The House and Senate have introduced versions of the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.00185:. Except for the one Republican co-sponser, the Senate version was voted upon along party lines. From the same Republican party that voted against a bill some years back that was a modern-day restatement of the Bill of Rights. Of course, the Democrats aren't much better and traditionally have been very willing to hold a gun to your head and demand you hand over your wallet so they can give your money to their political constituents. Oh, wait, the Republicans seem to have surpassed the Dems even on this front! What a time we live in.
Anyway, I would go a step further. Attorney General Gonzalez had the gumption in January of this year to state that the right to a Habeas Corpus petition/hearing is not expressly in the Constitution. Well, in a sense he is correct, but not in any meaningful way. The Constitution's "Suspension Clause" states that the right to Habeas Corpus may not be taken away except under a few circumstances. In other words, the framers of the U.S. Constitution recognized the pre-existing body of English Common Law. Of course, reviewing nearly 800 years of cases dealing with the right of Habeas Corpus is too tedious a task for those in the Administration. My suggestion is that we make it simple for them, and in such a way as to leave no doubt.
In the section dealing with Impeachment, the Constitution states,
"The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present." (Quoted from the website http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article2)
Now, it does not expressly state that a concurrence of three-quarters of the members present is also sufficient for conviction. It does not expressly state that that a conviction requires a vote of two-thirds or more. It does not expressly state that a vote of at least two-thirds is required. So, if President Bush were to be impeached and tried in the Senate, and if 80 Senators voted to convict, I imagine Attorney General Gonzalez would be right there arguing that '...the conviction was not valid because the Constitution expressly states that the vote to convict must be two-thirds, which of course means no more and no less than two-thirds".
Of course, with this kind of logic, you could NEVER convict on articles of impeachment if all 100 Senators are present to vote on the conviction because two-thirds of 100 is 66.6666666666, and I do not know how you can have a 0.666 of a Senator (although some of the very, very old ones up there ....never mind).
While I'm at it, I'd suggest fixing a few other things more or less permanently. But how, you ask.
Constitutional Amendments, of course. I am the first person to say that Amendments should not be taken lightly and that the Constitution should be tinkered with only as a last resort. I think we have reached that point. We had a US Citizen arrested within a US State being held indefinitely without charges merely on the whim of the President. We have legally present aliens who have been rounded up and imprisoned indefinitely without charges. We have a Supreme Court and Appellate Courts that, until recently, have shown deference to the Administration on these issues. But the Courts, I think, need something a little more clear and definite than merely sound reason and historical precedent upon which to hang their hats. They need a bright line statement of what the right is, who has the right, and that rose by any other name would smell as sweet....in other words, that merely changing the name of a thing does not change the thing itself so that we don't end up with another mess like "illegal combatant" "illegal enemy combatant" "enemy combatant" and "prisoner of war".
What should Amendments say? Usually, the less they say, the better. I think we'd need at least two; one to deal with Habeas Corpus and one to clarify that the Vice Presidency belongs in the Executive Branch (which is just so stupid that I don't think I'll award points for creativity on that argument).
Perhaps I'll draft some proposed Amendments and float them for input?
damackay
Friday, June 29, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Wisconsin's Lame Driver's License Requirements
It seems to me that Wisconsin as over reacted to the federal "Real ID" legislation. Actually, I think they over reacted to the news articles and blogs in which Wisconsin was held in ridicule for having very lax standards with pronouncements like, "Osama Bin Laden could get a license or ID card in Wisconsin." While the old standards were lax compared to many states, the new standards are far too cumbersome.
I went to get my driver's license today. I was told I could not get one. I brought the only original bank statement I have available to prove my residency in Wisconsin, but it was not good enough because (1) it did not cover a period of 30 days {it was shorter because I had just opened it and I guess this bank keeps everyone on the same cycle?}; and (2) it only showed my initial deposit into the account {it's new, what can I say?}, no "activity".
I have another account that I moved from another state to the same bank chain in Wisconsin, but I don't get "original" statements on that account because I get them electronically. You know, the way that every bank on the planet begs you to take your statements because it's cheaper, easier, faster and reduces paper usage and waste. Not good enough for Wisconsin.
I told the woman at the window I'd either have to pay $$ to get a reprint of a previous statement, or I'd have to change my preferences and just wait for the balance of the cycle for another statement to be printed and mailed to me, by which time I might be in violation of Wisconsin law requiring me to obtain a license within 60 days of establishing residency.
Of course, based on the new requirements, I suppose one could argue that they have NOT established "residency" if they haven't opened an account at a Wisconsin bank AND they have not obtained in utilities in their name (WARNING - the DMV will NOT accept cable television bills). Apparently leasing an apartment in Wisconsin may not establish residency since the lease itself isn't good enough to prove your residence to the DMV.
I share this apartment with two other guys. One has the cable TV in his name (the bill for which isn't good enough anyway) and the electricity/gas bill is in the other's name. We have VoIP telephone service (not through Charter) for which I don't even get a bill, although I could print one out if I needed it (again, not good enough - the bills cannot be ones that you print out from a computer, unless of course you ARE the utility company printing the bill out on YOUR computer). So, I am not going to have a utility bill in my name to prove my residency in Wisconsin.
I haven't read all the rules, but I assume that the State has made an allowance for minors who get learners permits and then licenses - if they are living with parents or guardians it is HIGHLY unlikely that they have utilities in their names. It is also less than certain that they will have a bank account. HHhhhhmmmm, I guess the fact that their licensed parent is somehow vouching for them and this is good enough?
Also, please note that a residential lease is NOT on the list of documents that can be used to prove Wisconsin residency. Certain papers from the purchase of a Wisconsin residence are sufficient, but make darn sure you have EXACTLY what is called for on the list:
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/doc/proof-resident.htm
Also, remember to look at the other requirements for the DMV. You also have to prove your legal right be in the United States (certified birth certificate or US Passports work (the DMV's handbook states a "certified passport" is required, but I think this is an error as the website simply says "US Passport").
In short, if you come to Wisconsin and:
* you are not employed locally
* you don't open a local bank account and use it for a month
* you don't have any utilities in your name
* you aren't going to school
* you haven't bought a house
* you aren't receiving government assistance
then you aren't getting a local driver's license.
That's fine. I'll keep my $18 for the class D plus my $12 for the class M and I'll keep my old license from the other state. Wisconsin can keep their piece of plastic. I'll be less inclined to register my vehicle here as well when the time comes. It's registered in another state and I think it'll just stay that way.
Frankly, Madison is a lovely town, but there are an awful lot of negatives about living here. Perhaps I'll be leaving shortly anyway, so there's not much point in establishing residency now, eh?
I went to get my driver's license today. I was told I could not get one. I brought the only original bank statement I have available to prove my residency in Wisconsin, but it was not good enough because (1) it did not cover a period of 30 days {it was shorter because I had just opened it and I guess this bank keeps everyone on the same cycle?}; and (2) it only showed my initial deposit into the account {it's new, what can I say?}, no "activity".
I have another account that I moved from another state to the same bank chain in Wisconsin, but I don't get "original" statements on that account because I get them electronically. You know, the way that every bank on the planet begs you to take your statements because it's cheaper, easier, faster and reduces paper usage and waste. Not good enough for Wisconsin.
I told the woman at the window I'd either have to pay $$ to get a reprint of a previous statement, or I'd have to change my preferences and just wait for the balance of the cycle for another statement to be printed and mailed to me, by which time I might be in violation of Wisconsin law requiring me to obtain a license within 60 days of establishing residency.
