A very old story, which still continues to be relevant:
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position and course to fly to the airport.
The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter’s window. The pilot’s sign said “WHERE AM I?” in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign and held it in a building window. Their sign read: “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.”
The pilot smiled, waved, looked at her map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER” sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded “I knew that had to be the Microsoft building because, like their technical support, online help and product documentation, the response they gave me was technically correct, but completely useless.”
It’s like this company never learns. As one user complained back in 2011,
Microsoft has long been a champion of low levels of customer service. It used to be, though, that they at least had a help function that was searchable and helped you occasionally find an answer to a question. Now they just dump you out on the internet…might as well use Google. They want 259 bucks to answer a question. When will someone free us from this monster?
Nothing has improved. I cannot remember ever getting a useful answer from a Microsoft help file or website; generally if the answer is out there, it takes hunting through many user forums before the correct solution can be found. More often than not, the “top answer” is provided by someone claiming to be an “expert” who didn’t understand the question in the first place, and/or provides an “answer” that is so complex it would take a master’s degree in computer technology to understand and implement – things like editing the registry [chxxchxxt, pa-TOO!] or some other such nonsense. I began my programming career in 1969 on a Univac 1108, and I have a hard time understanding what they want me to do; Grandma Bucket in Whistling Rock, Arizona wouldn’t have a hope in Hell.
In general, poor customer service results in reduced revenue, but Microsoft is so big and so pervasive that they don’t seem to give a rat’s south-40. I don’t agree with his politics, but Scott Adams hits the corporate nail on the head:
In a fit of frustration, I created this MP3 file back in 2008, which accurately represents my experience with the company.
Now, don’t get me wrong. If it weren’t for MS products, I probably wouldn’t be typing this blog post. Mac stuff is still too expensive, and the learning curve for Unix is still too steep for me at the moment.
The bottom line is that it’s definitely a first-world problem. We just have to pull up our big-boy/big girl pants and deal with it, but Microsoft has certainly not made things easier for its users over its lifetime.
Messages like this may pop up in your Facebook messenger feed, or on any other social media channel. People who are lonely might actually respond, in which case they will be groomed for personal information or asked for money once a “relationship” is established.
Hallmarks of this particular scam are bad grammar and formatting, flattery, and requests for assistance.
These are not people looking for love, they are scammers and criminals. They want your money or your personal information. Shun them. Delete their messages. Never answer.
HELLO DEAR. My name is Miss Marvis Gaasu. I am glad to meet you here; Please, write me in this email id.(obfuscated@yahoo.com). It very important.i wait your reply fast,Or you send me your email address,i will send you my photos and details your email address. Thanks.
If you respond, those photos they send you will most likely be stock pictures lifted from the internet.
Hello dear friend i am Kate Brown by name,i am interested to be your true friend.please I will like you to reply me with my email (katebrown4@yahoo.com ) so that i can send you my own information for us to know each other very well. Thanks bye. obfuscated@yahoo.com ❤ ❤
Interesting that all these scammers are using yahoo addresses. That’s another red flag.
Hello new friend, greeting to you. How was your days and health? Hope all is well with you. My name is Miss Favour Mercy, I am a female. I am interested in you after going through your profile on facebook, and i decided to contact you. I would like to get acquaint with you, As well to know you better. Please write me back through this email address: (obfuscated@yahoo .com) so that i can send you my picture and let you know more about me. Write me on my email address, because i do not use facebook very often, If you contact me on facebook, you may not probably get any reply from me. I am eager to hear from you soonest! Thanks for your answer: Yours new friend Miss Favour Mercy.
If you contact the scammer on Facebook, it’s very likely that their profile has already been deleted as being fraudulent.
Protect your vulnerable loved ones from this sort of thermonuclear douchebaggery.
We could learn from other nations… if we were willing to listen. It seems that’s what a “hearing” is supposed to be about.
The following text is from a Twitter thread written by Michael Grunwald (@MichaelGrunwald), and I thought it was important enough to share here in a more readable format. I originally saw it posted on Imgur and then a friend of mine on Facebook shared the same link with me. If something shows up a few times in succession in my life, I take it as a sign that it’s worth looking at, and this one definitely is.
I went to an obscure hearing today in the Danish Parliament. It blew my mind, not because of the substance, but because the US Congress has totally warped my view of hearings. And I’m just dorky enough to do a thread about it.
