So, along with Climategate and the escalation in Afghanistan, there's still the economy to talk about.
Teen Vidiot, during one of those lucid moments when he wants to talk about something OTHER than South Park or Family Guy, can't seem to wrap his head around "what so bad about Walmart?" For a kid who used to live within a mile of one of those Walmart Superstores and who used to go there on a daily basis for whatever it was they needed to buy, (including cold-cuts, Who knew?) it's been pretty difficult to get him to understand the importance of a vibrant local economy. He keeps asking "Why are there no Walmarts in New York?" Because New Yorkers won't stand for it. "What's wrong with Walmart? Everything's cheap there." Yes, and that comes at a steep price.
Maybe, by the time he graduates high school -- five loooooooong years from now -- he'll at least understand why Walmart is bad. He doesn't have to agree with us. We just want him to understand it. Hopefully he'll agree with it.
But I look around me, in my neighborhood, in New York City, it's all turning into a strip mall with big box stores. Near me, small businesses that catered to a certain population were replaced by other small businesses catering to a different clientele. That new clientele had money. Once the money came, then the new small businesses couldn't keep up with the real estate prices and they were replaced by big box stores. I've seen it happen all over the city. Even at Union Square which years ago was pretty cool and is now getting, well, a TGIF and Tim Hortons. If it can happen here of all places...
{sigh}
If left unabated, I can see where all this going.
All of the restaurants in popular locations will be big box, boring and tasteless.
One store where you buy everything from groceries to goods, you know, like Walmart. (I'm sure there will eventually be a Walmart in NYC. It's going to happen.)
There are plenty more things that could be on this path, along with a privatized police force, mandatory vaccinations for all, usury like we've never seen usury before, etc. and so on.
I don't want to be all doom and gloom but unless people start to resist this stuff, unless we just say no to it, then it's going to happen because these corporations will continue to grow, continue to rake in the wealth, and continue to have political power that far outweighs what we, as individuals, will ever have.
Arguing over Climategate or any other fiasco is pretty pointless. Whether they lie to us or don't lie to us is irrelevant. They manufacture the reality. They control what we think, what we hear, what we see, what we eat, they control everything. And many of them don't do it intentionally. They just work within the system. They just do what they do because, well, that's what they do. It's hard to resist it all, but resist it we must.
Because not resisting it will be the death of human culture, and I'm not saying that to just be bombastic. It really will be the death of human culture.
No original thought can occur in an bland environment. If we're all having the same experiences, eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, watching the same shows and movies, listening to the same music, if we're all thinking and doing the same things, where will our creativity come from? Differences are needed to spark controversy, and I'm not talking about the difference between Ruby Tuesday's and TGI Fridays (is there a difference between those two?) If all of human culture becomes this amalgam of big box, corporate culture, the end of history will have occurred... and more than likely, it will happen with a whimper.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:41 AM Permalink
More young men are being put in harm's way in Afghanistan so that more people can be killed.
"We must escalate the war to end the war."
Hmmmmm, where I have heard that before...
Oh wait, now I remember:
From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:17 PM Permalink
…in a post below regarding Climategate by Mike Rivero.
I have to admit I have no idea who this person is, whether he be fool, wise man, or just another tool driven by his own moral sense of what's right or wrong or even carrying water for the government. Sailor seems to hold Mr. Rivero in low regard indeed while the Vidiot seems inclined to consider his (Rivero's) point of view as worthy of being heard and considered regardless of the possibly dubious source.
Sailor: "Oh fer gawd's sake, you really want to go with Mike Rivero!? Sheesh, he's Glen Beck w/o the audience. He's a loon! Next time try quoting climatologists instead of conspiracy aficionados."
To which the Vidiot replied: "Like another POV is going to hurt anybody? …Here' MY POV: Whatever the government tells you is the truth, is a lie. Period. End of discussion.
Very few people have been trained to be professional liars; most lie reflexively as a protection mechanism or to coverup the truth or, properly trained, to almost instantaneously brainwash those with whom they communicate for gain, fair or foul. Fewer still are born with an innate aptitude to lie faster than the speed of thought, without thinking about it.
I was a very well trained, active daily, professional liar for fifteen years when I bounty hunted for a living, although for any good lie to work there must be some truth incorporated within, and occasionally that truth, founded on a lie, become the fact of the matter and yielded successes unable to be attained by the lie only. I was a very successful bounty hunter.
