Previously I wrote about 21st-century ambulance chasers; here’s another example of legal douchebaggery and the sad results of the CAN-SPAM act.
This arrived in my mailbox today – the topic caught my attention because I have a neighbor who may need dialysis, and I wondered if this were anything of value based on the subject line. Unfortunately, not so.
Rather than doing anything at all to reduce unsolicited commercial email (UCE), the CAN-SPAM act actually increased spam, simply by requiring that spammers identify their messages as commerical solicitations and offering an opt-out link.[1] Another example of how our legislators are bought, paid for, and in the pockets of their largest contributors.
The spamvertisement leads to this web page:
Like the universally-hated LowerMyBills.com, this one is a “matching” service which spamvertises widely, and distributes the information you provide to any number of willing shysters who would be happy to help you recover the compensation you’re entitled to for the ingrown toenail that was caused by D’Agostino Bros. grocery store serving your mother tainted potato salad in 1953. You’ll be contacted by “Dewey, Cheetham and Howe”, or “Barton, Potrini, and Konlon”, or some other hellish conglomeration of soulless bottom-feeders who will be very sympathetic to your case; of course, the scummy drones will take 60% of whatever they happen to squeeze out of your victim.
Q: What do you call 6,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
[1] Never click these opt-out links. Anyone sleazy enough to spam you is sleazy enough to use your unsubscribe request as a verification that yours is a real e-mail address. Your spam will only increase.
“I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire me to provide them with something good to eat.” Melville, Herman – “Bartleby the Scrivener”
I love you guys. You know I do. So don’t think I’m dissing you or getting on your case. But there are a few things I’d like all of my friends and family to understand.
First:
If it’s not true, don’t send it, unless it’s just a nice, uplifting story; in that case, label it as such.
(PS – this applies to Facebook posts, too.)
Second:
Your Grandma Pensilthea probably doesn’t want her email address distributed to 100 other people. She will hunt you down and kill you in your sleep.
Third:
If something you want to send to your friends has this bit of nonsense at the end, delete it before sending it on. You can’t really believe that good fortune depends on how many people you send an email to, now can you? We make our own luck in this world by what we choose to do.
That’s all. It’s very simple. If everyone would do these three things, the quantity of emails in our inboxes would go down, and the quality would go way up.
We recently took my wife’s good old 97 Tercel, “Jack”, in for his yearly emissions test. Sadly, he failed – it seems that his catalytic converter had gracefully given up the ghost. After 15 years, that’s not unexpected. So we began to check local repair shops for a replacement. What I found was a real eye-opener. Here are the quotes I was given from local service people. Prices reflect parts and labor.
Most places quoted me based on some ultra-special converter they said the car needed, which in itself cost around $800.00. We ended up going through Autoworks in Payson; they did a fine job, Jack passed his test, and off we went, happy at having saved significant money.
I have nothing against a business model based on honest markup for a fair profit, but some of these places definitely don’t have the customer’s best interest in mind.
Another story that I just happened to recall, since I’m on the subject. Years ago, my first wife and our children took a trip to SoCal in our 1983 Buick Skylark. We had a wonderful time, and about 15 minute after we had gotten on the freeway in San Diego to head home, our transmission went out. I arranged a tow truck, and not knowing anyone in the area, had our car taken to AAMCO.
Big mistake.
They hauled our car in, took the transmission off, quoted us $1875 to repair it, and refused to put it back in unless we paid them to do it. Bastards. I later found out that nationwide, AAMCO is known for meaning “All Automatics Must Come Out.” I told them where they could stick their scam, and arranged for Interstate Transmissions to come get our car (and the tranny in a box). I sent my family home by air, rented a vehicle and stayed with my brother-in-law for a few days until the car was done, and Interstate charged me something like $1175, which included a lifetime warranty. And a good thing, too – because the transmission did go out again a year later, and they honored their warranty and fixed it at no additional cost.
Never take the first quote you get on something; always check around; and remember, a big name doesn’t guarantee honest or fair service. Be careful out there.
The statistic is probably way off now, but the good sense remains, and science has identified countless good reasons for breast feeding in addition to the cost savings. Now if we can only get self-righteous douchebags to stop hassling women when they feed their babies in public.
Anyone who knows me at all probably knows that I have this love of Ireland and its language, Gailge.
Speak Irish to me or I’ll break your face
One day in New York, around 1969, I stopped to use the phone in a pub, and while there I struck up a conversation with the bartender. The conversation turned to languages, and when I told him that I enjoyed learning them he said to me, ” Well, don’t learn Gaelic “. This ominous warning piqued my curiosity, and that very day I went and found a copy of Teach Yourself Irish by Myles Dillon and Donncha Ó Cróinin. Unfortunately this volume was old in methodology and in orthography – it used a lot of words that had even more silent letters than today’s version uses, after a spelling reform. As a result, pronunciation was a problem; it would take a native speaker to help me understand that Dún Laoghaire, for instance, is pronounced Doon Leery.
So I set the book aside until about 1990, when I discovered an Irish course in my local library system, Cúrsa Gaeilge by the Linguaphone Institute. With the help of this “Rosetta Stone”, unfortunately out of print, I began making progress. Since then I have discovered numerous excellent courses both in print and on the net. If you’re interested in learning Irish, I would recommend Learning Irish by Michael Ó Siadhail; the new Teach Yourself Irish; Pimsleur Irish; or Buntús Cainte. Rosetta Stone announced their first-level Irish course in 2008.
I have been enchanted by this intriguing language and its intriguing speakers. In 1998 I fulfilled a lifetime dream to visit Ireland with my family, and spent a week in Abbeyville Cottage in Cill Mocheallog (Kilmallock).
We explored the Dingle peninsula and stopped in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) area of Baile an Fhirtéaraigh (Ballyferriter); nearly fell off the cliffs of Moher; saw Waterford crystal being made; experienced a medieval dinner at Bunratty Castle near Limerick as well as St. John’s Castle in the same town; explored the rock of Cashel; went horseback riding in a brisk Irish rain; attended church meetings in Tralee; kissed the Blarney stone and dined at the Deanery in Cork… I’m afraid all it did was whet my appetite for more. The reality far exceeded the expectation; fortunately I was able to make another trip back in 2001, to attend a translator’s conference in Trá Lí, but it’s still not enough. I’m greedy. I want to go back.
Cliffs of Moher
Irish Street Signs
A blessing on this lovely land and its equally lovely people.
No Bearla
Filmmaker and native Irish speaker Manchán Magan made a documentary in which he traveled through Ireland only speaking Irish, just to see how far he could get. People demanded he switch to English; shopkeepers told him to get lost; officials refused to help him; and people on the street ignored him. But he kept at it and found willing speakers here and there. (From The Week.) His video gives you a delightful glimpse into the struggles of the Irish-speaking community to keep their language alive.
The following two videos by Dough Productions are entertaining and full of pathos. To this day, Irish continues the Sysiphean task of defending itself against the onslaught of English. Whether the language will survive this century remains to be seen; I feel as though having learned a bit of it, I’m doing my part – however small – to stem the tide.
My Name is Yu Ming – Follow the adventures of Yu Ming, a young Chinese shopkeeper in a dead-end job, who moves to Ireland to start life anew… only to find out that the “old language” is no longer in use!
Fluent Dysphasia – Pity poor Michael Murphy! After a night of celebrating with a friend, he wakes up with a hangover and a problem: He no longer speaks or understands English, and can only speak Irish! How will he solve this difficult challenge?
Playing in the World Game 