Of course, based on the new requirements, I suppose one could argue that they have NOT established "residency" if they haven't opened an account at a Wisconsin bank AND they have not obtained in utilities in their name (WARNING - the DMV will NOT accept cable television bills). Apparently leasing an apartment in Wisconsin may not establish residency since the lease itself isn't good enough to prove your residence to the DMV.
I share this apartment with two other guys. One has the cable TV in his name (the bill for which isn't good enough anyway) and the electricity/gas bill is in the other's name. We have VoIP telephone service (not through Charter) for which I don't even get a bill, although I could print one out if I needed it (again, not good enough - the bills cannot be ones that you print out from a computer, unless of course you ARE the utility company printing the bill out on YOUR computer). So, I am not going to have a utility bill in my name to prove my residency in Wisconsin.
I haven't read all the rules, but I assume that the State has made an allowance for minors who get learners permits and then licenses - if they are living with parents or guardians it is HIGHLY unlikely that they have utilities in their names. It is also less than certain that they will have a bank account. HHhhhhmmmm, I guess the fact that their licensed parent is somehow vouching for them and this is good enough?
Also, please note that a residential lease is NOT on the list of documents that can be used to prove Wisconsin residency. Certain papers from the purchase of a Wisconsin residence are sufficient, but make darn sure you have EXACTLY what is called for on the list:
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/doc/proof-resident.htm
Also, remember to look at the other requirements for the DMV. You also have to prove your legal right be in the United States (certified birth certificate or US Passports work (the DMV's handbook states a "certified passport" is required, but I think this is an error as the website simply says "US Passport").
In short, if you come to Wisconsin and:
* you are not employed locally
* you don't open a local bank account and use it for a month
* you don't have any utilities in your name
* you aren't going to school
* you haven't bought a house
* you aren't receiving government assistance
then you aren't getting a local driver's license.
That's fine. I'll keep my $18 for the class D plus my $12 for the class M and I'll keep my old license from the other state. Wisconsin can keep their piece of plastic. I'll be less inclined to register my vehicle here as well when the time comes. It's registered in another state and I think it'll just stay that way.
Frankly, Madison is a lovely town, but there are an awful lot of negatives about living here. Perhaps I'll be leaving shortly anyway, so there's not much point in establishing residency now, eh?
Friday, June 8, 2007
Political Reality
A couple of days ago I heard a news story on the radio ... ok, not just any radio, it was XM and it was Air America, probably the Rachel Maddo Show. The story was that a survey of some kind had been completed that showed that only about 20% (maybe less) of Americans now consider themselves to be "Republicans". The flip side was that those who consider themselves to be Democrats was a higher number but not nearly as high as you might think. The upshot was that there were a LOT of people who did not consider themselves to be part of either party.
Do I smell Third Party? Frankly, the desire for a third choice has been strongly with us for a LONG time.
What percentage of votes was Ross Perot pulling in 1992? Now, it seems whenever I hear Perot mentioned in any discussion someone inevitably tries to dismiss him as a kook and/or jokes about his ears and/or someone starts imitating his voice while saying kooky things. WHY is that? Why do I seldom hear a discussion about how many votes he actually received?? He got 18.9% of the popular vote. He actually beat Bush Senior in Maine by a hair. He beat Clinton in Utah by more than a hair. And this was after he dropped out of the race for a time and then re-entered, claiming that Republican operatives had tried to interfere with his daughter's wedding. The wedding story was widely discussed as evidence that Perot was mentally unstable or just a plain, old liar. Knowning what we now know about Bush Jr-style Republican tactics, perhaps Perot's wedding story was just a sign of things to come? Perhaps Perot was trying to tell the truth about what happened without too many gory details? Maybe there was a true and more sinister aspect to the wedding story that Perot believed the American people would simply not believe if he told it and that is why the story didn't make much sense at the time?
Back to the point. A third political party.
"But Don, we already HAVE a bunch of other political parties. Why do we need another?"
Perot's party was the Reform Party and it was all about him. To my knowledge it did not exist before Perot's candidacy. Why is that? Why didn't Perot rise up through an existing party? I believe the answer is simple, but it also explains both the Democrat and Republican party flirtations with fringe elements in society.
These third parties (i.e. Libertarian, Green, Peace and Freedom) do not have a large enough "base" to win a Presidential election. They rarely have a large enough base to win U.S. House or Senate seats. (A "base" is the collection of persons who virtually always vote for the party's candidates regardless of the candidates' specific positions on issues.)
Why is that? To have a large base today the party has to meet one or the other, or both, of the following criteria. (1) the party has a platform and/or candidates that are widely visible and widely appealing; and/or (2) the party has obtained a large base in the past as a result of the first criteria and that base continues to vote with the party for any number of reasons regardless of the current platform and/or candidates (i.e. habit, feeling of belonging to a group, lack of a appealing alternative, feelings of loyalty).
Only the Democrats and Republicans meet criteria number 2. The other parties have not yet met criteria number 1, and none of them seem likely to do so in the near future.
In other words, the current crop of "alternative" political parties just do not have a platform or candidates that are appealing to a large section of the public. They just don't, end of story. Of course, a party could always turn up with an incredibly appealing candidate that could catapult the party to national success (if the Democrat and Republican operatives aren't successful in sabatoging that candidate - and don't believe for a second that they would not try). Failing that, our current crop are themselves too "fringy". Libertarians come off as too erudite and untouchable in their ivory towers. Greens come off as one step away from anarchists. Peace and Freedom makes people think of pot-smoking hippies (whether or not it is true).
The Libertarians ran an interesting questionnaire (which may still be available on their website. I'm not promoting any of them in this article, so you'll have to go find it yourself if you are interested!). It seems that nearly everybody who answers all the questions discovers that they are much more aligned philosophically the Libertarian party than they realized.
Why, then, don't the Libertarians have a candidate for the Presidency with serious chance at winning? Back to criteria #1 - visibility and appeal of the platform. And the same goes for the other also-ran parties. Visibility and appeal.
Again, using the Libertarians as an example: how many Americans would be for open borders? The Libertarian party is. Of course, the Libertarian view on this and many other issues does not work in isolation. You can't have Libertarian open borders without also having Libertarian abolishment of Medicaid and Medicare, and how many people are willing to let grandma fend for herself without Medicare at this point? To say the least, Libertarian-style government would have to be VERY carefully phased in over a long period of time to avoid disaster. It would obliterate many pet projects and upset many apple carts. When it comes right down to it, so many influential people would be so upset by it that I doubt it will get off the ground in my lifetime or in the next generations lifetime.
In other words, influential people would be inclined to suppress it (visibility), and many others would simply not be for it when it hurts grandma (wide appeal).
OK, so what about the base for the Democrats and Republicans? They are not doing so well in the criteria #1 department. Mostly I see them riding on the coattails of those who built their parties up before them - criteria #2. Their bases are dwindling. Fewer and fewer people are voting Republican or Democrat "because their daddy did". More and more people are feeling disenfranchised by both parties because the parties are not living up to their promises and/or peoples' expectations of them. At least some "values" organizations cannot be too thrilled with violations of law that are being revealed in the Republican administration on a daily basis. "Lefty" organizations cannot be very happy with Democrats like Ted Kennedy who seem so beholden to big-money pharmacy interests that they'll take away people's right to use herbs and alternative medicines.
