Insight into Rachel from Cardholder Services Scam

I had a very instructive conversation with them today. I pretended to look for my credit card but left them on speakerphone, and I could overhear the background conversation. A very rude and pushy individual was telling somebody something about a $690 fee to be applied to a credit card. This may be their scam. On the other hand, law enforcement could probably trace them through the bank through which this fee is processed if they try to collect it, so maybe their real agenda is to steal credit card numbers.

Word for the Day: Mall Peon

Mall Peon

A mall peon is somebody with so little self respect that he or she will wait in line to get into a store to buy Chinese-made trash, pepper-spray other shoppers to buy Chinese-made trash, trample other people in the process of buying Chinese-made trash, or be so obsessed with buying Chinese-made trash as to walk by a man having a heart attack without doing anything to help.

A lot of time is wasted in traffic because of all the mall peons tying up the highway between Black Friday and Christmas.

Only a mall peon would wait in a long line to get into a Wal-Mart for any purpose, at any time of year.

Intelligent people laugh while mall peons squander their money on Chinese-made trash, and then wait until Boxing Day to buy said trash for roughly what it is actually worth.

Rachel from Cardholder Services: Likely Criminals

They called today (not mentioning Rachel, maybe her reputation has spread, but I recognized “Consider this your final notice”–don’t I wish), and their representative asked for my credit card’s expiration date. I gave him one (and made sure it was not the one that actually went with my credit card). Then he asked for my credit card NUMBER. This is the first time this has happened (the last time they asked for the bank’s 800 customer service number) and it is outright evidence of criminal intent.

In any event, I told him I did not have the card with me, and I would have to go get it. I kept him waiting a good 5 minutes, and he finally asked, “Are you sure you are looking for the card?” I replied that I hadn’t been looking for it at all, and I was on the Do Not Call List. He said angrily, “I bet you think that’s funny, don’t you?” I said it was funny as hell and that, if he didn’t want it to happen again, his organization should never call my number again. I think he hung up before the last part but he was obviously mad while I was not upset at all, so he got stressed and I didn’t. Keeping somebody on hold while you read the paper, work on the computer, or whatever is probably the rudest and most disrespectful thing you can do–worse than cursing them out (they just hang up) or telling them not to call you again (they just hang up).

Westboro Baptist Church Jokes

The Phelps family wanted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in favor of offensive hate speech. We agree with this ruling because limitations on what they can say could some day be used as a precedent for limitations on what we can say. On the other hand, we are pretty sure the USSC ruling covers any form of nonviolent speech about the Phelps family that does not actually constitute libel (e.g. a false accusation of a crime).

Q: What is the difference between Westboro Baptist Church and Coney Island?
A: You can see the freaks for free at Westboro Baptist, and they are far more exotic than performers with multiple body piercings, human blockheads, and so on.

“Dear Margie Phelps: please send me a nude picture of yourself so I can save the immortal soul of a lesbian whom your church says is going to Hell. When she sees your picture, she will either become straight or take vows of chastity. Please send it in an opaque package, though; I am a heterosexual male and I wish to remain that way.”

“Dear Shirley Phelps-Roper: our state is planning a new program to eliminate its Megan’s Law sexual predator list. Please send us pictures of you naked in sexually provocative poses. Any convicted rapist who agrees to look at the pictures for ten minutes will have his name removed from the list because he will never want to go anywhere near a woman ever again. Please be sure to send the pictures in an opaque container, though; there are a lot of married men here whose wives do not want them to turn gay, take vows of chastity, or castrate themselves and become harem guards.”

“Dear Fred Phelps: I want to save a gay man’s soul, so please send me a picture of you naked in a sexually suggestive pose. Once the gay man sees it, he will turn straight, take vows of chastity and become a monk, or castrate himself and become a harem guard. Please send it in an opaque container, though; I don’t want my wife/girlfriend to become a lesbian.”

Westboro Baptist displayed a sign that said “Thank God for breast cancer” at Elizabeth Edwards’ funeral. Why don’t Shirley Phelps-Roper, Rebekah Phelps-Davis, or Margie Phelps worry about this disease or even bother to get annual mammograms? Hey, if YOU were a cancer cell, would YOU go anywhere near those monstrosities?

Q: Why doesn’t the Phelps family have to worry about the Black Plague?
A: Professional courtesy from the Yersinia pestis bacterium.

The Phelps family was on a cruise off Somalia when their ship was captured by pirates. The pirates sent a letter that said, “Unless you pay us one billion dollars, we will release them.”

Q: What is the difference between the Phelps family and excrement?
A: Excrement is useful as fertilizer.

Q: Why is the Westboro Baptist Church God’s house?
A: The Devil had first choice and he took Hell.

Q: Why is Fred Phelps the Lord’s servant?
A: The Devil had first choice and he took White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger.

Let’s Help Nancy Pelosi with her Waterboarding Alibi

The Left has suggested that members of George Bush’s administration should be prosecuted for their role in sanctioning the physical coercion (waterboarding) of terrorists to extract information that could be used to prevent mass murders by other terrorists. The idea of prosecuting members of the previous Administration is highly reminiscent of Stalinist purges of previous regimes, royal families (Shakespeare’s Richard III comes to mind) who murdered every rival who might have a claim on the throne, and of course Napoleon’s extermination of Snowball’s followers in Orwell’s Animal Farm. Now, however, the Left has a serious embarrassment in the form of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the question as to what she knew about waterboarding and when she knew it. The following cartoon should help Ms. Pelosi with what was once known as the Four-Step Nuremburg War Crime Alibi.

