When Thugs and Thieves Become Non-Elected Leaders
Actually I could not possibly argue or debate with the vaunted Claudia Rosett, expert on the UN oil for food scandal and now commentator on the current Korean problem.
In her most recent column, in Opinionjournal.com, Rosett questions the world's perception of the North Korean people.
While Iraqis were wowing the world Jan. 30 with their will to go to the polls,North Koreans, according to the state "news" agency, were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the late Great Leader Kim Il Sung's "unforgettable" publication of "Theses on the Socialist Rural Question in Our Country." Does anyone seriously imagine that is how North Koreans freed of their regime would choose to spend the day?
The crazy Kim Jong-Il made his presence known this past week by announcing, duh, that North Korea indeed does possess nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-Il does this sort of thing every once in a while. It's part of his pattern and part of the many patterns employed by thugs, thieves and other non-elected riff-raff that managed to wrest control of a country and maintain an army to control the citizenry.
I have, not that I'm necessarily proud of this fact, done much reading about the likes of Kim, as well as the mullahs in Iran, friendly ole Saddamn, Mubarak in Egypt and of course the genetically defective offspring of mutant camels, the Sauds of Arabia.
There's others too. Charles Taylor of Liberia, Mugabe in South Africa, that nut Aristide from Haiti.
Indeed I have. So here I am using the vaunted Claudia Rosett's words as springboard for my own thesis. Because while Rosett presents the thoughts that we all must ask, sooner rather than later perhaps, The Wise I has a sensible solution to the whole problem.
There is, of course, this Blog entry, read by four or five folks unafraid of words with more than five letters. And in which I shall present the sarcastic sum of my findings along with that sensible solution I promised.
For the kind-hearted citizens of the United States of America simply do no have any deep comprehension about the thugs running entire countries on this planet. I'm not sure this Blog post is going to do it.
This is not to cast unkind aspersions on fine Americans, of which I consider myself one. We only have to carry this entire planet on our backs and such as studying up on Hosni Mubarak takes a back seat to the evening carpool.
Thus I must ask yon readers wise enough to be reading this missive to think, really concentrate, and identify one person in your family, employ or general surround who is a pure and evil punk.
Come on, we all know someone like this. Not our fine selves, of course, but someone who, if given a country and its wealth to manage and spend with complete military control of recalcitrant citizens, would be a real disaster.
An example would be if, say, Charles Manson was suddenly made emperor of an oil rich country with the ability to crush protesting citizens. I'm thinking Charles might build himself ten big palaces, squander the country's oil wealth to his whims and for his evil spawn, steal the kind world's food and medical aid to sell on the black market....that kind of thing.
Eventually this Charles Manson fellow would likely eyeball the rest of the planet and what with all that oil money dream of conquering the entire planet well why not?
Maybe yon readers do not know someone as despicable as Charles Manson but hey, we all have evil brothers-in-laws, right? Because some of these thugs and thieves aren't completely insane, just a little larcenous. Hosni Bubarak is an okay sort of fellow, though never elected and though he and his mafia goons run Egypt with an iron hand.
To obtain a license to run a business in Egypt, one must bribe the local mob official and such things go to the highest bidder or the one with the prettiest sister.
And if we don't have a loveable thief type or Charles Manson in our surround, surely there's our somewhat dim-witted cousin Darryl? Darryl might be an okay sort of fellow but he tends to get into bar fights after a few beers and he's been known to slap his wife around.
The Sauds are like a whole slew of Darryls, a bunch of somewhat stupid human beings whose ancestors managed to stumble upon an oil well and boom, the clan owned entire country they in no way deserved.
If you consider the Puerto Rican street gangs and imagine if the Pedros were to be given an entire country they can call their own. Something like the gang of Mullahs running Iran. And those mullahs run the show just like the Sharks on the streets of NY, publicly punishing and humiliating any citizen who doesn't follow the law of Islam, a convenient religious vehicle used by most dimwits, thugs and such to control the citizenry.
