Friday, April 30, 2010

Anger at Belgian face veil ban

link

Muslims, academics and human rights groups have hit out at a looming public ban in Belgium on the full face veil, following a decision in the country's parliament to make the wearing of the article of clothing illegal.


This is a fascinating article in Al Jareera (English version) , a middle eastern newspaper. The subject matter itself, the pro's and con's of a face veil , are not the fascinating part thought.

The fascinating part is that the article is heavily biased. There is no stock at all given to the notion that veils are a means of enslaving women (the reason why Belgium is doing this in the first place) and a great deal of stock about human rights and freedoms.

It is interesting to see them "take a walk on the wild side" in this manner, totally supporting the Islamic point of view and not mentioning at all any counter view.

I suppose this is the fault of western media , since they also have disposed of the whole notion of balanced reporting (at least hear in Canada) so if the middle easterner's are using them as an example ...sheesh !


aid Belgium "now joins Iran and Saudi Arabia in that exclusive but unenviable rare club of countries to impose a dress code in the public domain".


You forgot Canada. (Complete Nudity is forbidden in public)

Think that might be the USA as well.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

World Polled , dictators still hate USA, think democracy sucks

World warming to US under Obama, BBC poll suggests

Nearly 30,000 people in 28 countries were interviewed for the poll, between November 2009 and February 2010.

Fifteen of the countries have been surveyed every year since 2005, allowing long-term trends to be discerned.


what exactly do we mean polled ? And was there a state sponsored official with a gun escorting the state sponsored translater while this poll was being conducted, to insure that the respondant didn't accidently give the wrong answer ?

methodology section reports phone or face to face, by their "partners" in each country (in other words, in despotic regimes the state sponsored minder did all the work and no polster even bothered to show up)

So all the honest democracies gave their governments the middle finger and answered honestly , and all the despotic states gave their citizens the business end of a rifle and told them what they would be answering , assuming they didn't just take the poll out of their hands and fill it out themselves.

Yes...good methology.

Excuse me while I flush this down the toilet with all the other worthless advertising I receive every day.

Friday, April 16, 2010

N.S. newspaper ordered to identify online web posters

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/newspaper+ordered+identify+online+posters/2911779/story.html#ixzz0lH4c7gYS


HALIFAX — A Nova Scotia court has ordered a Halifax newspaper to release information about several people who posted anonymous online comments on a story about alleged racism in the city's fire department.

Michelle Awad, lawyer for Bill Mosher, the fire chief, and deputy chief Stephen Thurber, said the posters made defamatory comments about the two on the website of the weekly newspaper, The Coast, and they want to file a defamation suit against them.

"They're looking to secure a remedy for the damage they believe has been done," Awad said.

The judge ruled The Coast must release whatever details it has about the authors of the comments.


So. If you post any opinions online, you can be sued for them. Even anonymous sites, these lawyers have now decided to shut down freedom of speech.

Some of the people who post , they probably deserve it , I've seen a lot of outright lies and slander posted on the cbc news site for example. But still... everyone knows you take that chance in the comments section, and you get to refute it.

Now some lawyers want to get in on the act and start suing people left right and center.

This aint good.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

30% Discount

I used to work in a call center.

We got a lot of strange calls. Apparently save team offered these guys 30% discount if they'd stay.

And they left no notes.

Sorry buddy you're obviously lying to me , but I'm not allowed to say that. And you're in a new contract you're sticking around for a couple of years or paying the early termination fee. Wait for him to quit yelling and either demand a supervisor or end the call.

Because I know , we don't do stuff like that.

I was surfing , doing a google search. pop up from my provider rogers. you're over 75% of you montly quota.

Phone them up. I was on unlimited internet. Then they changed that to 60 gigs. Then they changed that to 30 gigs. Then 25. At the same time my usage went from 5 gigs to 20 gigs to 40 gigs. And I'm not doing anything illegal , copying dvd's , nothing like that. Just normal perfectly legitimate usage.

And I call them up. And I get told I'm a bad boy I'm using too much data because I'm on an older plan I was automatically moved to a new one (so much for long term loyalty...take note how they claim they value you , but then try to sheer you like a sheep in the next breath)

And I wind up in retention. And they offer me a 30% discount.