During those years I personally was responsible for returning hundreds of felons and countless misdemeanants to court or jail, including the Southside rapist in Sacramento, child molesters beyond count, and Robert Hal Brame, whom I busted in Ft. Lauderdale. That bust, which I ran from my office in Sacramento, wound up with seven F.L.P.D. detectives finally closing in for the bust after I finally located a jilted girlfriend and used her to positively I.D. Brame's voice. Twenty-three hours from start to bust and I never left my office. He was again busted here in California years later as "The Gentleman Bandit" who robbed banks in three piece suits and so courteously no one ever paid attention to him 'til he was gone.
The greatest advantage of being a professional liar was that ability mentioned above to brainwash people whom you had never met, didn't know, nor had ever talked to before. If I could get a message to the skip to call me, nine out of ten times they would call to rub my face in their escape if for no other reason. However, once on the phone, the fish was in the net.
If I could keep that skip on the line for one hour, he or she would actually tell me where they were. If I could keep them on the line for another hour beyond the first, they WOULD come back voluntarily. I was a long distance brainwasher, all accomplished through ruse, trickery, sometimes deceit, mostly truth, all mixed into a witches' brew that seemed at times to have endowed me with incredible powers to weave spells and make water run contrary to gravity.
There were plenty of road trips my Warrior Woman and I took (I swear to the universe, my wife can pick a bail skip out of a crowd of his brothers at a family reunion from a hundred yards away without ever erring, not once. So when my partner said he would no longer pay her expenses on the road I said O.K., find another team, as she was crucial to mine. Took him less than five minutes to come back in and guarantee all our road expenses, period, as he had seen her in action, and we did have the very best road record of any bounty hunters in Sacramento; gone five days, five in jail; gone ten days, ten or more in jail; we never failed to nail at least one skip a day on the road.) As I located skips by phone (which was probably 98% of the time; my regular phone bill usually exceeded ten to twelve thousand dollars a month, my partners equal or greater.) I would put a pin in this hugh beautiful Thomas Bros. map of the U.S. that came just shy of covering one entire wall of my office indicating in which city the skips were. Get enough pins, take a piece of yarn and run it from pin-to-pin to layout the most efficient route, hopefully a circle or some semblance thereof to minimize driving, call my Warrior Woman, give her about 1/2 hour notice and hit the road. I have busted skips in virtually every state of America.
I used to joke around and tell people that I was so sneaky I scared myself until I woke up one morning and realized that it was true. Although as a point of pride I never did, and still don't, lie to a friend; honesty almost to the point of brutality (Are you SURE you want me to answer that question?) was the rule, though I did learn to ask that preceding parenthetical question.
But is was true. My ability to lie so facilely, without compunction, so convincingly that I could not NOT be believed, scared me spitless. Even though I lied professionally to aid society in ridding itself of all those felons and miscreants, the six or eight murderers a year we would ask the FBI to put into the Sacramento Bee Secret Witness program that, when located by us and jailed by the Feds, (some of these people scared the hell out of me, so strictly anonymity was the rule) netted us $60k-$80k or more in addition to the lucrative lying of a professional bounty hunter. Even though I knew without question that my lies benefitted society as a whole, working in total anonymity, a wraith blowing through cities leaving behind one incarcerated drag on society after another and then vanishing without leaving a trail, and I finally woke up scared to death at what I had become: a liar so accomplished that I could rip apart the earth, metaphorically speaking, and locate anyone, any skip, and have them in jail in under 72-hours.
And that was after cheap bail agents tried all their local P.D.s, Sheriff Departments, hotshot local bounty hunters and all had failed, and then that cheap S.O.B. bail agent would come crawling on hands and knees to my partner and I and finally agree to our inflexible rate of charge of 50% of the penal amount of the bond plus all expenses. A $100,000 abscond meant my partner and I picked up $50k plus in under 72-hours flat. With a 98% success rate.
I was a professional liar who became terrified with an ability so natural it was like breathing or the other motor responses of a living organism, having become so eerily skilled as to be able to make anyone think or believe anything I so desired.
I guess this is my meandering, wandering way of emphatically agreeing with the Vidiot and speaking from personal experience, although my talent came all too naturally and ultimately morphed into something too frightening to handle:
Here' MY POV: Whatever the government tells you is the truth, is a lie. Period. End of discussion.
