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The Vidiot's weekly blog: What pissed me off this week? 5/2/2005 (A day early this week.) (updated every Monday at some point during the day) ...'cause I'm angry and my friends are sick of listening to me... Track your congresscritters here!
Free stuff can be found here Mirror (in case geocities is wacky or, in case of trouble in New York, check it for messages): http://129.79.148.33/vidiotcontact/ Oh, I'm pissed off now! And it only has a little bit to do with GW Bush. First, let me begin by saying that as far as April goes, it's been the month from hell with regards to corporate entities. My first battle was with Verizon over a phone bill. Did you know that you can't talk to them in person? Even though their headquarters are right here in Manhattan, you can't talk to anyone in the flesh. It's all over the phone and you end up talking to one person in Chicago, another in Texas, and someone else in only god knows where. Also, did you know that if you rely on your phone to conduct business, and your phone service goes out, that you can't be compensated for loss of business?? You have to take them to court before they'll even discuss it! Not only that, you have to prove a negative! You have to prove that you lost business. Even though logic dictates that you would get a phone call relating to work at some point during the course of any given day, how the fuck would you know that you DIDN'T get a phone call??? On top of that, you have to take off work, run the risk of losing even MORE business, so you can argue with them in court. So, my conclusion? Verizon Sucks! Now, this week, I found out that Aetna, my esteemed health insurance provider, refuses to cover my acupuncture treatments. I have paid what to me is an enormous amount of money to deal with this incredibly ridiculous and painful disorder. Now I'm told that even though it's a treatment for pain (one that has recently been proven to work!), it's not covered. I informed them that had I decided to do the western medicine thing, it would've cost 10 times that. I would've had to undergo treatment with steroids and possibly surgery. Now, even though the acupuncture is working for me, albeit slowly, and costs much less and is better for THIS patient, all the money I've paid is out of my pocket and I have no recourse. They said that even if I'd had a slightly different kind of policy, I wouldn't have been covered because my girl isn't on their list of 'approved providers'. Never mind that I barely use my health insurance, that I'm one of the priceless 3 percent that eats right, exercises regularly and doesn't smoke, or that my girl used to work for the friggin' royal family and is a specialist in this disorder when frankly, there are very few western doctors that even recognize it as a disorder to begin with! AIIYYAAAAaaaa!!!!!!!! My conclusion? Aetna Sucks! THEN, I get a statement from Merrill Lynch telling me that they're charging me for not having enough money!!!! It's actually called a "low balance fee". Can you fucking believe that shit? And when I called to complain, they guy said that they use that fee to make my money 'work for me'. It was at that point that I asked him if he didn't think it was a little early to be smoking the crack. He then had the audacity to say "Well, if you don't want to put any more money into it, you might..." at which point, I cut him off and said "Do you really think for one minute that I DON'T want to put money into my IRA? I dumped that money in there in 1987 and I've not been able to put money in it since. I don't make any real money, I live in NYC and I have student loans! Where do you think I'd get the money to put into a freakin' IRA?! I didn't hear crap from you people when the market was up in the 1990s. Now, my IRA is less than half of what it was at its peak, and you want to rape for a 'low balance fee'? Take it from the rich people who can afford the fee. Why not charge them for a 'handling of large funds fee'?" I then threatened to withdraw my funds. And he said "Well, ma'am, we were the last retail house to institute the 'low balance fee', they all have them so no matter where you'd put the money, you'd have to deal with this." The conversation just degraded from there. I basically accused his corporation of being an evil corporate lemming and asked him if he didn't feel like his soul was being blackened a little bit by working for them. I know. It was mean. It wasn't his fault. But jeebus! A 'low balance fee'?! WTF?! My conclusion? Merrill Lynch Sucks! Video of the Week: Bad anthem singer. Internet Utility of the Week: Pook Mail Product of the Week: The Tingler Satire of the Week: oHarmony Offensive, yet Funny Blog of the Week: I Fucked Ann Coulter in the Ass, Hard Invention of the Week: Hollow glass Al Gore Speech of the Week: Breaking the rules to destroy our courts. Must-read of the Week: An Illegal Government Link-exchange Site of the Week: Dommecile.com Tattoo of the Week: Do Not Resuscitate Interview of the Week: The Constitution Ornament of the Week: Unborn Baby Ornament - US Troop Model Oh, and Hitchiker's Guide ROCKED! I'm stunned. Really. A monumental event occurred this week. Nay, it was an historical event. A CEO actually got punished, financially, for running is company to the ground!
I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime. Irony of the Week The administration announces the nukes are AOK to use in combat.
Why is that ironic you ask? Well, mostly because of the fact that the news was released on the same day that the UN is beginning a month-long reexamination of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
OK. Maybe it's not ironic. But it's definitely sad and pathetic and evil. Yet another example of the hegemonic United States thumbing it's nose at the United Nations. Pull out NOW! I FINALLY had some time to actually really read something I wanted to link to. (I finished the hellish papers!) Anyway, here's an interview with an unembedded reporter in Iraq.
Later in the article, he discusses why it would be a good thing for an immediate withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. Until I read what he thought, I believed that since we were there, we had a responsibility to stay there and clean up our mess. Well, he made an excellent point. His point was that the US troops are responsible for most of the Iraqi deaths, and if the US were to withdraw, a lot of the violence would dissipate. In addition to that, he said that all of the contracts for rebuilding should be re-bid and Iraq companies should get the contracts and also, anyone who suffered due to the US attack should be compensated. Now, I've seen numbers somewhere that pretty much took what we spent on the war thus far and divided it amongst the entire Iraqi population and it was like $30 or $50 thousand PER. Also, if Iraqis were busy rebuilding their country, they'd be too busy to create mayhem anywhere else. As far as I can see, pulling out immediately, transferring the last bundle of cash that was just approved by Congress to the Iraqi population and allowing the Iraqis to rebuild their country themselves (Hey, we head the World Bank. We should be able to fund it.) I see no reason why we shouldn't pull out immediately. Unfortunately, I'm an idealist in a cold cruel world. A world where a man, the neocon's waterboy Chalabi, who (likely) knowingly fed false information to help bolster this administration's case for war has been rewarded with a prestigious and powerful job.