So, with ever weakening bases, they two main parties find themselves flirting with fringe elements in society to try to win elections. Most obvious may be the Republicans appearing to align themselves with the likes of the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family. Perhaps less obvious is the Democrats appearing to align themselves with gay interest organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign.
I believe that a great many people are ready for a party that they believe represents THEIR interests. I believe that a majority of the population believes the following and would like to see a new party that addresses these issues:
1. Most elected officials at the national level are bought and paid for by corporations.
2. Most elected officials at the national level are more interested in winning the next campaign than doing the job that they were elected to do.
3. Most elected officials at the national level spend far too much time on issues of little importance to the majority of Americans (i.e. abortion, gay rights, prayer in schools).
4. Most elected officials at the national level see the American public as an endless supply of cash to fund pet projects or hand out to their friends.
5. Most elected officials at the national level don't give a damn about being honest with the public.
6. Most elected officials at the national level see themselves as "special" and as those who elected them as "common".
7. Most elected officials at the national level have proven themselves as willing to mortgage America's future in an effort to bolster the bottom line of a few mega-corporations.
8. Most elected officials at the national level (from BOTH parties) are willing to sacrifice individual rights and ignore the Constitution anytime it serves their own agenda.
If a new political party came on the scene that addressed these issues, look out.
Do I smell Third Party? Frankly, the desire for a third choice has been strongly with us for a LONG time.
What percentage of votes was Ross Perot pulling in 1992? Now, it seems whenever I hear Perot mentioned in any discussion someone inevitably tries to dismiss him as a kook and/or jokes about his ears and/or someone starts imitating his voice while saying kooky things. WHY is that? Why do I seldom hear a discussion about how many votes he actually received?? He got 18.9% of the popular vote. He actually beat Bush Senior in Maine by a hair. He beat Clinton in Utah by more than a hair. And this was after he dropped out of the race for a time and then re-entered, claiming that Republican operatives had tried to interfere with his daughter's wedding. The wedding story was widely discussed as evidence that Perot was mentally unstable or just a plain, old liar. Knowning what we now know about Bush Jr-style Republican tactics, perhaps Perot's wedding story was just a sign of things to come? Perhaps Perot was trying to tell the truth about what happened without too many gory details? Maybe there was a true and more sinister aspect to the wedding story that Perot believed the American people would simply not believe if he told it and that is why the story didn't make much sense at the time?
Back to the point. A third political party.
"But Don, we already HAVE a bunch of other political parties. Why do we need another?"
Perot's party was the Reform Party and it was all about him. To my knowledge it did not exist before Perot's candidacy. Why is that? Why didn't Perot rise up through an existing party? I believe the answer is simple, but it also explains both the Democrat and Republican party flirtations with fringe elements in society.
These third parties (i.e. Libertarian, Green, Peace and Freedom) do not have a large enough "base" to win a Presidential election. They rarely have a large enough base to win U.S. House or Senate seats. (A "base" is the collection of persons who virtually always vote for the party's candidates regardless of the candidates' specific positions on issues.)
Why is that? To have a large base today the party has to meet one or the other, or both, of the following criteria. (1) the party has a platform and/or candidates that are widely visible and widely appealing; and/or (2) the party has obtained a large base in the past as a result of the first criteria and that base continues to vote with the party for any number of reasons regardless of the current platform and/or candidates (i.e. habit, feeling of belonging to a group, lack of a appealing alternative, feelings of loyalty).
Only the Democrats and Republicans meet criteria number 2. The other parties have not yet met criteria number 1, and none of them seem likely to do so in the near future.
In other words, the current crop of "alternative" political parties just do not have a platform or candidates that are appealing to a large section of the public. They just don't, end of story. Of course, a party could always turn up with an incredibly appealing candidate that could catapult the party to national success (if the Democrat and Republican operatives aren't successful in sabatoging that candidate - and don't believe for a second that they would not try). Failing that, our current crop are themselves too "fringy". Libertarians come off as too erudite and untouchable in their ivory towers. Greens come off as one step away from anarchists. Peace and Freedom makes people think of pot-smoking hippies (whether or not it is true).
The Libertarians ran an interesting questionnaire (which may still be available on their website. I'm not promoting any of them in this article, so you'll have to go find it yourself if you are interested!). It seems that nearly everybody who answers all the questions discovers that they are much more aligned philosophically the Libertarian party than they realized.
Why, then, don't the Libertarians have a candidate for the Presidency with serious chance at winning? Back to criteria #1 - visibility and appeal of the platform. And the same goes for the other also-ran parties. Visibility and appeal.
Again, using the Libertarians as an example: how many Americans would be for open borders? The Libertarian party is. Of course, the Libertarian view on this and many other issues does not work in isolation. You can't have Libertarian open borders without also having Libertarian abolishment of Medicaid and Medicare, and how many people are willing to let grandma fend for herself without Medicare at this point? To say the least, Libertarian-style government would have to be VERY carefully phased in over a long period of time to avoid disaster. It would obliterate many pet projects and upset many apple carts. When it comes right down to it, so many influential people would be so upset by it that I doubt it will get off the ground in my lifetime or in the next generations lifetime.
In other words, influential people would be inclined to suppress it (visibility), and many others would simply not be for it when it hurts grandma (wide appeal).
OK, so what about the base for the Democrats and Republicans? They are not doing so well in the criteria #1 department. Mostly I see them riding on the coattails of those who built their parties up before them - criteria #2. Their bases are dwindling. Fewer and fewer people are voting Republican or Democrat "because their daddy did". More and more people are feeling disenfranchised by both parties because the parties are not living up to their promises and/or peoples' expectations of them. At least some "values" organizations cannot be too thrilled with violations of law that are being revealed in the Republican administration on a daily basis. "Lefty" organizations cannot be very happy with Democrats like Ted Kennedy who seem so beholden to big-money pharmacy interests that they'll take away people's right to use herbs and alternative medicines.
So, with ever weakening bases, they two main parties find themselves flirting with fringe elements in society to try to win elections. Most obvious may be the Republicans appearing to align themselves with the likes of the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family. Perhaps less obvious is the Democrats appearing to align themselves with gay interest organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign.
I believe that a great many people are ready for a party that they believe represents THEIR interests. I believe that a majority of the population believes the following and would like to see a new party that addresses these issues:
1. Most elected officials at the national level are bought and paid for by corporations.
2. Most elected officials at the national level are more interested in winning the next campaign than doing the job that they were elected to do.
3. Most elected officials at the national level spend far too much time on issues of little importance to the majority of Americans (i.e. abortion, gay rights, prayer in schools).
4. Most elected officials at the national level see the American public as an endless supply of cash to fund pet projects or hand out to their friends.
5. Most elected officials at the national level don't give a damn about being honest with the public.
6. Most elected officials at the national level see themselves as "special" and as those who elected them as "common".
7. Most elected officials at the national level have proven themselves as willing to mortgage America's future in an effort to bolster the bottom line of a few mega-corporations.
8. Most elected officials at the national level (from BOTH parties) are willing to sacrifice individual rights and ignore the Constitution anytime it serves their own agenda.
If a new political party came on the scene that addressed these issues, look out.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
SpiderMan 3, or, How Not to Make a Threequel.
I understand that other movie going folk have different tastes and interests than my own. To those other folks (i.e. YOU): just remember that as you read this.
