And yes, I think Gore would have done a better job. I think there's a slightly better chance that the WTC attack might not have happened,
Put your bias aside for a minute and realize that 9/11 didn't happen because of 8 months of the Bush presidency but an ongoing hatred of the United States that was evident back in the 1993 WTC attacks. Gore being president wouldn't have reduced the chance of 9/11 happening, the only question would have been our response.
given I doubt Gore would have closed the investigation into Bin Laden
The investigation had been going on for some time. You can argue theoreticals, but there's no particular reason to believe it would have been more successful in the 8 months leading up to 9/11 than the years prior. Plus, 9/11 apparently would have occurred even if Bin Laden had been captured since underlings were actually organizing and executing the attack. It's doubtful a Bin Laden capture in 2001 would have avoided the 9/11 attacks. A capture in 1995 or 1996 might have, though.
Clinton's government did, after all, head off a major attack on our airports on New Year's Eve 1999. Or did you forget that too?
9/11 wasn't planned, funded, and executed in the 8 months of the Bush presidency. So apparently Clinton's government succeeded at heading off the airport attack(s) [I had only heard about LAX, was unaware of other airports?], but they missed the upcoming WTC attack despite one having already occured back in 1993. They missed the Cole bombing as well as the two attacks on our embassies. 1 out of 4. They're batting 0.250.
Clinton lied about having an affair. Bush Jr. lied about why he was going to war with Iraq. Guess which one I ACTUALLY care about?
Clinton lied constantly--I wasn't even referring to his affair. I was referring to, starting with the 1992 campaign, literally promising one thing to a group of people and within a week or two promising the exact opposite thing to another group of people. Not that politicians don't try to make everyone happy to vote for them, but simply how bold he was in his lies and how quickly he promised opposing things to two groups was fantastic.
It has yet to be determined whether Bush lied about Iraq, BTW. With Reagan and Clinton we have a decade or two of history to look at. We're still in the middle of Iraq. He may have lied, he may not have. To claim that you know for a fact at this early date shows your bias more than your knowledge.
Nixon was clearly criminal. This is okay? Because he warmed relations with a foreign power?
Check your history. Nixon didn't order the criminal activity that was originally in question. He got carried away after the fact and helped cover it up--which I don't condone. But I bet you real money that had Clinton been in the exact same position he would have done the exact same thing to avoid the heat of a partisan action he didn't even order.
The Russians stopped playing the Cold War game because the could no longer afford to play.
Bingo! Why? Because they couldn't keep up with Reagan's level of spending which created $1.672 trillion in debt which the Democrats love to burn him for--even though it's only $62 billion more than the debt rung up by Clinton having done nothing significant.
What is worse, under Reagan, the rich grew by 3%, while the middle class shrunk by 20%. All hail voodoo economics.
Hmmm....
"Yet it is not true that the gains by the wealthiest Americans came at the expense of low-income Americans. From 1981 to 1989, every income quintile--from the richest to the poorest--gained income according to the Census Bureau economic data (see Figure 11). [50] The reason the wealthiest Americans saw their share of total income rise is that they gained income at a faster pace than did the middle class and the poor. But Reaganomics did create a rising tide that lifted nearly all boats." [
Under Reagan, every income group saw their income grow. Stop distoring the facts and spreading misinformation please.
It always surprises me that people are oblivious to the fact that Bush Sr. was in control of the CIA when they were ferreting weapons Saddams way.
Yes, back when they were the enemy of our enemy Iran. Again, I don't think it's reasonable to criticize Bush Sr. or the CIA for not being able to see the future. I'm sure if they could see 20 or 30 years in the future they would have taken different actions.
The eventual fallout? The attacks on the WTC, and more U.S. military adventurism. Sad.
Oh, come on. You can trace everything back further and further until it is absurd. We armed Iraq because we were against Iran, because Iran held our citizens hostages, because... blah blah. The reason for the attacks on WTC was because some radical suicide bombers decided to commit a terrorist act. You can say it's because of our actions involved in Iraq. I tend to believe it has more to do with our support for Israel. The fact is, international events are way too complicated to say that "the cause of 9/11" is a specific act or acts committed by Bush Sr. or the CIA. It's a lot more complicated than that.
