Apple iPhone 3G is junk

The Apple iPhone 3G is junk.



Apple iPhone 3g

The Apple iPhone 3G is junk and here's why:

1) First, texting is no longer included. That's right. SMS text messaging is extra now, and ATT raised its base monthly fee to $70 per month. So think again if you thought the iPhone 3G was cheaper.

2) GPS is spotty. It only works in certain places and only sometimes. And, it does not have real turn-by-turn directions, just a dot moving on a map.

3) The 3G network is only the middle speed 3G. There are a bunch of phones twice as fast already on the market.

4) The 3G network only works in a few places, generally some big cities.

5) No improvements to the terrible keyboard.

6) No improvements to the terrible camera, and still NO mobile-to-mobile sending of photos.

7) Still no ability to pop out the battery.

8) Most of the major iPhone 2.0 enhancements and the new App Store are already available to the first iPhone! Why buy the new iPhone 3G for that? No reason to.

9) Credit card required to buy the iPhone 3G even if you already have an iPhone. Sorry all those people who like to use Virtual Credit Cards to protect their identity, you have to bring the plastic.

Brooke Knapp is Evil?

Brooke Knapp is Evil?



Brooke Knapp

Some very earnest person sent this in to us here at Ouchpost and it triggered our empathic outrage:

To Whom it May Concern:

Be aware that (Sotheby's Realtor, businesswoman, all around wealthy socialite) Brooke Knapp has engaged in some seriously underhanded trickery when it comes to her business dealings. We're just saying, we've heard it from many, many different sources. Use all your better judgment before considering entering into any agreements with her or before buying or selling a house through her.

Anonymous

Boycott Wikipedia

Boycott Wikipedia



Boycott Wikipedia

Google should be ashamed of itself. Google professes to value facts and the free sharing of knowledge, yet refuses to block the Wikipedia website and its consistently erroneous articles and libelous biographies.

Google, if it has a fraction of the integrity it claims to, should immediately block all Wikipedia pages from its search results.

I whole heartedly agree with the widening campaign to end use of Wikipedia for its lack of authoritativeness and its failure to meet its own professed ideal of an encyclopedia that is richer and more accurate for its democratic "openness."

Wikipedia fails in every measure. It is filled with inaccuracies, and when these are discovered--typically the case since Google serves up Wikipedia at the top of virtually every search--those with accurate, factual knowledge only encounter roadblocks when attempting to amend Wikipedia articles. Changes that are good and correct are regularly discarded in favor of nonsense.

Clearly, to everyone except Google, an obstinate few rather than an enlightened many are in charge of policing Wikipedia, and their goal is NOT the maintenance of a fact-filled and comprehensive encyclopedia but rather the control of beliefs, propaganda, and information deemed antithetical to their interests. Because these would-be "thought hackers" have no other purpose, career, or business, they can spend all their time pretending to be academics, shaping their pet project into their vision, while the vast majority of the people who look up items on Wikipedia spend their time working and producing in the real world, haplessly gobbling up the atrocious inaccuracies that fill the pages of Wikipedia.

It has been humorously noted that Wikipedia articles are not composed and then posted, they are simply composted.

Wikipedia is NOT authoritative. Google should not trust ANY Wikipedia article if it intends to provide search results to those who are in any way serious about completing an accurate homework assignment, or a valid report, or a factual novel premise, or a creditable scholarly paper.

Again, Google, if it has a fraction of the integrity it claims to, should immediately block all Wikipedia pages from its search results.

Open Letter to George W. Bush

Open Letter to George W. Bush



George W. Bush

An Open Letter to George W. Bush:

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you sincerely for your insightful and well-intended Stimulus Check program.

I've been unemployed for two years and just found out from the IRS that I will not be receiving any stimulus check. Why? Because I didn't earn enough.

Does that, sir, strike you with the same degree of irony it does every other reasoning adult in this country?

I just wanted to let you know that I, a long time supporter of your administration even though a registered Libertarian, will be voting for Barack Obama instead of the Republican candidate John McCain due to this and every other moronic, misguided exploit you've perpetrated upon this fine country.

Enjoy your retirement. Have Senator McCain over from time to time. He'll have nothing else to do.

Yours sincerely,

S. Levine

That's not change we can believe in

"That's not change we can believe in" and other creepy things.



Creepy John McCain

John McCain and his creepy, bizarre grins during his recent speeches as he mocked Obama's slogan "Change we can believe in" were the hot comedic topic on the Web. McCain repeatedly used the rhetoric "That's not change we can believe in" followed by a hollow, plastic smile that sent shivers through America's collective consciousness.

