third world county

Oh, my, this one is easy! Perhaps too easy…

1. Para el español, prensa dos… Big company working in concert with the government and Mexico (along with Fifi Bush, President Felipe Calderon’s lapdog) to facilitate the invasion of the U.S. by illegal aliens.

2. NO applicable options, on ANY of the contact numbers, ANYWHERE in the voicemail hell constructed by ATT/Cingular. Not. One.

3. Escalation? “I’m sorry, without XYZ information we cannot do that.” (“But I don’t have XYZ, you twit!” *sheesh*)

4. Institutionalized stupidity. “We can only do things our way–the wrong (i.e., completely unhelpful) way. And no, the left hand does NOT know what the right hand is doing and has NO way of getting that information.”

5. Sending SPAM to people who are NOT customers! (Yes, I verified that the emails my wife is getting actually DID come from ATT/Cingular–no “phishing” involved). Heck, I have no problem with ATT/Cingular sending SPAM to people who are clueless enough to do business with them. That’s their lookout. But emails to people who are NOT customers, do NOT have accounts, from ATT/Cingular (not just some doof trying to sell ATT/Cingular accounts on commission or whatever) are unacceptable.

6. BTW, No one in America’s Third World County CAN use ATT/Cingular. No coverage. (So much for its much-vaunted coverage.) OK, maybe there is an enclave parked juuuust so near the one and only secret, hidden tower that has some obscure connection with ATT/Cingular, but if so, those folks are keeping awfully quiet about it…

7. Lies. “I’ll stay on the line and connect you to… ” Lie.

8. No way to bill ATT/Cingular for MY time trying to deal with them.

9. “Escalate? We don’t do no steenkeeng ‘escalate’! WTF is that, anyway?” (Not a direct quote; inferred from actual behavior, though.)

10. Worthless phone contact numbers. Let that sink in a while. AT&T. Cingular. The contact numbers listed on the website(s) are useless. Worse than useless. Complete timesinks. Black holes. A big suck on a sour lemon. A zero with the rim kicked off. Connection to Usefull Information rating: bupkis.

11. Catch this: ATT/Cingular. Wireless phone company. Last guy I talked to about the SPAM, I could barely hear him (and I wasn’t the only one: my Wonder Woman was on the phone, too, to “good cop/bad cop” the guy–as we had the person previous to him just in order to get to this guy–and SHE couldn’t hear him, either). Of course he needed voice lessons, but it would have helped if he hadn’t been on an oldstyle landline handset. Heck, I had my phone AND my headset turned up to MAX and had to keep reminding him to SPEAK INTO THE MIC (on the handset). *sheesh* As poor a telephone presence as he had (supposedly a “supervisor,” naturally) you’d think he’d at least have a phone that made up for some of his deficiencies in speaking/communication ability.

12. Nobody knows anything, In fact, they all know nothing. (Which is as it probably ought to be, of course… *sigh*)

13. ATT. Cingular. Of course: what’s NOT to hate about that combo?

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Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub.

The voices in my head are quiescent today.

I am not here; this is not me
No matter what you think you see.
I am not here; this is not me.

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“Garth Trekker”, posting at Bloggin’ Outloud, offers a post promoting amnesty for illegal aliens. *sigh* How often are good men seduced by the Dark Side? He advocates amnesty for illegals on supposedly “practical” grounds, asserting that deporting “10 to 12 million illegal immigrants” (the number may well be closer to 20 million) is impossible.

No, no, no, no, no! The “impossible” has already been done in the past. What man has done once, man can aspire to do. It is not impossible, simply difficult–though if existing law were enforced against the hiring of illegals, “difficult” would become much easier.

But amnesty for up to 20 million illegal aliens is simply wrong.

Let me point out a couple of things: rewarding outlaws for their behavior while punishing law-abiding persons is immoral. That is what such a mass amnesty for illegals does. It rewards those who entered our country illegally, compounded their crime with identity theft, forgery, stealing jobs from citizens, improperly expropirating government services, and more. And it punishes those who have followed the law, waited patiently for permission to enter legally and who have had their place in line extended by swelling illegal migrations.

