A Singer, A Song

First I’m blogging about this. Then I’m going to write AIG a letter.

According to this story on ABC News:

Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today.

“Rooms at this resort can cost over $1,000 a night,” Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said this morning as his committee continued its investigation of Wall Street and its CEOs.

AIG documents obtained by Waxman’s investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges.

“They’re getting their pedicures and their manicures and the American people are paying for that,” said Cong. Elijah Cummings (D-MD).

“This unbridled greed,” said Cong. Mark Souder (R-IN), “it’s an insensitivity to how people are spending our dollars.”

Appearing before the committee, Martin Sullivan, the AIG CEO until June, said the company was overwhelmed by a “financial global tsunami,” and that “no simple or single cause” was to blame.

I am completely unable to wrap my head around this absolutely disgusting behavior. It’s plain to me that a company with executives at its helm capable of this kind of outrageous, reckless greed, this clueless irresponsibility do not deserve my support. I may not be able to yank my hard-earned tax dollars out of their filthy fingers, but I most surely do not have to hand it over to them voluntarily. When my two auto insurance policies with AIG are next up for renewal, I’m taking my business elsewhere.

via boingboing:

Hey suckers! Did you buy DRM music from Wal*Mart instead of downloading MP3s for free from the P2P networks? Well, they’re repaying your honesty by taking away your music. Unless you go through a bunch of hoops (that you may never find out about, if you’ve changed email addresses or if you’re not a very technical person), your music will no longer be playable after October 9th.

But don’t worry, this will never ever happen to all those other DRM companies — unlike little fly-by-night mom-and-pop operations like Wal*Mart, the DRM companies are rock-ribbed veterans of commerce and industry, sure to be here for a thousand years. So go on buying your Audible books, your iTunes DRM songs, your Zune media, your EA games… None of these companies will ever disappear, nor will the third-party DRM suppliers they use. They are as solid and permanent as Commodore, Atari, the Soviet Union, the American credit system and the Roman Empire.

Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh? Buy your media and risk having it confiscated by a DRM-server shutdown. Take it for free and keep it forever.

Keep reading… there’s more in the original article, including a copy of the email sent out by Wal-Mart.

I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend. To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00. My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00. What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

* Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
* Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
* Put away money for college - it’ll be there
* Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
* Buy a new car - create jobs
* Invest in the market - capital drives growth
* Pay for your parent’s medical insurance - health care improves
* Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces. If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it… instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 (”vote buy”) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President. If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U. S. Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t. Sure it’s a crazy idea that can “never work.” But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion. We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC. And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billionbecause $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Birk
T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic

Last night I got a call from a collection agency named Zenith Aquisition. They insist that in March, 2000 I made a purchase of $340 for merchandise (get this) from the Franklin Mint. It was shipped to someone living on Strange Road in Taylors, SC. I’ve never lived there, never known anyone who’s lived there. Through something called a “skiptrace” they found my current phone number and called to chat.

What did I purchase? They can’t tell me. Can they give me a credit card number? No, the credit account was set up through the Franklin Mint. But you know what? For just $34, they’ll stop calling me. When I called that kind of a tactic despicable extortion, the representative took offense. “Honey,” she said, “don’t call me despicable. I guarantee you I’m the nicest person in collections.” M-hm.

Never mind that the Statute of Limitations ran out on collecting this money in 2003. Never mind that I never made the purchase in the first place. Never mind all of those details. They want their money.

Infuriating.

I’m no financial wizard. I don’t have a stock porfolio or large sums of cash hiding in an offshore account. But even a financial dummy like me can see that the recent Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailout signals that there’s something seriously wrong with our economy. This bailout follows quick on the heels of the IndyMac bank failure earlier this month — the third largest bank failure in U.S. history. And what’s worse is that these events are not isolated. IndyMac’s failure, the fifth one this year, followed the collossal collapse of Bear Stearns in March. By comparison, there were three such bank failures in 2007. How many in 2006? None. And in 2005? None.

Guess how many banks are expected to fail in the short term? “It’s our view that regulators are expecting 100 to 200 banks to fail” (U.S. News, July 15). Looks like Wachovia may be next. From today on CNBC: “Wachovia Posts $8.6 Billion Loss, Slashes Dividend.”

So what’s congress doing? They’re running up a criminally enormous deficit, and they’re cracking down on citizens’ privacy. (Way to go, congress!) Their answer seems to be for the state to own it all while the little guy is scrutinized and squeezed for every penny possible (as if we were the ones who caused this problem!).

View this 7-8 minute video by Congressman Ron Paul on the Housing Bill passed today. It’s very, very sobering.

Yesterday we were driving from home to spend the day at Ghost Town in the Sky in Maggie Valley, NC. (Had a pretty good time, by the way… a great park to take little kids. Don’t go if you’re a true amusement park geek, though. Oh, and buy your tickets online for a discount.)

