Quick Hitts

I hooked up with my first ISP back in 1995, when I put up a web page to advertise Electric Avenue, my 21 line dial in BBS. (I’m sure you’re impressed with the brilliance of that business plan.) Since then I’ve done business with a half dozen different internet service providers. Some started out great and turned to garbage. One that I really liked fell apart when the founder died unexpectedly. One raised their prices too much when this site went over their 250 meg limit. But through them all, the good ones and the bad ones, Startlogic stands out and the lousiest, most miserable, most horrible ISP I’ve ever dealt with.

Shortly after I moved this site to Startlogic I started the Podcast Peer Awards, and opened another Startlogic account for it. Things were uneventful for a while, until Startlogic started randomly bouncing my e-mails. E-Mail came in OK, but sending them out became a crap shoot. It was because they had their SMTP server set to use some craptastic blackhole list, and sometimes my IP was in it, and sometimes it wasn’t. This was before they had the kinks worked out of their “Never Let The Customer Contact You” policy, so I was able to get through occasionally, where I was given a lecture on spamming (which I have never, ever done) and treated like a criminal. After the tenth or twelveth time this happened I wrote them a ticket that told them I needed this fixed again and condemmed their incompetence.

I got a phone call from them. They actually called me back! And the reason for the call left me nearly speechless, which has happened approximately four times in my entire life (and I’m an old fart). They were calling to yell at me for questioning their competence! Not to help me with the problem, not to apologize for being complenety bereft of anything resembling a clue, but to chastise me for being pissed off about them breaking a crucial feature over and over and over again.

I was amazed. I was flabbergasted. I was disgusted. I’ve made a living doing various forms of technical support for most of my life. I know my customers on a first name basis and like almost all of them. And when they frustrate me I’m still Mr. Politeness, because I have to be. Being rude is not an option. Revealing simple annoyance is not an option. Like everyone in support I’ll sometimes make disparaging remarks in private, after I’m finished dealing with someone, but never, ever to the customer.

But here they were, calling me to bitch me out for being annoyed at their incompetence.

It wasn’t too long after that I moved davehitt.com to Dreamhost, who I’ve been happy with. They actually respond to questions and frequently have the answers. What an amazing concept in customer service.

But the heart of the Podcast Peer Awards is the forum. I guessed that moving a live BBS from one site to another was going to be a big risky job, and I had paid in advance for a year, so I left the site on Startlogic.

This week Startlogic blew up the forum. They completely screwed up the server where the database resides, making it impossible for PPA members to log in and converse and cast votes. I got some help at the phpBB forums, but there was still one problem with it that I didn’t know how to resolve. Like a fool I wasted an hour waiting on hold (“your call is important to us”) and had their “live” chat window open, before I gave up. An SQL guru where I work showed me how to fix the last remaining issue (it took, literally, fifteen seconds) and the board worked flawlessly for nearly ten hours before Startlogic fucked it up again.

I’m so annoyed and disgusted I tried to buy startlogicsucks.com, but someone beat me to it. I could write a small book on the stupid, horrible things that Startlogic has done, but I’ll settle for making it a blog category and telling one of the stories from time to time.

In the meantime I’m making plans to move the PPA to Dreamhost.

I’m on too many mailing lists and get too many newsletters. I just skim most of them. One of the few that I always read all the way through are the Downsize DC mailings. They’re always well written and informative, and often maddening because of the information they contain.

This one was so good I just had to share it with you in its entirety:

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Quote of the Day:

“…The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn’t say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a ‘compelling interest’ in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn’t say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances.”
— Harry Browne (1933-2006) best-selling author, two-time presidential candidate, and co-founder of Downsize DC

Subject: 68 Senators violated their oaths of office yesterday

Do you know the date of the first law ever passed by the United States’ Senate? It was May 5, 1789.

Do you know the subject of that law? It was the “Oath Act.” It’s purpose was to provide specific wording for the oath the Constitution requires Senators to swear upon taking office.

Strangely, the Constitution actually provides the specific wording of the oath the President is supposed to take, but it does not do so for Congress. Instead, the Constitution simply stipulates the following in Article VI, clause 3:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

The lack of specific wording meant that Congress had to create the wording. The oath they created as their first order of business, was very simple . . .

“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

Of course, later politicians have been increasingly fond of complexity, causing the oath to mutate into this . . .