And then there’s the bill itself, which is a mass of obfuscation, deciet and outright lies. And those are its good points, because it is fundamentally flawed (offering an advanced form of immorality in its anarcho-tyrranical design) and does not even accomplish–in any way, shape, fashion or form–what its proponents claim in terms of border enforcement and protection of American sovereignty: it is wholly a Mexican/big business bill, designed to do one thing very, very well: confirm President Bush’s place as Felipe Calderon’s lapdog by surrendering our borders.

NumbersUSA offers these specific flaws in the current senate shamnesty bill:

Flaw No. 1: Sen. Sessions pointed to perhaps the biggest flaw by noting that the ‘enforcement trigger’ fails to require the U.S. VISIT system – the biometric border check-in/check-out system established by Congress in 1996, but never
implemented — to be fully functioning before new worker or amnesty programs begin. Without the system in place, the U.S. has no method of ensuring that workers and their families do not overstay their visas.”

Flaw No. 2: While most Americans tell pollsters they want less immigration, this bill dramatically increases overall immigration. It TRIPLES chain migration through the year 2016 — all the while sanctioning a mass importation of low-skill foreign workers and, by extension, a mass importation of poverty into this country.

Flaw No. 3: Illegal aliens get “legal status before enforcement” begins;

Flaw No. 4: The “triggers” require “no more agents, beds, or fencing than current law” mandates;

Flaw No. 5: The completion of background checks, including checks against criminal and terrorist databases, is “not required for” the granting of amnesty (in this bill, it is referred to as “probationary status”);

Flaw No. 6: Criminals of all kinds — including gang members, some child molesters, and absconders (i.e., “aliens who have already had their day in court [and who are now] subject to. ..removal” [covering “more than 636,000 fugitives”]) are eligible for the bill’s mass amnesty;

Flaw No. 7: “Illegal aliens with terrorism connections are not barred from getting amnesty. An illegal alien seeking most immigration benefits must merely show ‘good moral character.”

Flaw No. 8: Illegal aliens granted amnesty or guestworkers imported via the new “Y” “temporary worker” program can claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which “will cost taxpayers billions in just 10 years”;

Flaw No. 9: “Affidavits from friends” are acceptable as evidence of satisfying requirements for amnesty, thus “invit[ing] fraud and more illegal immigration”;

Flaw No. 10: “In-state tuition and other higher education benefits. ..will be made available to current illegal aliens that are granted [amnesty], even if the same instate tuition rates are not offered to all U.S. citizens,” a violation of current Federal law, which “mandates that educational institutions give citizens the same postsecondary education benefits they offer to illegal aliens”;

Flaw No. 11: New visas are created for individuals who are prone to overstaying their period of authorized admission — namely, the new “parent” visa, which allows parents of citizens, and the spouses and children of new temporary workers, to visit a worker in the United States. Not only is this term “a misnomer, but also an invitation for high rates of visa overstays” because it “specifically allows the spouse and children of new temporary workers who intend to abandon their residence in a foreign country, to qualify to come to the U.S. to ‘visit.” To obtain the visa, one must only post a $1,000 bond, “which will be forfeited when, not if, family members of new temporary workers decide to overstay their 30 day visit. Workers should travel to their home countries to visit their families, not the other way around”;

Flaw No. 12: To be granted amnesty, illegal aliens need not pay back income taxes;

Flaw No. 13: Social Security credits for work done while in the United States illegally will be granted to “[a]liens who came to the U.S. on legal visas, but overstayed their visas and have been working in the U.S. for years, as well as illegal aliens who apply for Z visa status but do not qualify”; and

Flaw No. 14: “The criminal fines an illegal alien is required to pay to receive amnesty are less than the bill’s criminal fines for paperwork violations committed by U.S. citizens, and can be paid by installment,” which means that “the fine for illegally entering, using false documents to work, [is] one-tenth the fine for a paperwork violation committed by a government official.”