First of all, there was a dais in the hearing room, just like any congressional hearing, except the politicians weren’t on the dais. The six experts who were testifying were on the dais. Can you imagine? As if the hearing was about them and not the politicians?
The politicians were sitting in the front row of the audience. They all stayed in their seats for the entire hearing. And do you know what they did? They listened! I was in the second row and I didn’t see any of them look at a phone or talk to an aide at any time.
Actually, there was one politician on stage, the committee chair. She welcomed everyone, told the witnesses they would each have 10 minutes, then didn’t say anything until one witness asked for an extra minute. She said no. I swooned. ❤
Oh, did I mention this obscure hearing was simultaneously translated into English? They gave me cool high-tech headphones. I think everyone else in the audience spoke Danish but they take this stuff seriously.
Anyway, when the witnesses were done the politicians got their turn to speak. And none of them made speeches! They asked questions! Not leading questions designed to make a point. Thoughtful questions designed to get information!
This part really got me: The pols had to ask all their questions first, which took maybe 5 minutes, and then all the witnesses got to answer all of them, which took 20 minutes. The experts did the talking and the pols did the hearing. Is that how these things got their name?
I couldn’t tell which pols were in which party or what biases any of them had about the topic being discussed. It really seemed like they were there to learn. And by the end it was clear they had.
This thread is really about process, not substance, but I will say the topic was related to climate change, and everyone there took it seriously. One legislator told me only 4 or 5 of her 178 colleagues are deniers.
Anyway, the weirdest thing about this mostly banal experience was how weird it seemed. The lack of speechifying, grandstanding, partisanship or fake umbrage. How seriously they all took their responsibilities. The absence of bullshit.
In conclusion, we suck. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded how much we suck, and how it’s possible to suck less.
A Twitter thread by @MikeGrundwald.
I agree with every single word of this mini-essay, but I would like to add a bit of my own additional perspective on Mr. Grunwald’s conclusion.
As a nation, we don’t suck. Despite the fact that over the last 50 years or so we have lost our way in some areas and owe it to ourselves and to our global neighbors to improve¹, there are a lot of things that America has gotten right since its inception.
Our Constitution is unmatched in the history of the world. In 1835, French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville toured America with a view to seeing if our democracy was worth of emulation by the French. In his book Democracy in America, he declared that our Constitution was “the most perfect federal constitution that ever existed,” but also warned that it would be “profitless in other hands.” In other words, the guarantees and protections and checks and balances written into our Constitution only work if the people desire democracy; any piece of parchment can be trodden down by the feet of a lawless mob.
We are still a welcoming nation. The growing xenophobic right-wing movement in our country still accounts for a minority of our population, and most people understand that America has always been a nation of immigrants. It is the exquisite blending and adapting of countless cultures that makes the United States a vibrant, thriving place.
The citizens of our country are, in the grand scheme of things, a very giving people. In many parts of the country – even those who tend to be politically conservative – people will reach out to neighbors and even strangers and literally give them the shirt off their backs. As the song Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival says, “If you come down to the river, Bet you gonna find some people who live; You don’t have to worry cause you have no money, People on the river are happy to give.”
Bagels. Blueberries. Hot dogs. Pizza. Jazz. Lobster rolls. NASA. Our National parks. Rolling plains and prairies, purple mountain majesties, redwood forests, beaches, fireflies, public libraries, road trips (at least, when there’s not a pandemic going on), Jewish deli sandwiches, Hollywood, Broadway, musea, and countless other things that make me grateful to be a citizen of this nation.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Footnotes
¹ The things that need work in our country (areas in which we do suck) are also many, but they are subjects for other discussions. In the meantime, this is something good to remember as we contemplate ways to make our country better:
For the first time in over five years, I awoke this morning without a crushing sense of dread to read the news and find out what indignities our former administration had inflicted upon our country and upon the world. It was a literal sense of physical relief, and I still revel in it as I write this.