I whole-heartedly agree with this caveat: This country, and the world, is filled with people for whom lying is as natural as breathing, and far too many of us find our way into politics, the media, or other outlets where lying provides gains, lawful or not.
I know. To paraphrase A.A., "Hi, my name is Bill, and I'm a scary good liar so good that I scare myself."
NOTE: I would reluctantly, but willingly, give Sailor or the Vidiot all the proof they need to confirm every word I have written here. I am retired from being a professional liar and long distance brainwasher.
POSTSCRIPT; A day after getting Brame busted, Leo Callahan, Chief of police F.L.P.D. called me on my main "blind line." (His name could have been Leo Koloion, one was Chief Detective the other chief of police and I often get the names confused. For these purposes I'll leave it as it is.)
Me: Hello. He: This this leo Callahan, Chief of Police here in Fort Lauderdale and I want to know who the hell you are, what agency you work for, how you put this three-ring circle puzzle together, and got seven of my detectives involved in the biggest bust of their careers. The Brame guy had over $600,000 in warrants out for him here and in North Carolina and I just gotta know who the f__k you are. Me; I'm Bill Arnett, I'm a bounty hunter in Sacramento, CA and I just was doing a job - but give me the names of all the detectives involved so I can send 'em all an "atta-boy" letter for their jackets. He: Bullsh*t! There's no goddamn way a bounty hunter put this all together in under 24 hours. Now if you're with the Feds or an agency you can't reveal, I understand, but a bounty hunter" Bullsh*t! Me: Chief, do us both a favor and ask your secretary to go through information and call Allied Bail Bonds in Sacramento and ask for me - that'll settle it in your mind.
Two minutes later the phone outside my back (concealed) office rang and whoever answered hollered out for me that some dude's secretary was calling for me.
Me: Chief, I gotta go take your call on the main line, talk to ya further there. (Hung up, went out front, grabbed phone)Hey, Chief, this is Bill Arnett. He: Well I'll be damned. I'd still like all the numbers where I can reach you. My detectives said you engineered this entire bust from start to finish. I want you to know personally that I tried, I really tried, to give you all the credit due, but our local press wouldn't have any of it. They wanted to blow the horn for the local P.D. and wouldn't give anyone, especially an unknown like you, any of the credit. Anyway, I thank you and if you write those letters for the detectives I'll follow it up with one of my own. me: Cool. chief, but I gotta go. He: Thank you again.
I wrote those letters, the chief added one of his own to each as promised, and sent me full color letterhead copies with a side letter commending me. It was a gas, gas, gas.
And, oddly, that's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I scare myself too much to lie anymore.
posted by Global Patriot Worker @ 12:41 PM Permalink Even though I am pretty well convinced that writing and blabbing about our problems will do little or nothing to change anything, I am compelled nonetheless to rationalize some things. Today is the day that Mr. Obama wholly reverses his campaign promises to unwind these illegal wars. Yes Mr. "you can take that to the bank" goes on national TV tonight to announce a huge increase in troops to the Afghan theater thus cementing our plot in the graveyard of empires. What an unmitigated liar and charlatan this man is. Mr. Karzai's brother continues to oversee the opium trade as our servicemen and women protect it and the profits go to God knows where to do God knows what. The lives destroyed via drug use and the attendant pipeline to the street can only profoundly sadden one as the madness escalates and flows unchecked.
Yet today I call out "Bullshit" on other issues. What an industry this lying has become. How is it protected and why does it "surge " while the truth is trampled like so much collateral damage? Lying is the new norm and those who spout ethics to our children and countenance this charade are indeed themselves morally compromised. The media lies, the President lies, Congress lies, the bankers lie and finally now even the scientists, for who knows what reason, lie too. All except the last category can be viewed as expected behavior… but scientists?
By now you have heard of "Climategate." This is the scenario that is playing out where scientists keeping track of temperature patterns have "cooked the books" to inflate temperature trends so as to make it appear that the planet is on a fast boat to hell. Ostensibly this promotes a "green" agenda of driving down carbon emissions through a variety of means. These scientists have not only been proven to have done so but have also deleted the reference data and brazenly attacked their peers for -- get this -- disagreeing! Oh shades of "Tricky Dick."
To the real folks of concern for this planet I say this: Distance yourself quickly from the LIARS because your cause cannot and will not succeed with fraudulent behavior as a component. The agenda of a healthier planet is good common sense, but LYING is not green. Lying pollutes the discussion to a degree that it will entrap and derail the best of intentions.
