American Express's New, Especially Insane Commercial
Topic: Politics and Law
5:56 pm EDT, Jul 4, 2008
I've been seeing this distasteful thing being aired for a couple of days now, and I'm aghast they'd even have considered airing it once.
A customer approaches the ticketing counter and says he needs a flight to SFO for his business for a VC pitch, puts his card on the counter. It's a custom card with kittens on it. The attendant looks at it and says "...and you said this is a business flight?".
Almost immediately, there are two TSA employees behind the customer, telling him to come with them. One of them is snapping on a latex glove.
While he's being led away, another customer comes up and buys a ticket to SFO, hands over his AMEX card, and is simply thanked.
So, is it just me or is this commercials veiled threat that if you don't use Amex you're going to get someone facist's hand shoved up your ass particularly beyond the pale?
So, what of this claim Bush has made about there are no plans for a permanent occupation of Iraq?
It seems they were (drumroll please) YET MORE LIES!
Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
Annals of National Security: Preparing the Battlefield
Topic: Society
4:21 pm EDT, Jun 30, 2008
“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.
The upshot? We've covertly invaded Iran. Oops part deux.
Seymour Hersh exposes US covert operations in Iran
Topic: Current Events
4:20 pm EDT, Jun 30, 2008
This is basically some video footage of the guy from the New Yorker talking about his findings with respect to the US performing covert ops on Iran.
Covert ops that have actually affirmed Iran's statement that nuclear weapons weren't doing them any good, so now they're trying to make electricity.
...except that Bush and Cheney are disregarding the evidence at hand and looking to further destabilize the region before leaving office by invading or at least attacking Iran. My guess is that they're aiming to generate an excuse to call off the elections.
Report: Kicking the no-good president out of office
Topic: Miscellaneous
2:06 pm EDT, Jun 30, 2008
Well, it does appear that even though there was ample complaining being done after 911 about people bungling intelligence reports that certain posts in our government are being filled by people who still haven't learned a less.
Regardless of whether or not all intelligence reports confirm that Iran has actually not been working on any nuclear weapons programs since 2003, Bush and Cheney appear determined to proactively attack Iran before they leave office.
We don't need any more fucking wars.
I say, kick the bums out. Bring on the impeachments before the ever-escalating conflicts driven by our megalomaniac from Texas ruin everything.
It doesn't matter. The ruling came down. "We the people" won. This should put us a step closer back to the "right" way of things--the government afraid of it's people, instead of the other way around.
The argument that was being made by pro-gun-elimination advocates was that the Constitution supposedly meant that a militia had the right to bear arms, but "the people" didn't. The problem there is that militias are usually controlled by the local governments (or they're declared terrorists and infiltrated and destroyed), which are controlled by the etc etc. Being that this section was put in there specifically because we'd just shed the British from our soil--and needed a lot of guns to do it--their "people shouldn't have guns" viewpoint would make the 2nd Amendment less than useless.
The Supreme Court very rightly decided that the only sane interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was that it was there to make sure that individuals could bear arms in order to be able to fight back against their government, should circumstances make this necessary.
This is especially important stuff since we've got King George in the White House. I'm still not wholly convinced he's actually letting go in November. I certainly don't want to see anyone get shot, but a few hundred thousand people showing up in DC asking politely with guns for him to leave office would probably not be such a bad thing.
Gosh, guess which area has a strict "you can't have a gun" policy.
"Business Tries Debit Cards Instead of Pay Checks" says the title.
The problem here is that the majority of places using them are doing so because their employees can't get a bank account that they can deposit checks into. (...and let's try not to think about the privacy issues involved)
This happens for a few reasons, bad credit being one, bouncing a lot of checks being another, and a big new one... no legal residence because they're illegal aliens. (It's not real hard to have one bank refuse to give you a checking account, and if they won't give you a checking account you're not getting a debit card account either, as at least one user here I know of has found out in the past. Once one bank hits this point, none of them will touch you.)
These pay card arrangements let banks cash in on the easy money that the financially disadvantaged would otherwise have been giving to those shifty check cashing shops which charge pretty sizable percentages. ...because if you use these cards at an ATM, well, you're probably not really a member of any bank, so you're going to be paying that two-dollar-and-higher fee to the ATM vendor every time. This can easily be as much as 10-15% of someone's income getting eaten in fees trying to get the money back out of that card.
One can argue that they don't have to use an ATM, but the fact of the matter is that they do use them just like most them don't have to use the pay-day advance services and check into cash shops, but they still do. Bad decision-making (and it doesn't even have to be seriously bad decisions, just mildly bad ones will do) coupled with unrealistic depictions of how things should work by amoral businesses is how many of these people got the low financial tier in the first place. That people use them not knowing exactly what kind of mess they're getting themselves into is how these places have been consistently coming up with 700% and higher returns on their investments.
Another big plus for the businesses is that if they write a check, the moment the employee deposits it the money leaves the bank the employer is using and probably doesn't come back. Giving employees a debit card allows the financial institution to just hang onto that money for that much longer--especially in the case of people who can't get a "real" bank account.
But hey, I guess it should be considered progressive that now large financial institutions can tap into the same heady revenue sources that were previously only the domain of sleazebags and loan sharks. The poor may not have much money, but they are the overwhelming majority case, and they're a lot easier to bilk than the rich.