{sigh} [sip of scotch] {sigh} Why I'm not a Catholic anymore Our new pope seems to have obstructed justice with regards to the pedophilia priests.
That's ok. The RC Church will be ending soon.
Oh and that number of the beast that almost everyone has been working into every known conspiracy on the planet to show the devil is coming? 666? Uh, WRONG NUMBER! D'oh!
I guess that lets Ronald Wilson Reagan off the hook. I'll admit it, I was wrong about him. I initially was pretty down on Reid, thinking that his seat wasn't safe enough for him to be the bulldog he needed to be as minority leader. Well, turns out, the guy plays a real mean game of chicken.
Sorry I missed it. Did you watch the Chimp's press conference this week? I missed it. But it seems as if I didn't miss much. According to this article, Bush stuck with the Luntzisms like glue.
Tip toe through the tulips... So, Bush's little "man" date with the Saudi Prince might be for naught. Maybe he spent the time trying to figure out what the Saudi's were planning to do about secession.
You should read that article. It pretty much explains that of the two guys in the running, only one of them will be willing to hold hands with GW. Oh goody! Now i can really sleep at night.
And if I do manage to doze off, I'll just think about the earthquakes.
That outta' do it. Want some chips with that? I've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone who gets an RFID chip implanted in them is an idiot.
Durr Department Gee, I had no idea securing a loan with a car title was a bad idea.
And high gas prices hurt low-wage workers. Really?
And GW is trying to destroy the middle class? Hmmm, now that just hadn't occurred to me.
Cue the Bugler to play "Taps" It does not bode well for PBS. The new idiot in charge says he doesn't give a crap about it.
Yup. Just turn it into FOX news now. Get it over with.
Please! Would someone please come up with a viable alternative to Google? They're really starting to suck.
First, who will be the judge of the quality of an article?? Second, what this filtering will ensure is that alternate news sources will not end up on the first few pages of a google search. Only corporate-owned opinions allowed thank you very much. Go back to your self-sedating alcoholic beverage and your violent reality show of choice. Funniest Read of the Week Morford's "What's on Jesus' iPod?", if for nothing else than for this paragraph:
My Prediction for the Week Blair will win, but it will be by a very narrow margin. Seems that some are really trying to get him out by leaking stuff so close to the election
Even God tried his level best.
And it's monumentally clear that there are no WMDs in Iraq.
but the polls show him leading. Now where have I experienced that before??? Well, if you're interested in British politics, you should go over to Dailykos.com because Kos is covering the election for the Guardian - UK. Ostensibly.. Oh sure, use the parks department to cover for the real reason for not allowing people to gather in Central Park:
The real reason is that we live in a police state now and we just can't be having people gather like that and share their ideas and stuff.
I'll tell you what, I went to Venezuela in the 80s and it was a police state then (may still be) and I was in a downtown park area at night and the cops came through and shot at everyone in the park with rubber bullets. It was a peaceful gathering, it was around Christmas, but a police state does not want people gathering in groups. It ascares them. Recycling & Trash Article of the Week I can tell you, I've been to Switzerland and you can eat off of their streets. Not one speck of garbage anywhere. It's truly amazing.
News of the Weird Weirdness in the animal kingdom.
I mean really weird animal kingdom stuff.
And not just in Germany, but in Denmark too.
I guess they'll blame the birds for the exploding frogs.
Clap if you believe in fairies.
Clap Clap Clap Clap Clap What do we do about all of this crap? I have no idea. Part of me wants to start teach-ins at my local pub. Just go to the bar, rant and rave and inform the idiots who still think Dan Rather is telling them the truth. Another part of me wants to organize a voter observation program to insure that this moron isn't in the White House all the way to 2008. I sincerely believe that if we protected the voting rights of the underprivileged that any Democrat could SWEEP any election. And we'd have to start with the Florida Election for Governor THIS FALL (like these guys!.) I don't think Democrats are the answer. But they are at least a start. At the very least, point your CNN-loving friends to my links page. Just getting started in reading alternate news sites gets people thinking. I have one friend who was very happy-go-lucky, thinking ol' Greta was telling the whole truth until I opened up his eyes a bit. Now, he's all depressed. He'll get over it. You gotta' get depressed before you get angry and you gotta' get angry before you can accomplish anything. We're all in mourning. We have to move through the steps. But we gotta' hurry it up. Read. Inform. Spread the word. Even if it means your friends avoid you for awhile. If they really love you, they'll start to listen.
"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. (Tom Ridge has practically said he'd do away with this act.)
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Who am I?: I am a biker chick who lives in NYC. This blog is about current events and my left-leaning, ascerbic spin on those events. Nobody pays me anything to do this. Nobody tells me what to write. I will NEVER tout anything for anybody's money! EVER! These sites are good at culling stories from a multitude of media sites: buzzflash.com
Bartcop
Ilia
Dreams Blog These blogs will be covering the primaries and elections: Salon.com's
War Room media-bias exposed:
onlinejournal.com
whatreallyhappened.com
HIGHLY entertaining:
and
for godsakes, stay away if you must succumb to reading a newspaper:
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