What made SpiderMan 1 a good movie was the character development and emotional content. SpiderMan 2 was also an enjoyable movie for much the same reason, although I was concerned that the balance between CG and story had tipped a bit towards the former.
Perhaps it is a disconnect between the comic book world and my vision of what a movie should be. Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) is getting too old to play a character that is *so* naive. Does the comic book character likewise act about as mature as a 15 year old boy vis-a-vis interpersonal relationships? I'm not a comic book reader, so you'll have to educate me (i.e. hint hint, post a comment).
Back to the disconnect - I think I expect a high degree of 'realism' in my movies. Not the CG versus live set type of realism. The 'realism' I want is a realism in the characters themselves and how they interact with the plot and each other. I expect believability of behavior in a given circumstance. My expectations were unmet by SpiderMan3.
I suppose it was a so-so movie in its own right. If my expectations had not been raised by the two preceding installments, I would not have been so disappointed.
My only comment about the special effects: Did they recycle some sounds (and more?) from Star Wars I, The Pablum Menace, for SpiderMan3?
Nevertheless, my opinion is that #3 was really much more like #2 (the bodily function, not the sequel) and wholly underserving of the opening weekend sales it received.
And everything I just said here about SpiderMan3 applies to X-Men III except that (a) X-Men 1 & 2 were better movies than Spidey 1 and 2; and (b) X-Men III wasn't quite as disappointing as Spidey3 as there were many great scenes.
Come to think of it, had I known what SpiderMan3 would be to watch, I would have opted to stay home and watch Xmen III on DVD.
What made SpiderMan 1 a good movie was the character development and emotional content. SpiderMan 2 was also an enjoyable movie for much the same reason, although I was concerned that the balance between CG and story had tipped a bit towards the former.
Perhaps it is a disconnect between the comic book world and my vision of what a movie should be. Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) is getting too old to play a character that is *so* naive. Does the comic book character likewise act about as mature as a 15 year old boy vis-a-vis interpersonal relationships? I'm not a comic book reader, so you'll have to educate me (i.e. hint hint, post a comment).
Back to the disconnect - I think I expect a high degree of 'realism' in my movies. Not the CG versus live set type of realism. The 'realism' I want is a realism in the characters themselves and how they interact with the plot and each other. I expect believability of behavior in a given circumstance. My expectations were unmet by SpiderMan3.
I suppose it was a so-so movie in its own right. If my expectations had not been raised by the two preceding installments, I would not have been so disappointed.
My only comment about the special effects: Did they recycle some sounds (and more?) from Star Wars I, The Pablum Menace, for SpiderMan3?
Nevertheless, my opinion is that #3 was really much more like #2 (the bodily function, not the sequel) and wholly underserving of the opening weekend sales it received.
And everything I just said here about SpiderMan3 applies to X-Men III except that (a) X-Men 1 & 2 were better movies than Spidey 1 and 2; and (b) X-Men III wasn't quite as disappointing as Spidey3 as there were many great scenes.
Come to think of it, had I known what SpiderMan3 would be to watch, I would have opted to stay home and watch Xmen III on DVD.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Cingular's old, bad habits at the new AT&T Wireless
If you've been following this blog, you know I've been having lot's of fun with Cingular as the result of a 14 day trial of their service via a 3rd party retailer in Utah, Spring Communications. This latest entry is the notes I typed up during my call today to Cingular. (yes, it is awkward sounding but grammatically correct) I received a $400 bill a few days back. This bill was supposed to show either a zero balance, or at worst show a $50+ balance that would be wiped out in the next monthly billing cycle.
The summary is this: if you have no job and nothing better to do, and if you can keep good notes from each of your conversations with people at a monolithic enterprise, you just *might* finally get them to do as they promised.
Here are the notes. Gosh, they're L O N G!
04-23-07 T/C Cingular re: Bill Due April 24th of $400.24. (Argh!) Called at 1:22 PM CST. Pressed "0" at 1:24 PM. Pressed "0" again for a "real" person, and choose to NOT participate in their "customer service survey" (why can't the live person I deal with actually find out how I feel about this?). I got Barry (male) phone login ID #30538. I very briefly explained what happened. I also told him that I had spent at least a solid 10 hours of my time on this problem in various telephone calls to Cingular since returning the phones. He sees what happened. He assures me that since that bill in my hand for April 24th is not correct. He states that the early termination fees ($175.00 x 2 phones = $350.00) should not be on there. The CURRENT charges of $57.60 still ARE owed to Cingular because (1) the connection fees are owed if you don't return the phones within 72 hours; and (2) actual usage charges I ran up during the days I actually had the service. Start of service fees still must be paid. I tried to explain that the promotion to which I had responded was "if you're not satisfied, return the equipment within 14 days and owe us nothing". Barry said he reviewed all the promotions in the Pacific market from last December to present and Cingular has had no such promotion. Barry was getting a bit too much into 'lecture mode' here. 72 hours to return phones for no "start of service fees". I had to stop him and ask if it was possible that Spring Communications could have had such a promotion without Cingular being aware of it. "Absolutely", Barry said. He continued, "That's why it is "buyer beware" when you go to a 3rd party..." retailer. He actually said that!! Barry said that after he and I finished today that I would have to take up the matter of the remaining $57.60 with Spring Communications. He then asked if I had any written documentation of the 14 day promotion from Spring (if I did, maybe he could help me out). So, what I did was start to read Barry my notes from my March 21 conversation with "Berre", a female. These notes make it very clear that Cingular had already agreed to waive the $57.60 and completely zero out my account.
Barry put me on hold, then came back to say he has a floor supervisor to make sure he does everything right. Back on hold. Person I spoke to on March 21 was actually Brianna. The supervisor's name is Bradley (don't know his last name) and Bradley's getting this all fixed while I sit here and wait on the line. Not on hold, I can hear Barry typing his notes while I type mine! OK, Barry came back to say that the notes he's going through DO say "zero, zero, zero all the way through" (as in, I should owe nothing when it's all done). BUT, it seems that nobody actually got it done, or at least not completely done, to make sure it's really ZERO. Barry was much friendlier once he went back and read alllll the notes of phone calls I've had with them, and he was appropriately apologetic about that. I said I assumed it had to do with the merger of AT&T Wireless and Cingular billing systems...He laughed and said "ok, well go with THAT"....then he said no, not really. That isn't the problem here. It's just "driver error" or "user error" - people just didn't get it done. OK! It's all done!....silence! Barry had to yell for boss to come back. Yes, the boss sat nearby and actually fixed it all right now, so it's a ZERO balance. OK, he can't generate a bill or anything like that to send me, but he did suggest calling back in 5 minutes and asking a representative "what is the balance on my account?" Barry was much friendlier once he went back and read alllll the notes of phone calls I've had with them, and he was appropriately apologetic about that. Barry actually told me that we were on the phone for about one half-hour shortly before the conversation ended.
The summary is this: if you have no job and nothing better to do, and if you can keep good notes from each of your conversations with people at a monolithic enterprise, you just *might* finally get them to do as they promised.
Here are the notes. Gosh, they're L O N G!