Over the last half-decade, political cartoonists have had a literal heyday. Never in my life has there been a president or an administration that was more thoroughly or more deservedly pilloried. If anyone wanted to anthologize all the cartoons that were done about the Orange Screechweasel and his abortive presidency, I suspect it would look like this (Volume 1): ¹
I collected a few of these over the years, more as a pressure valve than anything else and to reassure myself that it was not just me that felt these things, but I think the one that impacted me the most was this one that appeared on the morning after the 2016 election:
David Rowe of the Australian Financial Review
The eyes said it all. And although Mr. Rowe caught a lot of flak from American Trump Cultists among others, here on the morning of January 21, 2021, when the White House is occupied by President Joseph Biden, Jr., and Vice-President Kamala Harris, and a fresh, clean breeze of hope is blowing over our nation for the first time in far too long, it becomes clear that – as the saying goes – we had no idea. Mr. Rowe’s cartoon was spot-on, but dramatically understated. The horror would be far worse than anything any of us could have imagined.
There are a handful of online comics that I follow, less than a dozen and far fewer than in days past (I was always a fan of the daily funnies from my earliest days of reading The Herald Tribune in New York City), and one of the is “The New Adventures of Queen Victoria” by Pab Sungenis. The writer’s political satire has always been a favorite of mine, but the last two days of his strip pretty much say it all:
We survived. Sadly, some 400,000 of us did not – and counting – and while not all of those deaths from the Novel Coronavirus could have been avoided, a significant percentage could have been had there been functioning adults in the White House.
Well, now there are. And while no administration of either party is perfect, I feel more hope for the future now than even I did with the election of Barack Obama, whose campaign slogan was Hope and Change. He began the trend, and with this unwanted and hideous interlude behind us, I look forward to the reparation of as much damage as possible and forward motion to a nation that works for all of us, with no one left out, and a nation that can re-assume its position at the global table as a functioning, adult equal.
The inauguration yesterday morning was breathtaking in its honesty, in its beauty, and in its hopefulness. I literally wept tears of joy and release as I listened to the speeches, the poetry, and the music. It was exhilarating and cathartic.
May the 46th Administration of our great but suffering nation bring healing and progress. May we undertake effective new steps to protect our populace from the depredations of the current pandemics, one of a new and relatively unknown virus, and a second of ignorance and brainwashing by 50 years of spite and disinformation.
Our nation awakens to a fresh, new morning of hope. May we see that hope fulfilled more abundantly than our previous fears were.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Footnotes:
¹ Not to mention all the wonderful video parodies by people such as Randy Rainbow, late-night segments by John Oliver and Stephen Colbert and so many like them, and serious critical essays by the likes of John Pavlovitz, Heather Cox Richardson, Dan Rather, Jim Wright, and countless others. Just had to add this because they shouldn’t be forgotten.
Cross-posted from a LiveJournal post on Sep. 16th, 2012
So yes, this is an old story, but it came up because I was once again looking for a particular quote about Cobalt-60, and Google gave me my own post as the first search result. That’s always a titillating feeling.
In the closing pages of Robin Cook’s Fatal Cure, we learn that the evil hospital administrator bastards who have been killing people with massive doses of gamma radiation (because they were using too many hospital resources) come to a satisfyingly karmic end.
Scanning the cluttered conference table, David spotted the source instantly. It was a cylinder about a foot long whose diameter matched the size of the bore in the treatment arm he’d examined only minutes ago. Several Teflon rings were embedded in its circumference. On its top was a locking pin. The cylinder was standing upright next to a model of a parking garage just as Van Slyke had indicated.
David started for the cylinder, clutching a lead apron in both hands.
“Stop!” Traynor yelled.
Before David could get to the cylinder, Caldwell leapt to his feet and grabbed David around his chest.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Caldwell demanded.
“I’m trying to save all of you if it isn’t too late,” David said.
“Let him go,” Angela cried.
“What are you talking about?” Traynor demanded.
David nodded toward the cylinder. “I’m afraid you have been having your meeting around a cobalt-60 source.”
Cantor leaped to his feet; his chair tipped over backward. “I saw that thing,” he cried. “I wondered what it was.” Saying no more, he turned and fled from the room.
A stunned Caldwell relaxed his grip. David immediately lunged across the table and snatched up the brass cylinder in his lead gloves. Then he rolled the cylinder in one of his lead aprons. Next he wrapped that apron in another and that one in another still. He proceeded to do the same with the aprons Angela was carrying while she stepped out of the conference room to get the others. David was anxious to cover the cylinder with as many layers of lead as possible.
