The iPod...she is back

And all it cost me was slightly more than Apple would have charged me to swap its old guts for new ones.

To be fair to RapidRepair.com - the initial repair would have saved me money - but the cost of shipping something to them (insured) was substantial. $17 bucks - although I could have skimped on the insurance and payed just under 12. I didn't feel lucky - so I paid full fare.

Late Update: While cleaning up my desk, I recently ran across my receipt from the post office. It shows a charge of $17.35. I sat puzzling over why the bank transaction would show more than what the post office charged me until E walked by.


"Cash back." she explained.


So, I took out $20.00 cash and completely forgot about it. (It's so fun getting old). The amounts that follow have been adjusted.

Add to that the return postage, which RapidRepair bills about $12 for. It's overnight delivery, so that's solid - but that means you're adding $30.00 to whatever they end up charging you for actual repair. Even a modest repair plus shipping puts you in the range of $70.00.

That's the math I was counting on (actually, I was counting on better than that, since I apparently misheard the Post office worker quote me the price).

In any event - you have a small repair - you can save some bucks on fixing your iPod with Rapid Repair. You get above a minor repair and you're better off buying new guts from Apple for $120. My pod needed a new circuit board - which sells for $89.99 installed - so all told I ended up paying $118.00.

This was for a fifth generation 30G Video iPod.


This is not to say that RapidRepair is a bad deal - they weren't particularly rapid (17 days end to end - which included only 12 business days) and their pricing wasn't dreadful.

Three main issues:

1. Shipping bumps any repair into the marginal territory
2. My iPod's issue (which I considered minor) was actually serious enough to make a repair more expensive than replacement
   
3. You only find out if repair is cost effective after you have spent $60-$70 on shipping and diagnosis.

So - I've learned that lesson. As wasteful as it seems, next time I'll just save my shekels and buy a new iPod.

SO more organic than you

(Via GOOD blog)

Jerad is a food fundamentalist who has labored to create the purest BLT in the world.

(Also, it's arguably the most self-absorbed BLT as well. Even so - I'd totally eat it.)

Con Law fashion

I want one of these

(H/t CJR)

Not desired, just wanted

With all the insanity of French Ministers and Hollywood residents rising to defend Roman Polanski - it is refreshing to hear from people who remember what the Polanski did - as well as what the law says about that kind of thing.

Here's Bill Wyman beating the stuffing out of the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Polanski has had a wrenching life, of course, but it is overplayed in "Wanted and Desired." I think it's true to say that there are many people who survived the Holocaust who don't drug and rape children, for example.

Wyman links to the Smoking Gun's transcripts of Polanski's victim - where she graphically describes what happened.

Even a PG version of her account is repellent. Polanski has clearly planned the entire encounter. He isolates the girl, gets her drunk and gives her drugs. Then he suggests photographs in the hot tub, so she will remove clothing without his having to ask. When she doesn't remove everything - he presses her to do so.

While he's forcing himself on her - he's asking questions to learn how likely it is that she will get pregnant. Based on the girl's answer, he switches to sodomy.

That's Polanski, right there. Violating a 13 old girl with practiced ease and taking steps to minimize the risk to him.

Wyman's question is especially apt:

Polanski was photographing the girl for a photo spread for a European edition of Vogue. Someone could have asked him, or his lawyer -- just for the record -- if he had drugged and raped any other of his photo subjects.

The documentary doesn't of course - but it's a damn good question.

Wyman's review also provides a ready rebuttal to all this crap about "Why now?" (as if that were even relevant).

Polanski has been fighting to overturn his conviction/guilty plea - and lost his case a few months ago. Perhaps the authorities were lax in pursuing up until now - but Polanski's recent legal manuvers may very well have reminded them that he was still out there.

It is not hard to picture the LA district attorneys standing over a dusty Polanski case file watching coverage of Polanski's appeal. One of them had to read Judge Espinoza's ruling telling Polanski he could have an appeal when he showed up to ask for one.

I figure one of them looked across the workroom and said "Hey. Do we have any recent information about Polanski?"

And suddenly, against the odds - here we are.

I look forward to the perp walk.

Late update: Kate Harmon does a far better job of pummeling the pro-Polanski movement.

Leadership PACs: like bribery, only it's legal

ProPublica has an article guaranteed to ramp up your cynicism about Congress (assuming you haven't topped out already).

The public might be forgiven for thinking the days are gone when lobbyists and special interests could pay for a lawmaker's cross-country golf outings. After all, both the House and Senate in 2007 responded to a spate of scandals by banning members of Congress from accepting gifts of any value from lobbyists or the companies that hire them.

