Ripped Off

     Yesterday morning, I had to torch my credit card account.  Someone in Los Angeles had used it to sign up with a kind of sketchy food-delivery service, ordered an expensive Chinese dinner, and the transaction had bounced because the place wasn't open.

     Or that's how it looked.  My bank called me after I'd spent some time online trying to puzzle it out and they took immediate and drastic action.  Since the card had been renewed only a day earlier, there weren't a lot of possibilities for physical theft of the number and the only place I'd updated it online was a major retailer with whom most of us have a love/hate relationship.

     Frustrating, scary and annoying, and the round of password-updating it set off was no fun, either.  And that's life in this century, I guess.

     I've been lazy about not carrying and using cash.  Time to go back to basics.

Ooops!

     Never have posted anything yet today, have I? 

     Okay, here's something.

     Would a rock & roll tribute band featuring a flutist and composed entirely of condemned murderers in prison be called "Death Row Tull?"

DirecTV Is A Sack Of Bastards

     These days, if you have a decent antenna, there's more on over-the-air TV than ever before, including a nice selection of rerun-and-old-movie channels, multiple streams from PBS, local weather and music videos.  Add one of the video-via-Internet widgets from Google, Amazon or Roku, and what more could you want? 

     Once upon a time it didn't work that way; there was only cable and cable was expensive and not all that great.  But direct-broadcast Ku-band satellite TV was a brand-new thing, with way more channels than cable and sharp, clear video.  My ex and I signed up for it and wow, there were entire channels devoted to History and Science and even Science Fiction!  It was amazing.

     And then, slowly, it stopped being amazing.  Science gave way to empty-headed glitz about "ancient astronauts" and ill-informed cryptozoology.  History slipped by degrees into a fascination with Hitler that would have made Godwin shudder and Science Fiction was replaced by "SyFy," complete with cage-match wresting, movies about shark-storms and a determination to "get away from that narrow focus."

     The death knell for me was the infamous History Channel "no more white hair" memo, aiming to interview younger, more-telegenic experts, even if their expertise was considerably more limited than that of the paunch & wrinkles set.  Time went on, and the satellite-delivery service started charging more and more for content that had less and less of interest to me.  When I moved to Roseholme Cottage, the "free professional installation" guy kicked up a huge fuss over the number of trees, declared the project impossible, and started to get back into his truck until I argued with him.  ("What do you know about it, lady?"  "It's part of what I do for a living.  I know the dish can 'see' the satellite -- you don't have to take my word for it, look at the one in the neighbor's yard!")  He did a sloppy install -- a single pole, indifferently hammered into the ground -- but it worked and I was stuck with it for a year while the contract ran down.  In the meantime, the provider stopped selling channels "ala carte," and when I tried to restructure my service to remove an expensive movie service and control costs, they managed to stick me with fewer channels and higher bill, with no reverting to the previous deal.

     Then the lousy install started acting up and that was the last straw.  When the contract expired, I cancelled.  They argued with me -- how could I possibly not want their service?  I explained (see above), even going so far as to suggest my disinterest more due to the providers, not the delivery service itself and was told no, that was wrong, the channels were better than ever and the lousy installer was "an isolated incident." I insisted, they eventually accepted -- and have been mail-bombing me ever since.   Hey, no problem, if it shows up in the mail and says "DirecTV," it goes right into the trash unopened.

     Yesterday, they sunk to a new low.  When I got home from work, Tam said, "You got a couple cards."  One was a renewal notice from the Antique Wireless Association, bless 'em, and the other--

     --had one of my more-distant cousins married?  How kewl!

     No.

      It's an ad.  Inside the card shown was another flyer, offering a fat month's rebate and -- ahem -- "free professional installation," along with low, low rates...for the first year.  After which it would no doubt balloon back to their typical $100+ per month, for channels with nothing on them I want to see.

     No thanks, DirecTV, and a big ol' Bronx cheer to you for trying to sneak in under the radar.  Your lack of couth is fractal: it's weasels all the way down.  DirecTV is a deceptive sack of bastards -- and they think they're being clever.