Our planet is a fragile dimension. The ecosystems, both immense and microscopic, dance in an infinite and delicately balanced ballet. The thin veneer of atmosphere that protects us from a cold and uncompromising void of space is the earthly equivalent of an aquarium wall. The environment inside the "aquarium" must constantly be cleansed because the inhabitants can be messy. Our natural cleansers in this finite planet are the forests, that consume CO2 and emit life giving oxygen and the wetlands and waterways that if not abused purge the earth naturally of contaminants through biological entropy. All living creatures either help or hinder this process. Unfortunately, it is the human creature that has done the most damage. It is our unflinching belief that we must dominate all that we touch that has now led us to the abyss. With humans multiplying quickly, we may very well be at a tipping point. I tend to believe that the tipping point is actually a tipping point of consciousness more than anything else. In essence we can either wise up or abandon our children's future. This is exactly why the lying must end. No more "cooked books," just hard data that is empirical. No more taxes on a population already taxed to the brink. The crooks on Wall Street already have their greedy mitts on those carbon credits. What is needed and is proven to work is plain old hard-nosed regulation. If the big money boys get their hands on this tax thing, I'll give you three guesses who gets the shaft. The cause of a clean, self-sustaining planet is a great and worthy cause but fraud is totally unacceptable.
Let's look at more abuse of science through political hard knuckling. The National Institute of Science and Technology tried in vain to explain why two jets took out three giant skyscrapers in NY on 9/11 in cumulatively under a minute! Did you get that? Three skyscrapers gone in under a minute! That can only be done with explosives, period. Did they look for explosives? No they did not. That's our tax money, and plenty of it, going to fund fraudulent science yet again. They are proven liars at NIST. They said that WTC7 did not achieve freefall speed and they were forced to retract that statement after being proven wrong. They will not release to the public, who paid for it, the computer models for review by independent sources. By the way, the explosives were indeed found and identified by independent researchers.
Back to Earth people. Now let's talk about the atmosphere. I have personally and repeatedly tried to find answers to the pervasive problem of jet trail pollution that ensnares the globe and that is, without a doubt, intentional. In just about any location worldwide, unmarked tanker jets can easily be observed laying down vast trails of a white chalky material that expand voluminously into "clouds" and are capable of completely blocking the natural sunlight. If you do not see this or have never noticed this I encourage you strongly to pay attention. I have include a video example with this missive (scroll down the webpage to the seventh video...it is mind-blowing) that is a dramatic demonstration of this. It is an ideal time to bring this issue to the fore with all this hoopla about fraudulent facts involving temperatures. The better term for this activity is "international aerosol dispersal program" although us street level types are more prone to use the term "chemtrails" in that it is now in common usage. There will be armies of folks trying to convince you that this is a fallacy and that it is nothing but normal jet traffic. When so confronted I ask you to do one and only one thing that will further the truth. Try in any way you can dream up to get one of those planes identified. Do you own a high-powered scope? Get a number off of the plane. I'll bet you won't see one. Believe me I have tried. Do you have the Flightaware program on your computer? I'll bet those white-line-emitting polluters are not present on your screen! Call the FAA and see how far you get when you do try to get an ID on one of those jets. Have lots of time on your hands and finally some sedatives? Call your local weather folks and listen to the song and dance they have. For reference, find a book published prior to 1980 that describes what a "contrail" is and see if it matches what you are observing. The people in charge of protecting this particular grand lie are really good at what they do… it is an institutionalized lie similar to 9/11 and now Climategate. The aerosol program is currently one of the biggest and most heinous lies of all. We are chatting on the web back and forth about this little issue of fudging the facts on global warming when in actuality the technology to interrupt Earth's natural processes is already deployed. It is visiting havoc on the lungs of the living beings, especially the asthma sufferers, children and elderly to a degree that is almost unfathomable. Even Obama deleted talk of this from his "peoples agenda" on line forums. That is how strongly the lie that "they are just contrails" is protected.
So we are left in the new paradigm of "liethink"… up the proverbial shit creek without a paddle. Don't think so for a minute… your paddles are your voices and logical thought processes and you must exercise them vigorously. There is no option at this point. Do not engage in conversations about Anthropogenic Global Warming without a discussion of the worldwide aerosol program. It is the greatest component of man-made pollution that I know of and the EPA doesn't give a whit. Their scientists are bought and paid for. The "anthro" in AGW are the pilots, funders, chemical producers, FAA folks, large jet manufacturers and the military that are doing this and covering it up. THEY ARE ALL LYING. There will be no discussion of the health and well being of this precious planet until the global aerosol program is identified and put on the table for discussion. That is the way I see it.