But those reforms preserved a major loophole: leadership PACs like Chambliss' Republican Majority Fund [1], which have far looser rules and get far less scrutiny than campaign committees. At first, only a few rising stars in Congress had them. Now, 70 percent of the members do. So do a dozen former members.

In the past three election cycles, lobbyists and special interests poured $355 million into these funds, making them the second-largest source of political money for sitting members of Congress.

Legally, lawmakers are free to spend the leadership PAC money pretty much as they wish.

Lobbyists and lawmakers can -- and do -- use it to travel together to play golf at Pebble Beach, ride snowmobiles in Montana's Big Sky Country and go deep-sea fishing in the Florida Keys. The lobbyists don't pay the costs directly. They contribute to the leadership PAC, which then pays the lawmaker's resort and travel bills.

Counter-memes

The busy folks over at CJR have flagged another crop of counter-intuitive goodness:

The FDIC's Sheila Bair may not be all that, after all: so sayeth Bloomberg's Jon Weil (H/t CJR's Dean Starkman)

Ryan Chittum thinks Kansas is about to judo move the mortgage industry - and that there could be a national impact.

David Leonhardt says there are medical errors happen more frequently in the US than in other rich countries, and suggests "The goal, remember, isn’t just to reduce malpractice lawsuits. It’s also to reduce malpractice." (H/t CJR)

Get yer damn flu shot - if only because staying healthy is the best rebuttal

Awhile ago I got an email from a person higher up in the corporate food chain than I am.

It was advising me not to get my swine flu shot. It contained an alarmist video where serial alarmist Wayne Madsen advises us all to stay away from the vaccine.

I considered pointing out that as recently as April of this year Mr. Madsen was reporting that H1N1 could be a weaponized strain based on background discussions with two unnamed journalists (only one of which related the weaponized claim based on yet another unnamed source at the UN).

But I didn't. You see, I need my job.

I have therefore vowed to get my shot, ensure that my family gets their shot - and advocate that thinking people everywhere get the shot.

This way, I can visit their sickbed and gloat - with my healthy family in tow. "Good thing nobody listened to you, eh?"

....

(Too much? In my defense, I'm a fairly bitter person.)

Anyway - HuffPo is getting some deserved flack for posting anti-vaccine quackery from a Dr. Frank Lipman.
Phill goes all gonzo on this (with good reason) but

PalMD over at WhiteCoatUnderground has an informative beatdown of Lipman's main points.

Here's the intro:

Let's start with what swine flu is and is not. Every year, influenza sweeps across the world, affecting the US most strongly in the winter months. Influenza causes at least 35-40 thousand excess deaths every year, and even more hospitalizations and lost days of work and school---and all that is in a "typical" year. In typical years, flu is most brutal on the very old, very young, and chronically ill.

That's just the regualar, seasonal flu. What about swine flu?

Swine flu follows a different pattern. It isn't any less virulent or deadly than seasonal flu, but attacks a much greater number of people, especially those who don't usually suffer much during a typical flu season. It also has refused to confine itself to the normal flu season, having simmered all through the summer. Vaccination helps prevent illness, hospitalization, and death due to influenza, so each year we formulate a vaccine based on the current circulating strains. To what extent vaccination is beneficial is an open area of investigation, but that it helps is clear.

Read the full post, it's great stuff.

Sauce for the goose

Glenn compiles another monster post about moral relativism, the right and how our press covers it.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Some headlines just make you smile.

Fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski is seized in Switzerland

While I can understand Mr. Polanski's belief that he was free to travel (three decades of government inaction would understandably cause complacency), I just love to think of what went through his mind when the Swiss police told him he was under arrest.

"Under arrest? What for...?"

That would be drugging and forcibly raping a minor, Mr. Polanski. Perhaps you'd forgotten.

Lord knows lots of other people have. Pat Goldstein of the LA Times is practically falling all over himself explaining why now is not the right time. It might cost money, it was so long ago, his victim forgave him and besides:

I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn't enough

Got that? Oh, little man, how you have suffered. At liberty and physically intact but still: Snubbed! Infamous!

I'm one of those people who thinks Polanski should get the hard time he skipped out on three decades ago.

The appeals of sycophants like Goldstein and Polanski's lawyers are just pathetic.

It will be expensive - yes, but expensive, unprofitable tasks are one of the reasons citizens create goverments in the first place.  The free market sure isn't going to do it. What other linchpins of the social compact are we going to write off in the name of a balanced budget? Drag this man home in chains.