04-23-07 T/C Cingular re: Bill Due April 24th of $400.24. (Argh!) Called at 1:22 PM CST. Pressed "0" at 1:24 PM. Pressed "0" again for a "real" person, and choose to NOT participate in their "customer service survey" (why can't the live person I deal with actually find out how I feel about this?). I got Barry (male) phone login ID #30538. I very briefly explained what happened. I also told him that I had spent at least a solid 10 hours of my time on this problem in various telephone calls to Cingular since returning the phones. He sees what happened. He assures me that since that bill in my hand for April 24th is not correct. He states that the early termination fees ($175.00 x 2 phones = $350.00) should not be on there. The CURRENT charges of $57.60 still ARE owed to Cingular because (1) the connection fees are owed if you don't return the phones within 72 hours; and (2) actual usage charges I ran up during the days I actually had the service. Start of service fees still must be paid. I tried to explain that the promotion to which I had responded was "if you're not satisfied, return the equipment within 14 days and owe us nothing". Barry said he reviewed all the promotions in the Pacific market from last December to present and Cingular has had no such promotion. Barry was getting a bit too much into 'lecture mode' here. 72 hours to return phones for no "start of service fees". I had to stop him and ask if it was possible that Spring Communications could have had such a promotion without Cingular being aware of it. "Absolutely", Barry said. He continued, "That's why it is "buyer beware" when you go to a 3rd party..." retailer. He actually said that!! Barry said that after he and I finished today that I would have to take up the matter of the remaining $57.60 with Spring Communications. He then asked if I had any written documentation of the 14 day promotion from Spring (if I did, maybe he could help me out). So, what I did was start to read Barry my notes from my March 21 conversation with "Berre", a female. These notes make it very clear that Cingular had already agreed to waive the $57.60 and completely zero out my account.
Barry put me on hold, then came back to say he has a floor supervisor to make sure he does everything right. Back on hold. Person I spoke to on March 21 was actually Brianna. The supervisor's name is Bradley (don't know his last name) and Bradley's getting this all fixed while I sit here and wait on the line. Not on hold, I can hear Barry typing his notes while I type mine! OK, Barry came back to say that the notes he's going through DO say "zero, zero, zero all the way through" (as in, I should owe nothing when it's all done). BUT, it seems that nobody actually got it done, or at least not completely done, to make sure it's really ZERO. Barry was much friendlier once he went back and read alllll the notes of phone calls I've had with them, and he was appropriately apologetic about that. I said I assumed it had to do with the merger of AT&T Wireless and Cingular billing systems...He laughed and said "ok, well go with THAT"....then he said no, not really. That isn't the problem here. It's just "driver error" or "user error" - people just didn't get it done. OK! It's all done!....silence! Barry had to yell for boss to come back. Yes, the boss sat nearby and actually fixed it all right now, so it's a ZERO balance. OK, he can't generate a bill or anything like that to send me, but he did suggest calling back in 5 minutes and asking a representative "what is the balance on my account?" Barry was much friendlier once he went back and read alllll the notes of phone calls I've had with them, and he was appropriately apologetic about that. Barry actually told me that we were on the phone for about one half-hour shortly before the conversation ended.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
More Bad Business with Cingular
A family member told me she got a letter from Cingular advising her that they would like her to cancel her contract early without any obligation on her part. Why? Because ALL of her usage last month was on other carrier's networks. In other words, not one call she made in the previous period was handled by a Cingular cell site. Granted, she lives in a smaller community in a Northern Tier state, but this is the first I've heard of a cellular company wanting to get rid of a customer. (see my earlier entry re: poor Cinguler coverage in Southern California) I assume this means that when a Cingular customer's calls "roam" on another network, Cingular must be losing money.
She gladly took them up on it.
I told her that I regularly refer to Cingular as the "No Bars Network".
She gladly took them up on it.
I told her that I regularly refer to Cingular as the "No Bars Network".
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Incompetent Businesses
I was so pissed off earlier today. I shouldn't have been. I should have just expected it and lived with it because I'll never get to talk to a person at the company that is actually RESPONSIBLE for how things work there.
I'm reluctant to write this because I am calm now and I do not want to feel like I felt earlier while this was happening. But here goes - perhaps you can relate?
As my readers know, I recently moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I moved from Southern California, where I was lucky enough to have Verizon's FiOS TV and Data services (didn't take their phone service, was already paying for multiple cell phones). The actual service was INCREDIBLE! I have never seen such a great picture on our HDTVs, or anyone else's. Now that I'm back on Charter here in MadTown, well, the lower quality picture is very obvious. Our data service is OK here, but nothing compared to our 15meg/2meg internet connection via FiOS. The only complaint I had with FiOS Internet was that I felt the Verizon DNS servers were slow at resolving to IP addresses...but I just used OpenDNS and that slowness was solved.
On April 6th, I called Verizon and cancelled my TV and Internet services as of April 10th. I returned the equipment (data AND TV boxes) on April 8th. Today is April 4th. After many hours and several calls to Verizon (and AMEX to reverse inappropriate charges from Verizon), it looks like a very nice woman named Monica at Dallas' Verizon facility finally took care of my problem with adjustments and what not. Now I'm getting back a little money they owed me!
But what about all the time and energy (and frustration!) before this? I spent about 90-100 minutes total on the phone today with Verizon. I spent time in mid-March trying to get a final bill. I spent about an hour on April 6th over two phone calls to get my services cancelled (because of a problem in Verizon's systems in looking up my account, which ALWAYS happened EVERYTIME I EVER had to do ANYTHING with them....I'm using the caps because it was so frustrating!!!). A part of me wanted to go into excruciating detail about just how awful this experience was (for example, I was swearing at the guy by the end of the first phone call today because he started saying he was having trouble because I was changing my story about the account details... the "detail" was that near the end of my service with Verizon, they split my single account for both services into two accounts, which I didn't want....and now it's my fault for forgetting about that in the early part of my call). But I think you get the picture, so no more details on this one.
For months now I have found myself complaining to my family that I did not want to call this creditor or that creditor because I had already spent X number of hours in the past week, or two, on phone calls with idiot creditors who had done idiotic things and I was tired of doing this. Why is this going on now and why has it been going on for so long? Is it just me? If not, why are WE putting up with this kind of treatment from outfits that are supposedly serving US?
Then there was the nightmare with Cingular cellular service. I made the mistake of trying them out around Christmas 2006. I had been out of state visiting extended family in Utah when I lost my Verizon cell phone (that's actually been a pretty good experience, comparatively speaking). My contract was over with Verizon and I wanted, among other things, to get a true 3G wireless data experience to use with my laptop and/or PDA via Bluetooth (who likes wires?). Verizon simply did not offer a phone at the time capable of pulling off everything I wanted to do
and Cingular did. Cingular offered a 14 day no-strings trial period. I told them I'd need to change my phone numbers when I got back to my home State in a few days.
So, what happens? The coverage is horrible by my home in Beaumont, CA. The coverage is bad most everywhere I drive around San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, Calif. I kept track and counted - I was missing about 75% of my incoming calls when at home because the phone simply did not ring. I would find out about calls hours later when my voicemail alert would finally decide to go off. This was a virtually unknown experience with my Verizon wireless service ANYWHERE that I have had it, and I've had it in many places over the years. I started calling them the No Bars Network, but I digress.
But the truly incompetent part was, again, the billing, which I will get to momentarily. I changed numbers (I had two phones on this plan) to ones matching my home after returning there. But after a couple more days it was plain that the service just sucked, so I called to cancel my service. Guess what? I bought my equipment (phones, chargers, cases) from a Utah dealer, not from a Cingular corporate store. So, this meant I had to return the equipment to that same dealer. I like the drive from Beaumont to Salt Lake City, UT, but I had just done it and wasn't quite ready to do it again. Fortunately, the dealer had stores in St. George, UT, which was only a six hour drive (one way) from home. So, I drove the six hours to St. George, stayed overnight in Mesquite, NV, and went back to Calif the next day, six more hours.
