Oh Ms E Wheel: thank you so for raising the operative point [which I have had in mind since Friday given it fits my minor fixation on the coming pardon pantomime]- this is a way to game pardons without being forced to actually issuee pardons or to have the beneficiaries run any risks of the same being determined legally ineffective.

By the way my fridge is on the fritz too- the belt is singing Kabuki songs. Everything falls apart.

I like telecons.

IMHO they are a modern version of 19th century railroads. They have huge influence over their own suppliers and EVERYONE rides on their bandwidth.

Sorry about your problems with Sears.

Unlike the catalog store of yore, Sears is now like Kmart, but without the warmth.

Telephone Tarts?

‘Intellcos’. JB usually cuts to the chase pretty well, as masaccio has paraphrased about the surveillance state. The issue is public-private partnership extending into outsourcing wiretapping, facilitated by FCC and Congress ignoring the intent of telco dereg. This is old, however. As the internet dawn crawled around the globe and computers became affordable, telco dereg cruised through many legislatures with its patina of progressivism. But third world and second world countries’ adroit telcos soon devised ways to reexert their monopoly, most of them by blocking competition in emerging technology markets, by regulating copyrights, by infiltrating standards bodies and hoodwinking second tier participants on ostensibly open fora. It is a mercantile free for all in that sphere. I favor open business law, however. Congress under the Republicans hyperbolized what the business friendly Democratic party had begun. Another way I have looked at the post ipso facto wire fraud as a terrorism defense is the micronizing of civilization itself. Communications and communities of interest are surveilled, but as individuals we are more than what that kind of public private partnership to eavesdrop can see. They have their algorithms, but the human readers of the output of the snoop vacuums are finite in number. I think they have an internal troll problem, as well, as they employ so may trollminded people. Lets call it telco trolls.

Ma Bell, don’t tell

Stasicoms?

FISA was just window-dressing, at any rate. RIP. And thank you Obama for being so resolute in the matter.

Sorry about your experience with Sears. We do not shop Sears anymore because their appliance repair business came to repair our convection oven through our home warranty plan. They did a BAD job. Months later, when mineral insulation visibly ended up on our food (and we had wondered why we were all having so many upper respiratory infections for months starting about a week after the oven had been repaired,) we discovered they had improperly reinstalled the insulation around the convection fan. We had been inhaling and digesting the insulation for months without knowing it because the insulation flaked off in small unnoticeable fibers. They refused to come and do the repair correctly. They refused, after the oven had been inspected by our home warranty company and deemed unsafe and usable because the insulation was everywhere and could not be cleaned out for safe use, to replace the oven. To proceed with legal action Sears said we would all have to have lung biopsies to show fibers were in our lungs. Nice.

The warranty plan replaced it and handled the legal aspects. Sears never did a thing for us, except act rude and state they would charge us for future visits to work on the oven.

Oh well. Ask for your money back and drive to Ohio and buy from Appliance Mart. I know they have a store in Dayton. They may have one in Toledo. We just got a great deal there and have been extremely pleased with our fridge.

Back to telecom (telecon) slinging…

I think we need to bring two top ideas together here…

Telecons

and

Peeping coms

Thanks brendanx and teknohed!

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy…teleco-conspirators? May I help you?

Report any suspicious behavior by dialing 1-800-RAT-FINK, courtesy of your telephone company.

Sorry to hear it EW. We swore off Sears years ago after we paid top dollar for a washing machine from Sears. It broken continually and died for good two weeks after warranty expired.

From the Simpsons Movie:

Homer : Marge? Kids? Oh?

Marge : Okay, here goes. Homer, I’ve always stood up for you. When people point out your flaws, I always say: ”Well, sometimes you have to stand back to appreciate a work of art.”

Homer : Way back.

Marge : Lately, what’s keeping us together, is my ability to overlook everything you do. And I overlook these things because-

Homer : Because?

Marge : Well, that’s the thing. I just, I just don’t know how to finish that sentence anymore. So I’m leaving with the kids to help Springfield, and we’re never coming back. And to prove to myself that this is the end, I taped this over our wedding video. Goodbye, Homie.

Marge : I love you.

Homer : Marge? Kids?

Bart : So, Mom, what’s our plan?

Marge : What are you doing up there?

Bart : Looking through people’s luggage. I’m the mascot of an evil corporation.

Marge : Get down from there. We have to keep a low profile till we get to Seattle to tell the world of the plot to destroy Springfield.

Lisa : I don’t know if you guys should be talking so loud.

Marge : Oh, Lisa, it’s not like the government is listening to everybody’s conversation.

Woman : Hi, I’m calling about your Meat Lover’s pizza, I like meat, but I don’t know if I’m ready to love again.

Girl : You hang up first.

Boy : No, you hang up first.

Girl : Okay.

Boy : She hung up on me!

Lisa : But we’re fugitives, we should just lay low till we get to Seattle.

Officer : Hey, everybody, I found one! The government actually found someone we’re looking for! Yeah, baby, yeah!