Your grasp of international events and U.S. involvement in them is shockingly incomplete.
It's not incomplete, it's just not as biased as yours. See the big picture instead of looking at everything through your anti-Republican, anti-Bush, anti-everything glasses and you'll have a much better understanding of what goes on around you.
Record sales have declined as file sharing has increased. This is certainly a correlation, if not evidence. You will respond by saying "thats because the music sucks"
It might be because the music sucks. It might be because the economy sucks. Many companies would love to have the slightly reduced profits that the RIAA is "suffering" right now.
Or it could be that the product/service that the RIAA has been performing for the last 50 or 60 years is now completely obsolete.
I tend to believe it's the latter. And I believe they realize that and that's why they're looking for this revenue stream. They'll essentially want some percentage of the tour so that the artists get radio play. This will work for the RIAA until the radio industry gets into the same business and cuts RIAA out as an intermediary.
Any way you cut it, the RIAA is obsolete and will be history within 5-10 years, easily. But don't expect it go down without a fight.
If the artists have accountants as good as the record labels they can surely manage to make a "loss" on all the tours after charging "consultancy" and "music services" etc, and having their own highly paid company of roadies, etc.
Agreed. And if they can't manage that, well, at that point I hardly feel sorry for the artists. The artists currently get shafted by the RIAA and yet they put up with it, but it's mostly tradition. If I were an artist and the RIAA bow told me, "Hey, not only aren't you going to make any real money off of CDs, we want a piece of your tour money" I'd well and truly tell them to take a flying leap.
I keep wondering when the artists themselves are going to leave the RIAA en masse. It's becoming completely clear that these heavy rockers that preach rebellion are too much sheep to actually follow their own advice.
What makes you so sure that all those unproductive people choose to be?
Perhaps they don't. That's why I would agree with helping the poor to get their college education.
What about medicare, which provides services to the old who CAN NO LONGER WORK?
That's the problem. We've fostered a culture of dependency where the old depend on the government to take care of them rather than having saved money during their life so they'd have money when they grow older. Likewise, we now expect the government to take care of the eldery rather than the families of the elderly.
If our paychecks weren't hit with social security/Medicare tax perhaps we could use that money to purchase medical insurance for our parents or grandparents. Or better yet, they could have started paying into an insurance plan when they were still insurable and would have enough money to keep paying their premiums after they retired.
What about the people with minimum-wage jobs that provide essential services to our country?
Which minimum wage jobs provide essential services to our country?
Should they be left without health care, in misery?
No, they should continue to improve, get a college education (which I would not be opposed to the government assisting them with financially), and get a better job that pays them more money and either gives them health care or gives them sufficient income that they can purchase it themselves.
Minimum wage jobs should not be the final resting place of adults. These jobs should be primarily for the young and college students that are working their way through college. Someone that is 25 or 26 years old and is still earning minimum wage has failed to contribute all they could to society, and perhaps society has failed to assist that person in educating themselves sufficiently to be able to make that contribution.
Well event thought one of your closed-minded buddies modded down my wholly factual post, I'm going to back it up.
Wow, all three of those articles are from the 90s when Clinton was in charge. It also doesn't appear to be an ongoing handout or subsidy but one-time assistance packages for defense mergers that would put workers out of work in the downsizing of the post-cold war defense industry. I'm not going to investigate it fully right now but far from an ongoing scheme of defense handouts year after year, it looks to me like the government was offering some financial assistance to ease the impact of a sudden DECREASE in military spending.
And you never answered my question: does that figure include monies to prop-up failing businesses that the military still needs as defense contractors? Its not a complicated question.
Considering this corporate "handout" was "billed" by defense contractors, I'd be pretty dang sure that that's already included in defense spending (or was during the Clinton years when it happened). Feel free to investigate whether it came out of the education budget, though I think we would have heard something about it from the educators if that had been the case.
