Monday - August 04, 2008
Early August Arctic Ice Check
In support of Peiper’s bit on Glueball Worming, here’s the daily pic from The Cryosphere Today.
DON’T PANIC ! They have changed the color scheme. It used to be that red and purple meant lots of ice. Now they’ve changed it ... probably to more easily alarm stupid people who can’t or won’t read a color scale ...
To the untrained, or to the lazy, this looks like the polar ice is GONE. Ice is white, water is blue, grass is green. No. White is really thick ice. Blue is fairly thick ice. Pale blue is thinner ice, but still at the 80% level. It’s not until you get down to the light green level that you’re even looking at 50% ice concentration. Here’s the same pic using the older, less alarmist colors, and comparing today’s ice level to one of the colder summers available, 1980:
While the Arctic Ice is not at an all-time high level, it is fairly normal, and there is a whole lot more of it than there was last year. And we’re still having a very low level of sunspots, not that there’s any kind of connection at all ... yeah right.
This is the high point of summer up by the North Pole. In another 4 to 6 weeks the ice pack will start growing again. I’ll check again around the end of the month, but I think this is about as “bad” as it’s going to get this year. In other words, perfectly normal.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/04/2008 at 03:38 PM
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Permalink • Dying man waits ‘25 minutes’ for 999 crew yards from ambulance station. (999 is Brit equiv.of
I don’t guess it doesn’t gets much worse then this. How damn sad.
An 81-year-old man lay dying on his doorstep while waiting to be taken to hospital, despite living 100 yards from an ambulance station.
By Vikki MillerAlfred “Pip” Parry, from Ledbury, Herefordshire, collapsed from a suspected heart attack while an ambulance was en route from more than 10 miles away because the local station was closed that day.
His 12-year-old great-niece, Gemma Hill, tried to revive him for 10 minutes by massaging his heart. One man ran to the nearby ambulance station and then to a local hospital but was told to wait for an ambulance.
Witnesses said it took at least 25 minutes for one to arrive. West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) said it was 17 minutes. Mr Parry died later in hospital.
His family criticised last Monday night’s delay, demanding a review of ambulance response times. His niece, Jo Hill, 35, said: “I am so angry that there was a station right there and it was shut.
“It was very distressing for his family seeing someone they adore lying on the floor being sick and looking so ill. Even my three-year-old boy was there.”
Neighbour Digby Allen, 33, attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He said: “We needed professional help. It was just too long. A bit quicker with specialist help and he would have had half a chance.”
Another neighbour, Peta Barnes, said: “People were very angry and very upset.”
Government targets state that ambulances must reach 75 per cent of all “life-threatening” calls, which includes heart attacks, within eight minutes.
So far this year, the WMAS has reached 77 per cent of these calls for Hereford, Shropshire and Worcester within the required time. This is the same as the average on-time response rate in England, but is the lowest across the West Midlands.
Ambulance services are required to respond to 95 per cent of all 999 calls that involve an emergency vehicle within 19 minutes.
A spokesman for the WMAS said: “Although there were no community first responders booked on duty in the area at the time, staff in the emergency operations centre rang a number of the responders but were unfortunately unable to raise any.
“At the time of the call there was a high level of demand in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.”
Posted by Drew458
on 08/04/2008 at 11:00 AM
Filed Under: • Outrageous • UK •
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Permalink • GLOBAL WARMING and GUESS WHO THE COPS ARE?
<
scroll down a bit for stories on this linkb>Energy firm recruits children as ‘climate cops’
Last week’s Sunday Times carried a large advertisement for the German-owned energy company npower, inviting children to “save the planet this summer” by becoming “climate cops”. A picture showed a sleeping dad, with a notice on his head warning in a childish scrawl that he had been found guilty of “climate crime” by “falling asleep with the tv still on”.
For more “interactive games and fun downloads”, readers were invited to contact npower’s Climate Cops website. This explains in comicbook format how children can spy on their parents, relatives and neighbours to catch them out in seven “climate crimes”, such as leaving the TV on standby, putting hot food in a fridge or freezer (as is recommended by hygiene experts) or failing to use low-energy light bulbs.