This man is beyond weird.

Justin Berfield

Justin Berfield



Justin Berfield

Justin Berfield. Is he gay? Don't know, but he is hot.

Shia LaBeouf: Getting Buff

Shia LaBeouf says: "I'm Getting Buff for Indiana Jones." We'll say! His new name will be Shia The Buff. Expand the section to read more.



Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf Shirtless

Shia says he is beefing up to star in the new Indiana Jones movie alongside Harrison Ford. "The guy is still in premium shape," LaBeouf told PEOPLE magazine. "You don't want to be standing next to Harrison Ford and not be jacked also."

The shirtless sepia-tone, "wet" image was submitted to Ouchpost by famed photographer Bert Shirt, done for a magazine photo spread ostensibly to coincide with the hit movie star's new adventure film release. Hot!










Color Photos: MATTHIAS VRIENS, Entertainment Weekly.

It's Up To You

It's Up To You.



It's Up To You

Radiohead has just changed the playing field. Forever. Now, It's Up To You.

When will eBay be buying Sentry?

Will eBay acquire Sentrylogin.com?



Sentry Login
Sentry Login

eBay snatched up PayPal in a hefty acquisition in 2002. We hear they are thinking of buying Sentry (Sentrylogin.com), an online provider of PayPal Subscriptions member login systems for websites.

Sentry lets webmasters turn their websites into a members-only site by letting them add a login form and protect pages. Sentry supports PayPal Subscriptions IPN, which communicates member status to Sentry, banning members, etc. based on their payment status, etc.

We don't know when or if this will occur, let us know through your comments if you have news.

I have an iPhone: SLOW Web access, too Heavy!

The iPhone: Too heavy, way too SLOW. Expand this section and read on for the dirt on my experience so far with iPhone



iPhone: At first, people asked, Is it too slow? Is it too expensive? Too heavy? How fast and responsive is the Safari web browser, especially in non-WiFi situations?

I'm here to tell you.

The iPhone's Safari browser, using EDGE (meaning you're not in or not using a WiFi hotspot) is not as bad as was originally reported... that is, when it's working at all.

BUT so far, today, EDGE is totally down! You can't browse ANYWHERE on the iPhone. I called Apple and they confirmed that in the Los Angeles area today the EDGE system is being modified, so it is down. No idea when it will be back up again. (Hopefully, they're improving it like they did in the North East). It can't send or receive e-mail during this outage, either. I'm a little peeved, and getting more so the longer this stays this way. This is a Monday afternoon, after all.

The phone is wonderful otherwise, no complaints about anything other than its extreme weight. It is the heaviest phone I've ever owned, and it is isn't properly balanced. Slippery, too. I've dropped it twice already, fortunately just a foot onto the bed once and the other time two feet off of the couch onto the soft carpet, but still.

The keyboard is MADDENING but I'm getting better with it. There is a definite learning curve.

Critics noted that it uses GSM, (EDGE) an older wireless technology that is gradually being supplanted by so-called 3G networks that can transmit data much faster.

Says David Pogue, technology reviewer from the New York Times who tested the iPhone before anyone else for two weeks ending 6/27/2007: "The ... problem is the AT&T network. In a Consumer Reports study, AT&T’s signal ranked either last or second to last in 19 out of 20 major cities. My tests (of the iPhone) in five states bear this out. If Verizon’s slogan is, “Can you hear me now?” AT&T’s should be, “I’m losing you.”

Then there’s the Internet problem. When you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, going online is fast and satisfying.

But otherwise, you have to use AT&T’s ancient EDGE cellular network, which is excruciatingly slow. The New York Times’s home page takes 55 seconds to appear; Amazon.com, 100 seconds; Yahoo: two minutes. (!!!!) You almost ache for a dial-up modem.

These drawbacks may be deal-killers for some people."

Yes, David, for some people, it certainly may be a deal killer. And here in Simi Valley, southern California, everyone who has a cell phone knows that Verizon has the best, most consistent signal and that AT&T has the absolute worst. Apple really dropped the ball in choosing AT&T as the carrier along with its antiquated cellular web service.

See this excellent and entertaining video of David reviewing the iPhone: click here.

For all it is purported to do, some say the iPhone is clunky, particularly in comparison to some of its lighter, smaller iPod cousins. (There are actually shoes that way less than the iPhone's rather unimpressive 4.8 ounces). And, it's nearly half an inch thick!