Then there's the outright lunatics and we all know at least one. This might be a lovable imbecile we all know who can be seen walking around the town whistling and singing to himself. Aristide in Haiti, with the help of AMERICANS if you can believe, managed to become the head whatever in Haiti and boom, a country with a beautiful ecology that would flourish with a tourist trade becomes an insane asylum of Aristde co-crazies against those who want him out. Aristde used voodoo to control his citizenry for there's always a nutzoid idealology available for such
purposes.
Kim Jong-Il is one of the crazies. Come on, the man spends most of his day watching old American movies. His father was North Korea's President before him not that anyone elected him or his crazy son.
Indeed we have a planet full of misfits running entire countries, having the wealth of these countries at their disposal and with the ability to thwart any opposition from the citizens via their control of the military.
For too many years ladies and gems the United States of America has given these lamebrains and idiots entirely too much credibility. The grandest thug of them all, Yasser Arafat, won a Nobel peace prize for God's sake and was the most frequent guest of the Clinton White House!
Below is a picture I've compiled to illustrate. Folks, our Secretary of State should not be hobnobbing with the idiot Kim Jong-Il, not to mention the hapless Jimmy Carter who never met a misfit he didn't love.
It's only been about a year or so that I began my quest to understand what the hell is going in the world and who's running the asylum. The things I've learned have horrified me.
Americans take it for granted that the rest of the world is run in a most mannered and lawful method such as our own. How would we know about North Korea what with so little known about life in its darkened part of the world? It's not like these places run by the criminals are tourist meccas or anything.
Yes, our country's intelligence agencies monitor activities in Cuba, North Korea, the Mideast. Rarely do these agencies report back what they know to the American public.
Below is another picture which provides a fine illustration of North Korea, all for putting aquarter in the nearest satellite. The dark area is North Korea, indicated by yellow line.
The dark area is North Korea, indicated by yellow line.
Even us busy Americans can understand this sadness. For in a vibrant world lit at night to provide vision for ongoing human activity, North Korea is black, dull, dead.
We also know that Kim Jong-Il regularly starves his citizens, providing precious food provisions only to the families of soldiers. This way he builds himself a fine loyal army while the non- productive citizens simply die off.
Right below North Korea, with the same soil and ecology, is South Korea, a prosperous country able to feed its citizenry as well as providing plenty of jobs and opportunities that dreams can grow and ingenuity flourish.
Most of these thugs have a modus operandi to remain in power. If they have endless oil wells at their disposal right there is a certain power. Kim Jong-Il has naught but his nuclear technology and illegal arms activity to maintain his power. All of his country's wealth and human resources are put to developing weapons for a worldwide black market and maintaining an enormous army. This so Kim can continue watching his American movies in peace and live in the luxury he's
come to expect.
If President Bush is really serious about spreading democracy then he needs to get serious about enlightening the American people about how it's REALLY like out there.
How well I recall an infant movement years ago to help the tortured women of Afghanistan. Jay Leno's wife was involved with this organization as I recall. This was well before September 11 and the subsequent American invasion of Afghanistan. Soon enough Americans learned about the Taliban, another band of thieves who took over an ungoverned country. As well as the Taliban's horrible treatment of women, including public executions for failure to wear a Burqua.
When Mavis Leno guested on whatever talk program and I heard her description of her
organization's attempts to help the women of Afghanistan I recall rather unkindly dismissing it as another silly liberal movement.
Of course that particular movement was focusing in one tiny part of what was part of a more major and more sinister problem as regarded Afghanistan. For that country was free and unfettered terrorist training fields aided by the crazy Taliban. Al-Queda and Bin Laden lived happily and freely in Afghanistan, better to plot and plan their attack on America. With the Taliban, a bunch of bullies with no brains, left alone to their own devices for use of their country. The Taliban fellows loved to mistreat women as such worthless men generally do. Which they did and kind people like Mavis Leno honed in on that problem while the Al-Queda plotted its attack on American soil.
