The definition of peace has been perverted to mean maintenance of subservience. You will obey or you will be put down. Circumstances be damned. Kneel or die.
Everyone speaks about the risks our policemen endure, but no one talks about why they're enduring them in the first place. People are extremely fearful of police, and if you've had contact with the American variety then you know why. The reality is police manufacture incidents. What I mean by that is upon confronting you, they interpret your every reaction as guilt. In fact, there's generally a predetermination of guilt. You're placed in a position of proving your innocence. People respond to this in several ways; nervousness, fear, confusion, irritation, and a desire to flee.
So why are people fearful? Because police often misinterpret minuscule movements and black objects as instant threats. There is no reasoning, no respectful requests; there is only your submission. If you're unfortunate in that you're misinterpreted as a threat, police will unload their clips on you. You will die. Knowing this, the natural instinct for citizens is to flee, which causes police to initiate maneuvers to contain and bind you. The taser is their tool for speeding up this process.
It does not matter what the situation is or your age or your location. They could be questioning you simply to harass you, because you're suspicious, or because you're engaging in a crime. All are considered equivalent scenarios requiring your 100% submission.
So what do we have then? We have a tool--the taser--that operates as a population control device, which is sad in my opinion because freedom of movement as well as freedom from overbearing government officials that dictate your innocence or guilt on the spot is exactly what the forefathers had escaped from. Of course it's really our fault. Enacting a law for everything only empowers them and disarms us because at any given moment we're all likely to be violating at least one of those laws, thus giving police vindication and morale grounds for your interrogation.
My school had an economics elective but that was it. Nothing else. I remember it being pretty content filled, on par with a college economics course I took later.
I just consider finance and business to be very core topics that we humans ought to know. For some reason nobody considers them important nor even acknowledges them. Finance affects your life in far more ways than science or history does.
Late payments don't go on your credit history until they are at least 30 days overdue, so you generally have time to catch this sort of error while the late fee they cover is still the only penalty.
Problem is 18-24% interest kicks in until you catch the problem and pay the past due amount. Some cards will even keep you at 18-24% until you pay down to ZERO! Royally fucking you over.
Last thing, some people "set and forget" bill payments so they may not notice it within 30 days, so it would ding their credit report for those cases.
First, it sounds like you cancelled the card, not the account. The account will remain active even if there's no active card, particularly if there was a small balance, say a monthly service fee for the first month of activation. I'm in the US and there really isn't any way to get them off your back without sending registered letters and notifying them their records are in error. If they ignore those requests and follow through to damage our credit report, we can then sue them for damages if we can show we were denied credit elsewhere. The prospect of paying those damages is what usually keeps them at bay.
Also, did you send the cancellation with a registered letter? You needed that to prove you sent a cancellation. Doing it on the phone gives you no proof.
Last night, wife ordered some kids' name stickers from a company that the kindy had a flyer for on the bulliten board - paid $30 for it over the internet by credit card.
Phone call next morning from our bank - ANZ - "we believe you have been scammed".
Yep, sometime in the small hours two transactions ran up on her card. $1100 and $700 from western EU country locations.
Still thinking about how the card details got swiped. Maybe the site had an unencrypted form for cc details? Maybe through the IE browser session not being closed between paying on a weak site and then visiting a trick site? Maybe the sticker co's banking plug-in is working some cheat? Maybe the w2k pc is compromised with a keystroke swiper?
Why bother with a trojan when putting up sticker site is a lot easier? The sticker site was a front. Whether there are stickers or not and whether you receive them or not doesn't matter. The site exists to collect your credit card information for sale on the black market. Organized crime has been putting up fake web store fronts for a while now. For that reason, I generally don't purchase on sites I don't recognize. I stick to the ones I know: Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Gap, Walmart, Target, etc.
By the way, the spam on the bulletin board should have clued you in. They don't advertise via normal (traceable) ad publishers.
I have always been a proponent of dumping high school gym class and study hall in favor of adding a finance class. No one graduates high school knowing anything anymore because they're spending all their time learning 1001 ways in which America and white people are bad.
Finance topics would be economics, accounting, investing, and personal finance. One for each year: freshman to senior class.
Your post misses one point. Nobody pays taxes on something they don't sell. You can write all you want, and never have to charge sales tax if you hve no sales.
My major issue with this taxation is that contracted programmers don't own the works they create (generally), therefore they have no product to sell. The contracting company owns the software from the first line of code to the last, so the only asset the programmer has is in selling his or her services, which is now being taxed even though authors, mechanics, plumbers, etc aren't taxed. In this scenario (which is the most common), there is never a point in which a programmer can say he or she has a completed product and then offer to sell it to XYZ corporation which triggers a taxable event (point of sale). The entire contract was a series of service sessions involving the assembly (not an ASM reference) of one line of code after another.
Authors do sell their books (ahem, documents), but they sell them to book publishers, and not to end users. Fine artists also create a product and sell directly to end users and I don't think they pay taxes, but that may be due to transactions being off the books. It's still not fair if they can get away with it while others can't. They only reason they can is that they're a small group not worth the government's time to bother with.
