Dear Recruiters,

Thanks for contacting me regarding job opportunities. While I am grateful that you have considered me for your position, I wish to point out the title of my resume posting, which clearly states that I’m looking for work in the Raleigh area. I do not consider (and I am sure I’m not alone in this) San Bruno, CA; Champaign, IL; Seattle, WA; nor even North Wilksboro, NC to be part of the Raleigh area. Contacting me again once I’ve pointed this out to you will do little to change my mind.

If perhaps in the future you can either find something in the Raleigh area or perhaps get a clue and actually read my resume posting, I would be even more appreciative of your efforts.

Your Pal,
Mark

One percent of the News and Observer last week (the space taken up by the columns of grumpy old Dennis Rogers and editor Melanie Sill) stressed that Memorial Day is a solemn day for remembering our nation’s war dead. They tell us it should be a day to honor their sacrifices.

The other 99 percent of their paper stressed that the biggest Memorial Day sale ever was taking place now. Full page ads, some cheaply sporting the American flag, screamed that car and furniture prices are slashed this weekend for tremendous savings. I’m sure the N&O wouldn’t debase our heroes’ sacrifices by profiting from the runaway commercialism of this solemn day, would they?

There’s honoring our war dead, you know, and then there’s a sale! You’re not doing your patriotic duty by wandering around some old cemetery. Go out and buy, buy, buy!

It’s the American way, right N&O?

(And yes, I like to trot this out every year.)

An El Paso judge threw out all charges against Cuban-born terrorist mastermind Luis Posada Cabrilles. In dismissing the charges judge Kathleen Cardone stated that “The evidence is overwhelming that the Government improperly manipulated the administration of criminal justice in order to secure a criminal indictment(s) against defendant.”

Posada has long been suspected of multiple bombings in Cuba, including the 1976 downing of Cubana airlines flight 455, killing 73 people. More recently, he has been linked to a string of bombings against tourists in Cuba as well as a plot in 2000 to assassinate Fidel Castro. He was sent to prison in Venezuela for the airliner bombing but escaped, reportedly using a false passport to disappear into the United States. Posada was arrested in 2005 for immigration charges but was not deported to Venezuela for fear that he could be “tortured.”

It bears mentioning that Posada is a long-time CIA operative. Among many secret missions against Castro, Posada was deeply involved in the training of the Nicaraguan Contras, a terrorist organization created by the Reagan Administration.

How’s that for your so-called war on terror? Posada is a man who practically boasts about his association with murders, most of which were committed while he was working for the CIA. We have a chance to put away a real, live terrorist, and he walks. First we refuse to deport him because we’re afraid he’ll be tortured. Then we drop the charges altogether for some unspecified reasons. Our CIA happily kidnaps innocent men and flies them to countries that practice torture like Egypt, Morocco, and Syria without blinking an eye, yet a terrorist like Posada – a man a hundred times more dangerous than anyone held at Guantanamo or anywhere else – has been given a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card.

I suppose terrorists are okay as long as they are our terrorists. War on terror, my ass.

I happened to see that a spammer went to my other websites and promptly posted spam. The spammer happened to use bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com to validate his accounts.

I would really hate it if his bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com email accounts began getting flooded with spam, because that would be poetic justice, y’know. I hear that by posting email addresses like bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com on a webpage tend to make those addresses available to email address harvesting programs that then add those addresses to spam lists.

Please, don’t become a spam victim like bodya@heremail.com and killerspm@runbox.com will soon become. Never post your unobfuscated email address on the web or you, too, will receive “killerspm” in your inbox.

(What’s ironic is that the same changes Google implemented to defuse Googlebombs likely also negates the efforts of blog spammers.)
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My twelve MT.Net readers know how strongly I feel about freedom of speech. I feel even more strongly about human decency, though.

I totally agree with my brother Jeff. NBC News is scum for airing the tape of that deranged Virginia Tech killer. What America needs to see right now is the stories of the 30+ kids and adults murdered by that scumbag.

Shame on NBC for making a celebrity of that sorry punk, over the vehement protests of these kids’ families.

The bad news keeps getting worse for UnitedHealthCare insurance subscribers. Last week Kelly’s OBGYN, Kamm, McKenzie, Harden, Smith, Bass. Marston, and Saacks, PLLC, dropped UnitedHealthCare as an insurance partner. The practice does all of its deliveries at WakeMed, and since UHC dropped WakeMed from its coverage it left Kamm, McKenzie with little choice but to drop UHC. A coworker reported his wife’s OBGYN has done the same.