It's been so long - yes, but it's still against the law to rape children - and let's not forget the man pled guilty. Polanski owes society a debt - and society has generously agreed to accept a late payment. Roman? You're welcome.

His victim forgave him - it isn't about the victim. It's about the crime. If we allowed victims to immunize their assailants, we'd be greenlighting spousal and child abuse on a national level. Screw that.

I especially love Polanski's attorney, Chad Hummel suggesting that arresting his client after decades of disinterest is somehow unsporting.

Yeah, well - it's not like they drugged his champagne.

Whatever lies the LA DA had been telling themselves to justify doing nothing until now - they were free to pick the case up at any time. Props to whoever suddenly remembered they were in the business of law enforcement.

Don't let him get away.

Nate to Strategic Vision LLC: Bullsh!t

Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has noticed something interesting over at Strategic Vision LLC.
Strategic Vision LLC is "an Atlanta-based PR firm which also occasionally releases political polls."

The interesting thing is: he thinks they're full of crap. Emphasis in original:

Certain statistical properties of the results reported by Strategic Vision, LLC suggest, perhaps strongly, the possibility of fraud, although they certainly do not prove it and further investigation will be required.

Hmmm....

The Spanish Prisoner, starring my iPod

I let the boy play parachutes on my iPod. Bit of a mistake there.

The boy mashes the touch pad like there was no tomorrow. Eventually the center button started to stick in the down position.

I went to the interweb to find out how I could fix what was ailing it.

Turns out the little wad of goo under the center pad had slid off center so much that the button wouldn't bounce back from being clicked. Fixing it looked to be as simple as open it up, shove the goo back to the center, and close it back up.

Needless to say, it was a little more complicated than that. Not a lot, though. And after some minor damage to plastic bits that couldn't be seen - I had my pod back.

Cost: $12.95 for a set of ultra small screwdrivers. (I needed a Phillips head and only had flat heads).

This worked for awhile, but whatever forces cause the iPod's button goo to migrate north were still in effect. A few weeks later, I'm opening up the iPod again and sliding the goo back to the center point.

Cost: Zero.

A few weeks later, the button is stuck again. I open it up, slide the goo - and.... the little square plastic envelope the goo lives in snaps off. It's attached at each corner by what looks like solder and the back of the envelope is metallic.

Now, I'm sunk. No way I'm doing micro-soldering to re-attach the goo envelope. Any miss will either ruin the circuit board or melt the envelope.

In desperation, I try to superglue the corners down. This lasts about a day before the glue breaks and the envelope is floating around my iPod's insides.

Gah.

I try the interweb - a host of mysterious repair shops that claim to repair things, but all of them look like they're run out of a garage. I don't feel like sending my iPod there in the hopes that I'll get it back. Not unless I had somebody to vouch for one of them.

I go to Apple's website. Apple gets a lot of good marks for UI and user experience - but (apologies to Mac-philes out there) but their support section is fairly lame. I waste a good half hour before getting the number of my local Apple Store and telling them my troubles.

Me: My iPod's central button isn't working. The contact pad underneath it has broken loose. Can you help me?

Apple Phone Rep: We can set you up with an appointment with our Genius Bar^TM.

Me: Great. How soon?

Apple Phone Rep: How's tomorrow night sound?

Me: Great!

I'm jazzed. I put all the iPod bits into a ziploc bag and put it in my car so I don't forget. Getting out on a weeknight is kind of a deal in our house, but E indulges me. After all, my cause is just. The kids want their music in the car.

The fateful day arrives. I go to the Apple Store and wander through the We're-so-NOT-like-the-other-stores layout. It's fun. I'm there early, but I check in at the Genius Bar^TM and they tell me they'll call my name where my time arrives.

I watch happy consumers happily consuming for about fifteen minutes, and then my name is up. At the bar, my designated genius looks like a cross between Shaun White and Jack White. He's nerdy, but with an edge.

S/J White asks me what seems to be the problem.

I pull out my ziploc bag: it visibly contains:

• an iPod - sans center button
• a center button for the aforementioned iPod
• a plastic envelope, containing the aforementioned goo ball

I spell it out for him. This part broke free, and I need you guys to either re-attach it, or replace the clickwheel with a new one.

I smile, pleased with myself that I've summarized my issue in what sounds like an intelligent manner.

S/J White thanks me and tells me he's going to take my iPod in the back. I resume watching consumers - happily imagining a crack squad of Geniuses attacking the problem posed by my iPod. First they whiteboard it, then they think outside of the box (while playing hacky-sack for inspiration) then they come up with a brilliant solution.

