Monday, May 25, 2009
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So I have had XM radio for almost 5 years. I pay for it a year at a time. Always on time. You would think that they would treat a customer like this well. Nope, not at XM. I sold my old Corvette to my father a couple of years ago when I got my new one. He transferred the XM service to his account, well little did I know that XM didn't take that radio off my account. So they have been double dipping. I called tonight because I know that my car is paid up. I got an email saying my service would be shut off if I didn't pay my balance. I talked to one girl saw that the '06 Corvette was on two accounts and removed that radio from my account and credited what was "due" back to my account. She then transferred me to another woman who was supposed to look stuff up and figure out the radios and credits. She did no such thing. She told me it is not possible for one radio to be on two accounts. Said I was never double charged. All this without looking at my father's account to see that the same radio was on there and paid through next year. What she did do was try and charge me another $84 through next May. I paid $77 through November 09 last November. She said I couldn't stay on my current plan because I only have one radio, so I needed to give them another $84. Mean while she was telling me full price for 1 year with one radio is $142 but she is trying to get another $84 which would take my out of pocket for one radio this year to $161. Not to mention the over charges for the other Vette, which according to her can't happen. So I was explaining my stance on not giving them another dollar till November and she transferred me to hold then another lady picked up. This poor woman gets me and I am really angry now. I kept it cool, but with a stern voice, not abusive to the person on the phone at all. So I am waiting for a manger to call me. 3 weeks ago when I was trying to solve this issue, a manager was supposed to call. Never happened. So I am waiting for them to just shut my radio off. I plan to write a letter to the FTC, FCC, my senators and representatives. This is why Sirius and XM should never have been allowed to merge. The new company doesn't care, they have the market and are screwing the customer every which way they can. Sirus/XM Radio is losing customers left and right, this is exactly why. Last quarter they LOST customers. They said it was because the auto industry has slowed. Guess what maybe it is the complete lack of customer service and accountability that the company is displaying. I guess they must need to pay Howard this month and need me to kick in a bunch of extra so they can keep him around or something. XM Radio owes me money and an appology for the monster run around. All this today and no resolution. Don't let them have your card to run as needed. They will run it over and over again. This doesn't even touch the changes of programming that happened where I lost my 3 favorite stations in favor of the crap Sirius version. I'll blog more about this later if they call me back or if my radio that IS PAID FOR THROUGH NOVEMBER gets turned off. Sirius/XM Radio customer service SUCKS!Labels: Cars and Racing, Entertainment, Personal, Politics, Technology
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Monday, August 04, 2008
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The link below is to a site that details the story of a Soldier that has just died from cancer related to exposure to toxic materials. Please read his story, it is not right and do what ever you can to help others like him and his family. Matthew BumpusLabels: Personal, Politics
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
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The other day someone told me that a report came out showing that Arizona had gone into recession. They seemed a little surprised by that. Let’s look at why Arizona would be one of the first states out west to be hit.
1. The state government and the new laws they continue to pass.
a. Putting photo radar on roads outside the cities. How is that good for the state? Sure people will go slower or tourism will just die. Why would I want to go to Arizona if I am going to get photo radar tickets constantly? I know they say they won’t send them out of state. Well then why are we wasting the money? Seems like the negatives outweigh the positives here.
b. New DUI laws. I agree that DUI is a huge problem. Not sure that putting people in jail for 30 days on their first offense is the answer though. First a person gets a DUI and is now going to go to jail for 30 days or more. They have now lost their job in most cases and it will be very hard for them to get a job if they are charged with a felony. I understand that the person is the one taking the risk and doing the crime, but this law is taking what may be a productive person out of the economy. My suggestion would be improve the infrastructure of the city at the same time. Buses, Cabs, how about putting the light rail in somewhere it might actually be useful. Not sure what the point of the light rail is if it doesn’t go to the airport, stadiums or anywhere in this city people might want to go.
Say they put the light rail in to go to old town and north Scottsdale, the new stadium in Glendale, the stadiums down town, ASU and Tempe and HOW ABOUT THE AIRPORT! What is the point of it right now? It really goes nowhere I can use it. I sometimes wonder how stupid the people are that put these things together. Here is an idea. Put a bus terminal in where people can ride the bus to the light rail, put cab stands in at strategic locations so people can ride the light rail and get off where they need and get a cab to their destination. I really don’t see how hard this would be.
But to go back to my original point, improving the infrastructure of the city would not only reduce DUI’s but would attract new companies to the city. Instead of using laws to try and somewhat drastically change society how about providing an alternative and then using laws to change society in a large number of ways.
Doing this would also have the effect of making Phoenix a greener city.
2. The housing boom. Phoenix was huge in the housing boom. I bought my house and it doubled in value in the first year. People who really couldn’t afford the house they were buying were getting approved for stupid loans. The loan companies were providing loans that were so unreal I couldn’t believe it.