Children could record these offences in a “climate crime case file”, while teachers are offered a full “learning resource” pack for use in schools, including a PowerPoint presentation and posters for classroom walls.
When my colleague Richard North asked the Advertising Standards Authority how they squared this with their rules prohibiting “marketing communications” which “undermine parental authority”, they replied (as he records on his EU Referendum blog) that they had “considered you (sic) objections but do not feel it have (sic) breached our Codes on the basis you suggest”.
My own advice to children tempted to become “climate cops” is that they might begin by looking at npower’s own record as operators of 13 fossil fuel power stations.
Its coal-fired Aberthaw power station in Wales, for instance, emits more CO2 in two months than is notionally saved in a year by all the 2,000 wind turbines now disfiguring Britain’s countryside. If merely going to sleep in front of the TV is a “climate crime”, why haven’t the directors of npower put themselves behind bars long ago?
Just a drop in the frozen ocean
Increasingly desperate to sustain their scare, as the evidence suggests otherwise, the global warmists have recently been focussing more and more on that vanishing Arctic ice.
The Independent recently cleared its front page to warn: “it seems unthinkable, but for the first time in history ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year”. The latest horror story is the breaking up of two huge chunks of ice measuring “seven square miles”.
Oddly enough, however, the latest Just a drop in the frozen ocean satellite pictures (see the Watts Up With That website) show the North Pole still surrounded by six million square kilometres of ice, a million more than this time last year.
It is true that, back in May, the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre said it was “quite possible” that all Arctic sea ice might vanish this year. Now they are only predicting that the Arctic may be ice-free “by 2030”.
It’s really frustrating how that “end of the world” we were promised keeps on having to be postponed.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/04/2008 at 10:48 AM
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Permalink • Bullet resistant bras for German police. (Hey, quit laffing. This is serious stuff. Really. grins )
I guess it is serious but I can’t help smiling about it. There’s something about it that just tickles my funnybone. Can’t help it.
I must confess and hope Wardmom doesn’t flame me on this but.
There is something so ,,, I don’t know ,,,, unfeminine about all the lady cops I’ve ever seen. Even the pretty ones (lived acrss the street from one yrs ago) look like they have a rather large caboose. They appear clunky somehow. I know it’s just me and maybe my generation. They have every right to be whatever they wanna be. I’m simply saying that to me they look somehow,, odd. Don’t know how else to explain it and I really do not lack respect for cops. I just wish women would stop trying to be more like us. I don’t care for us very much but I like them a lot. Yeah, that’s sexist I guess. I always thought Navy Waves were really super looking. Maybe cause they didn’t carry a lot of gear on their hips. Don’t much like the idea of women aboard ship tho and damn glad my term of service was in 1960s.
German police women are to be issued with bullet-resistant bras to give them complete undercover protection.
Last Updated: 11:15AM BST 04 Aug 2008The new underwear was developed as a second barrier of defence after normal bras were found to cause injuries while on duty.
The officers’ bullet-proof vests, while stopping the force of gunshots in an attack, pushed the plastic and metal parts of their underwear into their flesh, causing injury.
Carmen Kibat, a policewoman in Hamburg who tested the new underwear, said: “These can save someone’s life so it’s not a laughing matter.” She organised “Action Brassiere” across Germany, getting hundreds of policewomen to try the bras out in the line of duty.
They are all emblazoned with the word “police” and made from cotton, polyester, elastic and some other synthetic materials, thickly padded and with no metal or plastic studs or fasteners.
Three thousand front-line women police officers will now be required to wear the bras on duty. Their bosses have decided to allow them to have three each.
Ruediger Carstens, a spokeswoman for the police, said: “This was pioneering work. The safety of our officers is paramount.”
Posted by Drew458
on 08/04/2008 at 10:27 AM
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Permalink • Somebody is watching us
Another one of those amazing APOD photos, this is the Cat’s Eye Nebula.