And i'm thinking , you got a clause in your contract that says you can change your mind any time you like. And there's nothing I can do about it I gotta ride out the whole 3 years even if you decide to turn off the taps and give me nothing.

And I'm thinking ...why does 30% sound so familiar ?

Oh yes, I was on the other end of this conversation a few times. It didn't work out so well for the customer.

Monday, April 05, 2010

The scumminess of Rogers

Phoned rogers to cancel my internet.

Offered me a higher plan at a 30% discount.

Umm... 30% off 60$ a month is still more than primus costs. Plus I'm being billed 10$ / month as a penalty for not having television.

I think they're scummy because they only make such offers when you're calling them up to quit. What about making such offers in the normal course of business instead of ripping people off by charging them 2.50$ / gigabyte overage fee's when they're not paying attention ? Thats like charging extra because we can get away with it , and then when you catch us , we'll stop but we don't give any back. I feel robbed.

I don't like dealing with people who commit robbery.

Plus various other charges that the government doesn't charge that rogers does, so primus isn't going to charge that.

Apparently their "save attempt" was to hope I can't add up a couple of numbers.

Unlmited vs 25 gig / month limit ... technically the same price in the best possible case, assuming they don't exercise their right to change their mind and rewrite the contract any time they like in any way they like.

Bye Rogers.

While I was ending the call with Rogers the line beeped and I picked it up. Primus...wanted info so they could run the credit check.

Oops...I still might not get Primus ???

This could get interesting ...

gEt out the rogers bill ... where is that 10$ fee for not having TV ? Umm... it's not broken down. Just a flat 35$ / month fee plus tax for internet.

Well ... they still kill me on bandwith even if they dropped the 10$ fee for tv a long time ago.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Goodbye Rogers. Hello Primus

Article = None , personal Experience

I started out ten years ago working in rogers tech support. Internet was about 30$ / month and it was unlimited bandwith, about 1 megabyte download speed , all that I needed.

They advertise that you really need 5 or 10 meg download for games.

Unless your a game manufacturer , in which case you normally advertise that a 56k modem will work for normal play. :)

Interesting contrast there.

Then this whole kerfluffle about people downloading entire DVD's and overloading the network came along.

Then they lowered my limit to 60 gigabytes a month. No biggy , I was only using 5 gig at the time.

Then they lowered my limit to 30 gig's a month. But I never incurred any overage how bad could it be ?

Then they lowered my limit to 25 gigs a month. And they intercepted my google page (read that "hacked into my data stream to show results google would not approve of and probably had no idea of" to pop up a really nasty message saying I had reached 75% of my monthly quota.

Phone rogers. My monthly quota was no 25 gigabytes a month. And I had used 20 gigs in about 14 days.

Every application on my computer , it seemed was using more and more bandwidth , but rogers was giving you less and less. And now the two had met in the center.

"You're on a grandfathered plan. You have to upgrade to a new one. " And sign a three year contract. If you fart , rogers considers you to have signed a three year contract. See my blog entry about the bell non contract contract where they can change anything they like and you cna't do nothing about it , rogers has the same thing , needless to say I'm not signing a three year contract with these idiots.

My wifes old phone provider , Primus has internet , and she reports they're a real business ,they won't just take your money and run as she suspects some company I never heard of before might do. (looked them up on the internet ..I won't mention their name since I know nothing about them they might even be perfectly legitimate).

35$ a month. No contract. 30 days notice to cancel. Unlimited bandwidth. About 5 megabit download speed (I was using 1.5 megabyte from rogers).

Heck , even if they lower the bandwidth to 200 gigs eventually , I'm only using 40 gig a month right now.

Signed up immediately. They didn't even want my credit card number they'll bill me later. They're fed ex-ing the modem. 4-7 days.

When I get it working , I'm cancelling rogers.

Rogers wants 35$ / month for 25 gig bandwidth and they tack on a 10$ penalty because I don't actually have a TV with them. And they want a three year contract you sign every time you fart.

I am so out of there.