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Showing posts from September 21, 2003
Meanwhile the sport of Blaine Baiting is increasing in popularity. The Met' are going to be charging Blaine for their extra police effort that has been needed to keep the peace under his stunt in London. The Americans can't understand why Blaine is being made the target of such ridicule, abuse and cynicism. They think the stunt is wonderful. It seems Blaine doesn't really understand either. Perhaps he should have done a little more research before trying to show off in front of a cynical public who have little knowledge of who he is.
The telemarketing debate rages. Tucker Carlson, one of the CNN stuffed shirts, did a show defending telemarkters, and when asked to give out his home phone number, gave out the FauxNews number instead. FauxNews retaliated by giving out Carlson's real home number. It's posted on their news section, but to save you the effort, give this chap a call and let him know just how annoying telemarketers are, at 202-898-7900. BTW : The original FauxNews story is here.
Jeez. The ISPs and telephone companies still don't get it. I thought I'd stumbled on to a good broadband deal for a moment. My ISP is now offering DSL at the same price as dialup. ie. to use it wouldn't cost me any more per month. That's nice. So I checked qwest for DSL access. It's still an extra $22 a month and they're still charging a damned setup fee - another $99. Then you have to buy a DSL modem from them too. How do they expect people to adopt broadband when it's still so freakin expensive?
The fun continues. U.S. District Judge Lee R. West's telephone has not stopped ringing since he sided with telemarketers by trying to block the national do-not-call list. People have flooded West's office and home with calls and faxes, apparently trying to show him why they wanted to ban unsolicited sales calls. "They are just calling to tie up our lines," said Rick Wade, operations manager at the district clerk's office. "They just keep calling to harass us, like the telemarketers harass them." Well duh. The phones at the federal courthouse were jammed Thursday morning and voicemail boxes were stuffed with messages blasting West's ruling. His home and office telephone numbers were posted on the Internet, and consumers angry with the ruling were encouraged to call. When AP tried to call him for comment, they were blocked by busy signals. That's all well and good - that judge is getting exactly what he deserves. But not minutes after the
Phew! That was close. But both the Senate and the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to grant the Federal Trade Commission authority to create a national "do-not-call" list for telemarketers. The legislation is now headed to President Bush. That's a Senate version of "fuck you" to telemarketers. Hooray!
Check back to Sept 15th. The nutjob was right, just had the wrong date. A magnitude 8 earthquake just hit Japan - strong enough to damage homes and trigger landslides. The Japanese authorities have issued a tsunami warning. NOAA have issues tsunami warnings for the Pacific coast from Alaska down to Seattle.
For the love of..... A fed court in Oklahoma has ruled that the national do-not-call list is illegal. The FTC of course is going to try to overturn this ruling, but it seems that those telemarketing bastards really are in league with the devil. Lawsuits and actions like this will make all of us despise you fuckers even more. Get the fucking message! Nobody wants telemarketers. You're all fucking morons with no lives. Fuck the hell off and leave us alone!
Meanwhile , ComCast, sorry, AT&T continue to win friends and influence people. They've taken to sending letters to their 'unlimited broadband' customers telling them that they're using too much bandwidth. When questioned about what acceptable use limits they have, they refuse to tell. I guess to AT&T, unlimited doesn't mean unlimited. Someone should buy that bunch of jerks a dictionary and point out that AT&T aren't liable for special dispensation in the use of the English language. To wit: un·lim·it·ed (adj) Date: 15th century 1 : lacking any controls : UNRESTRICTED 2 : BOUNDLESS, INFINITE 3 : not bounded by exceptions : UNDEFINED Synonyms LIMITLESS, boundless, endless, immeasurable , indefinite, infinite, measureless, unbounded, unmeasured Au contraire: com-cast (adj) 1 : lacking any common sense 2 : clueless, moronic, uncaring
Ok. This has got to stop. Britain is just getting too politically correct. Pupils across Lincolnshire may soon be able to sit exams without fear of failing, when new government guidelines come into effect. The guidelines, for marking key national curriculum exams, recommend that the current F grade, for 'fail', should be replaced with an N grade, for 'nearly'. The guidelines were sent out to markers of this summer's exams by the Government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. They include instructions that maths exam answers should be marked as either 'creditworthy' or 'not creditworthy', rather than correct or incorrect. What the hell? Either an answer is right, or it's wrong. When did the second world war end? 1944. Ooooooh. "N"early. No. WRONG!
Woohoo! Concorde is being retired from service. At last the stinky old deathtrap is no longer going to be putting passenger's lives at risk every second they're in the air. Just last week, part of the engine of one of them dropped off and forced it to turn back....
This is just bizarre. I had a dream last night about 3 people I've not seen since a summer holiday in Mallorca in 1985 ; Kirsten Melvin, and Patricia and Kevin Flynn. Why and how I've suddenly been able to remember their names and faces 18 years later I've no idea.