Here are the Specs straight from the source, Apple:

Technical Specifications:

Screen size - 3.5 inches
Screen resolution - 320 by 480 at 160 ppi
Input method - Multi-touch
Operating system - OS X
Storage - 4GB or 8GB
GSM - Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
Wireless data - Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
Camera - 2.0 megapixels
Battery - Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing Up to 16 hours Audio playback
Dimensions - 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
Weight - 4.8 ounces / 135 grams

The iPhone launched June 29, 2007 at Six PM.

Michael Moore is the Real Sicko

Michael Moore and people with ideas like his are the real Sickos. Here's why.



Sicko
Michael Moore
Universal Health Care

Michael Moore and people with ideas like his are the real Sickos. Here's why. Read my letter to a certain socialist agenda group who are actively promoting the movie:

Why would you want people to see this movie "Sicko?" Why are you supporting socialized medicine?

First of all, 4 out of 5 Americans are satisfied with the health care system, so it is really a non-issue (this will likely be the reason the movie flops, which in its 9th week of release it is already doing with less than a million tickets sold). Only 50 million Americans are "without" health insurance. There are 250 million Americans. That's 1 in 5 who are not voluntary participants of health insurance. That doesn't mean that all of those individuals need health insurance... surely some are financially independent, others have reasonable means (such as myself) to cover health expenses as they occur. So that leaves darn few.

Second, collectivized, totalitarian provision of goods and services by a centralized government which redistributes wealth based on "need" is itself the most sickening thing an American could ever support and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself for it. People are not born with any "right" to health care, nor any "right" to any other product of the human mind which depends upon the willing, voluntary cooperation of another human being.

This smacks of Marxist Communist Russia where such ideals originated.

The answer to your "problem" is this: get rid of the governmental over-regulation, the restrictive licensing, the state supported tort threat, the unionism, and all other legislative and regulatory phenomena which are essentially conferring a monopoly to those currently in the business. This will promote competition, competition drives quality up, prices down, and everyone wins. Monopolies discourage competition (indeed, sometimes deliberately destroy it), drive quality down, innovation down, prices up, and everyone… EVERYONE… loses. (By the way, that is the answer to ANY problem in the free market, not just health care, so re-read it. And learn it. Spread the word.)

Use reason and logic, for once in your life. And while you're at it, use them all the time, too.

Read the eloquent words of Mark Valenti who put it so succinctly:

About ten years ago, I believed in the seemingly lofty goal of "universal health care". Who wouldn't support that goal? Doesn't everyone have a "right" to health care?

I was just a kid then. It was easy to agree with a meaningless campaign promise such as "Affordable Health Care for All". It takes effort to actually research the topic and understand economic logic, history and facts.

Once I questioned the sound bites, I realized that government intervention in the market (e.g., Medicare, FDA, physician licensing, insurance regulations) is the reason for artificially high health care prices.

So-called Universal Healthcare amplifies all problems because it:

1) Destroys patient incentives to find the best possible prices for the best possible services/products available.

I have worked in the health care field in various capacities for the past ten years and I see a majority of patients who currently receive "free" (read: taxpayer-funded) healthcare continually seek care for the most minor afflictions. Why wouldn't they? It's "free" to them so they visit the doctor's office several times a month. "Free" prescriptions for over-the-counter medication such as Tylenol are very common. Patients who refuse to wait for an appointment make their way to the ER for things such as headaches. If you were ever an ER nurse, I know you can verify this.

The current U.S. mostly statist healthcare system also decreases incentives to "shop around" for people who are not receiving direct taxpayer-funded care. If you are paying a set amount per month and your copay is ten dollars per office visit no matter where you go, why bother to look for a better price? Government imposed wage controls during the 1940's carry a large part of the blame for this current state of affairs. Unable to offer competitive salaries, companies started to offer healthcare benefits as a way to lure prospective employees into jobs.

2) Destroys physician incentives to provide competitive care and destroys drug companies' incentives to provide new drugs and treatments. The "brain-drain."

With no incentive to provide quality care, physicians and nurses leave the government-monopolized area for better opportunities in a freer country. Shortages result. Drug companies are hindered by price controls and regulations and soon cease research and development of new medication. In the U.S., start-up drug companies cannot afford to run the FDA gauntlet, so the market is dominated by a few established corporations.

3) Steals from your wallet to pay for my health care (and vice versa).

Yes, you do have a right to health care, just as you have a right to food, shelter and property. However, you have no "right" to force others to provide these things for you - All "free" medical care is paid for through taxes stolen from other people.

I know of one seemingly healthy individual who went to his physician's office 51 times in 26 months. He receives "free" health care from the State, so his trips did not cost him a dime. Who pays for his medications? Who pays for the physicians', nurses' and office staff wages during his visits? If you work within the health care industry, I would bet you could recount similar stories. In my experience, this type of abuse is the rule, not the exception.