Starting in 1995, stunning false-color optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope detailed the swirls of this glowing nebula, known to be the gaseous shroud expelled from a dying sun-like star about 3,000 light-years from Earth. This composite picture combines the latest Hubble optical image of the Cat’s Eye with new x-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory and reveals surprisingly intense x-ray emission indicating the presence of extremely hot gas. X-ray emission is shown as blue-purple hues superimposed on the nebula’s center. The nebula’s central star itself is clearly immersed in the multimillion degree, x-ray emitting gas. Other pockets of x-ray hot gas seem to be bordered by cooler gas emitting strongly at optical wavelengths, a clear indication that expanding hot gas is sculpting the visible Cat’s Eye filaments and structures. Gazing into the Cat’s Eye, astronomers see the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years.
Kewl !
Posted by Drew458
on 08/04/2008 at 08:37 AM
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Permalink • demagogue
Not too long ago, a highly publicized speech in Berlin gave encouragement to the notion that there is a politics of redemption and a politics of hope that can replace the worn-out politics of exploitation and despair.
“We are determined to profit from all those experiences which in past centuries have proved of value to mankind, politically and economically, both to the individual and to the community.... We wish… to be the champions of a peace which shall finally heal those wounds from which all are suffering...”
Who said this? Sure sounds like Obama don’t it?
click the Continue Reading button to read the rest ...
Posted by Drew458
on 08/04/2008 at 08:23 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - August 03, 2008
Pelosi Leaves Free Speech In The Dark
Gosh, I go away for a day and all hell breaks loose.
House Dems turn out the lights but GOP keeps talking
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House, turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi’s refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m., and they are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.
At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark. But as Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz..) was speaking, the lights went back on and the microphones were turned on shortly afterward.
But C-SPAN, which has no control over the cameras in the chamber, has stopped broadcasting the House floor, meaning no one was witnessing this except the assembled Republicans, their aides, and one Democrat, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has now left.
Only about a half-dozen Republicans were on the floor when this began, but the crowd has grown to about 20, according to Patrick O’Connor.
via FREEP:
The first shot of the revolution was fired a few hours ago, as Republicans prepared to commence their five minute addresses that would decry the lack of any votes on meaningful energy legislation. From the Democratic side, a motion to adjourn for the day shot up. Then CSPAN, which covers House proceedings on television, was shut down. The microphones on the House floor were turned off.
Led by Rep. Tom Price (R.-GA), Republicans decided they weren’t going to take it—they would stay and fight. As the camera lights were shutting down, Price, Shadegg, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence and other conservative “young Turks” began delivering their speeches on the floor without microphones. The sparsely-filled visitors galleries that overlook the floor began to fill up and the ranks of reporters in the Press Gallery began to swell from the two or three newsmen who were there for what they thought was a routine closing day.
By 2:00 PM, in what resembled newsreels of the packed House floor on the day war was declared in December of 1941, the House floor was almost full. More than 400 visitors were in the gallery and Shadegg, having figured out the code on the panel that controls the microphones, put the sound system in the House back on—until a staffer (presumably from the speaker’s office) came and shut it off again.
“Word spread that the speaker—who was never actually here on the floor—was going to shut down the House press gallery,” a breathless Shadegg told me in a call from the floor, “But rules are clear that the gallery can’t be shut down if a Member is there. So a bunch of us have been taking turns—we’re ‘human shields,’ keeping the press gallery going.” Along with Shadegg, the ‘human shields’ included House GOP Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), and Texas Reps. Ted Poe and John Carter.
“You cannot repress free speech, Madame Speaker,” declared Shadegg, adding that the intense protest to keep the floor and press gallery alive were critical because “every day without oil production, the American people are hurt. It destroys the lives of the poorest Americans, those with the oldest cars, the worst mileage, and sometimes the longest commutes. That’s the point we are making.”
“This is the people’s House,” said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.). “This is not Pelosi’s politiburo.”
Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker’s Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers.