As David was wrapping the last load of the aprons around the bulky parcel, Angela got the Geiger counter.
“I don’t believe you,” Traynor said, breaking a shocked silence. But his voice lacked conviction. Cantor’s sudden departure had unnerved him.
“This is not the time for debate,” David said. “Everyone better get out of here,” he added. “You’ve all been exposed to a serious amount of radiation. I advise you to call your doctors.”
Traynor and the others exchanged nervous glances. Panic soon broke out as first a few and then the remaining board members, including Traynor, ran from the room.
David finished with the last apron and took the Geiger counter. Turning it on, he was dismayed to see that it still registered a significant amount of radiation.
“Let’s get out of here,” David said. “That’s about all we can do.”
Leaving the cylinder wrapped in aprons on the table, they went out of the conference room, closing the doors behind them. David tried the Geiger counter again. As he expected, the radiation had fallen off dramatically. “As long as no one goes in the conference room, no one else will get hurt tonight,” he said.
Cook, Robin, Fatal Cure, Putnam, 1993
All of the criminals die horribly, of radiation poisoning.
{Evil Laugh}
Back in the real world, in September of 2012, it appears that Halliburton, the company formerly run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, misplaced a little radioactive cylinder of its own.
About 7 inches long, the little device is used by the oil field services company to assess potential sites for hydraulic fracturing (fracking – Google it); they lost track of it while trying to transport it from Pecos to a well site near Odessa 130 miles away. (How that loss was permitted to happen in the first place remains a large question to which I have never seen a satisfactory answer.)
“It’s not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form,” said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet.”
Comfortingly, the cylinder is stamped with the words “danger radioactive” and “do not handle” along with a radiation warning symbol, according to the Texas Health Department.
There’s just one problem.
By the time you get close enough to read that teeny-tiny writing, you’ve probably picked the thing up and held it about six inches from your face. Sorry, you’ve just fatally irradiated your brain. Sucks to be you.
I do hope they can locate this thing, before the ɑ-particles produced by americium-241 react in the presence of beryllium to form neutrons, which will promptly burn the hell out of whichever group of children picks it up and uses it to play catch with.
So this story ended happily, but the concept of unshielded radiation sources running around in the wild is something best left to the gripping medical fiction of Dr. Robin Cook and not real life.
Steven Owen Deputy Director Of Finance, (Administration,Operations) Richmond International Airport 1 Richard E Byrd Terminal Dr, Richmond, VA 23250, United States Email: stevenowen.005office@gmail.com
I have very vital information to give to you, but first I must have your trust before I review it to you because it may cause me my job,so I need somebody that I can trust for me to be able to review the secret to you.
I am Mr. Steven Owen,(Deputy Director Of Finance & Administration) here at the Richmond International Airport, Virginia. During my recent withheld package routine check at the Airport Storage Vault, I discovered an abandoned shipment from a Diplomat from Africa and when scanned it revealed an undisclosed sum of money in a Metal Trunk Box weighing 210kg approximately $25,500,000.00 ($25.5M) The consignment was abandoned because the Contents of the consignment was not properly declared by the consignee as “MONEY” rather it was declared as personal effect to avoid interrogation and also the inability of the diplomat to pay for the United States Non Inspection Charges which is $4,500USD. On my assumption the consignment is still left in our Storage House here at the Richmond International Airport, Virginia till date. The details of the consignment including your names, your email address and the official documents from the United Nations office in Geneva are tagged on! !! the Trunk box.
However, to enable me confirm if you are the actual recipient of this consignment as the assistant director of the Inspection Unit, I will advise you provide your current Phone Number and Full Address, to enable me cross check if it corresponds with the address on the official documents including the name of nearest Airport around your city. Please note that this consignment is supposed to have been returned to the United States Treasury Department as unclaimed delivery due to the delays in concluding the clearance processes so as a result of this, I will not be able to receive your details on my official email account. So in order words to enable me cross check your details, I will advise you send the required details to my private email address for quick processing and response. Once I confirm you as the actual recipient of the trunk box, I can get everything concluded within 48hours upon your acceptance and proceed to your address for delivery. The Requested Information is to ensure that no mistake or error is occured and should be forwarded in the manner stated below:
Your Full Name:……. Your Complete Address:….. Name of City of Residence:….. Closet Airport to your City:…… Direct Telephone Number:…..