S/J White returns and I turn to him hopefully.

He says "We don't do component level repair."

[Sound of a Needle scratching off the record]

Okay- what the flying f---k, Apple? I scheduled a meeting with you idiots. Any part of my description to your phone guy would have convinced an illiterate 4th grader I was talking about a component level repair.

Mr. White? A guy brings you an iPod in a Ziploc bag with separate parts and describes replacing parts to you - you might be able to tell him right then and there that component level repair is off the table. Keeping him waiting for another ten minutes is not going to improve this situation. You've completely wasted my time.

[Placing the needle back on, now]

I ask him what my options are.

"Well, you could get 10% off a new one..." He reads my face and quickly jumps to plan B "...oooOor you could have us replace the entire insides."

"How much?"

"$120.00"

I tell him no. $120 is ridiculous. There's got to be a way to repair something so small.

S/J leans across the counter, "I know this guy. I mean, I'm not officially going to sanction this, but if you google this name, you'll get these guys. I hear they're pretty good."

You hear they're pretty good. I thank him and leave.

F-ing waste of an evening. I check out the guys he recommends. It looks like they operate out of a garage. Plus, their website suggests snail mail is the only way to contact them. Gah.

A month passes. I look here and there for a repair place but nothing really looks inviting.

A little over two weeks ago, thorn sends me an NYT article about repairing tech. It mentions RapidRepair.com who specialize in repairing MP3 players and game systems.

I'm in. If the NYT cites them, they're at least above the two-guys-and-a-garage level - and I'm sick of not doing anything.

I hit their website and look up what you do. They have a fairly straighforward mail in repair setup. You tell them what you need (diagnosis, specific part replacement, etc) enter the usual billing & shipping info and then they give you a printout.

You send them your iPod with the printout and they bill you once they do the work and ship it back to you (paid for by your fee).

I see a clickwheel as a purchasable part and figure this is a broader solution to my issue, but might as well solve the problem for real. A clickwheel + shipping comes out to $51.98

Certainly better than $120.00

I buy a padded envelope for $4.78 and I hit the post office, same day. Postal lady asks me what I want.

"I want this package to be trackable and insured for $300."

She presses some buttons.

"That'll be $37.35 $17.35"

Late Update: While cleaning up my desk, I recently ran across my receipt from the post office. It shows a charge of $17.35. I sat puzzling over why the bank transaction would show more than what the post office charged me until E walked by.

"Cash back." she explained.

So, I took out $20.00 cash and completely forgot about it. (It's so fun getting old). The amounts that follow have been corrected.

[Sound of a needle again]

(I should point out at this point that I do not recall her giving me this amount. I'm only putting this amount down because I've looked in my bank records and see a charge to the USPS on the correct day and time for this amount. If you have asked me what I paid without my checking - I'd have said $17.00.


Either I was in willful denial to what she was telling me, or I misheard her. Either way, I paid what she said.)

Let's resume.

I've now paid $74.11 to mail my iPod to RapidRepair and for them to replace the clickwheel. If all goes well, I will have my iPod back in about a week. With shipping included, that should be the end of the money drain.

I get a confirmation from RapidRepair via email the following Monday. Then...nothing.

At the end of the week, one hour before I leave work - I get an email from them asking me to call them about my repair. My problem has been diagnosed.

I get the email too late to call them, so the following Monday I call them as soon as they open. The rep tells me that they don't think I need a clickwheel repair. Nick, the tech guy, feels that a simple part replacement should do the trick. He thinks there's a chance that it won't work - at which point they'll need me to replace the circuit board.

"How much is that?"

"$89.99"

Gah. I don't want that. He tries to sell me a new battery, and an annual battery replacement plan.

Double Gah.

I tell him to go ahead with the repair Nick outlined and let me know how it goes.

Naturally, three days later I get an email from RapidRepair telling me to call them about my repair. When I do, the rep tells me that the repair has failed and that I will need a new circuit board.

No way I'm paying another $90 bucks. The rep tells me that the money I've paid can be credited to this new repair, so the difference ends up being about another thirty. And they'll throw in a free battery.

At this point, I'm sunk. They can either send me back a broken iPod and bill me for the diagnosis - which means I'm out about $50 with nothing to show for it. Or I can stump up another 30.

I tell them to do the repair.

As of this morning, I hadn't heard from them - so I called. This time the rep told me they'd meant to get a hold of me. They're out of circuit boards and wont' have more until Monday.

Come Monday, they should begin repairing my iPod and then they'll mail it back to me.