The point being it's no longer the job of ad-hoc organizations to bring these sorts of issues before the American public. It's time for the American public to understand these things on a larger,more international scale. It's time for this administration to do what it does not do very well.
It would be a simple enough matter to develop a propaganda program to present to the American people the situation in say, North Korea. Get the intelligence that's readily known, find some North Koreans who have escaped, dig up some pertinent pictures. Come up with a presentation of the truth as it is known and give Americans a chance to understand it.
I'm not at all sure how this could be done. For sure the press would howl and moan. And there is a valid argument to be made that to have a sitting administration effectively provide "indoctrination" could be a dangerous thing.
The Wise I says Pshaw! There's a plethora of liberal media that would be out there disputing any error or misstated nuance. Not that the NY Times couldn't do an expose on North Korea or anything but there too busy trying to bring down the American administration.
Whatever and however a stronger education for Americans that will reveal what life is really like in these mis-run countries, it's time for the administration to head to that end. One documentary revealing what life is like for women in Saudi Arabia, who can't even drive for God's sakes, and Americans will be howling in outrage.
Show Americans the massacres in Rwanda; talk to displaced citizens of these countries, tell the American people what you can tell them. We're not as dumb as the politicos think.
Even with Iraq, I'm betting many Americans weren't aware of how Saddam gassed the Kurds,how he regularly shot at our planes that patrolled the Iraqi skies in a small attempt to protect innocent Iraqis. We did hear on and on about weapons of mass destruction but since our invasion and subsequent revelations of the mass graves, rape rooms and Baathest mistreatment,Americans do understand it was about waaaay more than stockpiles of weapons that we all knew existed or would exist soon enough if America ever looked away. Yet the administration yammered away at those weapon of mass destruction, for the benefit of the INTERNATIONAL audience, that it got hoisted by its own petard by the absence of any stockpiles.
It's time for the administration to step appealing to the international community and talk to us ordinary Americans. It's OUR children being shipped off to war. It's OUR money used to finance all of this. And it will only be with OUR approval that Bush's efforts to free up these countries from unelected misfits will continue.
If you want us on your side, Mr. President, you've got to take some action and make your case. The Democrats have used Hollywood to its advantage for years. I bet Mel Gibson would help you out.
Rosett ends her piece:
How the end might come for the despotic regime of North Korea, we do not yet know. It would be foolish to expect it will in any sense be easy. But it would be cruelty and madness, not to mention plain dumb foreign policy, to assume that 23 million human beings would not, like the Iraqis, welcome the chance to start the long labor of assembling a government of, by and for the people. If they do, the world will be safer for it.
She's right, of course. The whole idea here is that ridding the world of these unelected despots would make it safer for all. Not to mention a happier more productive citizenry, less likely to make war when there's more cars to be manufactured.
Taking on Mighty Bank of America
This is a story about what should have been a most ordinary of transactions, the sorts of banking things done every day by millions of consumers. Yet mighty Bank of America treated me as if I were some shoddy homeless bum not worth a minute of their effort.
So I shall, as I am wont to do, use my mighty Blog and the four to five readers who read my ravings, to an end of a rant though I argue it's a legitimate complaint.
Besides posting to this Blog, which I shall send the link to Bank of America as I did with Petsmart, I have another plan as well. I brought Petsmart to its knees yon reader might note. I know I don't have the power to bring Bank of America to its huge knees but I am going to embarrass the hell out of them, just watch me.
Getting the particulars out of the way, my claim number is 7859-97DEC04. My claim was filed on 12/30/04 with Bank of America. My "cardholder claim statement", signed and filled in as requested by the bureaucrats at BankofAmerica on 1/10/05 and on 2/8/05 a Roxanne Williams verified that the bank had, indeed, received my fax.
On 1/18/05 I received a denial of my claim from Bank of America.