Well, now mind you I'm not trying to flame or anything, but at what point should we then care that the deficit is growing? When it reaches 6,674,178,209,886.86? Or 7,674,178,209,886.86? I mean that intrest payment is just going to get bigger.
Don't get me wrong. I'm entirely in favor of a balanced budget and would favor an ammendment that requires it by law--as long as that ammendment considers the entire federal budget and doesn't exempt "non-discretionary" programs.
The fact is, we could eliminate ALL defense spending and our debt would STILL be growing by over $100 billion per year. If we got rid of all social spending, on the other hand, we'd pay off the national debt in under five years. Until everyone realizes that defense spending is not the primary cause of the debt we're not going to be able to solve it.
While I'll agree that those figures sure do agree with your assment that the debt didn't go down during the Clintion years, it is a fact, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that he did sign a balanced budget.
I remember that in the news, too, and I'm not going to spend time to see if that was honestly true or just technically true. But, of course, the budget you sign means little if the reality is different. I can make a budget for my personal finances that shows me with a $100k surplus per year. Of course, it could jsut be wishful thinking.:)
It would have been some time of course before the deficit actually went down but it was a step in the right direction imo at least.
Of course, all a balanced budget would do is keep the debt from growing. You need a surplus to bring it down. Which I thought I heard there was, but I sure don't see it reflected in the actual year-to-year record of the U.S. debt. Makes me kind of wonder where all that surplus went.:)
I have a distrust of most politicians as a rule but as far as it goes Clintion was not as bad as some people like to make him out to be.
I think the problem most people have with Clinton is that he was kind of a joke and a blatant liar. Now, that could be construed as the "norm" for a politican--but the fact that he is most memorable for "not being as bad as some people" make him out to be just goes to show that he really didn't accomplish anything in his 8 years. Nixon might have been impeached, but he improved relations with China. Reagan is criticized, but he fixed the economy that Carter left him and won the cold war. Bush Sr. led one of the most unified coalitions to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. What did Clinton preside over? Nothing, really. And given that he didn't really do anything, the fact that he was a moral joke and a blatant liar received a lot more attention than would have been the case if he had used his 8 years in office do something worthwhile for the U.S. or the world.
I wonder if its that the genius just turns off, or if it's just that you don't have as much time available to do genius stuff. Fact is, I know I produced much better code much quicker when I was single and could do development from 9pm to 5am. That kind of goes out the window once you get married... I don't feel stupid, but I do feel my creative and technological output has gone down since I got married.
I'm not referring to the defense contracts themselves - that's legitamate (if incompetent) commerce. I'm referring to the free payola the US pays them separate from actually purchasing products, just because they need to keep the business alive.
Sources or references? I'm aware of a lot of defense spending, but am not aware of money given to the defense industry just for fun. Even if that is true, how is it different than giving moeny to farmers, the airline industry, insuring insurance companies against future massive terrorist attacks?
Fact is, if the defense industry collapsed (which you apparently suggest would happen if this cash giveaway to defense magnates didn't happen), the effect on the U.S. economy would be much more severe than if the airline industry went bankrupt. Perhaps the government realizes that that's not in anyone's best interest.
As for things Bush should learn from Clinton: * Balance the f*cking budget!!!
See my previous post regarding the U.S. Debt. Clinton didn't balance anything and increased the debt almost as much as Reagan without any impressive accomplishments such as ending the cold war.
Cut military spending
I'd rather cut entitlements which haven't done much to improve the situation for the poor in this country despite having transferred trillions of dollars to them.
International relation skills (many Germans still love Clinton, same can't be said about Bush (1 or 2)...)
International relation skills isn't just about being liked or loved, especially by anyone other than your citizens.
Clinton didn't take any decisive action internationally. He just left us with a big mess to clean up. He brushed aside North Korea that now has to be dealt with. He didn't invade Iraq in 1998 when there was more world support for that action and it was completely justified. He didn't adequately deal with Bin Laden. You think 9/11 was a result of Bush being in office for 8 months?
He's probably liked because he didn't do anything to piss anyone off. Which is pretty easy when you don't do anything.