Given the fundamental moral flaw (sharply exacerbating anarcho-tyranny) and these few (of many) structural flaws even in what the bill’s supporters disingenuously claim it does, this thing should never have seen the light of day, and it has only been put forth and retains some semblance of life because of the basic amorality and disregard for the future of our society that its supporters embody.

CALL, WRITE and FAX your senators today! If they have voted to defeat cloture before, encourage them to continue to vote against this bill in all its forms and in every measure designed to advance it. If they have not voted against it before, outline to them what its flaws are–both the injustice of it and the way it encourages outlawry and the specific flaws noted above.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Even worse is when otherwise good men are seduced by the Dark Side and advance immoral, unjust laws that will do nothing but damage society, harm individual citizens and advance the cause of outlawry.

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Trackposted to Rightlinx, Big Dog’s Weblog, Adam’s Blog, Maggie’s Notebook, The World According to Carl, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

A note to President Fifi Bush, Felipe Calderon’s lapdog.

Sometimes a fictional barbarian has something of worth to say. This, from the pen of Harry Turtledove for Felipe Calderon’s lapdog, Fifi Bush*:

“…[ it is] cursed foolishness to try and make a man go in a direction he doesn’t fancy…”

So, Fifi, take counsel of that as you seek to impose your shamnesty bill on citizens who do not want it.

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*Give a skunk a poodle cut and call it “Fifi”.

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Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, Walls of the City, Pirate’s Cove, Nuke’s news and views, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Conservative Cat, OTB Sports, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

[Before I get to a few notes of techie interest, this word: Remember to call, fax AND email your senators to encourage them to put a stake through the heart of the vampire shamnesty bill and stuff its mouth with garlic, spray it with holy water and then burn it. Visit NumbersUSA for links to phone numbers, faxes you can send, etc.]

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Here’re a few light tech notes, some of which may save your bacon, others just of passing interest.

Have a Nokia Series 60 or other Symbian mobile device? Sophos (along with Kaspersky and Symantec) has issued a warning that you may be (are) vulnerable to a Trojan that sends an SMS to a premium-rate number every 15 seconds. Imagine your delight in opening a bill that has days full of premium-rate phone calls you didn’t make… The upside of this is, as with almost ALL malware, it’s a darwinian kinda thing: the user has to infect themselves, so only really dumb users are likely to do so.

“iPhone Battery Conspiracy Theory” *heh* (Man, am I glad I can view such pages as the one linked to here in Opera: blocking the stupid flashing ads is a Very Good Thing.)

Standing up to the Me$$y$oft bullying tactics, Cannonical’s (Ubuntu) Mark Shuttleworth says, “We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements… (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise [not to sue for infringement] are likely living in a false sense of security.”

My goal is to carry free software forward as far as I can, and then to help others take the baton to carry it further. At Canonical, we believe that we can be successful and also make a huge contribution to that goal. In the Ubuntu community, we believe that the freedom in free software is what’s powerful, not the openness of the code. Our role is not to be the ideologues -in-chief of the movement, our role is to deliver the benefits of that freedom to the widest possible audience. We recognize the value in “good now to get perfect later” (today we require free apps, tomorrow free drivers too, and someday free firmware to be part of the default Ubuntu configuration) we always act in support of the goals of the free software community as we perceive them. All the deals announced so far strike me as “trinkets in exchange for air kisses”. Mua mua. No thanks.

Good on you, Mark.

The Italian Job, Parte Due: Just say, “Nessun ringraziamenti!” to surfing Italian websites, for now. *sigh* It’s just easier than pre-sifting them all for malware attacks. Late last week, ,

We verified a report of a large-scale web attack on going in Italy at the moment… The gang behind the attack had successfully compromised the homepages of hundreds of legitimate Italian websites. We checked many of them and we verified that they include now a malicious IFRAME (detected as Trojan.Mpkit!html) which redirects to the same bad IP address. The list of compromised sites is huge and from Mpack statistics this attack is working efficiently (the statistic page reports 65K unique visitors with almost 7K exploited browsers).