In the picture below I try to delineate how the paperwork came about.
Now let me tell you the story.
In November 2004 I ordered cigarettes online. Now I hate to admit this publicly but it's something I've been doing to several years now and ladies and gems, it is perfectly legal. It is also something the big Indian reservations have been raking money in for lo those many years.
Come December, no cigarettes. Christmas passes, no cigarettes. By year end, husband, who ordered cigarettes at the same time, decides to investigate.
I, silly me, used my Bank of America debit card to make my online purchase. Husband used a regular credit card. Now my BofA debit card does, in these sorts of transactions, also serve as a credit card and it is a VISA card.
The vendor of the cigarettes responds to husband's email query with some song and dance that the smokes were held up at the JFK airport (I swear I'm not making this up) and they suggested that husband file a claim for non-receipt of item with the credit card company. In fact, the vendor was quite nice about it and assured us they would not dispute our claim. Heck, we'd been dealing with them for years and they didn't want to lose us as customers.
Husbands files claim with the credit card company and boom, no argument, he gets a credit on his card for the full amount.
I however, had to deal with the evil minions at Bank of America.
Whose reason for rejecting my claim was, get this "We are unable to assist you with this charge since you cancelled after charge had already posted".
Huh?
I did NOT GET WHAT I ORDERED!!! How the hell was I suppose to cancel BEFORE the
transaction was posted? In every universe except that populated by the mighty seers at Bank of America, one cannot cancel a transaction before it is posted for non-receipt of goods because, hey, one doesn't know they will not receive the goods until well after the transaction is posted.
So if I order myself a handsome side table from some web site on the Internet today using my BofA debit/credit card, there is no way I can ever make a claim for non-receipt of the item because, TADA, the transaction will likely be posted to my account on the day or order, or shortly thereafter. BUT The Wise I might not know that my ordered item was not received until weeks, maybe months later. Using BofA's logic, once the transaction is posted, yon innocent bank card user is just crap out of luck.
Of course they are wrong. Somebody at mighty BankofAmerica didn't want to bother to figure it out.
And I have never been rewarded with such lies and obfuscations as I was on 2/8/05 when I spoke to this Roxanne Williams person. Who at first told me that there was no way that the very intelligent at the Bank of America could possibly know that I hadn't received my goods. When, witness my claim form below, it states, in my own very beautiful Catholic school handwriting that my reason for the claim was "did not receive". Refer to -A- and follow the red arrow.
Says it right there in English and in a beautiful cursive for which I am constantly complimented. I suppose it was too much to expect them to actually READ my claim form.
Besides this intense Blog post, I have another weapon against Bank of America. Who has no branches in my new home state of Delaware at any rate and does not give home equity lines of credits here either. I do have quite a bit of money in this account. So okay, maybe it’s not that much. But husband has direct deposit and over the course of a year quite a bit of our money passes through that bank. They get the use of our money is what I’m saying here.
I'm going to remove every damn dime and hey, ladies and gems, I am going to make one hell of a big deal about it. I intend to phone the local papers and I will have someone taking pictures of my big withdrawal.
This too shall be posted on this Blog.
I was just a little guy that day I phoned in my small claim. By federal law, FEDERAL law though Roxanne God love her tried to say it was a state law they must teach them to lie in training, I am entitled to protest my problem with goods purchased on my credit card within 60 days of purchase.
I was just a little guy, not worth the bother, and not even worth adhering to the laws of the land. Do not forget ladies and gems that this bank debit card is a VISA card, subject to federal credit card laws same as my husband's credit card. Which immediately gave him a credit, no argument. Capital One I believe he used.
Please copy this Blog link and send it to everyone you've know who's ever been mistreated by a big and mighty bank.
And know that one little guy fought back.
Oh, and stay tuned for my dramatic withdrawal of all of my money. Right here n this Blog before you.