And On And On And On

     Towards what or in service of what, I dunno; it just keeps rollin'.

     "Shots fired on the East Side" took on a slightly different meaning last night, after a rebuffed masher in a car struck and injured the young woman he was pestering when she ignored him: as the hit-and-run creep drove off, a bystander took a couple of shots at him.  While it's generally not legal to shoot at a malefactor who is leaving, police were remarkably silent on the topic, focusing instead on the lowlife scum who injured a young woman. There's a moral here about the wages of criminal creepitude, and I can't help but hope this serves as an instructive example to creeps everywhere.

Qualified Impunity

     Police can be bad enough they get sent home without supper -- or any police powers.  IMPD's David Reese did something Friday -- details are sketchy, just two counts of battery and one of "residential entry" -- that earned him suspension without pay, loss of police powers and some time with IMPD's "Wellness" program.  And some other time in court.

     What happened, exactly?  Couldn't tell you.  And neither can our local media outlets.  Thin blue line is running a wee bit opaque at present.

High Speed Day?

     Maybe.  The Tel. Co. has throttled my "high speed" Internet to the crawling speed they claim I actually paid for and then -- can you see it coming? -- dangled their new high speed superzoom fiberwhatever* in front of me at a low, low price, only $3.99 more a month than I'm already paying like a worm on a hook.  --The hook is, twelve months later, I'll be paying $10 more a month.

     The barb on the hook?  Ya gotta have Teh Innndernet.  Cable companies around here are egregious clods, who I would not let run a wire into my house if money came out it and won't sell you the 'net unless you sign up for cabledammiteevee, too, and on that there are really only three things: the local stations you can get over the air for free, on-demand stuff my Roku/Amazon combo delivers at least as well, and crap Hitler/Alien/Mermaids/Seance channels that used to run science and history programs but gave up after realizing rehashed tripe, cold readings and program-length commercials for claptrap and quackery made at least as much money if not more and cost less to produce.  (The kicker for me was the leaked memo from one of the historical channels, exhorting producers for "less gray hair" in their choice of experts.  Yeah, done.)  So I'm stuck with The Phone Company and they're stickin' it to me -- but less so than the competition.

     When your regulated utility wins business by virtue of being the least sucky, that's not exactly a badge of honor.  Don't go looking for them to care about it any time soon.  As Lily Tomlin said as Ernestine the Operator, "We don't have to care. We're The Phone Company."  Yep.
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* Fiber.  Y'don't say.  Umm-hmm.  --Except the last mile is still copper and very likely will be  the very same copper as is already there. The trunk and distribution (or whatever telcos call it) around is here is already glass and has been for several years; I can bicycle to the outdoor enclosure where my very own phone pair (and those of all my neighbors) gets turned into glass for the dreadful long haul a half-block over and a half-mile up to the local phone switch, our former exchange.  Don't frikkin' blow smoke at people who put out fires for a livin', TelCo.

Goodbye, Target?

     When a store manages to get the credit-card details of some forty million customers stolen and has so far only said, "Ooops!" about it and "they're pretty sure they have plugged the leak," it doesn't bode well for their future.

     This saddens me; I like Target, which has generally offered slightly better quality* and a lot more style than the usual overgrown modern five-and-dime.  But I'm one of the forty million, waiting for the other shoe to drop and wondering what I ought to do next.  If I do go back, I'll pay in cash.
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* Though darned if I can find decent, long-lasting knee socks anywhere these days.  And it's not even worth the effort to actually darn them.

Hating On Amazon Drones?

     What?  Why?  --If I read one more joke or see one more idiotic cartoon about shooting down Amazon drones for the "free prize inside," I'm gonna start screaming.

     What is it with you people?  There's free stuff behind plate glass at the TV store, too, and in every UPS, FedEx and USPS truck.  All you have to do is pick up a brick or a rock and go smash; all you have to do is threaten the driver -- or take him out.  All you have to do is...shoot down the drone.