Infection spreading to other countries, naturally. Defense? Two layers, yeah and three: Up-to-date, ACTIVE anti-malware software (of course) on your own PCs, avoid Italian web pages, for now (*sigh*), and DO check your own ISP/hosting security levels to avert the spread of this thing (hosting services differ: consult your own hosting service’s documentation). Trendmicro notes that

Most of the legitimate Web sites that were compromised by the malware authors are related to tourism, automotive industry, movies and music, tax and employment services, some Italian city councils, and hotels sites. Apparently, most of these sites are hosted on one of the largest Web hoster/provider in Italy.

500-pound gorilla weighs in for Blu-Ray:

Blockbuster will rent high-definition DV-Ds only in the Blu-ray format in more than 1,400 stores when it expands its high-def offerings next month.

Well, that should be enough light techie stuff for one Tuesday.

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I don’t usually do recipes on Tuesday, but what the heck, I’m doing one today.

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This is an adaptation of an old standby “breakfast casserole” to an “easy fixins” meal for anytime. One pan, pot or dish. Various, uem, variations. Here are the ingredients I use, but feel more than free to freely substitute.

1/2 pound cooked, smoked sausage, cut into “dimes”
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced (or pressed)

6 large eggs
1/4 C milk
1/4 C bacon bits (the real thing, not the imitation junk–you do have bacon bits on hand in your fridge or freezer, don’t you? :-))
1 to 2 C frozen green peas
2 C grated cheese (I use a monterey jack/cheddar mix)
4 slices bread, torn into medium pieces.

Saute the (already cooked) smoked sausage, garlic and onions until the onions begin to caramelize. While that’s on, scramble the eggs and milk and zap the peas in the microwave for a couple oif minutes.

When the onions are lightly caramelized, remove them and the sausage from the pan and cover the bottom of the pan with the bread. Add the sausage/onion mix back on top of the bread, then add the bacon bits, peas and cheese. Lastly, pour the egg/milk mixture over the cheese. Cover, bring to medium heat and cook until the eggs are done (different pans/stoves, etc. will require different times).

OK, that’s on the stove. In a casserole dish, 325 degrees fahrenheit, covered, for 35 or so minutes minutes; uncover and continue cooking for another ten minutes or so.

Or, do it all the easy way. I just use my rice cooker for the whole shebang, since it automatically goes to “warm” after a few minutes of “cook” and everything turns out just fine in about 20-25 minutes. (And if I leave it a little long, it’s still fine.)

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This week–all week–remember to contact your senators to encourage *cough* them to do the right thing and put a stake in the heart of the shamnesty bill, cut off its head, draw out its poisonous entrails to feed to illegal aliens and quarter it, hanging the disgusting remains at various places on Capitol Hill to discourage another such travesty.

See NumbersUSA for contact info for your Senators and some talking points, if you need them.

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Red State has one of the best posts/comment sections around touching on the attitude of our political “rulers'” attitudes. Up for today’s whipping: Trent Lott, whose quoted comments are translated into plain speech in this post’s title.

The attitude of the political elite is ever more divorced from the model of the Framers. As Jerry Pournelle remarked recently,

It looks very much as if both parties are now conspiracies to take control away from the American people. Who will rescue us?

With BOTH political parties determined to dictate to The People what we can say and do, and what voice we can NOT have in the political process, we must be ever more vigilant. Societies with strong democratic elements have historically looked to a “strong man” solution or to revolution when their representatives became rulers and “citizens” became subjects. Neither of those options would improve our situation much (unless this man were chosen as our emperor :-)).

*heh*

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Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Webloggin, and Right Truth, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Color me nit-picky…

An otherwise perfectly good article by Alan Sears about how the ACLU has not deserted its communist roots is marred by its lede:

“Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, nor a zebra its stripes… ”

Waat Sears ought to do is either cite the actual literary quote that contains “leopard” and “spots” or move to a different (innacurate, but perhaps more fitting) quote and enrich the meme.

But of course Sears is too infected by the PC restraints of today’s society (or, worse, ignorant of the citation) to cite the actual literary quote:

Jeremiah 13:23: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may you also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”

Better, IMO would have been to cite a different meme entirely, if Sears were unable to cite the real literary meme on leopards and spots would have been to cite the corruption of it that renders “leopard” as “leper” because the meme touches on a physical corruption that would reflect on the moral and ethical and spiritual corruption that is evident in the ACLU from its founding consistently through to this very day.