We absolutely don't need a giant military for those purposes.
The fact that we don't need a giant military to crush Iraq or Afghanistan does not mean we don't need a giant military. The biggest benefit of our large and powerful military isn't the wars we've won, but the wars that haven't had to have been fought because most countries don't feel like rolling their dice against our military.
I don't think the US has ever had a president that was so unpopular with the rest of the world
Again, I could care less. Yes, it's nice when we have world approval. But do you have any doubt that Saddam would have liked WMDs? We know he *had* them. He used them on his own people and that's documented fact that nobody denies. If it turns out he didn't have them or destroyed them before the war that's not because he had a change of heart. It's because the world, backed up with overwhelming military might, demanded it. Given the chance he would have reacquired or redeveloped those weapons. And then, 50 years from now, Bush would be blamed for not dealing with Iraq before the "San Francisco Bay" chemical attack (i.e. Pearl Harbor) and they'd accuse Bush of having allowed the attack to give him a justification to take the middle east.
Come on, he can't win.
That would be either NASA or the American Science Foundation NOT the military.
I agree that those would be better places to spend the money for R&D purposes. Unfortunately, politicians don't spend much there. What I was saying is that the military defense budget is where a heck of a lot of this country's R&D takes place so while you can complain about it being "useless defense spending" you also need to consider the R&D aspect of the benefits.
Take a look at the Constitution. The government should not have a standing army for more than X years (5 I think it was),
Can you tell me where that is in the Constitution? I can't find it.
Actually, yeah, I personally think any tax cuts when we have a deficit is pretty foolish but hey, thats just me.
Tax cuts are always a good idea, unless you have mega-inflation in which case you can try to take additional money out of circulation if the Fed is unable to do enough by adjusting interest rates. But otherwise, tax cuts will stimulate a sluggish economy and boost a good economy further.
You can't hurt the economy by letting people keep their money.
And while I'm not a great fan of Clinton I'm pretty sure that the budget he signed lowered overall spending. (Thus managing to have a balanced budget for the 1st time in years.)
That's an urban legend started by the Clinton administration and never challenged by the press. Check out the last 50 years of the U.S. debt. The last year I see where the debt went down was in 1960 (Correct me if I missed some more recent year).
The debt didn't go down under Clinton. It went up $1.610 trillion. Considering it went up by $1.672 trillion under Reagan it's amazing that Democrats chastise Reagan for so much "deficit spending." Reagan spent just $62 billion more than Clinton while lowering taxes and winning the cold war and receiving the country in the middle of a recession. What did Clinton accomplish with his $1.6 trillion other than raising taxes after receiving the country with a growing economy?
Call it what you will but, yes, that's counting defense contractors which quite obviously goes under the heading of "national defense." It also includes giveaways to farmers to not plant crops, etc.
You don't help your argument by essentially demonstrating that you can't (or don't) read.
Which is bogus. Things like social security et all are "non-discretionary" because we say there are non-discretionary. It's only "non-discretionary" because the politicians have decided it's too politically risky to touch them because we've created a dependency on it within certain social groups.
Social spending may be "non-discretionary" but that does not mean you can ignore its contribution to the national debt, nor ignore that other aspects of government wouldn't be "starved" if there was less "non-discretionary" spending. Basically, the legitimate aspects of governemnt are "starved" because so much of the budget is tied up in feel-good social programs that have created so much dependency that politicans don't dare risk undoing the damage.
Actually, Kennedy lowered taxes on the rich from 94% to 70% (he had asked for 65%, but Congress gave him 70%). He stated: "It is a paradoxical truth, that tax rates are too high today, and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the tax rates".
Kennedy cut taxes on the rich more than Reagan or Bush and seems to be as much a source of "supply side economics" as anyone else. Yet for some reason the Democrats think JFK was a god. Strange contradiction.
You had... Carter
Carter seems to be a fine man, the kind of guy I'd love to have as a neighbor. But what exactly would you have Bush duplicate of his presidency? The high inflation or would it be the oil crisis?