4) The quality of "free" health care will deteriorate and the average citizen will get sicker.

As the poor and middle-class wait in agony for simple procedures, those with resources can travel to other countries for treatment. But hey, your moral arrogance and justification of coercion makes you feel good, doesn't it?

5) Destroys your privacy.

Suddenly your problems are mine and mine are yours. If you are eating unhealthy foods or driving a motorcycle without a helmet, I have a direct interest in your business - you are going to see a doctor on my tax dollars. Your neighbors might support government bans on smoking, "unsafe" sex or other "risky" behaviors to reduce costs. Politicians will use the federal bureaucracy to force you and your family to comply with programs such as the "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health".

6) Destroys your liberty.

When you blindly support a system that gives politicians and bureaucrats the power to force others to follow a plan, those politicians and bureaucrats will receive their orders from those with the most money - and you can guarantee this will not be you, your friends or your family. The power of government will be used against you as you are forced to use medicines or accept treatments from well-connected health care companies.

A quick search shows that the pharmaceutical companies gave $29,370,351 to political campaigns in 2002. Who do you think has the ear of those elected politicians? You?

On the other hand, if government power is eliminated (e.g., abolish the FDA - whose restrictions benefit the most powerful companies by eliminating most competition), those same companies would have to use their funds and resources to sell their drugs to the most people in the least expensive, most reliable and safest way. They would need to outperform their competitors to get your money - otherwise they lose business.

Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) was created on July 5, 1948. As with all government programs, bureaucrats underestimated initial cost projections. First-year operating costs of NHS were 52 million pounds higher than original estimates as Britons saturated the so-called free system.

Many decades of shortages, misery and suffering followed until 1989, when some market-based health care competition was reintroduced to the British citizens.

[Sheila added:]

Heck, why should government stop at Socialized Health Care? If we're going to be complete Totalitarians by which the government provides all our goods and services like the Soviet USSR and other communist nations did (and failed), why not government-made cookies, government-made movies, and EVERY OTHER thing we ever consume and pay for? WHY STOP AT HEALTH CARE? It's a Sicko who believes that government intervention in any service industry needs to be anything but decreased and completely eliminated.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Rosie O'Donnell, to the delight of millions of Americans (as well as Elisabeth Hasselbeck, no doubt) has permanently left ABC's "The View." Let us rejoice.



Rosie O'Donnell

Rosie O'Donnell, to the delight of millions of Americans (as well as Elisabeth Hasselbeck, no doubt) has permanently left ABC's "The View." Let us rejoice... and also hope and pray she is off of television altogether.

As much fun as it was to watch her brand of artifice-powered intelligentsia and misfired neo-socialist liberalism fail time and time again to produce anything other than widespread embarrassment for herself and ABC, it will be nice to have her image off of the nightly news. We must, after all, eat.

Avoid Windows Vista

Windows Vista will have you scrambling to recover or re-install Windows XP at all costs. Avoid this new operating system like the plague. DO NOT buy a new computer that comes pre-installed with Vista. Show the retailers who's boss. Insist upon Windows XP... or no sale.



Windows Vista problems

Windows Vista will have you scrambling to recover Windows XP at all costs. Avoid this new operating system like the plague. DO NOT buy a new computer that comes pre-installed with Vista. Show them who's boss. Insist upon Windows XP... or no sale.

Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com says Microsoft is identifying the issues which are causing the most problems and fixing those first. Of the remaining 4 percent of incompatible devices, or about 70,000 devices, 4,000 account for about 80 percent of the problems. "This is our bogey list right now," Windows Client Partner Platform Group Director Dave Wascha told Thurrott in a recent briefing. "So we're on the phone with vendors, flying out to meet with them, and getting these issues addressed. Once that's done, we'll do it all again."

So what's the criterion for getting a device working in Windows Vista? Wascha told Thurrott that Microsoft will fix or create drivers for any device that generates 500 or more user reports. "We have legions of engineers dedicated to this one purpose," Wascha said. "And we will continue to churn through that list." The only exception, of course, is drivers for devices that are no longer sold because the company that made them went out of business. "Unfortunately, the answer there is that it will never work," he said.

What this boils down to is that, as of this writing, 70,000 devices that currently work just fine with Windows XP will not function with Vista by means of Microsoft driver fixes unless 500 people all complain about it. Good luck!

Consumer Reports just revealed their distaste for Vista. They reported that the operating system is dog slow, slower than Windows XP.