“You’re not covering this, are you?” complained one senior Democratic aide. Another called the Republicans “morons” for staying on the floor.
Update: The Capitol Police are now trying to kick reporters out of the press gallery above the floor, meaning we can’t watch the Republicans anymore. But Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is now in the gallery talking to reporters, so the cops have held off for a minute. Clearly, Democrats don’t want Republicans getting any press for this episode. GOP leaders are trying to find other Republicans to rotate in for Blunt so reporters aren’t kicked out.
Read more at The Crypt, or just follow the link in today’s Day by Day cartoon ...
Ok, this is mostly a symbolic gesture ... and I didn’t see any coverage of it on the main news pages ... as if it never happened. But it’s a shrewd move by the Republicans ... and it might save them their jobs. I, for one, have no truck with these jerks leaving for vacation and not wrangling through an energy bill. That’s part of their jobs, and they aren’t doing it. No votes for them!
Now, if the GOP would continue meeting, even outside on the lawn if they need to, and hammer out an intelligent energy policy ... keep dreaming Drew, keep dreaming.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/03/2008 at 11:09 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - August 02, 2008
Post deliveries stopped because road ‘too dangerous’ .
Talk about outrageous. I wish the Telegraph would show the photo in their online edition. There isn’t anything dangerous here. Except the dumb thinking of a few idiots who seem determined to continue doing all they can to screw up this country.
OK, so 11 homes isn’t like the big city. Not even a sizable village. But still. If they’ve been getting mail with no problems since ‘45, what’s the problem now?
I think I’m still upset since they closed our local PO.
Residents in a remote Yorkshire Dales hamlet face a 45 minute trip to collect their post because Royal Mail says the access road is too dangerous for its postmen.
By Paul Stokes
Last Updated: 3:44PM BST 01 Aug 2008The lane to the 11 homes has been deemed as “an accident waiting to happen” in the company’s health and safety assessment.
It claims the track is in such a condition that postmen could suffer “long-term back injury” by travelling down it.
So it has stopped deliveries after more than 60 years and families living there now face a 30-mile trip to the nearest sorting office to collect their post.
The road to Booze, in Arkengarthdale, is one of thousands of similar single track roads across the Dales and only has a low gradient of one in five, or 20 per cent.
(you’re gonna have fun with that one aren’t ya?)Hazel Harker, a farmer’s wife, whose family have lived in Booze since 1945, said: “The whole hamlet is in uproar about it. It is a council road and we have always had deliveries by the mail van.“I know it is steep and I know it is narrow, but there are lots of little roads like that. You just have to drive carefully.
“I drive up and down the road in a normal car and have had no problems. There have been no accidents on that hill, I know because I have lived here most of my life.”
Locals were given 24 hours notice of the last post in a letter explaining deliveries through the door were being suspended.
Despite its name, Booze has no pub, shops, post office or other amenities.
Daniel Child, a planning consultant who works from his home there, said: “If I can’t rely on the postal service I don’t see how I can continue to work.
“This is a real blow to the rural economy which is already suffering. What business is going to come and set up here if they can’t even be sure they’ll get their post.”
The withdrawal of the service was announced to residents by Colin Appleby, the delivery office manager, with no prior consultation.
He wrote: “A health and safety risk assessment has confirmed that the level of risk associated with this delivery is unacceptable due to an unsuitable track.
“The condition of the track could contribute to longer-term back injury with out employee.
“Under the circumstances, mail deliveries to your address will be suspended from tomorrow and your address will be classed as one which does not receive the normal daily delivery to the door for health and safety reasons.”
The people of Booze have been given the offer of having their mail temporarily delivered to a different address otherwise they face a 30 mile round trip to collect if from the sorting office at Richmond, North Yorks.
Arrangements are being made for roadside boxes to be provided nearer their home as permanent delivery points.
John Blackie, local Tory councillor, said: “It is a council maintained road, there are four passing places. It is perfectly safe and we even grit it in the winter.