     Yeah?  Do that and you're a looter.  Do that and you have overstepped the bounds of civilized behavior.  Is that your drone?  I already had to wait an extra day after paying a premium for 1-day delivery and now you wanna get all butthurt over a nice, positive, civilian application of an otherwise death-dealing technology that might've put my order in my hands on time and without exposing a delivery driver to the hazards of winter weather and winter drivers.

     Yeah, go shoot down an unarmed drone.  You'll show that dirty-bad ol' Jeff Bezos.  You'll show that person waiting on an order of stuff they wanted.

     Idiots.

      (It would seem I have to spell this out for some people.  See, you're not robbing from a wicked robot, you're stealing from the poor slob who ordered whatever it's carrying.  And as for the weenies worrying about "normalizing drones," go take a seat over there with the hand-wringers from the Brady bunch and Mr. Horowitz's CSGV: they're all weepy over "normalizing military weapons in civil society," too.  Maybe you can clan up and ban private scary black rifles and private drones together!  There are drones in your future.  It's inescapable.  Do you want all of them to by run by the police and the military, or do you want to get to know some flying-model aviation hobbyists and a 1%er shopkeeper, and possibly preserve some sliver of a loophole to drone 'em right back?)

     Is it possible that so many people have never lived in neighborhoods where packages and letters are stolen from front porches and mailboxes?  It stops being amusing real fast once it has happened to you. 

     P.S., if, after all I have written, you're still thinking, "Ha, ha, lighten up girlie.  Free stuff from shooting down drones is just a funny, funny joke," then you're reading the wrong blog and you're not going to like my "lib'ral, commie notions" about property rights being the root of all rights and the initiation of force against others being wrong and immoral. Get the hell out and don't come back.

What Was It Thoreau Said?

     Oh, yes: "If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life."

     In other words:

     However, my boundless faith in the inefficiency, ineptitude and occasional malfeasance* of the Federal Government does leave some room for hope.
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* Or, at least, misfeasance.  A lot of the bureaugentsia couldn't work up a really good mal even if it was their only ticket out of perdition.

PTSD: Not An Acronym For "What's In It For Me?"

     Several police officers in Newton, CT -- men who were among the first responders to the school shooting -- are now claiming PTSD.  One of them has apparently never returned to work and NBC spent some time with him and his attorney in TV this morning, murmuring and exchanging troubled glances.

     But that's not the disturbing part; that's just Big Media business as usual: grope for your heartstrings and yank as hard as they dare, then sell you tires and toothpaste while you're vulnerable.

     No, the disturbing part is that some of these officers want to be sent home on full pay until they reach retirement age 'cos of their new disability. Newtown's insurance covers two year's pay, leaving the town stuck paying more than one officer for more than ten years of... Not policing.  Being mopey.

     There was a time when any policeman worthy of the name would die of shame rather than admit to being defeated by a single horrible crime scene (listen to some corners of the blogitariate and they'll tell it's still like that, only worse; that all cops are headcases who revel in blood and death.  At least we can now mark that theory debunked).  There was once a time when even public servants strove to give full value for their pay.

     Those days are gone.  Gone, too, are the days when a strong man could stand up and admit he'd been emotionally overwhelmed by a terrible situation, but he was determined to overcome it.  Nope, now we've got policemen who go on TV and choke back tears, sitting next to legal counsel and hoping, oh, hoping their employer will see the light, and send them home to sleep in, eat chocolates, watch soap operas and weep.  And they'll take 'em to court if they don't.

     I have a great deal of compassion for the adults and children who survived the attack at the elementary school.  Teachers don't expect to face anything much worse than playground accidents and upset tummies.  But police?  No, I'm sorry. Dreadfulness comes with the job. If you can't return to work, Mr. Officer, you'd better learn another trade, not lean on the taxpayers to keep your delicate self in contemplative idleness forevermore or until your pension kicks in.