Many web surfers are discovering that they can no longer log in at many websites due to out of control overkill security settings that cannot be tamed or turned off. Websites are putting up warnings that users will have to log in using XP or a Mac. Citibank Virtual Account Numbers program users cannot use the desktop version of that program with Vista at all.

The list goes on and on.

Frik Els of fin24.co.za says: "It was only when I circumvented Vista and adjusted the controls of the graphics card from NVidia that I got it up and running. NVidia is being sued for not making its software Vista compatible. Perhaps it should be the other way around.

After the multimedia meltdown things went downhill. The system began to hang frequently without it being clear what caused the fault. And it wasn't just incompatible software from other vendors causing problems.

Even run-of-the-mill internet browsing ran into trouble. Resurrecting the machine from sleep mode and the battery power management controls also appeared to be behind many of the more serious system crashes.

Vista itself isn't very user friendly either. A simple task, such as backing up data to DVD and CD, is still a laborious process. And don't dare select too many files to burn at a time. If you exceed the capacity of the DVD you have to start the process all over again.

The biggest difference to the graphical user interface isn't the rather superfluous 3D rendering of translucent windows, a trick you get tired of quickly, but the built-in search function. The search is great to find music or document files fast, but system controls and the help database don't seem to form part of the index.

Microsoft allows the user to downgrade back to XP on Vista Business but Home Basic and Premium users are stuck with their operating system."

PC World, in an article entitled "Living With Vista: First 30 Days," says: "With the new version of Windows finally out, early users say they're bedeviled by hardware and software problems..."

A poster to that same article in PC World reported this: "I had to replace my broken business laptop with what was available in retail stores. I selected a HP Pavilion DV2000 with Vista pre-installed. It would not work with my office network, also very sluggish!

I contacted HP via live web chat about switching (back down) to XP and was told I could do this by utilizing the drivers on their web site. Bought a copy of XP, tried to install and could not - HP's very rude Vista support rep. reversed the other tech's advise, and said that the equipment (designed for Vista) would not work with XP. After persistent inquiry on my part, she finally admitted that the XP drivers were just not ready for this (Vista compatible) computer. They might be ready in 3 months, but if I installed XP, my (HP / Vista) warranty would be void and they would not assist me in installing.

Now I have a computer I can't use unless I void my (HP / Vista) warranty and even then, not for 3 months. I also have a copy of XP I can't seem to install!"

More Guns Needed Now

Virginia Tech Massacre

After the worst U.S. shooting rampage in history, one perpetrated by a man -- nothing less than a homespun terrorist -- wearing a tattoo depicting one of the most violent expressions of fundamentalist Islamic iconography (to wit "Ismail Ax"), it may shock some to embrace the surest, soundest solution to prevention of this type of catastrophe in the future: more guns. Specifically, the right of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves with personal handguns. Any one of those 32 killed in Blacksburg could have popped off a shot fast long enough to get the second shot perfect, or to otherwise distract the shooter while others escaped under cover.


Quoting Reuters, advocates of gun ownership rights saw Monday's massacre as evidence of the need to relax gun laws rather than tighten them.

"All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen -- a potential victim -- had a gun," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.

"The latest school shooting at Virginia Tech demands an immediate end to the gun-free zone law which leaves the nation's schools at the mercy of madmen."

Virginia Tech Massacre
Ismail Ax
Cho Seung Hui

Sanjaya Malakar the Anti-Idol

Say goodbye to any credibility the American Idol franchise has had with regard to its democratically chosen winners.



Sanjaya Malakar
American Idol

Sanjaya Malakar and the maelstrom of controversy (and outright false-voting) surrounding him is going to RUIN any credibility the American Idol franchise has with regard to its democratically chosen winners. How could the American public stand such a bad singer week after week? Answer: it can't. The false-voting going on to keep him on TV is making a mockery of American Idol.

Even Simon Cowell said he would quit the show if Malakar won. I don't blame him. If he even gets into the final three, I'll never watch the show again.

American Idol should institute technological blocks that prevent any household from registering more than, say, three votes for any one contestant in one evening. That would level the playing field.

Bigoted Bitch

It turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the words 'brainless ignorant bitch,' so I'm kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Ann Coulter.



Ann Coulter is Brain Dead

It turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the words 'brainless ignorant bitch,' so I'm kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Ann Coulter. The real fact of the matter is I'd never even heard of her before she called a straight senator a "faggot" and proceeded to insult every American with any rational sensibility.

Don't buy her books, don't hire her to speak, don't listen to her, and most of all, remember Ann Coulter is a worthless pile of shit. There, I feel better now.

