Rant

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There are 157 posts filed in Rant (this is page 6 of 16).

N&O overreaches in its anti-Easley campaign

I know the News and Observer has had some kind of obsession with former Governor Mike Easley but today’s front-page story is really a stretch.

Easley was a member of the Old Chatham Golf Club in Chatham County, apparently getting his membership fees waived. While that’s nice to know and may have been worthy of a story, the latest story about the club getting water for irrigation during the drought of 2002 is a non-story as far as I’m concerned. The crux of the issue is right here:

Frantz, who did not return numerous phone messages, routed the request to the Chatham County commissioners, who unanimously agreed June 3 to let the club pump as much as 450,000 gallons a day for irrigation for up to three months. The water would be counted against the county’s daily allocation from Jordan Lake. State law considers pumping more than 100,000 gallons a day to be a major withdrawal.

The county was not drawing all the 4 million gallons per day it was allowed; there was no debate among commissioners about the request, according to minutes of the commisers’ [sic] meeting County Manager Charlie Horne.

See that? Chatham County wasn’t using its 4 million gallon allocation and the the Chatham County Commissioners unanimously agreed to let the club pump the water. It was Chatham County’s water and the state didn’t have a problem with Chatham spending it as it saw fit. The state’s “getting involved,” as the N&O alleges, amounted to the state shrugging its shoulders, and rightfully so.

The Governor can order state agencies to reduce water use but he or she does not have the power to order private businesses or individuals to conserve. It’s ludicrous for the N&O to suggest otherwise.

I’ll be happy when the N&O catches up to 2009 and starts covering the issues we face today. Then again, my faith in the so-called “Old Reliable” has pretty much run out.

Net10 fails me

Looks like my love affair with Net10 has taken a turn for the worse.

I decided to upgrade my Motorola V171 Net10 phone to a newer Motorola W377g. I’ve entered quite a few numbers into the ancient V171 and rather than punching in all of these numbers into my new phone I was looking forward to uploading my contacts into it using the phone’s USB port.

Imagine my disappointment when I found mention on various Internet forums that Net10 has deliberately crippled this functionality. I found it to be the case myself when my connection software timed out when connecting to the phone.
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RTP: Rude Technology Park

I don’t know what it is, but I’m growing tired of the rude drivers I encounter every morning on my way to work in RTP. There’s so much tailgating, people cutting other people off, line cutting, and the rest that it raises my blood pressure. I don’t know if it’s too many Type-A personalities, too many people who bring their bad driving habits from (ahem) places they used to live, or too many just plain jerks but it’s really annoying. It’s definitely in sharp contrast to what I experienced when I was working downtown (or working in west Raleigh).

Hey, I’m happy with my job, too, but I’m not going to run everyone else off the road to get to it. Sheesh.

H&R Block has spammed me yet again!

After unsubscribing a half-dozen times from every H&R Block email list and talking at length to an H&R Block customer service rep, I thought I had seen the last of the H&R Block emails.

But, no. A new one came in today with the subject of:

July Digits: Are you making the most of your home?

Time to black hole H&R Block. Enough is enough.

Update 7 July 2009: Mike at H&R Block swiftly showed up and has pledged to take care of the problem. Thanks, Mike!

Ty Harrell sponsors anti-municipal Internet bill

ty_harrellNow that Time Warner Cable feels secure enough in its near-monopoly of high-speed Internet access to greatly raise its rates, it has turned its attention to strengthening its monopoly by effectively blocking any N.C. city from providing alternatives.

N.C. Rep. Ty Harrell of Wake County has sponsored just such a bill, known as House Bill 1252. Just when high-speed Internet users stuck with Time Warner Cable (or its partners such as Earthlink) were dreaming of one day having what our neighbors in Wilson have, Time Warner Cable seeks to take that away.

I know Ty and consider him a friend, so it makes it all the more distressing to know he’s sponsoring this. Please contact Ty and other representatives and let them know how you feel.

Also, if you can attend Wednesday morning’s N.C. Science and Technology committee meeting, please do so. And add the Save North Carolina’s Broadband site to your daily reads!

Brainiac student supports McCain

The N&O talked to some campaign supporters for a story in Sunday’s paper. I found this one totally laughable:

[Christine DiPietro, the 21-year-old head of the N.C. State student group Students for McCain,] said that after sitting in class next to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars, she considered which candidate would make the best commander in chief.

“I feel John McCain is the best man for that job,” she said.

Amazing. Sitting next to actual veterans has given DiPietro special insight into the mind of veterans. It must work like osmosis or something. Hey, I sat next to a brain surgeon on a plane once. Now I can perform brain surgery!

Maybe DiPietro should venture outside of class every once in a while. Then maybe she’d find out that our troops support Obama over McCain by a six-to-one margin in donations. And if that’s not enough insight into the military life for her, maybe DiPietro could take a four-year hiatus from class and sign up herself. No osmosis needed!

She can support McCain all she wants but she should find a reason other than that’s what she thinks veterans want.

AsiaDNR and the domain name scam

The same domain name scam as the one I mentioned previously is still happening. This morning I got an email at $WORK from a company called AsiaDNR. An email from steven@scdomain.org tried to say all of $WORK’s Asia domain names were being registered:

Dear CEO,

We are the domain name registration organization in HongKong, which is the domain name registrar centre in Asia. We have something important need to confirm with your company.

we formally received an application on October 19 2008.One company who called Carnelian Investment Company are applying for following:

Domain Names:
$WORK.kr
$WORK.jp
$WORK.my
$WORK.ph
$WORK.net.cn
$WORK.org.cn
$WORK.com.hk
$WORK.com.tw

Internet Brand Name:
$WORK

These days we are dealing with it, After our initial examination, we found that the internet brand name and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. hope to get the affirmation of your company because that may relate to your intellectual property on internet. Now we have not finished the registration of Carnelian Investment Company yet, in order to deal with this issue better, please let someone who is responsible for trademark or domain name contact me as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Steven
————————————————————————————————————————

Domain Name Auditing and Registration Manager.
Hong Kong Office:
Tel:00852 9566 0103
00852 9566 0205

Fax:00852-82261055
Email:steven@scdomain.org

Website: http://www.domaininasia.com
————————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————————
Confidentiality Notice. This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in ASIA please DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. we have to notify you, and our registration organization are not responsible for any dispute questions about trade mark, intellectual property nor patent after they succeed in registration.hope you can understand.thank you.

Be forewarned: if you take them up on their “offer,” you’ll be buying and endless number of domain names!

For the sake of the search engines, here’s a list of fake company names used in the scam that I’ve been able to track down (humans might want to just quit reading here):
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Indy disses Raleigh yet again

I was all into the Independent Weekly’s look at Raleigh when I came to this story by Vernon Coleman, called Seeing the city through a conventioneer’s eyes: Wanderlust in Raleigh. Its the same old tired story of Durhamites looking down their noses at Raleigh. Coleman spends an afternoon wandering around downtown, asks advice from some homeless people, and assumes that since he is totally clueless that there’s nothing going on here. Moron.

Just when I think the Indy is finally on the Raleigh bandwagon they trot out tripe like this. I never thought I’d say I miss the Spectator.