You had... Clinton
Again, what would you duplicate here? Raising taxes? Raising spending? Military intervention in countries that have nothing to do with our national interest? Sticking smoking devices into young interns? What exactly should Bush duplicate from Clinton's presidency?
Contrary to the social spending, cutting the military spending will *not* make your population's life worse than it is now
So giving money to people instead of having them work and produce something is going to make life better? Maybe for a few for a short amount of time, but that's not a system that can work in the long-term. Forcing the successful and productive to subsidize the unproductive and, sometimes, downright lazy is NOT fair and is NOT in the national interest in the long-term.
I would note that we have not significantly improved the sitution of the poor even after decades of wealth distribution. If the situation before and after are pretty much the same and the only difference is that we've increased the debt, what exactly was the point?
unless you insisit on giving more importance to some corrupt senators and the military-industrial magnates.
Not everyone that works in the defense industry is a "magnate" and the defense industry does provide jobs to MANY engineers that contribute to the tax base as well as lead to technological improvements, both military and otherwise. Military spending is the closest thing this country has to a pure R&D investment in technology.
As such, it is normal to blame the waste and not the needed.
Which is the bigger waste, defending our country or giving money to people that are unproductive? I'd even be willing to subsidize sending poorer people to universities so that they have the opportunity to contribute more to society and the economy. But wealth redistribution? That's a waste of time and money, especially when an organization as inefficient as the government is in charge of it.
Ok, let's try again. And let's keep it simple: From the 1040 tax "book" (on the back of the front cover) that I assume you were sent to do this year's taxes:
Outlays:
Soc. security, Medicare, retirement, social programs, physical, human, community development: 64%
National Defense, Veterans, and foreign affairs: 18%
Interest on the debt: 10%
Law enforcement & general government: 2%
So... There you have it. 64% of the budget is spent on social programs and, no, that doesn't include interest on the debt or veteran's benefits.
And again, if 64% of the budget is social programs then saying that the past debt was incurred by military spending is less than honest. In reality, you can't say what caused the debt other than "total spending." And of that total spending social programs makes up 64%, so social programs have caused more debt than military spending.
Oh, shut up with that stupid argument. If anyone knew Bin Laden would go berzerk 20 years later and attack the Twin Towers I'm sure no-one would have given him weapons. They probably would've taken him out. Or are you faulting the U.S. for not being able to predict the future?
On an aside, whether we gave these people weapons or not begs the question: How many Americans have been killed by weapons we gave them?
that a $5 billion aircraft carrier that we really don't need during this time of budget crunches and economic weakness
Believe it or not it takes more than a few days to plan and build one of these things. We were still in an economic boom (bubble, but who knew) at the time.
Plus, these things don't last forever and you don't wait until one of your existing carriers is toast to start thinking of buying another one. The defense of the country is an ongoing investment.
Ronald Reagan's pro-spending, pro-big-government, anti-labor policies are undoubtedly going to lead my beloved country to her death.
Wow, you take the cake. A liberal that can blame today's problems on a president from two decades ago. Nevermind that social spending far exceeds military spending, but blame the military spending for the deficit. Whatever.
I've had only very good experiences dealing with amex as a consumer
Congratulations. The three people I know first-hand that have/had AMEX have told me horror stories. In fact, I used to pay someone by sending a payment to credit their AMEX card. More than once AMEX couldn't figure it out even though the cardholder name and number was clearly on the check. We eventually gave up and now I just send the check directly to his bank account. But that AMEX couldn't figure out how to accept those payments was downright incredible. It wasn't rocket science.
The had them run a $20,000 charge onto his card and it went through just fine. Try doing that with a standard visa/mc and see how far you get.
If you have a corporate card with a suitable limit I'm sure you'd be fine. If not, a quick call to your bank would resolve it. I'm not sure that if I have a history of $500 transactions I want my bank accepting $20,000 transactions without question.
But, with AMEX's policy in place I guess it's no risk to them (AMEX). If you had disputed the charge it's no sweat for AMEX. Just charge it back to the merchant and tell them tough luck. It's pretty easy to accept rediculously large transactions if you don't even give the merchant the chance to document it.