And for the record... the intellectual and spiritual revolution has begun. Turn off the TV, buy local, eat local, get out of debt and enjoy a healthy life!
Update:Here's a website that keeps track of the chemtrail issue, just in case you're interested.
posted by The Vidiot @ 10:40 PM Permalink
I'm posting his whole comment from his letters page because the page gets updated everyday and well, it's just too good to disappear:
I am putting the emphasis on Climategate because it goes right to the heart of the Hydra. Before us stands exposed the greatest government conspiracy of modern time, and clear proof that the corporate media was totally complicit in the deceptions. People HAVE to get angry at this. If they don't; if the people just turn back to their TV sets and decide paying another $5000 year in higher prices and taxes is preferable to standing up for their rights, then this nation is truly lost and the American people will have to repeat the experience of the Germans when Hitler fell before they admit to themselves just how wrong badly they were used and abused by the government they trusted. CLIMATEGATE is the biggest story of the century, even eclipsing Saddam's Nookular Bombs. If you arenot in a rage over what has been going on, there is something wrong with you. Look how obvious the campaign of lies is! Now, what else is the government and media lying to you about? Everything? Maybe. How do you know they are not? How can you know that theentire illusion of what you think the world is isn't just a contrived propaganda illusion to keep you docile and obedient?
There is no more important story right now. CLIMATEGATE is more more about the climate than Watergate was about water. It's just a handful for a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of US and world government. If CRU is the Pentagon of climate research, then the leaked emails are the Pentagon Papers.
As for the rant ...
Folks, I have heard Climategate described as the greatest science scandal of all time. It is that and much more. It is also the greatest political scandal of all time because the agenda was not scientific but political; to trick the entire world into accepting the yoke of global government and global taxation.
In other words Climategate (and Swine-11 and the financial crash) were created to enslave the entire human race. It is a monstrous conspiracy that involved the US Government, corrupted scientists, and the corporate media, all led by the United Nations' IPCC.
As such, I disagree with those who say that Climategate is a scan, or a fraud, or even treason. It is so very much more than that. Climategate is a crime against the entire planet. It is a crime against humanity. It is the greatest crime in history and its conspirators deserve the greatest punishment in history.
In standing up to be counted with the global warming fraudsters, Obama's Climate Czar, who owes her position and paycheck to the manufactured fraud of human-caused global warming, has proven to America that this government is an enemy of the people, willing to sell us all into global bondage for the sake of power and thirty pieces of silver.
Climate Czar Carol Browner is not an elected official. She is a proven liar because she supports a proven hoax that evinces a design to reduce all humans under an absolute global despotism and taxation from which there will be no recourse and no escape. I do not recognize her authority over me, and certainly have no respect for her absence of scientific awareness in this matter.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- The Declaration of Independence
A Maricopa County Sheriff's detention officer has been ordered to apologize to a public defender for taking a document from files on her desk during a sentencing in Superior Court.
Judge Gary Donahoe said Officer Adam Stoddard must issue his apology at a news conference on the north plaza of the Central Court Building on or before Nov. 30 or face jail for contempt of court.
Stoddard was pictured on courtroom video Oct. 19 taking a piece of paper from the courtroom desk of Public Defense Joanne Cuccia. [...] Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday [...] "Superior Court judges do not order my officers to hold press conferences," Arpaio said in a statement. "I decide who holds press conferences and when they are held regarding this Sheriff's Office."
I've excerpted this article not to cherry pick quotes but to fall in the guidelines of copyright protection. The whole article is much more damning.
The defense counsel, the prosecutor and ALL cops are officers of the court. To have a sheriff's deputy steal defense records, copy them and send them to the government's side is not only theft it's against federal law and a violation of the Constitution.
The cop is lucky he was only found in civil contempt. He should go down! (By 'down' I meant to the corner and apologize.) Personally, I think the Feds should prosecute him & Sheriff Joe et al for Federal crimes, (no way that the County Atty will prosecute the theft that was involved), because they think that cops run the gov't.
[...] Video footage shows Stoddard glancing at the documents during a sentencing hearing for Antonio Solis Lozano, 26. He's then shown removing the handwritten notes and having them copied.