If all goes well (why should it start now?) I will have my iPod back two and a half weeks after I sent it to them.

For the low, low price of...?

$104.11

I should have frickin' paid Apple.

Pandemic in perspective

Information is Beautiful has a pair of graphics that put swine flu in its place:

 

Nice.

Smokejumping

6:40am, and I'm barely moving.

Waking up after 6:30am is generally a bad thing in our house. E's aiming to be out the door just past 7. I'm supposed to be in the car at half past with both kids fed, dressed, and ready for school.

In the past this has not gone so well. But we've gotten better - and had settled into a routine.

Then came kindergarten. Now the boy goes one place and the girl goes somewhere else. Dropping off the boy adds a good deal of time since there's the need to bring little e along as we: get out of the car, walk into school, sign him in, walk back to the car, and buckle back in.

Ten or fifteen minutes, usually. This can be accounted for. However, the X factors are legion - and it only takes one to screw you.

The first one is getting the kids awake. Yesterday the boy popped awake and was dressed in 5 minutes. I think he was keen on walking to school - I crushed his dream by telling him we'd drive anyway. This morning he's in no hurry to be moving.

My general tactic has been to play one kid off on the other. I ask one to help me wake up the other and let the sibling's instinct for cruelty kick in. Today I start with little e and take her to the boy.

No dice. He's not moving, she's not moving - so I aggrivate both of them until their eyes open. Ten minutes later, I have the boy half dressed and little e with her clothes picked out.

Shower for 8 minutes. It cost $300 - but we finally have hot water, so I'm tempted to linger. But no sense in running late.

I have a 9 o'clock meeting - easy to make - but no sense tempting fate. E takes off. I get dressed and start the breakfast thing. Rule one is to get the kids in their shoes and ready to go before we eat something. They get ready while I'm getting food. Otherwise - after breakfast, I just get to sit and wait for them.

English muffins all 'round with milk - I'll get coffee at day care. I'm looking at the clock, somehow it's managed to be 7:35. No biggie. Out the door.

Little e sounds off "My tummy hurts." This is her way of telling me she needs a bathroom break. Sigh. Okay, back in the house, settle down and wait.

And wait.

Urgency is not something you can force on little e. You're there for the duration. You can assist, you can suggest - but overstep and you'll just make things worse.

The boy's out wandering around in the yard - I notice that I've managed to leave the garage door open all night. Sigh. Turns out little e needs a new set of clothes, so upstairs search/sift/select - and we're back to getting dressed.

Once again, rushing + little e = not happening. The boy has managed to buckle himself in (by himself) but getting all the slack he needed has thrown the seatbelt into rachet mode. It's tight against his neck because (naturally) the shoulder ring has moved up. Rachet mode makes the belt impossible to adjust - so I need to unbuckle the boy and start over. This undoes his accomplishment and generally upsets him. I ignore it, he's got to deal.

Out the door and the dash clock prounounces sentence on us: 7:58.

Dammit. I'll still make the meeting - I just won't have much prep time

And we're off. To the boy's school. Before we leave the car, we're in trouble. The boy is cold and wants to put on his sweatshirt - while standing - in our car. This does not go well and there are many false starts.

And then we're out - the drop off is marginal. Sign in - the boy wants to scuzz my hair, he does and we go.

Little e is always trailing behind me on these things, but leaving her alone in the car is a non-starter. Mercifully, she asks to be carried to the car. I haul.

8:08

We're en route to daycare, and this means I am sure to be late for work. No sense freaking out about it. Late by 10 or late by twenty is not worth a traffic accident.

I'm pulling up to daycare and have the option of driveway or street.

Street: Pros - cannot be parked in
Cons - street traffic that could kill you while you are unloading your little girl.

Driveway: Pros - safety + proximity to front door
Cons - chance that you will get parked in by another parent.

I'm so late - I opt for safety. It's 8:30 and odds are all the kids are here already. Plus, there's two car widths of room and I'm the only one here. It'd take two cars to block me in - and all the parents know better than to do that.

Driveway, then. Park, out the door. Little e announces that she has taken off her shoes -and can I please help her put them on?

Sigh. Yes, of course.

I'm carrying her in, because now I need every minute. Little e announces she must walk.

As previously mentioned, speed is not her thing.

I open the door and am holding the glass door open for her. Little e has this thing where she stands in the doorway for an interminable amount of time. She's doing it today. I'm holding two doors open for her and she's not moving.

I urge her to speed up. Repeatedly. Finally, she takes two steps in. I let the glass door close and step in.