For truly, can a leper change his spots any more than an Ethiopian his skin or a leopard his spots? And yet, neither the Ethiopian’s nor the leopard’s distinctive skins in any way reflect anything negative about their physical being, while leoprosy does definitely show forth a sickness of body that can be taken, when applied to the moral, ethical and spiritual nature of the ACLU, to mean a corruption.

In any case, Sears ought either to unapologetically use the full original literary citation–which does carry a sense of indicting a corrupt nature, or make some other allusion, even the flawed, mis-stated allusion of a “leper’s spots”. Leopards and zebras standing alone are a whimpy literary device.

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BTW, the statement recorded in Jeremiah 13:23 was a snippet from a long, uhm, Jeremiad levied by (of course) Jeremiah at the behest of God, against the Jews–“God’s own people”. Keep that in mind the next time you start feeling that America is elect, particularly blessed and “special”–only so long as we “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with [our] God”… we hope.

Perhaps that ought to be tattoed (in mirror fashion) on the forehead of every public servant, so that they might at least have some sort of reminder that justice and mercy are inextricably bound together by humility, since so few of them show any of those qualities. Hmmm, perhaps I ought to write a small screed explaining how none of those three can truly exist without the other two in equal measure… Nah. Waste of time. Those of y’all who already understand that don’t need to read it, and those of y’all who do not already understand it… won’t.

(BTW, I would have commented at the Townhall site where the article is posted, but the idjits just want folks to jump through too many hurdles, and I’ll almost never be that desperate to talk back to a columnist.)

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Trackposted to The Right Nation, The Virtuous Republic, Webloggin, The Pink Flamingo, The Florida Masochist, Right Celebrity, Stageleft, and Jo’s Cafe, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

[Amendment: *sigh* “Post at haste, repent at leisure” could apply. I meant to follow the post title with, “…Payoffs are not,” as the first sentence of this post. Would have made kore sense.]

Note that there is one provision of the Senate Shamnesty Billate that I could easily support, were it presented on its own: a provision offering a citizenship track to certain illegal aliens for service (and honorable discharge on completion of service) in the Armed Forces of the United States. Such persons would, IMO, have offered full restitution for their crimes and amended their faulty immigration status by their service. In fact, you might note I agreed with Jerry Pournelle’s suggestion along those lines earlier:

“…as I have often said, the proper way to deal with illegal immigrants, is (1) close the border, (2) pay a bonus to any who will voluntarily leave — say $4,000 or so, which is significant to them but still a savings to both nation and state; (3) instruct the police that any who come their attention as misfeasors of any serious degree be turned over to the authorities for detention and deportation and make that stick, (4) offer citizenship to any who spend 8 years in the armed services ending in honorable discharge, and (5) wait to see what happens then. I have no idea whether you would call that compassionate. It seems very reasonable to me.” [emphasis added]

As before, I’m not all that happy with rewarding illegal aliens for “catching” themselves and performing a self-deportation. In fact, I’d be happier if a bounty–with protections against abuse–were in place to reward citizens who turned in illegals who were then deported deep into Mexico (if Mexican or if entered from there) or their countries of origin. Heck, I could retire off bounties within a couple of months (not that that significantly affects my position, since it’s a matter of principle, not economic–rewarding outlaws for breaking the law is never a good idea).

In fact, I’m a tad surprised at Pournelle for suggesting that we pay illegals to leave, since he was once fond of quoting:

Danegeld
by Rudyard Kipling

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
“We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, DeMediacratic Nation, Maggie’s Notebook, Adam’s Blog, The Pet Haven Blog, Stuck On Stupid, Webloggin, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, , The Florida Masochist, Conservative Cat, Jo’s Cafe, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, Right Celebrity, Woman Honor Thyself, Stageleft, Wake Up America, The Uncooperative Blogger, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Nuke’s news and views, The Right Nation, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.