So we hit the road a little later than we intended but were happily on our way before 9:30. Shortly after 10:00 we drove through Asheville on I-40, heading west, when came upon a NC State Trooper traveling along the same stretch of road, driving in the passing lane. Behind the officer was a tan sedan traveling at the same rate of speed. (Which, incidentally, makes me ask: why do you people not understand the functions of the traveling and passing lanes? Learn to freaking drive!)

I was in no particular hurry — and I certainly wasn’t about to pass a state trooper! — so I dutifully moved into the right lane. The speed limit was either 60 or 65 MPH there, and I was going something like 62 or 63… just over 60, but certainly less than 65. We continued  down the road listening to music. The sun was shining, the kids were happy… not a care in the world.

Then I heard this odd electronic “beep” coming from somewhere. It wasn’t a siren and it wasn’t exactly a horn. At first I thought something weird was going on with the MP3 player or the car’s sound system. I glanced into my rear-view mirror… nothing. Then I glanced to the left and saw that the NC trooper was making some kind of wild, angry gesture, waving her hands and, it seemed, shouting at me. It really startled me, and so I instinctively took my foot off the gas pedal. She sped off, the tan sedan following her. Flabbergasted, I wondered if I had been speeding (I hadn’t), if something was wrong with my car (there wasn’t), or if I had been committing some other infraction like inadvertently boxing her in (no to that as well).

The longer I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that she thought I was trying to keep up with her or that I was traveling in her blind spot (the one on her right side, mind you… the one that she wouldn’t have had to worry about had she been traveling in the proper lane). I was doing neither. If I were traveling in her blind spot, it would only have been because she was maintaining a constant speed in the passing lane. If I were speeding, it would only have been by 2 or 3 MPH… and in that case, the tan sedan directly behind her would have been speeding as well.

When reached our exit, I pulled into a parking lot and called the Asheville NC Highway Patrol. I gave the officer’s license plate number and cruiser number to the supervisor, and explained to him what had happened. I told him that I had no idea whatsoever of what the officer was trying to communicate to me, that her actions were startling and distracting to safe driving, and that if she really had something to say, she should have pulled me over to the side of the road where it was safe rather than wildly waving her arms and yelling at me from inside her car while we were both flying down the highway at better than a mile a minute. He assured me that he’d take care of the problem.

So to all of you power-hungry individuals (and organizations) out there: don’t mess with us ISTJs. We’re good people who play by the rules, who revere justice, and who will not tolerate false accusation. We especially despise bullies. You may startle us, get us to break stride, or momentarily make us take our foot off the accelerator, but we tend to be very determined people who will, at the first opportunity, help justice regain her footing.

We play by the rules, and we expect those around us to do the same. Even the big kids.

Every time my brother sends a message with an attachment to my Gmail account, the attachment comes across as ‘noname’ and can’t be opened. This has gone on for literally months — maybe years. I’ve written to the GMail team more than once asking, “When are you guys going to get this fixed?” No response. The post on their support site says “This is a known issue, and our engineers are working to resolve it as quickly as possible.” Yeah, right: that post was last updated in May, 2007. Not sure that qualifies as “as quickly as possible,” guys.

So today I’m noodling around in Gmail and see a link to the Official Gmail Blog with some helpful information. I click and read. Good stuff. Then my eye spies a Search box in the upper-right-hand corner (”Powered by Google!” it crows). “Aha!” I think to myself, “Maybe this site has a clue as to what’s up with the ‘noname’ bug!” I enter my search term — “noname” — and click the Search button.

Nothing happens. No hits.

I try again. (You know: “Maybe I didn’t click the button,” or “Maybe my eyes missed something.”)

Nothing. The page doesn’t change.

I try a different search term, “forward.” A raft of returned search results display.

I try another search term, “archive.” Bingo — lots of hits.

I try “noname” again, and the page reverts to the original “no hits” view. At first I thought there must be some conspiracy afoot — some evil little piece of code lurking in the background, waiting for someone like me to search for “noname” so that it could taunt me with nothingness — and then I searched for “gleaming aspic” and got bupkis with that, too. So my conspiracy theory was shot.

Still… what’s going on, Gmail? And what about you other Gmail users out there? I’m having a hard time believing no one else but me on the planet is having trouble with this same thing. I run into this problem on nearly a daily basis. How can it be that it’s taking your team so long to fix this problem?

Other features are great. I love them. More space is wonderful. I’ll use it. But don’t you think you should first fix existing problems before rolling out enhancements?

C’mon, Gmail team. I mean… c’mon already!

STOP CALLING ME!

This post serves as notice to all of the idiotic political campaigners that keep calling me at all hours of the day: if you ring my phone, I’m not voting for you. In fact, I’m going to campaign against you. I don’t care if you’re my demographic’s favorite candidate. I don’t care if you’re going to dismember the IRS. I don’t care if the Apostle Paul himself has endorsed your platform, I’m not voting for you because you won’t leave me alone.