Star Trek Emasculated

The newly remastered Star Trek original series offers thrills as well as a few disappointments.



Star Trek: Remastered

The newly remastered Star Trek original series offers thrills as well as a few disappointments. Gone are the grainy, crude models and special effects of the original run, replaced with gorgeous CGI, standardized photon torpedoes and phasers, and lots of fun camera angles heretofore impossible.

But the new treats appear to come at a price: in many of the re-mastered episodes, which sport wonderfully clarified and bright new resolution to the actors' scenes as well, the simple act of cleaning the gate has been forgotten. Specks, dots, hairs and other detritus can still be seen, sometimes right over the faces of the characters, particularly in the episode entitled "Mirror, Mirror."

In "The Doomsday Machine," an important face-off on the bridge between Spock and Commodore Decker has been edited out. Why? "Vulcans never bluff," Spock says. "No," replies Decker, "I don't suppose that they do." Gone! Ugggh. This to make room for more special effects? Absolutely not worth it. No way.

Googe?

New Dictionary Definition:

googe (goojz) verb: To make an attempt at flare and instead wind up garbling your meaning entirely. Example: "He'll try to impress the bosses and just wind up googing it." googed, googing, googes




Google Googe

Doesn't this say "Googe?" Are we crazy, or did Google make a mistake on Valentine's day? Google ran this logo on Valentine's Day in 2007. We can't find anything in this stylized version of the Google logo that represents the seemingly absent L. Let us know if you find it somewhere. Like on the floor at the Google offices amid the empty beer cans and cocktail umbrellas.

Virtually Secure

Citi Virtual Account Numbers win the Product of the Week Award



CitiBank Card Virtual Account Numbers
Virtual Account Numbers on Technorati
Credit Card Security
Identity Theft

After having had my own Credit Card numbers stolen twice now, once having the thief charge up a storm on websites, the other time having had thousands stolen by way of Western Union (a popular conduit for credit card thieves), I decided something had to be done. Well, lo and behold, CitiBank created Virtual Account Numbers (or V.A.N.). This system is great for creating "disposable" credit card numbers. You can set your own expiration date and, most importantly, set the amount available. The number can only be used by the single merchant, and only up to the amount you set. Because you never give out your real number, it stays safely in your wallet.

Need to provide a number for PayPal or DirecTV authorization, whereby they just need to verify address data? This is the way to go: just create one good for $4 or so, provide it to your merchant, and you need never worry about that number coming back to bite you in the butt.

I've used it a lot; it even lets you go in and close out numbers after the merchant has charged on it for added security.

Hillary and her Hegelian Administration

Hillary and her Hegelian Administration



Hillary Clinton

Yahoo! ran the following in their Answers section: Tell Hillary Clinton: How Can We Improve Health Care?

Most notoriously, it purports to be posted by Hillary Clinton herself. Unfortunately, the reams of responses reveal just how far gone over the slippery slope of socialism the American public already is.

Socialized medicine is NOT the answer!

Any programs whereby the government extracts taxes from the public and then attempts to produce entitlements is sheer welfare, with all its inefficiencies, and only harms the crucial and innovative work of the nation's real producers: its private sector.

The answer is the same as it always was in any industry: government needs to GET OUT OF THE WAY. It is the health industry's reliance upon base level Federal law that lets it get away with factoids like the following:

"Over a million patients are injured in hospitals each year, and approximately 180,000 die annually as a result of these injuries. Therefore, the iatrogenic injury rate dwarfs the annual automobile accident mortality of 45,000 and accounts for more deaths than all other accidents COMBINED." -- Journal of the American Medical Association, July 5, 1995

When medicine is socialized, quality of care will hit the skids... and the above statistic will grow much worse. Look at the quality of care in countries that have attempted Universal Health Care. The Brain Drain is only one issue. When America institutes this plan, doctors won't have anyplace to go except to become a second assistant bookkeeper for more money.

The only answer to this and any question of how to lift Americans out of poverty and low living standards (which are really the underlying problem) is to foster free markets.

Source(s)

Journal of the American Medical Association, July 5, 1995

Time Warner Cable Problems

Time Warner Cable: "...under-trained, ignorant people..." according to an actual Time Warner Cable employee.



Satellite TV is Worth the Extra Cost!