I went to refinance and one of my friends told me to go with this loan, it was about the dumbest loan I had ever seen, the initial payment was so low I knew it was a bad idea. He tried to talk me into it over and over, I went with a conventional loan and happy I did. My house payment would be close to $3,000 a month if I had done what he wanted.
Fortunate for me, but a lot of people went with those loans. Phoenix is getting hit hard, that is loss of tax dollars and all those bad loans are now a drag on the entire nation. Someone should really be in jail for this crap.
I feel bad for the families that lost their homes, but they should have known better. The loan officer should have known, but the all mighty dollar got in the way. Now the people that worked hard and didn’t go the easy route get to bail everybody out that did and the economy takes the hit.
The only loan guy I will ever use is over at Sallie Mea, Tom Metzger, he always told me the truth and I always got what he said I would.
3. Basically there are a lot of reasons; I personally feel the biggest reason for Arizona’s issues is the state and local government. The governor needs to get up and start leading in a positive direction. The state senate needs to work for the people and the city needs to figure out what it wants to do. Does it want to be a premier city or continue to be so completely screwed up? Transportation in this city SUCKS! The Sherriff of the county has to go. There are lots of things that need to change.
Make sure you vote and make your voice heard if you agree with me or not. This state has issues in my opinion and the only way it changes is to vote and tell the people making those decisions what you want. Change is a good thing.Labels: Politics
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Saturday, March 17, 2007
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I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher last night. Dan Rather was on and they were talking about Fox News and it obvious slant toward the Republican Party. Mr. Rather said that people should use the internet as a supplement to TV, Radio and News papers because the tradition news outlets are more reliable. I can see his point, but at the same time, all of these outlets are just as susceptible to opinion.
It is becoming more and more obvious that reports and news organizations are more and more influenced by partisan politics and different special interests. So how are the traditional outlets more reliable than new outlets such as the internet? True you have to be very selective with the information that you base your decisions on when reading something on the internet, but you get more points of view on each topic.
Honestly I have next to no confidence in the information presented by the traditional outlets. Mr. Rather noted that the news business has been moved more toward the entertainment business. TV News shows are more like watching a reality TV show than a show that you should be getting important information from.
News has always been used to shape people’s opinions and to shape this country. I believe that the internet and information presented on the internet will help produce a better informed public. People just have to be very selective about the information that they believe, but hey now days you have to do that with the traditional methods as well.Labels: Politics
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Thursday, November 02, 2006
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I just watched a program on HBO called hacking democracy. This was one of the scariest shows I have ever seen. It shows how a particular brand of voting machine can be compromised fairly easily. It also showed the total lack of regard that some of our elections officials have for the system. One man who I am sure committed political suicide by going forward with the test he allowed should be giving an award for patriotism. I can’t remember his name, but will look it up and post it here. He is or at the time of the taping was the head of elections in Tallahassee Florida. He allowed a small group of people to run a somewhat controlled test of the ballot machine. They proved that it could be hacked. This was later backed up by a group at Berkley who found 16 other security flaws in the system. The scariest part is that what I saw them doing was not hard.
The systems maker is called Diebold. They remind me of big tobacco before they feel. On tape claiming time and time again that their systems are safe and that the people running these tests are wrong. Just like when big tobacco said cigarettes don’t kill people; all those crazy doctors are wrong.
What I saw as a computer programmer scared me. Their system is run using Microsoft Access. An extremely simple database and what I saw didn’t look hard to mess with. A simple virus on the tabulating machine and look I am president or at least I could win a county or two. These systems are self contained but still hackable before the fact until you get to the tabulating system. That is run on a basic windows machine that can be on the internet. True there is a paper trail which in the show was proven to be hackable as well. But a small virus and you could change the out come of an election with very little to say “hey there is something wrong here.”
The recount process where a bunch of disinterested humans counted the ballots seemed no better in Ohio. I am so disappointed.
Then there are the people elected by these machines. Most of whom seem to turn a blind eye to it. And why not? If it could be proven that hey you really weren’t elected and we are going to have to redo your election. You might lose and in turn lose your job, I would be disinterested too. Especially as a greedy, special interest politician.
I am not going to accuse either party of fraud at the polls. I am sure they both are doing it. I am going to accuse them of not being really Americans though. FIX WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM.
This is my opinion on how to fix it. First off the system should be entirely stand alone. No easy to remove memory cards. Each system should be like a vault. Can not be messed with from the outside until such a time that each elections data is to be archived and the machine reset.
Each machine at each polling place should be moved by armored car to the final collection location and the results downloaded to another system that is not on a public network which should include power grid. Each machine is local machine is plugged into the main tabulation system and results downloaded to it. Each local machine is still in tact. The download system is read only. No erasing of data at this point. Each system can only be downloaded once. No results can be seen until all the local machines have been downloaded. A final count is then printed and stored on a write once system for later inspection.