Now, Ms. Pelosi, repeat the following:

(1) “Es geschah nicht.” (“It didn’t happen.”)
(2) “Ich wusste nicht.” (“I didn’t know.”)
(3) “Ich war nicht dort.” (“I wasn’t there.”)
(4) “Ich folgt nur Auftragen.” (“I only followed orders.”)

Climate Action Partnership Stock Portfolio vs. Dow, S&P

We contended previously that membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership does not speak well of a company’s mission or strategy, although there are admittedly good performers on the list. This is because a well-managed corporation does not need government mandates to force businesses and individuals to buy its products (e.g. alternative energy sources, compact fluorescent lamps). As an example, if General Electric was up to the job of engineering cost-effective wind turbines and solar panels, it would probably not be able to make them quickly enough to keep up with demand even without tax credits to encourage their purchase. When Henry Ford engineered an affordable alternative to horses and their solid waste, he did not need government mandates to sell his product either.

As an experiment, we created a hypothetical stock portfolio that assumes the purchase of $1000 worth of each USCAP corporate member’s publicly traded stock on January 2, 2002. (It does not include Duke Energy, DUK, because there appears to have been a stock split of some kind, Shell Oil, which has multiple symbols, or NRG, which was not listed in 2002.) This gave us $18,000 in eighteen stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 10,073.40 and the Standard and Poor 500 closed at 1,154.67 on January 2, 2002. March 9′s closes were 6,547.05 (down 35%) and 676.53 (down 41.4%) respectively. Our hypothetical $18,000 worth of USCAP stock (18 companies) would be worth $10,555.58 (down 41.36%) on March 9. In other words, a portfolio of equally weighted USCAP publicly traded corporations underperformed the Dow, and just about equaled the S&P 500. Had we also purchased $1000 worth of former USCAP members Lehman Brothers and AIG, our $20,000 investment would now be worth about $10,556 or so, i.e. down 47 percent from January 2, 2002.

Americans Wake Up to Obama’s Carbon Emission Scam

We reported previously that the U.S. Climate Action Partnership’s (USCAP’s) members include some of the country’s worst-managed corporations, as demonstrated by their need for government bailouts. These include former USCAP members AIG and Lehman Brothers, as well as government-dependent entities like General Motors and Chrysler. Our position is that companies that need government mandates to force people to buy their products or services contribute nothing to society, and they should not be in business. If General Electric, for example, cannot engineer cost-effective wind turbines and solar panels, and must instead get the government to require businesses and utilities to buy its products, it is a liability to the country and should not be in business. This message comes across clearly in Kimberley Strassel’s “If the Cap Fits,” from the Wall Street Journal.

GE makes all the solar equipment and wind turbines (at $2 million a pop) that utilities would have to buy under a climate regime. GE’s revenue from environmental products long ago passed the $10 billion mark, and it doesn’t take much “ecomagination” to see why Mr. Immelt is leading the pack of climate profiteers.

Americans are fortunately waking up to Barack Obama’s plans to raise prices for consumers and knife the unions and workers who helped elect him by imposing carbon taxes that would enrich special interests (USCAP members) while driving energy-intensive businesses offshore.

Repudiate Obama’s Carbon Regulation Plans to Start Economic Recovery

Banking problems and “toxic assets” are major contributors to the ongoing decline in the stock market, but it is quite likely that investors took them into account last year. The 800 pound gorilla in the living room that nobody seems to want to talk about consists of Barack Obama’s agenda (per his State of the Union Address) to impose taxes on all fossil fuels, or require users of fossil fuels to buy carbon offset credits from the modern counterparts of medieval indulgence peddlers.

As long as this agenda continues to menace the United States, investors are rightly reluctant to invest in American manufacturing, transportation, and other energy-intensive sectors. If, however, enough Senators (including Democrats from coal-producing and manufacturing states) pledged to vote against and filibuster Obama’s cap-and-trade agenda, it would restore investor confidence, break the downward momentum of the stock market, and set the stage for an economic recovery.

Muslim Immigrant Charged with Beheading Wife in New York

You can take the ape out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the ape.
Television Executive Accused of Beheading Wife Remains Jailed

A Muslim-American television executive who allegedly beheaded his wife days after she filed for divorce remains jailed without bail following a court appearance in western New York.

…Following multiple episodes of domestic violence, Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce on Feb. 6 and obtained an order of protection that barred her husband from their home, according to attorney Elizabeth DiPirro, whose law firm, Hogan Willig, represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding.

Militant “Islam:” the religion of domestic violence and (allegedly) beheading.

Another Obama lottery with a predetermined winner

We will say up front that Obama’s actions subsequent to his election have been far less radical than we would have predicted (given the content of Dreams From My Father and Obama’s membership in a racist church). If, despite the very poor first impression he gave us during the campaign, he does a good job, we will acknowledge that he has exceeded our expectations.

Obama must realize in turn, however, that fundraising through rigged online lotteries (this one is legal because it provides a way to enter without making a donation) undermines his credibility and reinforces negative expectations. This is not, incidentally, the first time this has happened.