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”

The result remains the same. And please notice that members of Congress do not swear an oath to support or defend the nation, the country, or the government. They swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution, specifically. This is very important . . .

The Founders viewed government as a servant of the people. They did not make the mistake that so many supposed “patriots” make, of thinking the government is the same thing as the nation, the country, or the people. Our country is made up of many institutions — families, churches, businesses, associations — of which the government is only one. All of these institutions taken together, and all the individuals within the country, independent of any institution, are what make up the country.

The government is meant to serve the nation, not BE the country.

In keeping with the ideas expressed in our Declaration of Independence, our government was instituted with highly limited powers. The instrument that imposed these limitations was the Constitution, and it is this document that members of Congress swear an oath to defend.

One of the consequences of Constitutional limits on government power is that bad people are often permitted to get away with doing bad things. The government is categorically denied many of the powers that might aid it in the apprehension of criminals. For example . . .

There are hundreds of murderers running lose in America, and thousands of murders committed each year, that the government might be able to stop. The Constitution specifically prohibits government from doing all that it could do to save lives by catching murderers.

Were the Founders crazy? Were they stupid? No, they were not. The Founders knew that any government that has all the power it might need to optimize its apprehension of murderers, would also have all the power it needed to become a mass murderer.

The Founders knew, even in their time, that governments were, historically, the greatest killers of all. The history of the last century has only added to the evidence. Tens of millions of people were murdered in the 20th Century by governments that had too much power. Our Constitution protects us from this; so far.

Think about that.

But now, because criminals murdered thousands of people on September 11, 2001, many are eager to abandon their Constitutional protections.

Have we become a nation of sniveling cowards? If not, please explain how it is that Congress has either bowed to or exploited this fear to become a gang of lawbreakers?

Yesterday, 68 Senators violated their oaths of office. They voted to pass S. 2248, a new law designed to replace the so-called “Protect America Act.” This bill violates the Bill of Rights . . .

* It permits the President to spy on Americans without a warrant.
* It grants retroactive immunity to tele-communications companies that collaborated with the Bush administration in previous warrantless spying, thereby creating an incentive for other companies to engage in similar crimes in the future (only Qwest Communications insisted on warrants).

Will this new, un-constitutional power, prevent future terrorist attacks? Of course not, nothing can do that, just as there is no law or power that could completely stop murders by domestic criminals.

Does this new law create a tyranny? That would be an exaggeration. But what will happen when the next terrorist attack comes?

The sniveling cowards among us, and the lawbreakers in Congress, will then seek still more powers.

At one point will our children call this tyranny? Will there be any turning back?

Yesterday, 19 Democrats, 48 Republicans, and 1 independent voted to violate the Constitution and their oaths of office. Only 28 Democrats, 1 independent, and ZERO Republicans remained true to their oaths. The Republicans were universally bad.

But please notice that the law could not have passed without the vote of the Democrats!

Let this be clear — neither political party is going to protect our Constitution, unless WE compel them to do it.

All hope is NOT lost. S. 2248 cannot become law unless the House agrees to its provisions. Fortunately, the House version of this bill, while not perfect, is signficantly better. Our best hope, and we must take it, is to tell the House to stick by their version of the bill.

A list of how the Senate voted is pasted below my signature.* Use the personal comments section of your message to Congress to thank your Senator if he or she voted against S. 2248, or to criticize your Senator if he or she voted for it. Ask your House member to reject the provisions of S. 2248.

You can send your message from the DownsizeDC.org website.

Also, please make a contribution to further our work. Your contribution is our budget. You can contribute here.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

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*I left the list out, but you can find whatever you need to know on the site. Stop by and vote, and sign up for their newsletter.

Update:  Finally, the government does something good, if only through inaction.  The House refused to renew this, so the sunset clause made it history last Friday.

How much influence did the 40k+ e-mails sent by members of Downsize DC have?  We can’t know  for sure, except to say it helped.

Thailand’s Assumption University (yes, that’s their real name) asked 2400 teenagers if they were planning on having sex on Valentine’s day. 27% of them said “yeah, maybe.”