The Scary Delaware Republican Party
The first day I showed up at Georgetown's Republican party headquarters I was cautiously optimistic.
"The Republican party is very much like the Democratic party," the lady told me to my complete horror.
Indeed.
In fact, during the recent flap about state raises the Republicans joined lockstep with the Democrats to prevent STOPPING the horrific pay raises for such as Nanny Minner at 60% raise and her loot, whose main job duty is visiting nursing homes, at 40%.
Every once in a while an email crosses my ebox that intrigues. Below a notice that the Delaware Republican party will be hosting Bob Elder of Swift Boat Vet fame.
Who knows, somewhere out there a potential budding Republican will see this notice and phone them up.
Who knows, someday we might be able to tell the Repubs from the Dems in this little state.
2005 State Committee Dinner
Bob Elder will share videos and tell his stories about his experiences with John Kerry in Vietnam and working with his fellow Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!
DATE: Friday, March 4
TIME: 6:00 cocktails, 7:00 dinner
LOCATION: Dover Sheraton
COST: $45/ticket -- Gold Sponsor Table of 8: $500
I hope you can join us! Please call to RSVP today -- 302-651-0260.
Respectfully and Cordially,
Terry A. Strine, Chairman
Republican State Committee of DE
email: terryastrine@delawaregop.com
phone: 302-651-0260
~~~~~~~~
Oh-Oh, THIS is Going to Break Biden's Heart
NO WAY TO RUN A RAILROAD
"After more than three decades and $29 billion, it'd be nice to think Washington could learn how to run a railroad. But it hasn't, so it is entirely fitting that in his Fiscal Year 2006 budget President Bush is proposing to eliminate all funding for the operating expenses of the federal railroad known as Amtrak unless significant reform takes place."
"Review & Outlook," Wall Street Journal, 2/10/05
~~~~~
Government Has Too Much Money? Well, Just Keep It
As opposed to, say, actually returning the overpayment to the overpayers.
Of course honesty has never been New Castle County's long suit. So the county has been found holding onto millions of overpaid taxpayer dollars for what? A rainy day?
Poliquin, Taxpayers Win Lawsuit
New Castle County must stop squirreling away hundreds of millions of dollars unless county law is changed to establish larger savings accounts, Delaware Chancery Court decided Thursday. Chancellor William B. Chandler III ruled that county and state laws did not authorize the government to accumulate $242 million in savings as of June 2003.
"Essentially, it comes down to the county following its own laws," said Ron Poliquin, an attorney for two taxpayers who challenged the accumulation of the money.
Chandler's decision said Gordon effectively created 10 other illegal reserve accounts when, during his annual state of the county address in March 2004, he outlined a plan for using the remaining $206 million. ..."Essentially, you have a county executive acting unilaterally with a County Council sitting there doing nothing," Poliquin said.
~~~~~~~
Now let's hear from Joe Biden.
From SFGATE.COM we have:
A second Senate Democrat said Friday he was open to President Bush's idea of letting people divert some of their Social Security taxes to personal retirement accounts as Republican Party leaders tried to allay re-election fears among wavering GOP lawmakers.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said any plan should be bipartisan, in part to give lawmakers from both parties political cover for supporting major changes to such the popular retirement program.
"I don't believe that we should rule out the accounts," Carper said Friday in an interview. "We have a very low savings rate in this country and clearly need to find ways to stimulate savings, and I think we should be open to a wide range of ideas and not dismiss them out of hand."
5 comments:
Bank of America lies, cheats and steals....
I signed up for the Bank of America Worldpoints card with the 'promo' of getting a $75.00 credit for charging on it right away. I did my due diligence and waited. I thought that maybe it would show up in my January statement. I called after that 4 separate times - the last time was today - July 9th. Each time, they had to 'investigate' my claim. No one knew anything... Yes, I agree that they teach them to lie in training. Finally, I called back - after asking the last incompetent to email, call, or mail me the results of their investigation.