“I am very concerned now how many other similarly small villages could be hit by a post ban with no warning. This sort of ban could rip the heart out of communities such as Booze.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Because of concerns raised by our postmen and women, a health and safety assessment was carried out, as it concluded that there was a risk to our people delivering to a small number of homes in Arkengarthdale alternative arrangements for delivering the post have now been made.”
Posted by Drew458
on 08/02/2008 at 12:17 PM
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Permalink • IMMIGRATION ANYONE?
with h/t to barb for sending me this and Drew who told me where the embed was. Missed it cause it looked greyed out. Anyway, some of you folks may have seen this already. For those who haven’t, watch it .... and boy oh boy do the Brits know about this sort of thing.
The quality isn’t perfect but the sound is all ya need.
The following comment is from Drew
A local hospital has forced itself into bankruptcy because they were bleeding money from all the illegals using the place. They might re-open as a private special treatment center, but as a hospital they’re gone. They will also open a non-emergency emergency room, ie a clinic, for all the pore, starvin, and illegals.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/02/2008 at 11:45 AM
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Economics • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Politics •
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Permalink • BMEWS WORKING WITH INTERNET EXPLORER AGAIN
No, BMEWS has nothing against Microsoft. I don’t know why IE suddenly won’t load this page. FireFox and Netscape have no problems. I suggest using one of those browsers until I can figure out what the issue is. Mr. Christian, are you around anywhere? Any ideas? I think it might be the Cities Online thing; the page loads in IE until that app tries to start.
DON’T PANIC. Everything is OK now.
It was a problem with Sitemeter. You can read about it here at Gateway Pundit. That post also shows you how to disable sitemeter in your browser, which will lead to faster page load times.
And I have disabled Sitemeter on this blog. I will not run poorly tested software. Boo, hiss. I have other ways of tracking usage, but honestly I’ve ceased to care. The folks who come here come here because they want to. I gave it a lot of thought, and it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s 500 or 5000 per day. Ok, I’d prefer 5000, but I can be happy with the readers who are sticking out this first year of mine here. thank you thank you.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/02/2008 at 09:46 AM
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Permalink • weekend graphics from Rancino and other members
Slim pickins this week, but the first two cause a grin.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/02/2008 at 09:36 AM
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Permalink • Friday - August 01, 2008
I hate banks
I get a ton of junk mail. So do you. Most of the ads go right into the recycle bin. Letters that arrive with only a return address and no company name I don’t even bother to open. Guaranteed to be crap. Straight into the bins. Who has time to read through all this mess? I swear, the stupidest thing the Post Office ever did was come up with Bulk Mailing discount rates. But complaining about the Post Office is Peiper’s job, and he may have it with my blessings.
I do almost all of my banking and bill paying online. When I have a job that allows it, I’ll always sign up for direct deposit. It’s just so much easier. But there can be problems with banks, and when that happens ... good luck finding a real human being at the other end of the phone line. But I’ve kept this account forever. The bank I got it from is long gone. They were swallowed up by another bank, who was devoured by another bank, who was bought up by the bank I didn’t want to use because they had a lousy customer service reputation, and then that bank was bought up by the current bank. I think my money is in Hong Kong. I’m not sure. My bank doesn’t even have a name any more, just some initials. Whatever. Welcome to the 21st Century.
So I was scrolling through my bank account online the other month when I noticed that they were charging me $1 service fee for having a credit card with them. What? I have thinned my credit cards down to the bare minimum these days, and I know darn well that I have no such card. So it was dig throuhg the website to find the Contact Us telephone number, then I began my journey through Voice Menu Hell. Press 1 for English. Press 2 for personal banking. Press 1 for checking ... and on and on. Somehow I managed to find that magic combination of key presses that got me to a human being. Of course I got the recorded “Your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes” messages, followed by another recording “All of our customer service people are currently assisting other customers. Please stand by” followed by some awful canned music usually used to get confessions from Al Qaeda terrorists in Gitmo. Finally the phone rings, and a person answers. “dabba dabba ubba dabba la? Sir?” Naturally the call center is in India. Grrr. So I patiently explained that I didn’t have this card, never requested this card, and had never used the card, so why were they charging me a buck? She ( I think ) credited me my dollar and said the problem was taken care of. Gosh, swell. And it only took me 45 minutes.
