Senator Rick Santorum wants to ban weather (data).

Directly from our republican leadership. You know, the ones that lead us into
the WAR we are supposedly fighting. How quickly they forget their priorities.

Basically, Rick “The Tool” Santorum has proposed legislation that would make
it “illegal” for NOAA to release their weather forecast data freely over the
internet. NOAA is fully funded by the U.S. Government and basically we have
all paid for the gathering of this data, but the lobbyists that represent
the weather forecast industry have convinced the tool to give only them the
ability to dissemble this information.

Seriously, we the people already pay for the collection of this data. Yet,
a republican senator allows basically ONE company to convince him that this
is good legislation… Um.. During a time of war..

First, the whole premise behind this legislation is ludicrous. Second, to
even raise this subject at a time this country is in such chaos.. Is about
as distasteful as filibustering judges.

If this doesn’t prove that Senator Tool is truly a general tool, I don’t
know what does. Of course, unless you own Accuweather stock.. If fellow
republicans jump on board behind this and the bill even gets CLOSE to passing,
then they are all tools by default. If they try to say that we “…need to
protect this data to fight terrorism…”, then they are double tools.

Goes to prove my point, both sides are full of village idiots… Senator
Santorum is the “Grand Poobah Idiot” of them all.

Technorati Tags: politics, weather

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University student beats Microsoft at it’s own game

Microsoft got a taste of it’s own business practices from a 21-yr old University of Akron Student. David Ramos beat down what had to be some very highly paid lawyers, simply by doing his own research and writing. This article goes into more detail, and it is highly recommended to take 10 mins to read. Do your own research, and it appears that the “mainstream media” has not yet picked up on this story. The story also appears not to be a hoax, and I certainly had my doubts after first reading about it. Makes one wonder if anyone was fired for this at the law firm. Some simple research by them would have avoided this entire mess for Microsoft. Aren’t lawyers suppose to protect their client, and strive not to put them in harms way?

There is a deeper moral to the story to all of this. Whatever happened to good customer service and why is it so rare today? As of right now, I have been waiting over 7 weeks for a Sprint PCS rebate for $150 on a phone I purchased in January. Now, I didn’t send the rebate via registered mail, but I am certain it has passed the “4-6 week” magical time period it takes to CUT A CHECK. Funny, cutting a check takes me about 30 seconds with my free on-line banking account. Why does it take a company that is supposed to be one of the most innovative technology companies like Sprint 4-6 weeks to mail a letter? Anyone want to bet they run SAP? Anyway.. I digress..

We have ourselves as the American consumer to blame. We have accepted that an occasional lost order of fries at the drive-thru, or Miss Congeniality at the Wal-Mart checkout lane is just the cost of living in civilized society. Name the last time you truly had a reasonable time disputing a claim with your “local” bank. I remember growing up in central Indiana, and handing over my true-to-life printed-on-paper savings book with some cash, and having the nice old lady smile at me and put the money in the drawer. She’d hand the hand stamped book back to me, and lift the lid so I could get a sucker. I carried with me the record of the transaction, and I was trusting the bank with my money. If I ever had a question, I had the book with me and they took me behind and we looked at it. Simple and effective. Try that today.

Why do we tolerate bad service? Wasn’t all of this Information Technology supposed to make customer service a breeze and so much better? No doubt that I am a “technologist”, as one of my good friends prefers to call me and I would never want to come across as a hypocrite. However, this strikes me as truly nothing more than an excuse for bad behavior, and still boils down to human personalities and interaction. Just because your records are based on electronic bits, and not a printed savings book, does not give you a right to not be polite to me. Just because you are a huge multi-national company does not mean that you have a right to just steamroller over people.

I often have this debate with my right-winged colleagues. They go on and on about how the federal and state judges are “..making their own law” and that “…the nonsense of endless appeals must end.” Perhaps the concept that a balance between 3 branches of government is better than a balance of 2 is difficult for some people to comprehend. Why? Well, how about the concept that 2 is closer to 1, than 3. I know, math is difficult for some right-wingers, but not so difficult for the rest of us. Anyway, yet again, I digress.

Back to my Sprint PCS debacle. (Did you see that google?) I will walk into their downtown Indianapolis store this week, and see what they have to say. With this story and blog entry in mind, I will be sure to post the results here.

Oh yes, one more thing…

Thank you David Ramos!

Technorati Tags: pop culture

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