Lastly, be informed that the reason I have taken it upon myself to contact you personally about this abandoned consignment is because I want us to transact this business and share the money 70% for you and 30% for me since the consignment has not yet been returned to the United States Treasury Department after being abandoned by the diplomat so immediately the confirmation is made, I will go ahead and pay for the United States Non Inspection Fee of $4,500 dollars and arrange for the box to be delivered to your doorstep Or I can bring it by myself to avoid any more trouble but you have to assure me of my 30% share.
I wait to hear from you urgently if you are still alive and I will appreciate if we can keep this deal confidential. Please get back to me via my private Email (stevenowen.005office@gmail.com) for further directives:
Best Regards Mr.Steven Owen
The email came with a form to fill out, which clearly was never completed:
These are just as fraudulent now as they were during the days of the fax machine. NEVER send money or private information to these scumbags. Delete their emails and move on with your life. There is no money waiting for you, and if you communicate with these people you stand to lose money or your identity or both.
Joseph Biden, Jr. won our latest presidential election, the most secure in our history. It’s a confirmed fact.
The idiot currently in the White House, in my lifetime’s greatest display of pettiness, infantile spite, and breathtaking narcissism, has continually refused to honor our nation’s traditions and concede his spectacular loss – both in the popular vote and the electoral college – and continues to claim that he won the election by “a lot,” that millions of votes were cast illegally by democrats and dead people, and that the election should be overturned in his favor. Legal scholars could debate this for a lifetime, but from where I sit this is not just arrogance and megalomania, it’s an attack on American institutions and the Constitution, and hence rises to the definition of treason.
But that’s not unexpected from this incompetent, unqualified clown. In fact, given the daily outflow of lies, conspiracy theories, misrepresentations, insults, and heart-stopping displays of abject stupidity seen on this con-man’s Twitter feed, it’s exactly what many people predicted would happen. So it’s not exactly astonishing.
What is astonishing is the number of people in positions of power and influence – almost exclusively Republicans – who have hitched their wagon to this pathetic, dying star and are supporting both the man and his insane attempt to stay in a position of power that he has for too long disgraced and abused.
They have filed lawsuit after lawsuit on his behalf, the vast majority of which – over 59 as of December 13th and counting, according to a running tally on Twitter – they have definitively lost in front of judges and courts, many of which were appointed by the Buffoon-in-Chief himself. Their claims have been absurd and frivolous, and all of them (except one or two about minor procedural matters) have been appropriately dismissed by these jurists and indeed, by the Supreme Court.
Now comes Louie Gohmert, Republican congressman from Texas, who has filed a suit against Vice President Mike Pence, demanding, in the words of Jim Wright, the author of Stonekettle Station,
“that the Court give Pence the “Exclusive Authority” to decide which Electoral College votes to count and which ones to ignore during the upcoming congressional session on January 6th when the House certifies the election. The lawsuit LITERALLY demands that Pence be given the exclusive authority to decide the election.”
Breathtaking doesn’t cover it. Heart-stopping doesn’t cover it. Mind-raping doesn’t cover it. The abject stupidity and un-Americanism of all these attempts to overturn a United States presidential election, not only by juridical means but also by loudly and repeatedly trumpeting the lie that the election was stolen by Democrats, is absolutely impossible for me to fathom. In the words of a certain segment of a previous generation, “I just can’t even.”
And the saddest part of it all is that I don’t see any consequences forthcoming for this army of sycophants and followers of our modern-day caudillo¹, all of whom have disgraced themselves in the eyes of the world and of history. Certainly, on January 20th The Thermonuclear Bowel Evacuation Currently Disgracing the Oval Office will either walk out of the White House (or be frogmarched out by the Secret Service, which I have to admit would be a more satisfying spectacle), and fade into obscurity to become an ignominious footnote in history, along with the rest of his corrupt clan and hangers-on.
Image by Cathygraphics.com
That’s an indisputable consequence. And it pleases me to think that despite any executive pardons either already issued or forthcoming, many states are lined up at the starting gate with indictments and subpœnas in hand, waiting to delve into the personal and political corruption that has been on public display for the last four years. But for many of the people who have foolishly attached their names to lawsuits, or signed on as friends of the court, or done anything to try to subvert a constitutionally-conducted election, I fear that our nation is simply too complex, and the issues facing us at the present time – not the least of which is the Covid pandemic – are so pressing that things will simply return to business as usual and there will be neither punishments nor repercussions.
