Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Mitt Romney, job-killing Republican conservative


Is your job on the line? Bet your life on it if Romney becomes president.

But don’t take it from me. Take it from a Texas Republican conservative. And nevermind that you’re reading a progressive blog. This is one of Romney’s fellow conservatives saying it on ultra-conservative Fox News:


No wonder the Obama campaign finds it so easy to find out-of-work victims of Romney’s job killing. Like this:


A vote for Romney is a vote for putting yourself out of a job. Or if you''re already out of a job, it's a vote to make sure you stay there.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Is this the face that really belongs on the American Express Card?


“Frankly,” said a junk mail letter, sent for over 25 years to potential customers, “not everybody qualifies for the American Express Card.”

This was back when the card’s appeal was to people who were qualified and trustworthy enough to pay their American Express bills within 30 days. Terms and conditions were mostly in the favor of consumers. American Express was on your side. No wonder people were willing to pay (in those days) an extra $50 a year to have the card.

Then, little by little, the green card slipped down the greasy pole when American Express introduced a gold card, for a higher annual feel. Then both gold and green slipped further down as American Express introduced a platinum card, which has since been topped by yet another card.

As the annual fees grew more and more ridiculous, the benefits of the lower-rung cards begin to fade away. Primary among them was the trust American Express seemed to put in its customers. That shank, just as the window to pay up shrank from four weeks to two.

“We have the right to bankrupt you”

This week I opened my American Express bill and found “Detail of Changes to Your Cardmember Agreement.” Needless to say, American Express didn’t ask me before making them.

And here are the killer details:

“If we need to contact you to service your account or to collect amounts you owe, you authorize us (and our affiliates, agents and contractors) to contact you at any number you provide, from which you call us, or at which we  believe we can reach you. We may contact you in any way, such as calling or texting. We may contact you using an automated dialer or prerecorded messages. We may contact you on a mobile, wireless or similar device, even if you are charged for it. “[Italics my own.]

In other words, not only can they harass you to death, they can keep robo-texting your cell phone until you are over your limit and drowning in a deep financial hole. In fact, if you charge your cell phone bill to your American Express card, you can grow more indebted to them every time they harass you.

And if you’re already in a hole, they can drive you into a deeper hole. They can call you at your office. They can keep calling your boss, a number “at which we believe we can reach you,” until you lose your job.. They can hire thuggish bill collectors with threatening voices to call you.

Of course, you can cancel your card membership. But canceling credit cards will lower your credit rating, so be warned. Or you can simply not use your card, in which case you'll be paying them $60 a year or more for nothing.cccv

Hey American Express get rid of that Roman centurion on your credit cards and replace him with Darth Vader.

Or maybe Dracula.

Is this the face that really belongs on the American Express Card?


“Frankly,” said a junk mail letter, sent for over 25 years to potential customers, “not everybody qualifies for the American Express Card.”

This was back when the card’s appeal was to people who were qualified and trustworthy enough to pay their American Express bills within 30 days. Terms and conditions were mostly in the favor of consumers. American Express was on your side. No wonder people were willing to pay (in those days) an extra $50 a year to have the card.

Then, little by little, the green card slipped down the greasy pole when American Express introduced a gold card, for a higher annual feel. Then both gold and green slipped further down as American Express introduced a platinum card, which has since been topped by yet another card.

As the annual fees grew more and more ridiculous, the benefits of the lower-rung cards begin to vanish. Primary among them was the trust American Express put in its customers. That shank, just as the window to pay up shrank from four weeks to two.

“We have the right to bankrupt you”

This week I opened my American Express bill and found “Detail of Changes to Your Cardmember Agreement” folded in with the bill. Needless to say, American Express didn’t ask me before making the changes.

And here are the killer details:

“If we need to contact you to service your account or to collect amounts you owe, you authorize us (and our affiliates, agents and contractors) to contact you at any number you provide, from which you call us, or at which we  believe we can reach you. We may contact you in any way, such as calling or texting. We may contact you using an automated dialer or prerecorded messages. We may contact you on a mobile, wireless or similar device, even if you are charged for it. “[Italics my own.]

In other words, not only can they harass you to death, they can keep robo-texting your cell phone until you are over your limit and drowning in a deep financial hole. In fact, if you charge your cell phone bill to your American Express card, you can grow more indebted to them every time they harass you.

And if you’re already in a hole, they can drive you into a deeper hole, even bankrupt if they choose. Or destroy your career. They can call you at your office. They can keep calling your boss, a number “at which we believe we can reach you,” until you lose your job.. They can hire thuggish bill collectors with threatening voices to call you.

Hey American Express get rid of that Roman centurion on your credit cards and replace him with Darth Vader.

Or maybe Dracula.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Company lawyer and recipient of company largesse “impartially” investigate Murdoch’s wrongdoing? Yeah right. And babies come from cabbage patches.


If you’re up to your neck in deep doodoo, the last thing you want is an “independent” investigator breathing down your files.

So first you hire a guy to investigate you whom you next appoint as the chief executive of one of your corporate divisions. Appearance of impropriety be damned.

And then you hire your top company lawyer, the guy who gets paid to keep you out of trouble in the first place, and who, for all anybody knows, has a bit of scandalous dirt under his own fingernails.

That’s News Corp. for you. They investigate. Then they tell the investigators how to decide.

No no, I take that back. The investigators know how to decide even before they start to investigate. 