    

Speaking Truth To...Whoever

     Call me heartless.  Call her foul-mouthed.  Whatever -- The Unwanted Blog has posted a video by a woman who tells it like it is.

     Money quote: "Public assistance is not a career option...."

Mission Creep: The War On Terror Leakers

     So...didja hear what our buddies the Brits did the other day?  They nabbed 'em a suspicious terrorist changing planes at Heathrow and held onto him, interrogating him for the maximum time their law allows.

     ...Except the "suspicious terrorist" was Glenn Greenwald's boyfriend, David Miranda, and what he was suspected of appears to be the dire crime of being a known associate of the crusading* journalist who was Edward Snowden's primary contact in leaking details of the vast UK/US surveillance of their own -- and each other's -- citizens.

     There's a shiny lining to every cloud and in this case, it must be reassuring to those who think a vast homosexual conspiracy has grabbed the reins of power: GCHQ (and thus presumably NSA) aren't afraid of 'em, not even a little tiny bit.

     For the rest of us, it's a reminder of the the continued covert growth and waxing strength of shadowy intel agencies.  Sure, nobody hurt Mr. Miranda and when time ran out, they set him (though not his telephone or laptop computer) as free as a bird.  But the trend is clear and by the time they've worked themselves up to a kinder, gentler Room 101, they'll be working their way down from lovers and friends of journalists who help leak embarrassing secrets to slobs like you and me, who merely look askance at abuses of power.

     You may not like Mr. Greenwald or approve of his politics and/or personal life; you may see Snowden as traitorous or shallow.  But along with secret stuff from the real (or at least earnest) fight against Bad Guys who try to do Bad Things, they've hauled into the light a mass of festering rot that, unchecked, will do more real damage to Western Civilization than any bunch of goatherds-turned-bombers could ever dream of.

     H/t to Claire Wolfe, who has a keen eye for such abuses.  I hope she's right when she sunnily opines, "...freedom ultimately wins. Because power is DUMB."  Dumb it may be, but it's certainly quite powerful, and on the subject of power, one of history's more bloodily successful autocrats observed, "Quantity has a quality all its own."
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* I use the mostly-neutral term advisedly; as Newsweek put it, "His independent persuasion can make him a danger or an asset to both sides of the aisle."

Federal Felony Stupid

     Right here in Indy, some young entrepreneurs were fixing to shoot a rap video.  On High School grounds -- but on a weekend, they're no fools.

     Well, kinda no fools.  Sort of.  Um, possibly fools--

     When your videos have already attracted the attention of the IMPD Gang Unit thanks to a fascinating array of guns/dope/big wads'o'cash props, it might not be the best of ideas to use social media to announce plans for time and location for recording the next one.  If you do that, though, you'd be wanting to make very sure your prop items were, in fact, merely inert props, right?

     Not so much.  Ezell Triplett was arrested for having a firearm on school property.  Oh, and it seems there were Controlled Substances involved as well.  (I'm no friend of the Moron War On Drugs, but y'know, clever folk avoid war zones when they can, even if they disapprove of the war).

     But it was darned sportin' of him to give The Law an engraved invitation, wasn't it?

Jackbooted On The 4th Of July

     In Massachusetts, natch-o, cradle and grave of liberty.  TJIC and Jennifer: TJIC having recently got his FID card back, an infringement like an IL FOID, and applied for an LTC (that'd be a carry permit), received instead -- today -- a visit from the police, who are as we speak removing firearms from the home.  A warrant, they did not have, but advice of counsel, etc. and so on, IMO translated reading, "Do you want to spend tonight behind bars?" has led 'em to make nice.

     Tam's on the phone with Jenn as I write this.  There is much tweeting and retweeting.  Tam's blogging it.

Secure The Border! --The Illinois Border

Sorry, guys, but your Governor's a frikkin' menace.  Also, he thinks he is The Law.

Umm, What?

     Update on local choirboy and Indiana Black Expo shooter (nine injured!) Shamus Patton, passenger in a car that fled police?  Here's the latest -- see if you can fit these three sentences together:

   "Officers found two guns, ammunition and ski masks in the car."