And the wailing starts.

Unbeknownst to me, little e was holding onto the doorframe with her left hand. Her little left hand just got wholloped by the closing glass door.

She's inconsolable - and I take her downstairs. It's not a bad hit, a scrape - but certainly more than she should be expected to suck up. I do my best to cheer her up and get her to focus on putting on her slippers.

It doesn't work for about 5 minutes. I get her into her classroom and chat up her teacher. Little e's teacher is an ace when it comes to cheering up small kids - and kids always react better to people other than their parents anyway. Little e's teacher takes lead and I back her up for awhile. We make small talk about some visitor who's supposed to be arriving today. Somebody who was supposed to show up earlier in the week and hadn't. They were late today, so little e's teacher is unsure if they'll show up at all.

I chat until I can see little's e's doing better - and bolt for the door. It's almost 8:40. It'll take me seventeen minutes to get to my desk. I will have no prep - and I don't even know what building my meeting is in.

On the way out - I run into a confused-looking stranger: the student teacher. I direct her down the proper stairs and step out the front door.

Naturally, there are two new cars behind mine in the driveway. The one directly behind mine is unfamiliar. It's right behind mine - because the student teacher doesn't know better than to do that.

The other car is a parent - they're on a cell call so it takes awhile to get their attention - but they move as soon as they see what's up. I gyrate my car back and forth to get around Student Teacher-mobile.

It's 8:44.

At this point, I am screwed. I call a co-worker and ask them to check my calendar in Outlook. Parking at the wrong end of Corpworld could cost me another ten minutes. My meeting's on the floor above my desk - solid.

I start thinking of the gate - the turnstile - and then I suddenly remember I don't have my badge.

Son. Of. A. -

I'm jolted out of that thought when the car in front of me suddenly stops dead. They're turning left without a signal. Nice.

I weave around them and almost plow into another car - also at a dead stop, but inexplicably in the middle of open road.

What the...?

Ducks. They've stopped for a column of ducks crossing the road. The ducks are in no hurry.

I am. I literally scream into my windshield "What the F--??!!"

Either as a result of this, or by pure coincidence, the ducks immediately take flight and we're moving again. I hit my parking ramp at 8:57. I have two security doors to clear and no badge.

The great thing is - you can only request badgeless access at the security desk - which is behind the first security door.
I need to draft someone - and this late, the parking lot is a ghost town. I'm on level two and there's nobody, so I go down hoping I can draft someone on the ground level.

Score. Some clueless corp type is approaching the outer door. They're 20 yards ahead of me, so I bolt. Screw decorum. I could spend ten minutes out here wating for another person or more just walking to the public entrance.

I draft - and I'm in. The turnstile is door number two and is, predictably, still not working. Instead of the cheerful guard of the past few days - I get Dour Belligerent Guy.

I walk right up to him. "I forgot my badge. What do I do?"

Now, I know what to do - but I have to wait until DBG does his part. I have my ID and credentials out and ready.

This man - whose job it is to grant access to the building, who surely has to expect a certain number of people will arrive sans badge, who indeed is at the only work station where they perform this service - has not bothered to fire up the program on his laptop that will authenticate me.

So he boots it up.
And I wait
And he enters his log in criteria
And I wait
And he navigates through a maze of menu options
And I wait

And then he looks at my ID and verifies that I work there.

Then he tells me to go and get a visitor pass from the desk.

I glance to my right at the unstaffed desk that is fully eight feet from where I am standing.

"Over there?"

"Yes."

It suddenly occurs to DBG that he's asking me to speak to people who are not there. Rather than take on added responsibility and get the pass for me - he opts to phone it in.

Literally. He calls in on his radio and asks persons unknown if they can "come down to the desk" and process a visitor badge for me.

Mercifully, the persons unknown appear to have neither the knowledge how nor the inclanation to do any such thing.

DBG is irritated - surely somebody can take care of this for him. Persons unknown tell him to just let me in. DBG makes me swear an oath that I will seek out my supervisor and get my spare badge before walking around the complex.

I swear, knowing full well my supervisor is not in today and that I have no idea if anyone else would even be able to open whatever (presumably locked) container that holds my spare.

I leg it straight to my meeting, sans prep, sans laptop and sans even paper or pen because (of course) the nearest workroom has been de-stocked due to the recent budget cuts.

With almost no understanding of the meetings purpose, a smile and a cup of coffee - I walk into my meeting.

It's 9:07

Geronimo!

"As God is my witness...I thought turkeys could fly"

Glenn Beck has either equaled Mr. Carlson's stupidity - or he wants us to think he did.