Next month the statement has another $1 charge for the same thing. Oh hell no, I’m not going through that process again. So I sat down at the computer and wrote, printed, and mailed them an actual letter. So I spent more time, and probably 50¢ to solve a $1 problem. Or so I thought.
Two weeks later there is a message on my answering machine. It’s the bank. Please call us back. I did. They had gone home for the weekend. So I called them back Monday and actually got a human to talk to. I explained the whole situation over again. “But sir, everyone at our bank has one of these cards. Our records show you were sent one.” Lady, no credit card ever arrived in an envelope from your bank. “No, it wouldn’t. For security purposes we send them in plain envelopes with just a PO Box return address.” You mean like every other piece of junk mail? Then I must have thrown it out. “Ok, then I’ll put down that you destroyed it, because if I mark that it was lost there’s a whole other process you have to go through”. Whatever. Why did you send me a credit card anyway, since I never applied for one? “Well, it’s not really a credit card even though it says MasterCard on it. It’s a debit card.” A debit card? What’s that? I already have an ATM card. Why do I need another card? “Well I see in your records that you use your ATM card at a number of stores, and each time you do you pay a 25¢ service fee. With the debit card there is no service fee. Just swipe the card and press the button marked Credit Card. And instead of paying a quarter each time, it’s only $1 per month.” So this debit card isn’t a credit card, it’s a direct account access card, just like my ATM card, but when I use it I pretend it’s a credit card? And the money comes straight out of my account, only without the transaction fee? “That’s right sir, we’ll have another one delivered to you in a few days. And I’ll waive the $1 fee.” What, forever, or just for this month? “Oh, forever. There will be no monthly fee for you. I can do that.” Well, great. Thanks.
The card arrived yesterday. I’ve spent the last week getting a callous on my thumb opening every piece of junk mail making sure it wasn’t the magic envelope. So I have the card. Can I run right out and use it? Heck no. First I have to call in to some number to activate it. I call, and I get this pimply voice. I was expecting a machine; it’s usually a 5 second process. You have to call from your home phone, they read the incoming phone number, and they know it’s me, and it’s done. No, this time I get young Mr. Acne. I have to read off the card number, provide my name and address and last 4 digits of my SSN. Ok fine. Are we done? “Not yet sir.” And then he tries to sell me a bunch of crap. Credit card protection, identity protection, white wall tires, magazine subscriptions ... whatever. Grrr. So I say no to all of them, and my card is activated. Whoo hoo! Now I can go shopping and save myself a quarter.
Not quite.
I get to the store, buy my stuff, and swipe the brand new card. “Please enter your PIN number” reads the card swiper. My what? There was no PIN number on any of the papers that came with the card. I know, because I read them all. Twice. So I put in my PIN from my ATM card ... same bank account, same essential card function, maybe it’s the same number, right? Wrong. The cashier gives me the dead eye when the transaction gets rejected, and I have to go and use my ATM again. Son of a bleach. So back home I go, twenty five cents poorer, and try and call the bank again.
Well, one of the most annoying things about voice menu systems is that they are always being changed. This time there’s a new menu, and I have to play Button, Button, Who Has The Button all over again ... and it doesn’t seem that any of the options has a human being at the other end. I even tried the extended silence thing, the pressing 0 thing, and the pressing several buttons at once thing. No good. Finally I tried the “To report your card Lost or Stolen” key press, and eventually got hold of a human being again. “dabba dabba ubba laba da? Sir?” Awww shit.
