their offerings (with the disclaimer of defining what unlimited means.  Now, to some extent I can understand and appreciate what Verizon Wireless is trying to do in that this service (especially on a consumer account) is not designed for this purpose, and 5GB is a LOT of traffic to be pulling down to a mobile phone or PDA in a given month, but then why not just STOP CALLING IT AN UNLIMITED PLAN.  There are plenty of words in dictionary, can’t the folks at Verizon Wireless, stop redefining the meanings and just work with what is already there?  Hello!?!  Can you hear me now Verizon Wireless?

* Full Disclosure – I am a Verizon Wireless customer.  What that means… I don’t know, other than I am willing to call out even companies that I like when they are doing wrong by their customers.

Verizon Wireless plans on selling information on you, such as “quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location and amount of services you purchase.”  Together this is known as you “Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI).”

They are going to do this so that may “better serve your communications needs and to identify, offer and provide products and services.”  In other words, so they can sell you more sh– errr… stuff.

Now even the FCC and other regulatory bodies realized how important it was to safeguard this information, and Verizon Wireless is required to do so by law.  But now they are seeking your waiver so that they may use this information to sell you stuff from them, their parent companies, affiliates, partners, and anybody else they can profit from.  They also however are using the standard sneaky ass backward “opt out” method of permission.

You have 30 days from the time the letter was sent to you to “opt out”  and unless you do, Verizon Wireless “will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI”

In case you didn’t save the letter (or don’t feel like waiting for it to come), you can call 1-800-333-9956 and follow the recorded instructions to opt out.