Time Warner Cable Problems

This horror story about Time Warner Cable was reported on the CONSUMERIST by Devlin from Simi Valley, CA:


GoToDish says (in response to a previous poster's rant about never getting a call back in a Time Warner Cable service request):

I know why you were never called back. As a former Time Warner Cable employee who recently quit, it was a result of under-trained, ignorant people and a desperate attempt on TW's part to fill positions due to Adelphia employees leaving. I was hired in July under written notice that we would be in four weeks of in-class training and two weeks of nesting (side by side training on the phones with tenured employees). What my class received was one week of half-assed training by one trainer who was leaving and the second trainer was amazed at what we DIDN'T learn and crammed two weeks into one. Bottom line, we were thrown onto the phones in two weeks and two days, basically set up to fail. The choices left were to either ask for the training you felt you needed and be marked a 'problem, not qualified employee,' or sit there day in and day out and (provide) the exact type of service you experienced, and that is to BS the customer into believing the problem has been resolved. I've been in customer service for years and years and happen to be one of the few who took pride in what I did. Unfortunately, TW wouldn't allow me to do that. They prefer the BS'rs in order to buy time. Considering the major transition within Time Warner/Adelphia/Comcast, many of us felt that not even four weeks in-class training would have been adequate enough in order to make up to valued customers legitimate complaints. I fought hard to retain my position in order to give all of you the service you rightly deserved, but nothing gave me more pleasure than to get a customer who had been struggling, just like you, and I resolved her problem in a timely manner, received her gratitude and simply unplugged my phone in the middle of the day, packed up my desk and said Adios. I am currently employed, making much better money, but most importantly, I'm building a customer base I am proud of and providing people with what they honestly deserve.

Devlin
Simi Valley


PS.. The first poster pretty much has the Crackhead point accurate.

Conan the Totalitarian

Conan the Totalitarian, otherwise known as Arnold Schwarzenegger, the "left-est" rightwing Republican who ever existed, California's governor, seeks universal health care. Look out, Middle Class!



The plan, which Schwarzenegger estimated would cost $12 billion, calls for many employers that do not offer health insurance to contribute to a fund that would help pay for coverage of the working uninsured. It would also require doctors to pay 2 percent and hospitals 4 percent of their revenues to help cover higher reimbursements for those who treat patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program.

According to the Herald Tribune, the governor outlined his proposal to an audience of health care experts and reporters via satellite from Los Angeles. He made it clear that a variety of mechanisms would be used to provide all Californians with insurance and that the responsibility of providing it would fall on the government, employers, health care providers and (emphasis added) the uninsured themselves.

"Everyone in California must have health insurance," Schwarzenegger said.

What he and others who propose such haughty socialist plans fail to realize however, is that you cannot mandate any qualitative state that depends upon the products and services of voluntarily cooperative individuals. You can no more legislate away the "problem of health insurance" than you could walk up to a bum on the street and outwardly proclaim that he will be made affluent because it is now the law that he must be.

What's that? Can't afford health insurance? The Governor isn't helping you with the costs; he's attempting to make the problem vanish by making you a criminal instead. Don't put up with it. Sound off!

Touched by Tissues

Get Touched... by Kleenex. (Yes, Kleenex).

Rarely one to be moved by advertising, I find myself touched by the new grown-up ad campaign of one of America's oldest brands: Kleenex.

The new "Let it Out" spots feature true-life interviews with real people who share moving snippets of their lives, reminding us that Kleenex is not just there when you're sick. This campaign transmogrifies it from simply a receptacle of snot and into an indispensable tool for social change.

Consequently, Kimberly Clark gets catapulted from staid maker of personal paper products into a catalyst for discussion surrounding important issues such as depression and personal closure.

Soulless "Cell"

Stephen King's "Cell" is straight from Hell. Why would such a master of prose offer us this debile idiocy?

Why would our reigning master of prose offer us this pulpy Michael Chrichton-esque pastiche? I found myself, for the first time ever while reading a King novel, putting it down in favor of a Koontz novel.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Did you mutilate the lines of Auld Lang Syne in a drunken stupor? You weren't alone. Millions of Americans joined you. Let's make 2007 a year of peace and recovery.

The Psychology of the Wars of TV Celebs

College psychology courses throughout the ages typically tend to agree on one set of similarities between people everywhere. Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump are no different.

College psychology courses throughout the ages typically tend to agree on one set of similarities between people everywhere: everyone masturbates, everyone picks their nose, and no one minds the smell of their own flatulence. Be this as it may, political problems chiefly tend to arise when these activities aren't practiced strictly in private.

So this brings us to Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump. Two equally beligerent, ignorant, base individuals who choose to air their dirty inter-personal drama before the rest of us in place of actual entertainment. Both should find themselves off the tube forthwith.