Look Benji, I just want to get a PIN for this card you guys sent me. It’s already authorized, but it didn’t come with a PIN. “umbalal dumba ladda bah, I transfer you” and it’s back to Gitmo for some more torture music. The phone rings. It answers. I hear the same old voice menu in the background. But Benji is riding the call with me! Boop-deep-deep-bah-bip! he enters some secret code, and the phone rings again. And I get “All of our customer service people are busy helping other customers. Please stay on the line” .... and I’m back getting ear torture again. But not for too long. Ring. Ring. “Hello? This is ----, how may I help you?” Horry Clap, a genuine American! So I explain things once again. “When did you get the card?” It came in the mail yesterday and I authorized it today. “PIN numbers are sent in a separate envelope for security purposes. You should receive it in 3 to 5 business days.” But it didn’t say that anywhere in the papers that came with the card. All it said was Dial This Number To Change Your PIN. “3 to 5 business days sir. And if you don’t have it in a week please call us back. Thank you have a nice day.”
So now I have to go back to opening all the junk mail again. Great.
I had a bunch of checks to put in the bank. Instead, I walked down the street to the nearest local no-name bank and opened a new checking account. I dealt with a nice young woman who spoke perfect English even though she is from the Middle East somewhere. Very pretty too. She filled out all the paperwork for me; all I had to do was sign my name once. Processed it all right there on the spot, even gave me my new debit card with my name on it. Which also works as an ATM card. And the first box of checks will arrive in under a week and they’re free. And that branch office is open 7 days a week, stop by any time. Here, have one of our pens. Here’s my card, here’s our web page address, and please come see me if there’s anything I can ever help you with. Thank you for your business!
Maybe I just hate that other bank. This one seems Ok. Of course, they’re in the process of being bought out by another bank right now. That’s how it goes. I figure I can get 3 to 5 good years out of them until they’re owned by my old bank. Then I’ll have to start the whole thing over again. Press 1 for Aggravation.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/01/2008 at 02:31 PM
Filed Under: • Big Business •
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Permalink • A Royal Mail Miracle
“Post Office - Can we PLEASE try again? Thank you”
Peiper has gone native. 
And yes, that’s my free sample of caulk that also came today, from that offer I posted about ("world’s most boring post") several weeks ago. Just enough to caulk up a sink or a window sill. Hope you got your free sample too.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/01/2008 at 01:55 PM
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •
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Permalink • Boat migrants swamp Italian island .
Maybe they’re trying to reach the USA so they can all vote for Rama-Lama may a pest be upon him.
Even among primitives like these folks, word travels fast. If more of these life forms were shot on site, europe would have less of a problem then it does because the word would go out. But no. They’ll be allowed to stay and guess who gets the privilege of supporting these ,,,, these ,,,, people?
A tiny Italian island was described as “on its knees” after more than 800 migrants arrived by boat from Africa in 24 hours.
By Nick Pisa in RomeThe migrants, all from Africa, arrived on Lampedusa, south of Sicily, pushing its services to breaking point. Government officials said the huge influx underlined the need to issue a state of emergency over the problem of illegal immigration which has become a key concern of the new Italian government.
The island’s mayor, Bernardino De Rubeis, said: “Lampedusa is on its knees and we need an urgent visit from the interior minister Roberto Maroni, so he can see the dilemma we face.
“The time has come for this to stop and for a solution to this problem to be found once and for all, the needs of the people of Lampedusa are being forgotten.
“We have seen a 30 per cent drop in tourism and we have also down to just one daily flight between the island and Lampedusa and we have other pressing problems such as drainage and sanitation which are not being dealt with.”
He added that by the weekend he expected the number of illegal immigrants on the island to be 1,500 - more than double the capacity of the island’s holding centre.
Lampedusa’s deputy mayor, Angela Maravento of the xenophobic Northern League, said she would start a hunger strike on a dinghy moored in the harbour on Saturday.
Interior minister Roberto Maroni said: “Joint patrols of the sea off the coast of Libya with the Libyans will begin shortly and this will put an end to this. We are expecting a much quieter August.
“Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was in Libya a few days ago and met with Colonel Gaddafi and agreed these patrols which will cut back on this phenomenon.”
Posted by Drew458
on 08/01/2008 at 12:10 PM
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •
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