Ye gods.

Resorting to Hitler

Watching the increasingly shrill opposition to the President, it can be tempting to think that this behavior is somehow without parallel or precedent.

It is oddly comforting to know that this is not so.

The voice over is from the Rachel Maddow Show's interview
with the always-strident Frank Schaeffer.

Now, I am sure that we find those we disagree with inherently more threatening than those who share our likes (or dislikes) - but seeing the depth of the political bile flowing in one direction does not allow us to ignore bile headed the other way.

It may be a question of perception - but I am struck by the equivalence of the rhetoric on the signs in the video above - and those I am seeing in popular media these days.

I do not, however see an equivalence in the amount of attention these groups receive on network television.

I'd be very interested to see impartial analysis of equivalent events and the attention they received (taking into account the context of the protest, where it took place, who was there, etc).

The left and the right are always complaining about how this coverage or that coverage totally misrepresented or ignored their viewpoint. I aways get a kick out of comments on NPR that accuse a story of being biased - in both directions.

The equivalence of the threat these groups pose is also something I've wondered about. I certainly don't recall any left wing protestors stalking President Bush with loaded firearms - but I'd be interested to see if this was so.

Much is made of the recent killing of a pro-life protestor, but even if that was a political killing - it would be the first instance of a pro-life protestor being slain.

I'm certainly not looking for false equivalencies. I've been in conversations with right-leaning friends where they gravely wondered if someone was going to "take out" the president or (if I recall right) Barney Frank. It was if they expected it to happen. That it would make them happy if it did.

I somehow doubt they were truly advocating for political violence - but their comment seemed wistful, like "wouldn't it be great if..."

I can recall left leaning friends making similar comments about Pres. Bush as well. I'd always say "Imagine the catastrophe that would follow such a thing. You think things are going in a direction you don't like now?. What do you suppose this administration would do if the nation thought their political opponents were responsible for the president's assassination?"

I truly believe Glenn Greenwald was right:

Far more interesting than [Glenn] Beck himself is the increasingly futile effort to classify the protest movement to which he has connected himself. Here, too, confusion reigns. In part, this is due to the fact that these "tea party" and "9/12" protests are composed of factions with wildly divergent views about most everything. From paleoconservatives to Ron-Paul-libertarians to LaRouchians to Confederacy-loving, race-driven Southerners to Christianist social conservatives to single-issue fanatics (abortion, guns, gays) to standard Limbaugh-following, Bush-loving Republicans, these protests are an incoherent mishmash without any cohesive view other than: "Barack Obama is bad." There are unquestionably some highly noxious elements in these groups, but they are far from homogeneous.

I believe both ends of the political spectrum have their crazies and provocatuers. And I'm not convinced this latest crop is in any way abnormal - but it only takes one crazy person to change everything.

(H/t to Pundette and Newsbusters)

Eat what you kill

The NYT's Economix blog has a nice piece on What's Really Wrong With Wall Street Pay.

Item 1:

The “I.B.G. – Y.B.G.” problem. A major cause of the current crisis will most likely prove to be a mismatch of incentives for Wall Street traders. If a mortgage trader made a big bet, he had the chance to land a big bonus if it paid off (and his boss did, too). If, however, that bet didn’t pan out — and the trader lost a lot of money for the firm — he might receive no bonus at all. On the contrary, he might get a princely severance package.

Survivor

Saw this on Neatorama

In a word: Damn.

Cynthia Blair-Hoover of Granby, Colorado crashed on the way to Denver when her car went off a cliff near Central City. Although the fall left the 52-year-old woman with eleven broken ribs, broken vertebrae, and a punctured lung, she began inching her way towards an old mine by sliding on her back.

For five and a half days and nights, Hoover sucked moisture off her hair and did her best to stay warm through rain, hail and even snow at the 8,000 foot mark in the mountains. By the following Tuesday, she was able to hear voices coming from the mine, where they were conducting tours. When the voices stopped, she would yell for help and after several minutes, one of the men heard her cries for help.

Making sense of the right's nonsense

Glenn hits one out of the park with his observations on Glenn Beck and the fury of the inchoate right:

...crucially, it is the Republican Party and its various appendages -- the same people who presided over massive expansions of debt and federal government power -- that are exploiting this citizen activism, and they're harnessing it for their own petty, partisan ends.  There's a reason why Glenn Beck is on Fox News, which is nothing more than a media outlet for the Republican Party, Wall Street and neoconservatism, yet which is also the driving media force behind these protests:  it's because, with Democrats in power, the same Republicans who wildly expanded government power when they controlled it now, out of power, suddenly love anti-government sentiment. Currently, opposition to "the government" is easily translated into "opposition to Democrats," and these protests are thus exploited and distorted as partisan Republican tools even though many of the individual protesters are as anti-GOP as they are anti-Democrat.