INAL, but as I understand it there is no recourse when a judge sentences you for civil contempt. Criminal contempt, yes, civil, no.
Justice might be served if Arpaio & Lozano were sentenced to live in tents and made to wear pink panties.
Gosh, I bet they'd never flout the law again! Like Bull Connor never did.[/sarcasm]
Sheriff Joe has got to go. He's not just a criminal, he runs a criminal enterprise.
Mother of mercy, can this be the end of RICO?*
*Under RICO, a person who is a member of an enterprise that has committed any two of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering. Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $250,000 and/or sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity." RICO also permits a private individual harmed by the actions of such an enterprise to file a civil suit; if successful, the individual can collect treble damages.
When the U.S. Attorney decides to indict someone under RICO, he or she has the option of seeking a pre-trial restraining order or injunction to temporarily seize a defendant's assets and prevent the transfer of potentially forfeitable property, as well as require the defendant to put up a performance bond.
posted by Bill Arnett @ 5:33 PM Permalink
…when she says Tiger Woods, a private citizen with every single constitutional right still extant, should "just come clean" with the media and this whole vehicle accident matter would just "go away."
SHE'S F-ING CRAZY AND/OR A STUPID B*TCH! Tiger is, apparently, in full accord with Florida law, it is a personal matter, and with the vicious, baseless, idiotic media speculation, in which Montessori, or Contessa, or Princess, or whatever she calls herself has herself recklessly engaged; she knows damn well that if Tiger said anything more than he has already all she would do is continue to hammer, hammer, hammer poor Tiger and family for weeks (apparently not being intelligent enough to find real stories instead of approaching the boundary of slander like the fool, IMO, that she has shown herself to be.)
The rash of absolutely crass speculation (it was really a gunfight and Tiger's wife managed to nine iron him in the head, run the car off the road, and flee for her life before that monster, Tiger, could ritually kill her with the voodoo "hats for bats" that Serrano from the movie Major League had passed on to him) would be 24/7 tirade against that law-abiding citizen with an eye toward besmirching his character until it ruined his life.
And, IMO, this stupid b*tch Contessa is helping already, brining in shyster attorneys who make idiotic statements like, "Well, if he has nothing to hide he should just go turn himself in to the Sheriff and explain everything."
Advice for which they would probably face sanctions, and a severe loss of business, from any prospective or already being represented client to whom they gave the same advice (Ah…well…you, Guido the Death Dealer Man, say you didn't do it so just go into court and tell everyone, especially the jury, exactly what happened, evidence be damned!)
What a fargin' arsehole Contessa and other persons of her ilk (MSM) truly are.
TARGET: Good, Responsible Customers Whom Have Never Paid Late, Gone Over Limit, Paid Less Than Double the Min. Amt. Due, Never Done…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:50 AM Permalink
…anything but be a responsible consumer assiduously safeguarding his good credit standing.
I refer to a well-known department store, which shall remain nameless. For expediency's sake I'll use their initials: TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET, TARGET.
My beloved and responsible college student son, Jesse, applied for and received one of Target's Red Cards, a paper credit card lookalike, and, after paying the exorbitant price everyone was charging for LCD big screens in '06, he paid in full within three or four months.
He then, without further solicitation on his part was given a TARGET VISA, TARGET VISA, TARGET VISA, TARGET VISA, TARGET VISA with a much higher limit, which he used to buy various game and computer hardware (sorry for the highly technical jargon here) "hookin' up stuff," as well as a 46" Sony Bravia for ole Pops here. ALL,of course, paid off earlier than TARGET VISA thought they would be.
Again, and still, he continued making far above minimum payment well before the due date when he received in the mail a couple of weeks ago a notice that his credit limit was being reduced by a grand because a check of the "credit bureaus" revealed he owned no real estate, something which TARGET, TARGET, TARGET had been apprised of when the initial card had been applied for.