Quit calling me. Quit it. QUIT IT.

QUIT!

(This post modified 11/3/07) 

In case you’re wondering…

1) We were not fired from our positions at BJU; we resigned as a matter of conscience.
2) At no point were we ever told that our “radical ideas” were concerning to other faculty members.
3) Camille and I were not “in and out of trouble for the last two years at BJU.”
4) Camille is not on the verge of supporting the ordination of women.
5) Camille did not publish an inappropriate chapter from her dissertation (though it is true that her book just hit the shelves a couple of days ago! Congratulations, honey!)

If there’s anyone out there with questions or comments, Camille and I would be happy to dialog. To those who like to give anonymous comments or advice, well… that’s just creepy. If you want to have a conversation, you’ll need to take off the dark glasses and sit down with us in a well-lit room.

If you’ve ever taken a college course, you know how word-of-mouth advice goes. One of the more favorable characterizations that students use is “Oh, that class is easy. The only way to fail is you really want to fail.” That’s the way I’m feeling about Charter Communications these days. They want to fail. They work hard at failure. They practice their regular incompetence like a fine craft, honing their level of boobery in order to evoke the most visceral response from their customers (you know, like an involuntary gag or a spontaneous twitch).

We’ve finally decided to go all-digital at our house in terms of TV viewing and so bought a nice Samsung HDTV. As just about anyone knows who’s considered making the digital leap, you have to have a digital signal coming into the house to take advantage of an HDTV’s improved picture. We’ve had DirecTV for years, but since they severed their relationship with TiVo (we’re TiVo devotees to the core), our only choice was to (*gulp*) see if Charter was as awful as they were several years ago when I declared that nothing would make me do business with them ever, ever again. Ever.

Until now.

A week ago last Thursday I breached the gap. I called Charter to set up an HDTV package with them. I told them that they would need to bring two cable cards to go into our HD TiVo. The appointment was for 1 week (1 week!) later.

Since I couldn’t be home for the installation, I worked feverishly to prepare everything in advance. I went to great pains to set up the entire A/V system with minimal complications. I readied the TiVo well in advance, making sure that it had the latest software. I did all of the inside wiring myself and checked it three times to make sure it was all correct. I went over the installation process with my wife so that she would know what to expect. I was careful to tell her not to let the installer leave until she was sure that every channel we were supposed to receive was, in fact, working.

I thought I’d covered all the bases. The one thing that I hadn’t told my wife, though, was that she’d have to lie bodily in front of the Charter truck to keep the installer from leaving before verifying that everything was working right.

I got home Thursday night and, pretty much as I expected, everything was a mess. I did a couple of hours of troubleshooting and finally arrived at the conclusion that the one (yes, one; not two as I’d requested) cable card was either mis-configured or defective. There was nothing that I could do, and so I called Charter.

Of course the customer service representative blamed us for the problem. We should have made the installer stay until we were sure that we were sure that WE WERE SURE everything was as it should be. Why am I not surprised? I made an appointment for a return visit for Saturday (today) between 1:00 and 3:00 PM.

So today came… and, of course, went. At 2:45 I called Charter to ask why the tech had not shown up. “Oh — they tried to call you three times to verify the appointment but couldn’t get an answer.” (LIE) “I’ll call your local office to see if we can get someone to come out there tonight.” Fifteen minutes pass, and the return call comes in: “Yes, I was able to convince the tech to take this appointment, but I don’t know when he’ll be there.” “Great!” I said, “We have plans to go out tonight, so that’ll work just fine.” (My sarcasm went completely unperceived.)

An hour passes and at 4:15 a call comes in from the local Charter dispatch office. “Uh, Mr. Lewis, the warehouse is closed and none of the techs have any cable cards.” (”It figures,” I muttered into the phone.) “So what I’d like to do is to schedule you for tomorrow morning.” “Tomorrow morning?” I said, “Tomorrow is church!” “Well, we could make it for Monday…” And my mind starts fast-forwarding to the coming week: Camille — my poor, innocent, and for the most part ignorant-of-how-to-hook-up-A/V-equipment wife, the same delicate creature who’d rather handle snakes than answer the door when the UPS man rings — Camille would be the one to have to try and solve this problem. “Well, I’m sorry, Mrs. Lewis, the cable cards are working just fine. It’s that your TiVo’s fluid inductive capacidramitator has a 3.19 spec when the FCC requires all Class B equipment to conform to the 3.18 spec. Sorry! There’s nothing we can do!” So I relent, “Yes, yes: Sunday morning is fine. But please, can we make sure that this visit takes care of the problem?”

My fingers are crossed. But I’m really expecting another foul-up. Why? Because I believe that Charter really wants to fail.