I called Cingular corporate, again, as instructed, to let them know the equipment was returned so Cingular could "complete" my service cancellation. I recall making this call while waiting for some fast food I'd ordered on the trip home (I like to multi-task). This was all done well within their 14 day time period.
Within two weeks or so, I received not only a bill for my California Cingular services for about $125.00, I had also received a bill for my Utah Cingular service. I was busy by then, making plans to move from California to Madison, and I figured both bills would sort themselves out by the following billing cycle. Nope, I got new bills, now about $250.00 each for Utah and California. The sad part of this story is that my first reaction wasn't anger or worry. What I felt was dread with a touch of frustration. Dread that it was yet ANOTHER, incompetent company with an incompetent billing department that was going to suck up another half day of my life.
Long story short, I called Cingular to fix it, they said they'd look into it. Shortly after, I get a NASTY collection call from Ms. Thing at nasty collection agency and she "...don't care, all she knows is dat I owe dem money." And I call Cingular again. And again. I believe the total phone time with Cingular by time it was all over (gosh, I hope it's over) was about 9-10 hours over several calls and several weeks. I don't actually have a final bill showing a zero balance, but I got one today from AT&T (oh, yeah, the company name changed from Cingular during this time) for less than $50. I was told they couldn't adjust all of it this cycle, so I'd get something like this. It's all supposed to be gone sometime in mid-April.
In the 4+ months from December 1st, 2006, until today, I will hazard a guess that I've spent about 40 hours on the phone hassling with creditors of various types who have screwed up one thing or another. Failure to cancel services, failures to send me bills by US Mail (that is, being signed up for online billing -incorrectly setup- without my permission), unexplained changes to my billing address in their systems so bills were sent to addresses I have no connection to, deleting accounts from my online profiles literally days before I login to make a payment and, viola, the account I wish to pay on is GONE (usually while I'm in transit so calling to fix it is much harder, and the payment is due now), creditors charging fees while claiming I paid late even though I mailed the payment ten days before the due date and the mail is going only one state away (at least Bank of America stopped pulling this repeatedly once I started mailing with delivery confirmation - and the huge lawsuit against them for the same practice might have helped, too).
What the heck is going on with all these companies? It's not just me because it's happening to others in my household and in my extended family. At first I thought it was honest mistakes, especially with companies switching to online payment systems, etc... But it's been getting worse over too many years for me to believe that anymore. I believe it's a combination of factors, but at the heart of it all is money. These companies have little incentive to play nice because they end up collecting more money almost everytime they have an "oops". A late fee. An extra month or two of service fees because they have no record of you calling to cancel (and YOU have no record of it, either, right?). An over-draft fee (you do know, don't you, that the biggest growth area in profitability for banks and the like is in miscellaneous fees) because that deposit you made yesterday isn't available yet even though they don't normally hold your deposits anymore (but, then, you don't normally want any of your deposits back so quickly, do you?).
Before you tell me I'm being paranoid, ask yourself this. Did you know that banks have been getting advice from consultants for years now to process customer's credits in a certain pattern to increase the amount of NSF fees they can charge to your account? It works like this: Let's say you wrote 10 checks that all come through tonight. The first nine checks are all for $1.00 each. The last check is for $11.00. Let's say you only have $12.00 in your account tonight. If the bank was your friend, they'd pay out the nine checks for $1.00 each and only bounce the single check for $11.00, probably resulting in an NSF fee of $36.00. If the bank is not your friend, they will pay the $11.00 check first and then one of your $1.00 checks, and then bounce the remaining 8 checks for $1.00 each, resulting in ...hold onto your hat... $288.00 in NSF fees. Wow! In reality, many banks have stop-loss rules in your contract with them, so they probably won't charge you more than two or three NSF fees per day, so you might only owe $72.00 or $108.00. An unscrupulous bank might put some of those $1.00 checks into another pile to be processed the next day, or even to spread them over a few days, to make sure you get dinged on every one possible for an NSF fee. It is BIG business, trust me. If you pay $10/month in fees to keep your account open, that's $120 per year. They could collect nearly that much in one day with some properly sequenced bounced checks.
So, this brings me back to "incompetent businesses". Maybe they really are just incompetent. Perhaps it's something much more sinister. Maybe they just have a lot of dumb but cheap employees, and cheap is good for the bottom line. Maybe they have really great employees, but not nearly enough of them; also good for the bottom line. Whatever the reason, having pride in their operations doesn't seem to be reason enough to treat customers competently. They need a financial incentive to actually provide competent service. It has to become more expensive to provide incompetent service or they won't change. And, in this day of extremely short-term thinking (and never, ever, thinking past the bottom line in the next quarterly report), that extra expense has to be obvious and immediate.
The obvious answer is to simply not do business with the incompetent versions of the businesses you need. I decided to keep Verizon because their billing has been fine and their wireless coverage has also been as good as it gets. But I'm using Charter Communications here in Madison because, well, the alternative is no TV at all (satellite dishes at this apartment aren't feasible) and TDS for DSL (expensive). A Hobson's choice. My family has had serious billing issues with Charter in other markets and we spent a few weeks living here WITHOUT Charter, trying desperately to find an alternative. There isn't one if you want to watch SciFi Channel! Perhaps this is one reason they decided monopolies weren't such a good idea back in the 30's?
So, what do you think we should do to kick these incompetents in the butt so they'll treat us customers better?
I'm reluctant to write this because I am calm now and I do not want to feel like I felt earlier while this was happening. But here goes - perhaps you can relate?
As my readers know, I recently moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I moved from Southern California, where I was lucky enough to have Verizon's FiOS TV and Data services (didn't take their phone service, was already paying for multiple cell phones). The actual service was INCREDIBLE! I have never seen such a great picture on our HDTVs, or anyone else's. Now that I'm back on Charter here in MadTown, well, the lower quality picture is very obvious. Our data service is OK here, but nothing compared to our 15meg/2meg internet connection via FiOS. The only complaint I had with FiOS Internet was that I felt the Verizon DNS servers were slow at resolving to IP addresses...but I just used OpenDNS and that slowness was solved.
On April 6th, I called Verizon and cancelled my TV and Internet services as of April 10th. I returned the equipment (data AND TV boxes) on April 8th. Today is April 4th. After many hours and several calls to Verizon (and AMEX to reverse inappropriate charges from Verizon), it looks like a very nice woman named Monica at Dallas' Verizon facility finally took care of my problem with adjustments and what not. Now I'm getting back a little money they owed me!
But what about all the time and energy (and frustration!) before this? I spent about 90-100 minutes total on the phone today with Verizon. I spent time in mid-March trying to get a final bill. I spent about an hour on April 6th over two phone calls to get my services cancelled (because of a problem in Verizon's systems in looking up my account, which ALWAYS happened EVERYTIME I EVER had to do ANYTHING with them....I'm using the caps because it was so frustrating!!!). A part of me wanted to go into excruciating detail about just how awful this experience was (for example, I was swearing at the guy by the end of the first phone call today because he started saying he was having trouble because I was changing my story about the account details... the "detail" was that near the end of my service with Verizon, they split my single account for both services into two accounts, which I didn't want....and now it's my fault for forgetting about that in the early part of my call). But I think you get the picture, so no more details on this one.