Yesterday comes a notice titled "REDcard Account Notice" telling him:
"The following is a summary of changes that are being made to the terms of your TARGET VISA CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT AGREEMENT [caps added Bill] You have the right to opt out of these changes.…
As of the first day of your billing cycle that begins in January 2010, the changes…described below will apply to all existing balances…and to any new transactions…
APR for Purchases 23.24%- This APR APR for Cash Advances [of which Jesse has NEVER availed himself. Bill] 27.24%- This APR will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate.[…they continue…]
Opting out of these charges
If you don't wish to accept these charges [you broke down pukes whom we plan to hit with usurious interest charges despite our constitution speaking directly to, and forbidding, usury…editorial license will be freely taken unless TARGET or VISA choose to opt out in the next 30 seconds, of making us pay usurious interest rates your bought and paid for congress and senate allow you to charge despite the clear language of the Constitution. Bill], you may opt out by contacting us at the address or telephone number provided. If you opt out, your account will be closed and you vill…uh… will continue to make payments on any existing balance under the current terms [or ve vill enslave your children, beat your wives, rape your pets -or the other vay around, who can stop us? The citizens? HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HAHA, HA, HAHA, HA, HAHA, HA, HA…WHEW! Zat broughten ze tears to mine eyes! I kill myself with being all powerful UND so phucking phunny, too!…] The deadline to opt out is the last [day of your pitiful life! O-o-o-0 I krack myself up!] day of your billing period ending in January […so you phucking idiots can go on your last Christmas spree BWAHAHAHAHA!] Please see the message on your enclosed billing statement for the opt-out deadline.
It took Jesse about five minutes of intense thought while on walkabout through our living room so he could grab the phone and immediately cancel his card.
The usury trainee was shocked, especially when Jesse told her to look back on his account history for even ONE late payment, overcharge, payment less than well over, mostly two or three times, the amount due, and challenged her forcefully to name a single flaw in how he has handled his affairs with great care and attention to detail.
She could not, of course, so she made a generous offer to leave Jesse's card at the usurious interest he had already been paying.
THIS is why our economy is in the toilet. Good people get phucked over while multi-multi-billionaires who believe themselves gods above mere mortals, and that have PROVEN DRAMATICALLY they cannot handle their affairs without dragging down hundreds of thousands, if not millions or billions of good people, getting all the tax dollars paid by my wife and millions of our citizens struggling to live every month on a sum of money less than that paid for a manicure by one of those fargin' arsholes (as a 100% disabled vet my money in tax-free-I paid my taxes by almost dying for having served America while the fat cats got the endless deferments of the supreme cowards they are).
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong [in ten trillion years].
posted by The Sailor @ 2:46 PM Permalink
I read the news today, oh boy. It's just SSDD; the wrongwingers are upset with Obama, people killed their families on the holiday, and houses burned down, (Hey, they got footage!)
Breaking Terror Update! Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his friends are going to stand trial! It's taken about six and a half years for this to happen, during which they were all presumably kept waiting in the parlor of a sumptuous mansion along with the Colonel, the Countess, the jewel thief, the butler and the maid while a brilliant but eccentric sleuth attempted to discern the identity of the true culprit through the use of the deductive method, the thorough examination of evidence, and simulated drowning.
Everybody else has to stay in Special Torture Jail forever on accounta they have all come down with Schrodinger's Guilt. If they stay in the box they might be guilty, but if we open the box they might not be.
And now, since you've been wondering about the post title, here is the bestest ever version of Bohemian Rhapsody:
posted by The Vidiot @ 10:40 AM Permalink
Seems that New Zealand's climate study group is ALSO being examined:
The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.
Like in my previous thread below, it's not that I don't believe something is going on with the environment, it's just how it's being used to manipulate the public. If all this research has been massaged to provide a basis for an agenda, then that's a problem.
There is real climate change but maybe it's due to something other than CO2. But unfortunately Co2 is what the science has latched on to. The fact that they're massaging data, trying to deny FOIA requests, and manipulating the peer review process only makes it harder for any real action to be accepted by the general public.
They were trying to do the right thing, trying to make a case to clean up the environment, but did it all wrong. And now, we've got a messy planet with no plan the people will accept because once again, the public has been lied to. Also, think about it, if you're trying to repair the planet, and you need to make a plan, creating a plan around the wrong issue is just ineffective as not doing anything at all!
1.(sometimes capital letters 'V' and 'S' with no space) a style of writing or saying something using emotion and/or logic and snark, esp. in order to elucidate the obvious while pretending to be objective.
2. anything written by The Vidiot, The Sailor, Mr. Vidiot and anyone else they allow to post on the blog “vidiotspeak”
[Origin: loosely based on new + speak, coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984 (1949)]
And for godsakes, stay away from FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
Watch the BBC news or ITN news instead.
"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385)
A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.