   "Patton was free from prison on reduced time from an eight-year sentence in the shooting of several people during the 2010 Black Expo."

   "...no criminal charges will be filed."

     I'm havin' a little trouble with it.

Well, Which Is It? (Pugsly I of Venezuala, Overdue Death)

I'm kinda goin' with the version on the tab, especially at his terminal destination, though not so much for him.

     One down, more to go.

Ouch.

     Take it for what it's worth -- it was a comment over at Charles Stross's blog -- but oh, dear:

From anecdotal evidence, the two branches at university libraries that have the biggest problem with stolen books are law and theology.

     Most politicians are lawyers. A few are theologians. If I was looking to recover stolen books, I know whose libraries I'd check first, and it wouldn't be the members of those two groups who aren't holding or running for office.

Feeding Strays: Indianapolis Motor Speedway Wants To Go On The Dole

     Yep: the 500-mile Speedway, a venerable private-enterprise success, is asking for public funds to light the place up for night racing -- oh, and add more ramps and accessibility features, the same thing the corner store has had to do without asking for a handout.

     The local basketball and football teams are already on public assistance; neither the Colts nor the pacers would be viable efforts without a lot of freebies, including not only venues free for nothing but a huge share of all of the revenue from them, not merely their own ticket sales.

     It's like feeding stray cats: the longer you do it, the more show up.  Around here, most of the stray-feeders also get the feral critters spayed or neutered -- but it's hard to see how that scales up to professional sports.

     When socialism comes to the Midwest, it's wearing team colors and waving a checkered, talking nonsense about "prestige" and "civic pride."  --'Cos a bunch of guys not from here, any one of which would bail without a backward glance when offered a better deal, somehow reflects glory onto me?  Sports success: can't eat it, smoke it, date it or even take it to the bank: sports teams and their various venues are generally revenue-neutral or worse, actual money-losers for the host community.  The Speedway was a rare exception and if it can't pay its own way now, they need to be looking at some other use for that big old patch of land, not sniffing around for taxpayer-funded handouts with the other vagrants.

We Are Saved, We Are...Saved?

     Calamity (barely, and no thanks to the eeeeeevil GOP, who actually tolerate dissension in their ranks)  averted, the olde-timey media assure me, with their funny, old-fashioned way of looking at things.

     ..."Averted?"  "Saved...?"

     Oh, Hells no.  The Fed.gov -- and the House in its role as money manager especially -- was (and is) in the position of the guy paying off loans and buying groceries with credit cards who keeps getting more loans to pay the credit card bills; for just a bit there, it seemed possible they might spend a little less and grab a bit more money to pay things with.  (Sure, it's your money and mine and darned sure, I don't approve of the grabbing -- still, as governments go, it almost made sense, aside from the clown-car disproportion of the whole scheme).

     And now, hooray, they've changed their mind; unless you make too much money ("too much" here defined as 400K/450K a year, single/married, or just about twice the salaries of the highest-paid Congressthings*), the status remains quo...for two whole more months.  At which point they'll return to considering the "deep," essentially paltry, inadequate cuts they might've been obliged to let happen had they so desperately wanted to not get de-elected for jacking up taxes -- by amounts also paltry and inadequate, if you are trying to make any sense of all of the Federal checking account.  (Savings?  Hahahohoho -- the fed.gov hasn't any, no more than the guy sleeping a cardboard box behind a dumpster in the worst alley in Washington City.)

     This entire brouhaha amounts to my initial example, the guy juggling credit he hasn't got, agonizing over the cost of a cheap steak dinner.  Eat it or not, it's as nothing compared to the staggering stampede of the real defecit.

     And not a thing has been done to stop it.
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* Thus proving the rule of thumb that no matter how much you make, your mental image of the "the big bucks" is twice as that amount.  "Philosopher-Kings?  Clean-up on aisle DC!"  Are we not fortunate to be in such exceptionally-clever hands?  Aren't we?