For months now I have found myself complaining to my family that I did not want to call this creditor or that creditor because I had already spent X number of hours in the past week, or two, on phone calls with idiot creditors who had done idiotic things and I was tired of doing this. Why is this going on now and why has it been going on for so long? Is it just me? If not, why are WE putting up with this kind of treatment from outfits that are supposedly serving US?
Then there was the nightmare with Cingular cellular service. I made the mistake of trying them out around Christmas 2006. I had been out of state visiting extended family in Utah when I lost my Verizon cell phone (that's actually been a pretty good experience, comparatively speaking). My contract was over with Verizon and I wanted, among other things, to get a true 3G wireless data experience to use with my laptop and/or PDA via Bluetooth (who likes wires?). Verizon simply did not offer a phone at the time capable of pulling off everything I wanted to do
and Cingular did. Cingular offered a 14 day no-strings trial period. I told them I'd need to change my phone numbers when I got back to my home State in a few days.
So, what happens? The coverage is horrible by my home in Beaumont, CA. The coverage is bad most everywhere I drive around San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, Calif. I kept track and counted - I was missing about 75% of my incoming calls when at home because the phone simply did not ring. I would find out about calls hours later when my voicemail alert would finally decide to go off. This was a virtually unknown experience with my Verizon wireless service ANYWHERE that I have had it, and I've had it in many places over the years. I started calling them the No Bars Network, but I digress.
But the truly incompetent part was, again, the billing, which I will get to momentarily. I changed numbers (I had two phones on this plan) to ones matching my home after returning there. But after a couple more days it was plain that the service just sucked, so I called to cancel my service. Guess what? I bought my equipment (phones, chargers, cases) from a Utah dealer, not from a Cingular corporate store. So, this meant I had to return the equipment to that same dealer. I like the drive from Beaumont to Salt Lake City, UT, but I had just done it and wasn't quite ready to do it again. Fortunately, the dealer had stores in St. George, UT, which was only a six hour drive (one way) from home. So, I drove the six hours to St. George, stayed overnight in Mesquite, NV, and went back to Calif the next day, six more hours.
I called Cingular corporate, again, as instructed, to let them know the equipment was returned so Cingular could "complete" my service cancellation. I recall making this call while waiting for some fast food I'd ordered on the trip home (I like to multi-task). This was all done well within their 14 day time period.
Within two weeks or so, I received not only a bill for my California Cingular services for about $125.00, I had also received a bill for my Utah Cingular service. I was busy by then, making plans to move from California to Madison, and I figured both bills would sort themselves out by the following billing cycle. Nope, I got new bills, now about $250.00 each for Utah and California. The sad part of this story is that my first reaction wasn't anger or worry. What I felt was dread with a touch of frustration. Dread that it was yet ANOTHER, incompetent company with an incompetent billing department that was going to suck up another half day of my life.
Long story short, I called Cingular to fix it, they said they'd look into it. Shortly after, I get a NASTY collection call from Ms. Thing at nasty collection agency and she "...don't care, all she knows is dat I owe dem money." And I call Cingular again. And again. I believe the total phone time with Cingular by time it was all over (gosh, I hope it's over) was about 9-10 hours over several calls and several weeks. I don't actually have a final bill showing a zero balance, but I got one today from AT&T (oh, yeah, the company name changed from Cingular during this time) for less than $50. I was told they couldn't adjust all of it this cycle, so I'd get something like this. It's all supposed to be gone sometime in mid-April.
In the 4+ months from December 1st, 2006, until today, I will hazard a guess that I've spent about 40 hours on the phone hassling with creditors of various types who have screwed up one thing or another. Failure to cancel services, failures to send me bills by US Mail (that is, being signed up for online billing -incorrectly setup- without my permission), unexplained changes to my billing address in their systems so bills were sent to addresses I have no connection to, deleting accounts from my online profiles literally days before I login to make a payment and, viola, the account I wish to pay on is GONE (usually while I'm in transit so calling to fix it is much harder, and the payment is due now), creditors charging fees while claiming I paid late even though I mailed the payment ten days before the due date and the mail is going only one state away (at least Bank of America stopped pulling this repeatedly once I started mailing with delivery confirmation - and the huge lawsuit against them for the same practice might have helped, too).
What the heck is going on with all these companies? It's not just me because it's happening to others in my household and in my extended family. At first I thought it was honest mistakes, especially with companies switching to online payment systems, etc... But it's been getting worse over too many years for me to believe that anymore. I believe it's a combination of factors, but at the heart of it all is money. These companies have little incentive to play nice because they end up collecting more money almost everytime they have an "oops". A late fee. An extra month or two of service fees because they have no record of you calling to cancel (and YOU have no record of it, either, right?). An over-draft fee (you do know, don't you, that the biggest growth area in profitability for banks and the like is in miscellaneous fees) because that deposit you made yesterday isn't available yet even though they don't normally hold your deposits anymore (but, then, you don't normally want any of your deposits back so quickly, do you?).
Before you tell me I'm being paranoid, ask yourself this. Did you know that banks have been getting advice from consultants for years now to process customer's credits in a certain pattern to increase the amount of NSF fees they can charge to your account? It works like this: Let's say you wrote 10 checks that all come through tonight. The first nine checks are all for $1.00 each. The last check is for $11.00. Let's say you only have $12.00 in your account tonight. If the bank was your friend, they'd pay out the nine checks for $1.00 each and only bounce the single check for $11.00, probably resulting in an NSF fee of $36.00. If the bank is not your friend, they will pay the $11.00 check first and then one of your $1.00 checks, and then bounce the remaining 8 checks for $1.00 each, resulting in ...hold onto your hat... $288.00 in NSF fees. Wow! In reality, many banks have stop-loss rules in your contract with them, so they probably won't charge you more than two or three NSF fees per day, so you might only owe $72.00 or $108.00. An unscrupulous bank might put some of those $1.00 checks into another pile to be processed the next day, or even to spread them over a few days, to make sure you get dinged on every one possible for an NSF fee. It is BIG business, trust me. If you pay $10/month in fees to keep your account open, that's $120 per year. They could collect nearly that much in one day with some properly sequenced bounced checks.
So, this brings me back to "incompetent businesses". Maybe they really are just incompetent. Perhaps it's something much more sinister. Maybe they just have a lot of dumb but cheap employees, and cheap is good for the bottom line. Maybe they have really great employees, but not nearly enough of them; also good for the bottom line. Whatever the reason, having pride in their operations doesn't seem to be reason enough to treat customers competently. They need a financial incentive to actually provide competent service. It has to become more expensive to provide incompetent service or they won't change. And, in this day of extremely short-term thinking (and never, ever, thinking past the bottom line in the next quarterly report), that extra expense has to be obvious and immediate.
The obvious answer is to simply not do business with the incompetent versions of the businesses you need. I decided to keep Verizon because their billing has been fine and their wireless coverage has also been as good as it gets. But I'm using Charter Communications here in Madison because, well, the alternative is no TV at all (satellite dishes at this apartment aren't feasible) and TDS for DSL (expensive). A Hobson's choice. My family has had serious billing issues with Charter in other markets and we spent a few weeks living here WITHOUT Charter, trying desperately to find an alternative. There isn't one if you want to watch SciFi Channel! Perhaps this is one reason they decided monopolies weren't such a good idea back in the 30's?