And there should be. There must be. From the Republican Senate’s refusal to hear evidence or witnesses during the impeachment trial, issuing a verdict based on political ideology rather than facts, to the current insanity of a disputed election, there must be consequences or our nation’s political process will remain forever tainted. Every senator who stated – in advance! – that they would not be an impartial jurist during the impeachment trial; every senator or congressperson who joined lawsuits to try to keep a drooling cretin in power for four more years despite the will of the American people – should not be seated in January or should be immediatly recalled. They have disgraced themselves, disgraced their legislative bodies, and disgraced the Constitution of the United States. If they are attorneys themselves, as so many of them are, local or national bar associations should sanction or disbar them. What they have done and continue to do is virtually inexcusable.
That’s what I demand, as a citizen of a once-great nation which has been made decidedly less great by a harlequin in a red hat. I hold out a faint glimmer of hope that in some cases, elected officials will be voted out during their next run for office, and retire in disgrace. I hope against hope that there will be legal consequences for some of them. But whether or not these things happen, I am content to have said my piece to the world. To my children and grandchildren and whatever posterity I am blessed with, know that I stood against this raging tide of folly, I voted my conscience, and did what I could to end the madness.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Footnotes:
¹ If you’re not familiar with the term,
“Historian John Lynch states that “Before 1810 the caudillo was unknown. … The caudillo entered history as a local hero whom larger events promoted to a military chieftain.” He gained in power by his success as a military leader. In a rural area that lacked any institutions of the state, and where the environment was one of violence and anarchy, a caudillo could impose order, often by using violence himself to achieve it. His local control as a strongman needed to be maintained by assuring the loyalty of his followers, so his bestowing material rewards reinforced his own position. Caudillos could also maintain their position by protecting the interests of regional elites. A local strongman who built a regional base could aspire to becoming a national caudillo, taking control of the state. In this situation, caudillos could bestow patronage on a large retinue of clients, who in turn gave him their loyalty. In general, caudillos’ power benefited elites. But these strongmen were also mediators between elites and the popular classes, recruiting them into the power base, but also restraining them from achieving power themselves.” (Wikipedia)
Recently the Washington Post conducted a survey of every Republican member of congress, asking who they thought won the recent election and if they would support the winner. The results are below:
Of the individuals surveyed, 27 correctly stated that Joe Biden was the winner (with 306 electoral votes, of which over 270 have been officially certified as of this date, and over 7 million more votes in the popular vote count.) Many of those in this category declined to respond directly to the survey, but their positions have been made clear in other public statements.
Two (Mo Brooks of Alabama and Paul Gosar of Arizona) stated flat out – and incorrectly – that Trump won the election, because it was fraudulently conducted.
The remaining 220 legislators refused to comment one way or another.
Now it is unheard of in my lifetime and longer that the results of a democratically-conducted election should be disputed in this way. Election night happens; one individual wins; the other individual concedes; and an administration continues or there is an orderly transition of power. That’s the way our system has worked for as long as I’ve been alive.
So why are things different now?
Because one man, with an ego the size of Jupiter and living in an artificial reality refuses to believe that there is a world where he could lose at anything.
Long before the election was held, the incumbent was telling people right and left, day and night, “If I lose this election, it was rigged.” Mail-in and absentee balloting has been a part of our electoral system; per the History Channel, “Voting by mail can trace its roots to soldiers voting far from home during the Civil War and World War II.” But in the mind of this pathetic, infantile clown, mail-in ballots are simply a channel for millions of people to vote illegally: the dead, illegal immigrants, people of color (their votes don’t really count because they’re not really Americans), and (gasp!) Democrats and Liberals. He even installed a Postmaster, a Republican party fundraiser, to make sure that the mechanism for delivering absentee ballots was crippled, so that it would be easy to claim (as Trump did) that any ballots received after election day were invalid. This, however, is simply untrue; states decide how to deal with absentee ballots, and many allow them, particularly if they were postmarked before the actual election.
Trump hammered on these lies again and again. Lies that have no basis in fact, no basis in history, and no basis in the results. The fact that he did so is a thundering disgrace. And he lost, soundly.