Services should be taxed at the same rate as hard goods. This is a first step for that state, but its really quite common elsewhere in the world, and known by other names
I don't think there's a right or wrong with taxation, only fair or unfair, consistent or inconsistent. If IT professionals and companies should be taxed for services, the all services should be taxed. However, I'd prefer all services to be untaxed and leave sales tax for goods consumable by end users; autos, electronics, music, shrink wrapped software, etc.
Even though I don't like sales tax, the only reason I'd ever support them is to capture income from illegal residents and tourists.
When people write softwae, they ARE creating a product.
Similarly, when people put together a server, they ARE creating a product.
Authors do not pay sales tax and they create a product: a document. They do not create books, although they might write a book. A programmer or web designer is equivalent to an author in that they create documents (source, data files, executable files).
Book seller's pay sales tax. The equivalent is a software sales corporation or typical store with a store front (Circuit City, CompUSA, etc).
Get on the OPTOUT list to stop preapproved offers.
Don't accept a card with a yearly fee, unless there are travel or purchase rewards that you're sure you will use.
If you have good credit, ignore all offers above 10-12% (excepting rewards cards). I have a 7.9% national city card.
Don't open new credit card accounts if you're about to buy a house or car.
Reject offers at the register. There's no possible way you can read the fine print at the checkout.
Only consider accepting an offer at the register if the discount is at least $50. 10% of $500+. Deactivate the card after a few weeks or so.
Don't ignore a bill sent to you on a deactivated card. It won't go away on its own.
Don't signup for insurance through your credit card company. Buy insurance directly from an insurance company.
Don't transfer debt onto a new card unless its free. No percent fee and no minimum fixed fee.
A free transfer to a low or zero interest card is not a bad thing, so long as the introductory rate is long enough to be worth it, such as 9-12 months, and the non-introductory rate is fair.
Don't use convenience checks tied to the credit card. After the temporary rate expires, they nearly always apply as a cash advance (which is much higher rate).
When not traveling, don't use ATMs outside the bank's network.
Use a debit card for cash advances and groceries. Use a credit card for travel, online purchases, shipping, and other purchases.
Occasionally check your online statement history for unexplained purchases. I do this at least 3-4+ times a month, usually at work as an excuse to goof off for a moment.
Setup a minimum fee payment schedule on all your credit cards within each respective card company even if you rarely carry balances. Don't use a 3rd party bill-pay for credit cards. If the bill-pay is down, you'll be held responsible if you're late. You have a stronger case for dropping late fees if it's your own credit card company's fault.
I pretty much stay out of trouble following those rules.
Do it as in Europe - losing side pays for everything, and they will stop pretty quick.
Scary. That pretty much locks out "regular" people of the court system for fear of losing.
The real problem is allowing junk cases to get filed. There ought to be a higher expectation of evidence with more cases thrown out immediately on filing. Then find lawyers in contempt if later they're found to have exaggerated the evidence.
The Kindle's real breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered: wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. (It's based on the EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work anywhere, not just Wi-Fi hotspots.)
Machinist:
The device, reports say, will have Wi-Fi, Sprint's EV-DO wireless service to make book purchases on the go
And also says that you can access websites like google or wikipedia, but I wondered whether you'd be able to access other sites because of the flashy graphics and bling. The refresh rate on this screen is so low as to make that unfeasible. And it does have PDA. My point stands.
Then it stands on shit. You've never used a PDA... have you? Hint: a PDA is not a castrated, stripped down web browser.
On the other hand, dickheads like you who like to make ominous statements about "how far society has slid since the good old days" have always been around, internet or not.
Posted Anonymously... figures. Got to shield your real screen name. Unlike a piece of crap like you, I post everything using the same name.
I'm going to begin filtering all anonymous posts. It's just not worth wading through 1000 shit posts like yours.
Slashdot Mirror
The definition of peace has been perverted to mean maintenance of subservience. You will obey or you will be put down. Circumstances be damned. Kneel or die.
Everyone speaks about the risks our policemen endure, but no one talks about why they're enduring them in the first place. People are extremely fearful of police, and if you've had contact with the American variety then you know why. The reality is police manufacture incidents. What I mean by that is upon confronting you, they interpret your every reaction as guilt. In fact, there's generally a predetermination of guilt. You're placed in a position of proving your innocence. People respond to this in several ways; nervousness, fear, confusion, irritation, and a desire to flee.
So why are people fearful? Because police often misinterpret minuscule movements and black objects as instant threats. There is no reasoning, no respectful requests; there is only your submission. If you're unfortunate in that you're misinterpreted as a threat, police will unload their clips on you. You will die. Knowing this, the natural instinct for citizens is to flee, which causes police to initiate maneuvers to contain and bind you. The taser is their tool for speeding up this process.