Bangkok police, armed with the knowledge that teenagers never lie, especially about sex, are springing into action. They’re going to turn all the lights on at public parks, tell parents to make their kids come home early, and check cheap motels. They’ll be sending patrols to parks, restaurants and shipping malls, no doubt practicing the ancient oriental secret birth control technique of jumping out from behind something and shouting “Hey, stop that!”

There is no evidence they’re considered changing city’s name to something less suggestive.

The senate has just removed more rights from American citizens, and as an extra bonus have provided immunity to the telecoms who broke the law and violated our rights at the request of King George.From the NYT article:

Democratic opponents, led by Senators Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, argued that the plan effectively rewarded phone companies by providing them with legal insulation for actions that violated longstanding law and their own privacy obligations to their customers. But immunity supporters said the phone carriers acted out of patriotism after the Sept. 11 attacks in complying with what they believed in good faith was a legally binding order from the president.

“This, I believe, is the right way to go for the security of the nation,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who leads the intelligence committee. His support for the plan, after intense negotiations with the White House and his Republican colleagues, was considered critical to its passage but drew criticism from civil liberties groups because of $42,000 in contributions that Mr. Rockefeller received last year from AT&T and Verizon executives.

So if you’re ever caught up in a federal fishing expedition (and remember, what makes you an “enemy combatant” is some federal bureaucrat saying so; proof is not required) just say “I was doing it out of patriotism” and you’ll get immunity.

Oh, wait, you haven’t purchased a senator for $42K? Never mind.

New Mexico legislator Gail Chasey, evidently attempting to prove she can be as dim-witted as any Mississippi legislator, has teamed up with the Sierra Club to propose a tax on TVs and Video games. The money would be used to fight childhood obesity and improve education. If the people behind this proposal were educated in New Mexico, one could argue that education improvement is sorely needed.

After writing that paragraph I Googled her. She lists her occupation as “Retired Educator.” I rest my case.

I’ve always felt that for the first year of any new law, it should only apply to those who voted for it or advocated for it. If that were the case, I’d support this one. Imagine the results.

First we’d hire personal trainers to visit the offices of the legislators and the Sierra Club. They’d weigh and measure all of them, and using the ridiculously inaccurate BMI determine who was obese. Anyone who was would be locked out of their office and moved to the nearest public park, where they would be forced spend eight hours a day doing sit ups, pull ups, push ups, throw ups, fall downs, and any other calisthenics that would amuse bystanders. Weather wouldn’t be allowed as an excuse – they’d exercise in the sun, the rain, the snow (do they get snow in New Mexico?) until they achieve the officially sanctioned BMI.

They’ll have 30 days to reach their goal. If they do, great, they can go back to work and resume pretending to do whatever it is they pretend to do. If not, they’ll be fired. And when they get home they’ll find the fun police were there first, and have removed every TV, DVD, Video Game and computer from their premises.

BTW, here’s her contact information. Feel free to drop her a line about her brilliant plan.

Here’s yet another example of how difficult it is to write satire or parody in today’s world. Back in 1999 I wrote an article that ended with fast food workers being forbidden to serve fat people. It was intended as a joke.

Now, from the brilliant brain trust that is Mississippi, comes proposed legislation to do just that. “Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health.”

Residents of Mississippi (State Motto: “Who Needs a Full Set Of Teeth?”) can only hope they have enough porky legislators to keep this from becoming law.

How many mouth-breathing brain-dead adults can you find in this picture?

A fourteen year old boy in Lewisville Texas applied some hand sanitizer that was on his fifth grade teachers desk.  He smelled it, but evidently inhaled too deeply.

The school officials called the cops, who hauled him into the police department, photographed and fingerprinted him.  The DA charged him with delinquency, claiming he smelled the stuff “induce a condition of intoxication, hallucination and elation.”

Eventually the charges were dropped, but not until the boy’s father hired a lawyer and the story received media attention.

It’s not surprising that a school administrator would do this – they are almost always anal retentive dull normals with less imagination than a Britney Spears lyricist.  But any cop with a double digit IQ should have laughed the thing off, called the school official a disparaging name, and then snickered about it over donuts back at the station.  Instead, he hauled the kid in and treated him like a criminal.  The police chief should have stopped it right there, but he didn’t.  The prosecutor should have cited the police for being assholes and ended it there.  But it wasn’t until lawyers and the media were called in that any of the authoritarians backed down.

The school officials, the cop, the chief and the prosecutor should all get together – in the unemployment line.