But 222 Republican legislators either believed the lies, or – despite seeing the writing on the wall about what had been happening to our government over the last 4 years – were unwilling to step up and accept the results of the election for fear of losing their power and their position. And this is equally disgraceful, and in my mind it approaches the standard of sedition and treason.
The president himself will be going back to the business world after January 20; that’s a foregone conclusion, although in his mind he still thinks he won and that somehow, there’s going to be a Hail Mary play in Congress or the Supreme Court that will reverse the clear results shouted by the American people. Ain’t gonna happen. And many of the 222 who bought in to his fantasy are businessmen themselves.
If there were any fairness in the world, no one would get involved with these people ever again. Trump, or his sycophantic, spineless enablers. People of good conscience would say to them, “No, thank you. I have no desire to do business with someone who has demonstrated a total disregard for the history and traditions of our nation. I have no desire to do business with someone who has no honor. I have no desire to do business with someone who is guaranteed to stiff me.
Sadly, as everyone knows, there are many people in the world who are not of good conscience. Personal interests and the desire for gain take precedence in their lives, and in the years to come we will see many who are more than happy to conduct transactions with the ex-president (at their peril!) or with other GOP members of Congress who have shown that lies and fantasy are more profitable than principles or good governance. But Americans who believe in honor will take note, and it is my hope that they will speak at the ballot box at the next possible opportunity and replace these people with others who can see past the duplicity and corruption.
Get your minds out of the gutter; November’s full moon was time to set the beaver traps to ensure a good supply of pelts for the winter. This photo was taken on November 3, 2017
I captured this using my Celestron 130 and a Samsung Galaxy S5. There are obviously countless better photos of the moon out there, but without an eyepiece mount, holding still and adjusting focus is a challenge. I feel like I lucked out for a first attempt.
I need a cell phone mount for my telescope, but there don’t seem to be any available for a Google Pixel 3XL – the lens is off to the side and the volume buttons tend to get in the way.
Sounds great, right? So you click the ad, and they want your age, your birthdate, your name, your zip code, and your phone number, which you happily provide.
But before being able to submit your information, you have to agree to their terms. Which are these:
By clicking ‘View My Results’, I expressly consent by electronic signature to receive marketing communication, including via calls using an automatic telephone dialing system and artificial or pre-recorded messages, emails, and text messages (SMS), from insurance companies or their agents, the owner of this website and its agents, representatives and affiliates, and partner companies to the phone number provided (including any wireless numbers). I understand that my consent to receive communications in this manner is not required as a condition of purchasing any goods or services, my telephone company may impose charges for these contacts, and I can revoke my consent at any time. If you are Medicare-eligible a representative may call you about a Medicare Advantage plan, Medicare Prescription Drug plan, Medicare Supplement plan or other Medicare plans. Not affiliated with the United States Government or the federal Medicare program.
By clicking ‘View My Results’, I further agree to receive SMS notifications from Assurance short code 71953. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies. You may receive alerts until you choose to opt out of this service by texting “Stop” to 71953 or replying “Stop” to any of our messages. Text “Help” to 71953 for assistance. Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy and Do Not Sell My Personal Information
And those “partner companies” mentioned above? Here’s the list:
1st Century
Accuquote
Adsparkx Digital
Advocator Group
Agentra Healthcare
AIG Direct
AIS
Aliera Healthcare
All Web Leads
Alliance
Allied Insurance Partners
Allstate
Alphatech Resource Holdings s.r.o
Alpine Digital Group, Inc.
American Adventure Insurance
American Income Life Insurance Company Family
American Insurance Company
American Insurance Organization, LLC
Americare
Ameriquote
AmeriSave
Angelic Marketing Group
Answer Financial
Apollo Interactive
Art Institute
Auto Insurance Guide
Avendia
Avenge Digital
Bantam Connect
Bayside
BE Marketing Solutions Inc.
Benefit Advisors
Black Optek
Blue Nile
Blue Summit
Bright Home Energy
BRXTN Digital Media
Caliber Home Loans
Capital Health Advisors Inc.
Cege Media
Choice Direct
Citizens Disability
Clean Energy Concepts
ClearLink
Click 2 Call Network
Commercial Insurance Center
CompareInsuranceQuotes
Connect Insurance Brands
Connect Plus
Contactability
Coverage One
CS Marketing
Debt.com
Digital Market Media, Inc.