Friday, June 15, 2012

YES, BIG BROTHER IS READING YOUR E-MAIL – AND PRETTY SOON HE'LL BE WATCHING YOUR EYEBALLS AND BODY LANGUAGE, THANKS TO MICROSOFT


Welcome to the new police state.

Advertising Age, an advertising trade newspaper, has revealed that back in 2010:
 “Microsoft sought to patent an advertising engine that gauges people's emotional states based on their search queries, emails, instant messages and use of online games, as well as facial expressions, speech patterns and body movements. The ad engine is device-agnostic; as Microsoft noted in its application, ‘client devices" could include personal digital assistants, smart phones, laptops, PCs and gaming devices.’” 
Wait a second, just wait a second! I have a problem with some of this. And its use as an “ad engine” is the least of it.

It’s not so much tracking search engine queries that sends chills up my spine. That’s old news. You go to look up, say, “navel lint” and some website pins a cookie to your hard drive. The next thing you know, you’re getting pop-up ads for belly button cleaners, lint tweezers, lint brushes, navel jewelry and pulled pork belly sandwiches at your neighborhood takeout joint. So big deal.

But e-mail? They can read your e-mail? Isn’t that qualitatively the same as illegally tapping somebody’s phone or stealing and reading somebody’s snail mail? And instead of saying to the person on the Microsoft staff who thought of this, “This kind of hacking is against the law and is legally and morally repugnant. You have a criminal mind and you’re fired,” .....Instead of that, they give the guy money and a team to develop the technology?

And then they start reading your facial expressions, presumably through that little chat lens on the top of your screen that you thought was there so that you could have face-to-face conversations with your mom in Mumbai or your pop in Peroria.

What’s the next step?

Well, if I can think of the next step, so can some errant cops, or political thugs, or crypto-fascists, or Mitt Romney. They can catch you frowning at the news that Scott Walker won in Wisconsin, or screaming at the computer screen whenever you catch Mitt lying through his teeth again.

And then they can check your e-mails to see if you were one of the people who’s writing to friends and acquaintances, urging them to vote Democratic.

And then they can come for you and take you away.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Cross-posted at No More Mr. Nice Blog

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Marriage is the union between one turtle and another turtle


And to think, after 115 years together, he throws her over for some trashy little 80-year-old with a short shell.

Friday, June 08, 2012

Welcome to the 12th Century, you serfs! Now plow that land while the Lord of Billions exercises droit de seigneur on your daughters.


So the Wisconsin recall election that was meant to put union-busting Governor Scott Walker out to pasture has failed, and everyone has something to say about it — here and here, for example. 

Even the Official Town Crier of the self-righteous right had some comments. Not to mention the ladies-in waiting to His Majesty, the Bain of Mitt, including Lady Peggy the Weepy, and Michelle the Nasty.

In light of the big right wing celebration of Wisconsin’s return down the slippery slope to Medieval times, with a rope attaching it to all the rest of us, it’s time one of us medieval trolls came out from under a stone bridge and spake what no one else dare sayeth.

Okay, I’ll step up to the plate…er, gibbet.

Voters of Wisconsin, you have just shafted not only yourselves, but also every working man and woman in America. You have plunged a dagger into the heart of America’s future.

The Walker campaign, funded with $30 million plus, managed to turn your heads away from the issue at hand: that the governor was trying to destroy unions that had built the middle class, raised this nation out of serf-like working conditions, and provided both safe workplaces, and a future and a retirement for the little guy.

Remember, the Right Wings spent $30 million. These are guys who go ballistic when you talk to them about raising their taxes ten cents. So why do you think they’d shell out $30 million? Simple. They’re going to get something for it. And what they’re going to get is not only your labor for next to nothing, but also your body. How do I mean this?

They’re opposed to regulation of business, ostensibly to assist growth and create jobs. That claim of theirs, to call it what it is, is pure bullshit. What they want is to avoid the expense and liability of keeping workplaces safe.

They want to be able to poison your water with coal slag and shale gasses without fear of punishment. You’ll die of cancer while they sip Perrier.

They want to be able to avoid spending money on expensive safety equipment or shelling out to workers who get injured or killed as a consequence.

They want to be able to cut your salary and benefits and Social Security income and medical insurance just because they feel like it. And believe me, they’ll always feel like it.

And you won’t be able to say anything about it, because you won’t have a union to back you up, or another job to go to. Tell them to “take this job and shove it?” Fat chance when you can’t get another job, unemployment insurance has disappeared, and you’re on a list of troublemaking knaves. Instead, they’ll foreclose on your house.

Once they foreclose on your house, they’ll rent it back to you at crippling rates. And you’ll have no choice in the matter because if you complain, they’ll evict you.

Your children? You’ll have plenty of them. No birth control and no abortion means you’ll have so many mouths to feed you won’t dare challenge the billionaire nobility. And meanwhile, you’ll be producing plenty of cheap laborers and military cannon fodder for them.

No regulation means they have a right to do any of this. No union means no protection.

In the end, they’ll own your house. They’ll own your job. They’ll own your future. And they’ll own you, too. Got that, Serf?

Did I mention your wife and your daughters? Don’t even bother trying to lock them up. The rich nobility will simply break down the doors. And you’ll have nowhere to complain, because you’ll be just a serf.

Twelveth Century stuff? You betcha. That’s what they want, and thanks to the voters of Wisconsin, that’s what the Koch and Romney billionaires are much further on their way to getting. As the 12th Century Wizard Yogi Berra once said, it’s déjà vu all over again.