The TSA: Tantamount to Hitler's Youth

The TSA: Tantamount to Hitler's Youth. Read how civil rights violations are fomenting many a traveller's fear of flying... before they've even boarded the plane.



The news is rife with stories of the poor, hard working, beleaguered security screeners at America's airports.

But how about the thousands of travellers forced to endure the increasingly rude, bullying, abusive drill-sergeant bullfrogging of these neo-Nazi Brownshirts? As they have no checks against their authority (news stories are also rife with travellers being booked for "unruly behavior." Translation: you can be strip searched or even jailed for any reason the security personnel chooses, depending upon his or her mood) you stand a strong chance of being on the receiving end of the long leer of the new boss.

This is from CNN:

A Wisconsin man who wrote "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat.

Ryan Bird, 31, said he wrote the comment about Hawley -- head of the Transportation Security Administration -- as a political statement. He said he feels the TSA is imposing unreasonable rules on passengers while ignoring bigger threats.

A TSA spokeswoman acknowledged a man was stopped, but likened the incident to cases in which people inappropriately joke about bombs. She said the man was "a little combative" and that he was detained only a few minutes. The incident has ignited some chatter on Internet travel Web sites. According to many blogs, more than 83,000 people have clicked on a FlyerTalk.com forum devoted to the episode, and the forum has grown to include 30 pages of comments.

Bird, the vice president of a company that manufactures industrial equipment, said the encounter occurred at Milwaukee Airport on Tuesday, the day the TSA eased restrictions on carry-on liquids, gels and aerosols.

Bird entered the airport checkpoint with a see-through resealable bag containing small containers of toothpaste, deodorant, mouthwash and hair gel -- in keeping with new TSA requirements. "My level of frustration with the TSA and their idiotic policies has grown over 2 ½ years," he said. "I'm frustrated that poorly trained TSA people can pull random passengers out of line and pat them down like common criminals. The average traveler has no recourse."

Bird put the marked bag in a plastic tray along with his shoes and cell phone. A TSA screener saw the bag and went to get a supervisor, who grabbed it and asked Bird if it was his. "It was obvious that he was already angry," Bird said, adding that the screener told him, "You can't write things like that."(Actually, yes you can).

The supervisor told Bird he had the right to express his opinions "out there" -- pointing outside the screening area -- but did not have the right "in here," Bird said. (It might be a security check at an airport, but the man was still in the US, and is still covered by the 1st amendment, even if the dipwits didn't "like" his opinion).

The supervisor called a sheriff's deputy, who checked to see if Bird had any warrants for his arrest, Bird said. Bird asked the officer if he was under arrest, and was told that he was being detained, he said. A supervisor said he was going to confiscate the bag, but after Bird refused, he just photographed it, Bird said. Bird said he filed a complaint about the incident with the TSA.

A TSA spokeswoman said she could not confirm whether Bird had filed a complaint, but described the incident as insignificant. (I wonder how insignificant she would have thought it was if it had happened to her or a family member.) Screeners looked at the bag to "make sure it wasn't anything like a bomb threat," she said. She said the man was "a little combative" and that a law enforcement officer came over, briefly interviewed him and determined that he hadn't broken any laws. (Combative.. seems to the the most favored word being used by the bullies when anyone is rightly upset about unfair dealings).

"Everyone's entitled to their own opinion," she said. A spokeswoman for the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office said the TSA did call the sheriff's office to report an upset customer at the checkpoint. A deputy went to the scene, interviewed all of the participants, ran a 'wanted' check on the man, and referred it back to the TSA after determining no crime had been committed, Deputy Darice Landon said. Landon said the original call came at 2:21 p.m., and it was unclear how long the man was detained. There is no indication that he was combative, she said.

Says http://anysia.livejournal.com, I think Ryan Birds' point was missed. Many of these 'security measures' are as useless as teats on a bull. Make people dump their toiletries in a bin? Would YOU want to be standing next to a barrel of maybe several tubes of what could be explosives? Sipping out of bottles of baby formula? Like terrorists would be adverse to ingesting a bit of toxic liquid. How about having National Guardsmen at airports, weapons unslung with no bullets. Yeah, that's a real safety measure. But dare state your opinion... you get detained, bullied, and threatened with arrest. At least the cop was clear headed enough to just let it go.

Sound off if, like us, you've had your fill of the Transportation Security Administration's failings and of visions of our Constitution burning before our eyes like the American flag at a Mid-East block party.

The Lowest form of Humor

The pun may be the lowest form of humor, but in the world of Blogs, it is the highest form of cynicism. And cynicism is the most rational response to many of today's scandalous outrages.

OuchPost