So, what do you think we should do to kick these incompetents in the butt so they'll treat us customers better?
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Roads & Gas Tax in Madison
Had an interesting talk today with a man at a shop that's doing the brakes on my VW Golf. He said that Wisconsin has the highest gas taxes in the country, or at least as high as any other State. He also said that kids raised here are told in school for years that Wisconsin has the "best" drivers and the "best" roads. Finally, he said that if you watch news stories on TV, when they have occasion to mention gasoline taxes, their stories frequently also mention that Wisconsin's roads are great (presumably because of all the gas tax money that is spent to maintain them).
Now, I've only been in Madison since early February 2007. I haven't taken the time to check out this man's comments, but I'll take them at face value for the sake of this rant.
Okay, I had to know. In 2002, Wisconsin ranked 4th highest in total "cents per gallon" charged. I don't know Wisconsin's ranking for 2007, but amount of "cents per gallon" charged is higher now, over 50 cents per gallon! Wow.
All one has to do is drive down Mineral Point between the Loop Fwy and Whitney Way to know that the money hasn't been spent here. Here's a short list of the places I've driven in the past few years:
New Orleans Los Angeles Dallas Houston Austin Phoenix Tucson
Albuquerque Portland, ME Boston Columbus, OH Indianapolis New York, NY
Seattle, WA St. Louis, MO Okla City And whole bunch of other towns ....
Mineral Point in Madison is in terrible condition. It is even worse when you compare it's condition to the neighborhood it is in.
The worst roads in the worst neighborhoods of Los Angeles are not as bad to drive on in my experience. Interstate 44 heading NorthEast from Oklahoma City was pretty horrible (are you listening, Oklahoma?), but I was driving a huge moving truck heavily loaded at the time. I imagine it would have felt better in a passenger vehicle.
Some roads in the historic areas of New Orleans were pretty darn awful (this is all pre-flood info), but one expects things in New Orleans to be awful...which is an awful thing to say. At least they have the excuse of having far less tax money to work with and far softer, sloppier ground that is unstable.
Madison is supposed to be full of well educated, involved citizens. Why are they letting the politicians get away with spending all that gas tax on something other than Madison's roads?
I'll withhold commenting on the quality of Wisconsin drivers until I've gained more experience with them.
Now, I've only been in Madison since early February 2007. I haven't taken the time to check out this man's comments, but I'll take them at face value for the sake of this rant.
Okay, I had to know. In 2002, Wisconsin ranked 4th highest in total "cents per gallon" charged. I don't know Wisconsin's ranking for 2007, but amount of "cents per gallon" charged is higher now, over 50 cents per gallon! Wow.
All one has to do is drive down Mineral Point between the Loop Fwy and Whitney Way to know that the money hasn't been spent here. Here's a short list of the places I've driven in the past few years:
New Orleans Los Angeles Dallas Houston Austin Phoenix Tucson
Albuquerque Portland, ME Boston Columbus, OH Indianapolis New York, NY
Seattle, WA St. Louis, MO Okla City And whole bunch of other towns ....
Mineral Point in Madison is in terrible condition. It is even worse when you compare it's condition to the neighborhood it is in.
The worst roads in the worst neighborhoods of Los Angeles are not as bad to drive on in my experience. Interstate 44 heading NorthEast from Oklahoma City was pretty horrible (are you listening, Oklahoma?), but I was driving a huge moving truck heavily loaded at the time. I imagine it would have felt better in a passenger vehicle.
Some roads in the historic areas of New Orleans were pretty darn awful (this is all pre-flood info), but one expects things in New Orleans to be awful...which is an awful thing to say. At least they have the excuse of having far less tax money to work with and far softer, sloppier ground that is unstable.
Madison is supposed to be full of well educated, involved citizens. Why are they letting the politicians get away with spending all that gas tax on something other than Madison's roads?
I'll withhold commenting on the quality of Wisconsin drivers until I've gained more experience with them.
Friday, March 30, 2007
What is it with Pepsi in Wisconsin?
Not to restart the age-old debate of Coke versus Pepsi, but I cannot believe how many establishments in Madison Metro serve Pepsi products. Most places I have lived have been much more balanced - some offer Coke, some offer Pepsi. In my California and Louisiana experience, movie theaters seemed to favor Pepsi products.
It doesn't bother me directly, but I eat out and see movies with others who have strong feelings about one product over the other. And, of course, they all prefer Coke to the point of refusing to buy Pepsi. So I find myself feeling bad because I can have drink that I will enjoy and they will not. I know I shouldn't feel bad since it's their choice, not mine. I wish that the others I go out with could get something they like, too. But here in Madison Metro I have found only one theater that serves Coke (and I suspect that will change soon).
Thoughts?
It doesn't bother me directly, but I eat out and see movies with others who have strong feelings about one product over the other. And, of course, they all prefer Coke to the point of refusing to buy Pepsi. So I find myself feeling bad because I can have drink that I will enjoy and they will not. I know I shouldn't feel bad since it's their choice, not mine. I wish that the others I go out with could get something they like, too. But here in Madison Metro I have found only one theater that serves Coke (and I suspect that will change soon).
Thoughts?
New Apartment, New Town, New State - New Life?
Here I am in Madison, Wisconsin. I've actually been here for about six weeks, but the town recently went through a defrost cycle so it is like being in a new place - again! For people who have lived here, or anywhere with a real winter, for a long time, may think I'm nuts. For them, it's just the normal freeze-thaw cycle. For someone who has lived most of their life in Southern California, where the seasonal landscape change is brown to greeenish-brown to golden-brown and back to brown, going from very cold and white to suddenly shorts weather, green grass (that somehow was hiding under the snow), and hundreds of thousands of trees with buds openning. The most unusual change may be the numerous, desolate ice fields that were filled with trucks and fisherman suddenly have become ponds and lakes full of geese and ducks (I'm assuming the trucks were removed prior to the thaw).
The apartment is a bit small compared to what I had been renting out West, but it's also less than half the price! The utilities have also been noticably lower here despite the extra cold. It is comfortable for now, but I really am a house and yard kind of person. I like to do home improvement projects as they give me a sense of accomplishment which can be harder to come by working on conceptual matters at the office.
Wisconsin seems like an essentially nice place geographically (if you don't mind the cold, which I don't). It seems to be filled with a lot of friendly people who like to talk. I'm a cheese lover by nature, so I have been indulging in that aspect of Wisconsin living - a wide variety of locally made fromage.
Anyway, this blog isn't intended to be personal diary but I make no promises. My interestes are many and varied. Politics, genealogy, gemology, motorcycle, religion, sex, movies, music, they are all fair game.
Please participate.
Don
The apartment is a bit small compared to what I had been renting out West, but it's also less than half the price! The utilities have also been noticably lower here despite the extra cold. It is comfortable for now, but I really am a house and yard kind of person. I like to do home improvement projects as they give me a sense of accomplishment which can be harder to come by working on conceptual matters at the office.
Wisconsin seems like an essentially nice place geographically (if you don't mind the cold, which I don't). It seems to be filled with a lot of friendly people who like to talk. I'm a cheese lover by nature, so I have been indulging in that aspect of Wisconsin living - a wide variety of locally made fromage.
Anyway, this blog isn't intended to be personal diary but I make no promises. My interestes are many and varied. Politics, genealogy, gemology, motorcycle, religion, sex, movies, music, they are all fair game.
Please participate.
Don
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