It does not matter what the situation is or your age or your location. They could be questioning you simply to harass you, because you're suspicious, or because you're engaging in a crime. All are considered equivalent scenarios requiring your 100% submission.
So what do we have then? We have a tool--the taser--that operates as a population control device, which is sad in my opinion because freedom of movement as well as freedom from overbearing government officials that dictate your innocence or guilt on the spot is exactly what the forefathers had escaped from. Of course it's really our fault. Enacting a law for everything only empowers them and disarms us because at any given moment we're all likely to be violating at least one of those laws, thus giving police vindication and morale grounds for your interrogation.
My school had an economics elective but that was it. Nothing else. I remember it being pretty content filled, on par with a college economics course I took later.
I just consider finance and business to be very core topics that we humans ought to know. For some reason nobody considers them important nor even acknowledges them. Finance affects your life in far more ways than science or history does.
Last thing, some people "set and forget" bill payments so they may not notice it within 30 days, so it would ding their credit report for those cases.
First, it sounds like you cancelled the card, not the account. The account will remain active even if there's no active card, particularly if there was a small balance, say a monthly service fee for the first month of activation. I'm in the US and there really isn't any way to get them off your back without sending registered letters and notifying them their records are in error. If they ignore those requests and follow through to damage our credit report, we can then sue them for damages if we can show we were denied credit elsewhere. The prospect of paying those damages is what usually keeps them at bay.
Also, did you send the cancellation with a registered letter? You needed that to prove you sent a cancellation. Doing it on the phone gives you no proof.
By the way, the spam on the bulletin board should have clued you in. They don't advertise via normal (traceable) ad publishers.
I have always been a proponent of dumping high school gym class and study hall in favor of adding a finance class. No one graduates high school knowing anything anymore because they're spending all their time learning 1001 ways in which America and white people are bad.
Finance topics would be economics, accounting, investing, and personal finance. One for each year: freshman to senior class.
Authors do sell their books (ahem, documents), but they sell them to book publishers, and not to end users. Fine artists also create a product and sell directly to end users and I don't think they pay taxes, but that may be due to transactions being off the books. It's still not fair if they can get away with it while others can't. They only reason they can is that they're a small group not worth the government's time to bother with. I don't think there's a right or wrong with taxation, only fair or unfair, consistent or inconsistent. If IT professionals and companies should be taxed for services, the all services should be taxed. However, I'd prefer all services to be untaxed and leave sales tax for goods consumable by end users; autos, electronics, music, shrink wrapped software, etc.
Even though I don't like sales tax, the only reason I'd ever support them is to capture income from illegal residents and tourists.
Probably not a good idea to listen to toe tapping music either.
Book seller's pay sales tax. The equivalent is a software sales corporation or typical store with a store front (Circuit City, CompUSA, etc).
- Get on the OPTOUT list to stop preapproved offers.
- Don't accept a card with a yearly fee, unless there are travel or purchase rewards that you're sure you will use.
- If you have good credit, ignore all offers above 10-12% (excepting rewards cards). I have a 7.9% national city card.
- Don't open new credit card accounts if you're about to buy a house or car.
- Reject offers at the register. There's no possible way you can read the fine print at the checkout.
- Only consider accepting an offer at the register if the discount is at least $50. 10% of $500+. Deactivate the card after a few weeks or so.
- Don't ignore a bill sent to you on a deactivated card. It won't go away on its own.
- Don't signup for insurance through your credit card company. Buy insurance directly from an insurance company.
- Don't transfer debt onto a new card unless its free. No percent fee and no minimum fixed fee.
- A free transfer to a low or zero interest card is not a bad thing, so long as the introductory rate is long enough to be worth it, such as 9-12 months, and the non-introductory rate is fair.
- Don't use convenience checks tied to the credit card. After the temporary rate expires, they nearly always apply as a cash advance (which is much higher rate).
- When not traveling, don't use ATMs outside the bank's network.
- Use a debit card for cash advances and groceries. Use a credit card for travel, online purchases, shipping, and other purchases.
- Occasionally check your online statement history for unexplained purchases. I do this at least 3-4+ times a month, usually at work as an excuse to goof off for a moment.
- Setup a minimum fee payment schedule on all your credit cards within each respective card company even if you rarely carry balances. Don't use a 3rd party bill-pay for credit cards. If the bill-pay is down, you'll be held responsible if you're late. You have a stronger case for dropping late fees if it's your own credit card company's fault.
I pretty much stay out of trouble following those rules.Rolls eyes.....
The real problem is allowing junk cases to get filed. There ought to be a higher expectation of evidence with more cases thrown out immediately on filing. Then find lawyers in contempt if later they're found to have exaggerated the evidence.
Can't wait to run around the map grabbing quad on my new quad.
It'll have both. Moron.
Which one is top and which one is bottom?
Then it stands on shit. You've never used a PDA... have you? Hint: a PDA is not a castrated, stripped down web browser.
I'm going to begin filtering all anonymous posts. It's just not worth wading through 1000 shit posts like yours.