political news and pure bs

I ordered a desk form Office Depot yesterday(it's the Studio RTA Malibu desk). I only ordered it online because the price shown was better than that advertised in the circular. It clearly showed the desk as $79.99 with a -30.00 "Mail-In Savings" offer. I thought that this was a bit odd. I called 1-800GO-DEPOT and spoke to a CSR that told me her name was 'Ace.' I was definitely calling a Bangalore Call Center. More on that in a moment. I was skeptical as I could not get the "MIS" form page to come up. I'd click the link, and be transported to a blank page. I was told not to worry. 'Ace' assured me that the "MIS" was valid - just a database glitch you understand - so instead of traveling the 50 miles to pick the desk up, I ordered it online. As of this morning at 8:00AM EDT the "MIS" link was still up. I went to breakfast. When I came back, I hopped online, and lo and behold, the -30.00 MIS link vanished.

So I got on the phone. I waited, and waited. Then waited some more. I explained to this CSR who claimed his name was "Alex" the entire story including my decision not to drive to pick up the desk. I repeated salient parts of the issue a couple of times. Finally, Alex got it. He told me that I would have to be transferred to the "Rebate Center," and would do so..So he did. After waiting on speakerphone for a timed 30 minutes, "Chelsea" takes my call. She too sounded like she was from the sub-continent.

After explaining my issue to Chelsea, she told the obvious; that there is no rebate form listed and that I would have to go to 1-800-GO-DEPOT. By this point I have wasted three hours between placing the order, being put on hold, and transfers. Chelsea's transfer didn't make it. I called 1-800-GO-Away-YOU-BOTHER-ME again. I got another "Alex." Too weird. I started to go into my story again when Alex, the return, told me that I had to speak to someone in the rebate center.

At this point, I emailed Office Depot, and am awaiting a response.

Add'l: "Chelsea" initially picked up my call and said in the clearest English: "Thank you for calling HP, how may I help you?"

Let's just state at this juncture, this is the worst experience I've had when actually dealing with humans on the other end of the line. If you're thinking about doing business with Office Depot, you have been warned.

I'll provide updates as required and available.

So, the son is just like the father in two unseemly ways:

1)Each term brings a recession

2)Each term brings a war(junior was quite the precocious little weasel here, as he invaded two countries in his first term)

w, hero of the world averred today:

Bush, taking questions from reporters on a variety of topics, said the United States still believes that al-Qaida was behind last week's disrupted plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners from Britain.

"It sure looks like it. ... It looks like the kind of thing al-Qaida would do," he said. But he said the United States has not made a definite conclusion about the sponsorship of the plan.

Asked if there might be any U.S.-based participants, Bush said, "Any time we get a hint that there might be a terror cell in the United States, we move on it."

Now Bush not only knows the mind of al-Qaida, but he and his pals are going to move on terror cells! Amazing!

How Does He Do It?

Let's watch to see if we can find the source of his power.

w: quite a guy...with a little help from Johannes ;)

link to quote source and article

..and other observances.

The last remaining investigative journo in America pens this:

In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. “It’s a moment of clarification,” President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. “It’s now become clear why we don’t have peace in the Middle East.” He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the “root causes of instability,” and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until “the conditions are conducive.”

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

Israeli military and intelligence experts I spoke to emphasized that the country’s immediate security issues were reason enough to confront Hezbollah, regardless of what the Bush Administration wanted. Shabtai Shavit, a national-security adviser to the Knesset who headed the Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence service, from 1989 to 1996, told me, “We do what we think is best for us, and if it happens to meet America’s requirements, that’s just part of a relationship between two friends. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and trained in the most advanced technology of guerrilla warfare. It was just a matter of time. We had to address it.”

Well, there's a load of surprises(heavy sarcasm).

Go and read this!.

Hersh even manages to get old friends like Dick Armitage in on the act. I'm a bit disappointed that Dicky Perle didn't make the piece. Now that man knows how to party! ;)

Sy lays it all out for you in his inimitable style. Not florid prose, but logically sequenced for all but Faux News viewers. He reports, BushCo. lies.

Remember when Perle called Hersh(and I'm slightly paraphrasing) "the closest thing to a terrorist we have in American journalism?" Really takes ya back.

But I digress.

Go. Read. Now.

Remember way back in the halcyon days of the WoT(War on Terrah)?

What was the drill again? Stop, duct tape, and blubber? Well maybe not precisely, but close enough for Department of Homeland Security(DHS) work ;)

Well, I know that this is going to come as a shock to you all, but there is a segment of the population that believes that the DHS guidelines are woefully inadequate.

No! It is not the choir at the Rapture Ready bulletin board!

It's those pointy heads at the Federation of American Scientists. The nerve of those people. They issued a press release and launched webpages mocking those of our beloved DHS.

The FAS folks count 'extreme heat' amongst their list of natural disasters. Apparently some folks think that this could be a real issue in the near future.

The FAS is far ahead of the politicos in taking global climate change seriously. This is a welcome development.

Can terrorists kill some people? Sure. Can terrorists end civilization as we know it? No. Unless they score the nukes of the US or Russia. Climate change, on the other hand, can accomplish what the terrorists cannot.

Bravo, FAS! Now that Kansas has re-entered the 21st century, maybe, just maybe, we'll have some real action on the climate front.

I am not however, holding my breath.