I would put money on it, I bet Lilly would do an update (the telecoms) on Ernistine the phone operator

Home Depot tends to be more expensive than Lowes, but both big boxes are a menace.

Froomkin nail Congress: From WaPo

Battered Congress Syndrome

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, June 24, 2008; 11:31 AM

President Bush doesn’t hesitate to kick Congress around, but Congress just can’t bring itself to kick back.

During oral arguments yesterday about whether a federal judge should enforce congressional subpoenas against a belligerent White House, representatives of the judicial and executive branches both noted that Congress hasn’t exercised its full constitutional powers.

As Del Quentin Weber writes in The Washington Post, District Court Judge John D. Bates suggested that “the House could take other actions to compel the testimony. For example, the judge said, the House could order [White House Counsel Harriet] Miers’s arrest and detention in a cell in the Capitol until she agreed to testify. Such actions were fairly common in the 19th century.”

And Susan Crabtree writes for the Hill that Carl Nichols, the principal deputy associate attorney general, “argued that Congress could have decided to withhold Justice Department appropriations or refused to pass judicial nominations.”

But the Democratic-controlled Congress, of course, hasn’t done either of those things. Members instead chose to solicit help from the judicial branch — the constitutional equivalent of running to Mommy. And not surprisingly, this didn’t make Mommy very happy.

…

Vaccinated by the Congress of the United States

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, will you filibuster this bill?

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: We are going to resist this bill. We are going to make sure that the procedural votes are gone through. In other words, a filibuster is requiring sixty votes to proceed to the bill, sixty votes to get cloture on the legislation. We will also—Senator Dodd and I and others will be taking some time to talk about this on the floor. We’re not just going to let it be rubberstamped.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you filibuster, though?

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: That’s what I just described.

Weaselly Rat-Bastards.

That’s what I’d call Sears.

Telecrooks

беззаконное телефонирование = the lawless telephony

Sears is a funny place sometimes. I feel your aggravation.

I ordered a bed from Sears, and to save money I picked a cheaper box spring to go with a more expensive mattress. On delivery day, no one arrived. When I called Sears I learned that my delivery had been cancelled (news to me), because ’someone made a mistake and placed a mismatched order.’

After I informed him that I was the one who placed a mismatched order, he reactivated my order. At 5pm on delivery day the next week I called Sears again when no bed arived. I was told by a different person my order was cancelled, because of ‘a mismatched order.’

FINALLY, I told the Sears rep that it was not a mismatched order–that the box spring was for one room and the mattress was for a DIFFERENT room. After that the order went through just fine.

Sometimes lying does pay off.

Call Feingold and Dodd. Shazam

If we vote with our feet, we can hit them where it hurts: switch off Verizon and AT&T, got to VONAGE, and write to your cable teevee station and tell them they will soon lose your business.

Write a letter to the managing editor at the NY Times, WaPO, WSJ and your local paid subscription newspaper and tell them they have just lost your business! Nothing hurts business more than losing money.

Whether you are actually cancelling your subscription or not, just telling them they are nitwits and lying and saying you are cancelling will send a huge message. Believe me, no news director, or mng. ed. wants to have to report this. But they have to, and we CAN WIN.

If WaPo just retires Broder, if The New Republic gets a brain, we can win. Everything helps. Absolutely everything helps in this debate.

Yapper Tappers!

Tratorcoms?

–MarkusQ

Scum

As to appliances, I favor the local Appliance Mart that sells the remains of last year’s models, various kinds of overstock, and frequently appliances that have been part of displays at Home Shows, at very deep discounts. They Deliver, and remove the old, but then you hire an independent installer who can do both electrical and plumbing modifications to code. Except for eventually replacing the garbage disposal, I had my fling about two years ago — new Washer, Dryer, Stove and Microwave all in one swoop. I don’t recommend the experience as an exercise in stress reduction, but once it is over, the joy of replacing 30 year old appliances quickly mitigates the disruptions. (I remain deeply in love with my Commercial style Five Star Range which I got at about 50% Discount.)

I have, however, a small commercial proposition for our on-line community. There clearly is a need for Political Food Consultants — an “outsource” for selecting and testing the receipes that highlight or color code a candidate to their identity, their ideology, their particular taste, not only foods that can be passed off as olde traditional family receipes, but also foods that would attract attention at fund raisers and other campaign events.

Now I have some experience in this field. Back in the early 90’s when Bill Clinton came to the fore, I researched Arkansas Foods, and created a small receipe book for State Legislative Level fund raisers, (Called it Food of the Great River Road), all based on the theme that Minnesota is connected to Arkansas by the Mississippi, which is a food distribution system among other things. It would be even more fun to do for Obama — just imagine connecting Hawaii and Indonesia, Africa and Chicago — with a dip into Boston Cusine. Anyhow, I see a clear commercial consulting opportunity here that is a significant skill generally not possessed by youthful volunteers who assume the only political food is take-out and Pizza. Anyone interested?

Scofflaws