Sears, you suck

(H/t E)

Policy Beta details an appalling act of deception by Sears Holding Corporation (which also owns Kmart). According to the FTC settlement:

...the company failed to “adequately disclose” that it was collecting personal information using a spyware program secretly installed on consumers’ computers.

Between 2007 and 2008, 15 of every 100 visitors to sears.com or kmart.com were presented with a pop-up window that offered the opportunity to “talk directly to a retailer” and become part of “a place where your voice is heard and your opinion matters, and what you want and need counts!” No mention was made that this “opportunity” also installed detailed tracking software on the user’s computer.

Customers who asked for more information were offered a $10 coupon in exchange for downloading – and keeping on their computer for at least one month – software from Sears or K-mart that would allow them to become “part of something new, something different[.]” Consumers probably didn’t realize that by “new” and “different,” the advertisement meant “all-seeing” and “invasive.” Indeed, this software monitored both online and offline behavior, peering into online secure sessions and culling information from consumers’ email subject and recipients, online bank statements, drug prescription records, video rental records, and similar histories and accounts.

Now, somewhere in the bowels of Sears Holding Corporation, there are corporate loyalists gnashing their teeth about how unfair this is.

After all, they'd say - "we disclosed everything in our privacy statement!"

It clearly says (emphasis added):

Once you install our application, it monitors all of the Internet behavior that occurs on the computer on which you install the application, including both your normal web browsing and the activity that you undertake during secure sessions such as filling a shopping basket, completing an application form or checking your online accounts, which may include personal financial or health information.

We may use the information that we monitor, such as name and address, for the purpose of better understanding your household demographics; however we make commercially viable efforts to automatically filter confidential personally identifiable information such as UserID, password, credit card numbers, and account numbers.

Inadvertently, we may collect such information about our panelists [people who have downloaded the software]; and when this happens, we make commercially viable efforts to purge our database of such information.

Think about what they've just written there for a second.  

We're going to monitor ALL your household internet use - including secure transactions. It MAY include your personal financial or health information. We may collect your UserIDs and passwords - but don't worry - we'll purge our database in a commercially viable way.

That's just breathtaking. Not only for the scope of how invasive it is, but that somebody was brazen enough to put that down in print.

Why did they do that? Because of this other little section of the document:

What are the other legal terms and conditions of participating in this program?

Governing Law: You agree that any dispute or claim arising out of this program or agreement shall be settled by binding arbitration in Cook County, Illinois under the American Arbitration Association Rules.

Yes, binding arbitration... corporate America's current attempt at de facto civil immunity.

The FTC was not impressed - partly because no one reads these privacy agreements, but largely because of the way in which the privacy text was displayed to users.

Wanna guess how they expected you to read their "disclosure" that agreement meant installing spyware and waiving your right to sue?

Yeah. That'd be the typical scrollable text box. Complete with boring intro text so nobody wants to read it.

Oh, there's a printable version link - but a link that starts with "print..." is going to get less traffic than one that says "View.." and they know that nobody has the staying power to read 11 pages of legalese.

And they offered people $10 to participate.

Ten bucks in exchange for people's private data and their right to sue.

The FTC has ordered the deletion of all the collected data - but I'm not seeing mention of a massive fine. There's also the typical "no admission of wrongdoing" langauge which is about as wimpy as it gets. What isn't wrong about what they did?

I know it's a question of emphasis and actual criminal intent was probably lacking. Odds are they were just arrogant enough to believe what they were doing was legal because of their "disclosure." But again, there was a clear expectation that people would not read/understand/consent to what was going to happen.

You pull crap like this on your customers - you should be paying a fine and wearing the corporate equivalent of a scarlet letter.

Green Dog Democrat

ProPublica's got a nice bit about Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross.

[Rep. Ross,] a Blue Dog Democrat playing a key role in the health care debate -- sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment (PDF) and an independent appraisal (PDF) say it was worth.

I'll save you the clicking.

• The county said the property was worth a total of $263,700.
• The independent appraisal said it was worth  $198,500
  
• Rep. Ross sold it to USA Drug ("an Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with a keen interest in how the debate plays out.") for $420,000.

I'd be interested in hearing this dog yelp a bit.