After you vote there should be two paper copies of your vote printed. One for you and one for verification that is signed and notarized. It is then slipped into an armored box. This insures that the computer collect the votes properly as the voter intended and that if the machine has any error a hand recount can be preformed and validated.
The fact that our election system is this much of a cluster is amazing to me. One of the most important American rights and it is treated so poorly.
If this country is scared of terrorism, well here is a huge gap for them. Election results are much to easy to manipulate. If a terrorist network with their abilities can pass encrypted data using images as the encryption method then cracking our very unsophisticated election system will be no problem.
I watched this show in true terror. There should not be competition in this market. It should be like building a war plane. You want the gig, show us the best you have. Ok company A is going to build the system and this is what we will use. There is no room for shotty work here. There are some very smart people in this country. This is not that complex a system to build and secure. It is time that it is done and the people taking office are with out a doubt the people elected.
Also stop making it hard for people to vote in certain areas. That is just straight bullshit. It has been true for ever that politicians don’t want you to vote. It is important that each persons vote be counted. Stop with the bullshit games.
It is each person’s right and their duty to vote. Make sure you do it at what ever cost.Labels: Politics
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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
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So today President Bush signed a piece of legislation that is totally unConstitutional.
These are dangerous times we live in. There are people in this world that want to completely destroy the United States and our way of life. These people will die with the belief that they will go to paradise in the after life if they die and take innocent people with them. They have no second thought about flying a plane into a building and killing thousands of innocent unsuspecting people.
So today with the pretence that he is protecting the American people President Bush signs a piece of legislation that has the effect of taking all liberties away from any person thought to be a terrorist. Not only that, this piece of legislation allows the President to decide which pieces of International Law our operatives and military can break and when, in fact possibly making any President an international criminal and/or war criminal.
But back to my main point. I understand the threat. I am aware that to win this war we must fight dirty and that having our hands tied will lose it for us. But I am not ready to give up my constitutionally guarantied civil liberties to do it and I am not ready to allow my government to do the same. Basically the President has said that these people are less than human and can be treated as so. That is not what made this country great.
I am scared of these terrorists as I am sure most everybody else is. But I am also scared of a government that has the power to say who a terrorist is and to snatch them off the street anywhere, torture them and use those confessions against a that person in a military “court” of law.
The leaders of this country need to get their heads out of their asses and start to think. This is not the USSR under Stalin. What is next for this administration a secret police to decide who is a terrorist and carry out what ever horrible tasks it takes to get the outcome that they seek? This is the exact tyranny that this country has been fighting for the last one hundred plus years.
The effect that these terrorist are trying to have is to change the way we the American people live our lives. They are trying to tear down this country. With the signing of this legislation into law, effectively President Bush has ripped the constitution in half and set it on fire.
President Bush, remember these words?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
There were some extremely intelligent men who wrote these words and had an idea of what freedom should be. Time changes and threats change, but losing sight of the freedoms and ideals that made this country what it is today will only accomplish the tasks of our enemies and weaken this country.
My hope is that the Supreme Court will strike this legislation down swiftly. If they do not my faith in this government will be severely shaken. These are scary times we live in. The people of this nation shouldn’t fear their own government as well.Labels: Politics
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Sunday, October 15, 2006
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The Arizona Senatorial election is getting stupid. It is all about pointing fingers and negative ads. Great, Jon Kyle did this and Jim Pederson wouldn’t have. You know what tell me what you would do about stuff that is messed up. Public schools, healthcare and things here at home that needs to be addressed. I would love to get out of Iraq, but we are there for the long haul. I want to know how they are going to fix the issues that affect the future of this country.
Stop acting like children and tell me something positive. If these people don’t start doing things that make a difference for the American public this country is in a lot of trouble. The in-fighting between Republicans and Democrats does us absolutely no good. Making the special interests extra money does us no good.
We were all told that we should absorb these high gas prices and let the gas companies make the money because they needed to upgrade their equipment. Funny, they did very little but pay their executives huge bonuses. Then we have pipelines break and pipelines that have been leaking for years, which the gas companies and government have known about. Nothing was done till it was so bad that they had to do something. Where is our leadership there?
Our public schools are a mess. Teachers are paid so little that they can barely afford to live in some areas. Good teachers are leaving the profession in droves because they want to live like a person. If we continues to lose teachers our children’s future and the future of this country will be very bleak.
So don’t spin me a bunch of crap that Kyle did this and Pederson won’t do this. I want answers and I want fixes. As I am sure the majority of this country wants. Making it easier for special interests to make money does a very small percentage of this country any good. Do something for the biggest special interest in this country, the children. Labels: Politics
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