Today we received notice from UHC that Wake Radiology, another practice closely aligned with WakeMed, is no longer honoring UHC insurance. Wake Radiology is where I got my latest CT scan performed – just last month, actually. Count it all up and its clear that my UnitedHealthCare insurance has made itself worthless to me.

I’m beginning to think that UHC’s idea of a well-run hospital is Walter Reed. In an effort to “control health care expenses,” perhaps UHC could trim the eye-popping golden parachutes it provides its departing executives through backdated stock options before shaking down fine hospitals like WakeMed.

Bastards.

This is ridiculous. Two Mooresville teens have been charged with cyberstalking by the Mooresville Police Department for creating fake MySpace pages for their assistant principals. Tyler Yannone and Lauren Strazzabosco, both 16, were arrested for “portraying one of the administrators as a pedophile” and for “using racist words,” in the words of the Mooresville police.

Can you believe this? Everyone should’ve recognize this as a harmless prank and let it go. Two charge the two for an obvious parody is a violation of the First Amendment.

I understand the intention of the cyberstalking law but it is written so vaguely that it can’t help but trample free speech. Read the law (with emphasis by me):

§ 14?196.3. Cyberstalking.

(a) The following definitions apply in this section:

(1) Electronic communication. – Any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature, transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, computer, electromagnetic, photoelectric, or photo?optical system.

(2) Electronic mail. – The transmission of information or communication by the use of the Internet, a computer, a facsimile machine, a pager, a cellular telephone, a video recorder, or other electronic means sent to a person identified by a unique address or address number and received by that person.

(b) It is unlawful for a person to:

(1) Use in electronic mail or electronic communication any words or language threatening to inflict bodily harm to any person or to that person’s child, sibling, spouse, or dependent, or physical injury to the property of any person, or for the purpose of extorting money or other things of value from any person.

(2) Electronically mail or electronically communicate to another repeatedly, whether or not conversation ensues, for the purpose of abusing, annoying, threatening, terrifying, harassing, or embarrassing any person.

(3) Electronically mail or electronically communicate to another and to knowingly make any false statement concerning death, injury, illness, disfigurement, indecent conduct, or criminal conduct of the person electronically mailed or of any member of the person’s family or household with the intent to abuse, annoy, threaten, terrify, harass, or embarrass.

(4) Knowingly permit an electronic communication device under the person’s control to be used for any purpose prohibited by this section.

(c) Any offense under this section committed by the use of electronic mail or electronic communication may be deemed to have been committed where the electronic mail or electronic communication was originally sent, originally received in this State, or first viewed by any person in this State.

(d) Any person violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.

(e) This section does not apply to any peaceable, nonviolent, or nonthreatening activity intended to express political views or to provide lawful information to others. This section shall not be construed to impair any constitutionally protected activity, including speech, protest, or assembly. (2000?125, s. 1; 2000?140, s. 91.)

Section 3 above makes it a crime to make a “statement concerning” death, injury, etc. It doesn’t say that the statement must imply death, injury, etc. I haven’t read the arrest warrant nor the fake pages, but I have yet to hear anyone claim these kids threatened these administrators in any way. From what I can tell, all they did was the Internet equivalent of putting “kick me” signs on these principals’ backs.

Fortunately for the kids, the last paragraph of the law – the part about “peacable, nonviolent, nonthreatening” activity – explicitly keeps this speech safe. Thus, either there is more to this case than the news story coveys, or the cops chose to overlook this part of the law.

The spokeswoman for the Mooresville Graded School District, Boen Nutting, said “its so important that we teach our children to respect adults and respect authority.”

I think its more important to teach our children the rights guaranteed them by our country’s Constitution.

No sooner had I talked trash about China’s Darwin-friendly safety practices that I see we ‘Mericans have got a ways to go. On my Friday morning commute, I passed three City of Raleigh Public Works employees working on a curb on Ridge Road.

One was setting up some safety barrier around their work site (good). Another was supervising the work (also good). The guy in the middle, God bless him, he was wielding a sledgehammer to bust up the concrete curb. Concrete chips were flying left and right, prompting the supervisor to turn his back. Hammer guy, though, kept right on plowing through the curb – all without eye protection.

In his youth my uncle lost an eye by busting up a sidewalk. It kinda makes me pay attention to this stuff. I had half a mind to stop and give those three burly guys a safety lecture.

I’m calling Public Works tomorrow morning and politely provide them a clue.

There’s nothing more annoying than the incessant droning of CNN Headline News in an airport terminal.

Thank God China censors its media! I’m looking forward to ten days’ vacation from Anna Nicole Smith and other brain-numbing events that pass for news nowadays.