In the notes that were read to my today, "Please tell customer that they do not qualify for the $75.00". Well - not knowing that I
had to provide proof of this promotion - I was SOL. I explained to the online Customer Satisfyer that I was so completely unhappy with this type of response. We don't care if you don't get your money and we will make it so darned hard to get through the 800# run-around that you just might give up. I wrote a scathing email to customer service at the bank. Probably to no avail. Just wanted to vent. You have such a lovely blog. Keeping them honest!! Kudos to you.
I've been banking w/ Bank of America since 1986 when it was Sovereign and Nation's. I also have a Bank of America Credit card.I own a small business for over 11 yrs and I have been writing checks from my business account to my Bank of America checking account since I opened. I haven't had any overdrafts ever. Over the past 6 months or so, I've been noticing that they have been putting holds on the checks that I have been depositing. Consequently, they were checks to pay on my credit card. Much to my surprise, I learned that I had an over draft for my payment to Bank of America credit card leaving me with a 30 days late. I called Bank of America Credit Card and they said that there was nothing they could do. Well, wouldn't you know, it happened again. Bank of America was holding my checks for 7-10 days. The same checks from the same account for over 11 years. I got the manager to refund my over drafts. 7 of them. Meanwhile Bank of America Credit had raised my interest rate to 32.24%. from 6.99%. So you can imagine how this significantly raised my monthly obligation plus affecting my near perfect credit rating (787).I called and the Bank of America Giants and they treated me like a customer that never pays their bills. How humiliating. It seems that this might be a regular practice for them and I can not believe that the government hasn't stepped in to arrest this nasty company for fraud. I was a premiere banker with them holding a $600,000 mortgage with all on-time payments, over 20 years of banking w/ no overdrafts. It seems that these guys might be in financial trouble themselves and are going after the little guys because they can and we don't have the resources to fight back. The people of America should recognize this and stop banking w/ them. Go to a smaller bank. One with integrity not one that has marketing dollars and bank on the new customers and flat out steal from their customers. This is what they have done. They stole money from me and they stole my credit from with no shame. They will rot in hell.
BoA has done the same thing to tme in fact i have talked to an ex employee who claims they the software they use will pull accounts that are at a low balance then prey upon them by wiating to put transactions through at a time when it will overdraw an account therefore reaping the overdraw fee's. What kills me is they did that to me wiated for 5 days to charge me for the balance inquiries i did. At that time it still showed i had enough money to buy and iced coffee so i did and was charged 60 dollars in overdraw even though they never told me it would cost money to check account balance and not only did they charge me 1.50 to cheack balance so didnt the bank of hte ATM i was using which in fact had the appropriate logo. In essence i was double billed and they sat on the charges until the account was low enough where they couold penalize. Now i ask considereing it was a "credit" card what does the interest rate add up to with a 5 dollar charge then totalled 60. Is this kind of rate illegal and in fact it is, i know people that have gone to jail for loansharking when they didnt charge anywhere near the interest they did. I would rather deal with the mafia than BoA. which leads me to ask who is our government really protecting.
RE: BOA Blogs
Several years ago when I closed my credit card with BOA due to "oh so many problems"...I purposley overpaid my balance by a bit over one dollar.
This was a test of BOA's honesty. I figured, they have to balance the books & would eventually send a small refund check..right..WRONG!It never happened. What does BOA do with all small overpayments? As a young married, when we paid off our first auto loan, I rec'd a check from "Morris Plan" for one cent. Our overpayment balance. God bless their honesty.
The page I read the BOA blog on, had two BOA ads on it. Shame, shame.
P.S. I have never had a problem with Chase or Wachovia...so far anyway.
I do not appreciate Bank of America sending a registered sex offender to winterize the property next door to me. This is all according to police records in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The property is 118 Sammie Terrace. Area code 71913. Plus the property has four large dead pine trees that could fall on my house. The bank has been notified of the trees by registered letter and has not taken action.
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