Direct General
Disability Advisor
Discount Insurance Quotes
EasyMedicare.com, an affiliate of e-TeleQuote Insurance, Inc
easyMedicare.com, an affiliate of e-TeleQuote Insurance, Inc.
Efinancial
EPIQ
Esurance
EverQuote, Inc.
Excel Impact
Exclusive Digital Media
Finalexpenseassistant.com
First Family Life
FirstQuoteHealth.com
Florida Blue
Florida Plan Advisors
Fortegra
Freeway Insurance Services
Get Seen Media
Globe Life
Globe Life Insurance Company of New York
GoHealthInsurance
Goji
goMedigap
Green Home Advantage
Guidestar Marketing Group LLC
Guidetoinsure
Hannigan Insurance
Health Benefit Center
Health Benefits One
Health Center Marketing
Health Choice One
Health Insurance Innovations
Health Insurance Services
Health IQ
Health Plans of America
Health Solutions One
HealthCare, Inc.
Healthcareassistant.com
HealtheDeals
HealthMarkets
HealthPlanOne
HealthPlanOne, LLC
Heard and Smith
Heritage Life Insurance Company
Home Insurance King
Ideal Concepts
Inboxed LLC.
Independent Insurance Consultants
Innovate Financial Group
Innovation Direct Group
Inside Response
InsuraMatch
Insurance Care Direct
Insurance Quotes Now
Insurance Services
Insurance Solutions LLC
IPA Direct
iWebQuotes
Kanopy Insurance
Kelly Klee
Leadnomics
Legacy Insurance Solutions
Legends United Insurance Agency, Inc
Liberty Mutual
Liberty National Life Insurance Company
Lighthouse
Loan Depot
Mercury
Mercury Insurance
Momentum Solar
Morty Inc.
Moss
Mutual of Omaha
MVX Sales
My Health Advisors
National Disability
National General
National Income Life Insurance Company
National Plan Advisors
Nationwide
NetQuote
New Age Health
New American Funding
NextGen Leads, LLC
Nexus Enterprise Solutions
Open Market Quotes
Outlook Advisors
Palisades Media Group
Pay Per Call Market
Pay Per Call Transfers
PEMCO
PFP
Ping Leads
Platform Advertising
Plymouth Rock
Policy Scout
PolicyScout
Precursor Media
Premier Disability
Presidio Interactive
Priority Insurance
Progressive
Prudential
Purple Dog Marketing LLC
Q3MInsuranceSolutions
Quantum3media
Quicken Loans
Quote Engine
Quote Manager LLC
Quote Velocity
Quotehound
QuoteManage LLC
QuoteWizard
Rank Media Agency
Rayosun LLC
RCPT2
RevPoint
S.B. Fintech Ltd
Sales Data Pro
Selective Healthcare
SelectMyPolicy.com
SelectQuote
Senior Life
Senior Market Quotes
Smart Energy Direct
Smart Health Options, LLC
Smart Match Insurance Solutions
SolidQuote, LLC
Spring Health Plans
Spring Insurance Solutions
State Farm
‘Stone Tapert
Stone Tapert Insurance Services
STRINGBIT inc.
Support First
Synergy Insurance Marketing
The Insurance Center
The Lead Company
The Zebra
Themedicareassistant.com
The-Solar-Project.com.
Tiburon Insurance
Tranzact
Travelers
TrueChoice Insurance Services
TrustedConsumer
Underground Elephant
United American Insurance Company
United Insurance Group Agency, Inc.
United Medicare Advisors
Velapoint
Vital One Health
ZQ Auto Insurance
In other words, you provide critical personal information to “updatedmedicareplans.com,” and they sell that information to over 208 other companies which may or may not have anything to do with Medicare coverage, and many of whom will sell that data onward to other marketing firms… and you agree to allow these companies to spam you with phone calls or text messages.
This is essentially the same business model used by “Lower My Bills,” and from where I sit it’s a bad deal. If you’re looking for improved Medicare Advantage plans, I suggest you call a reputable local insurance agent with whom you can deal in person, instead of opening yourself to a deluge of marketing calls, many of which will be spurious in nature.
Playing in the World Game 