Which is my whole point: I'm not against AMEX taking chargebacks from my account. That's how chargebacks work. But to tell me that I can't even provide them with documentation to substantiate the charge is completely bogus and it doesn't cut down on fraud--it just screws the merchant. The fraudulent charge still appears on the consumer bill, the consumer still disputes it. Just at that point instead of letting the merchant provide his side of the story with documents and making a fair analysis AMEX just tells the merchant he's SOL. I don't see where that helps the customer or prevents fraud--it just gives AMEX a "legal" way to be shielded from any risk of the business in which they are in.
But it's a heck of a lot easier to make sure the fraud never shows up in the first place.
Please explain to me how the fraud will never show up in the first place just because the merchant can't dispute a chargeback? The charge will still appear on your bill and you still have to dispute it. The only difference is that normally Visa/Mastercard gives the merchant the opportunity to try to prove that the charge was valid, which is fair. If I can prove the transaction was NOT fraudulent, why should I have to eat the loss? Either the customer is using their AMEX card fraudulently (making charges and then saying it wasn't them) or AMEX isn't doing their job authorization the transaction at time of sale?
Try re-using a 1-time number from amex and see how far you get.
I didn't say it would. But what if someone does have your AMEX number? It's still going to appear on your bill and you are still going to disute it. I assume you use your card in physical locations, right? Those numbers can wind up in anyone's hands. Just because you don't use it online doesn't mean your number can't find its way online.
But try telling visa that that one-time charge of $50 to a legit software download site isn't really yours.
That's exactly the point. I had a charge of $195 that was labeled as "Maxsite.com" (or something like that, can't remember the website). As far as the bank is concerned it looked completely valid. I noticed it on my online statement the next day and called and disputed it. They immediately reversed the transaction. Done deal. It didn't take any convincing at all. I just told them the charge was fraudulent.
If a vendor doesn't want to take it, no skin off my back. I'll just find another vendor;)
I guess it depends on what you buy. Many merchants that accept Visa/MC don't accept AMEX. I was hoping to offer the full gamit of cards, but with the AMEX policy I'm not going to give up my right to document a transacti
Filtering does not stop the spammer from using your (and your ISP's) network bandwidth and server resources.
If effective Bayesian filtering becomes widespread, fewer and fewer people will even see the garbage spammers send out which will cause their response rate to go even lower. Eventually, it won't make sense to send spam.
Filtering gives an immediate solution to the user that doesn't want to be bothered by spam, and is a long-term solution that will eventually lead to spamming being a pointless excercise since no-one will actually receive the spam that is sent.
How well will your filter work when you get 72634 spams a day?
My filter will work a lot better dealing with 72,634 spams a day then *I* would if I had to deal with that manually with the delete button.
I totally agree that AMEX's policy is very vendor un-friendly
Not only that, they're consumer un-friendly, too. I've never had an AMEX (and never will), but I have friends and associates that did.
And from a customer's standpoint, I'm not as much worried about other customers defrauding the supplier... I'm far more worried about suppliers/whomever defrauding me, selling my info, or "losing" it.
That risk is the same whether you use AMEX or Visa/Mastercard.
So if a merchant won't take my 1-time AMEX number...I'll try to find another merchant who will.
And that's your decision. The reality is that merchants get screwed by fraud far more often than customers get screwed by merchants. Especially if you make any effort whatsoever to see how long the merchant has been around, references, etc. Luckily, most people DO have Visa/Mastercard--even most AMEX cardholders. So I don't seriously reduce my company's sales by not accepting AMEX for high-dollar transactions. I do, however, reduce the risk of being screwed by AMEX.
My real number doesn't end up in anybody's database, to be snarfed at random when they forget to secure their machines.
Does it matter? Apparently my Visa card did once. I was told that my card had been compromised with thousands others and that I'd receive a new card in a few days. I did, and there was never an issue.
Last November I got some mysterious charge for $195.00 from a company whose website didn't exist and phone number didn't work. Called my bank, it was reversed within minutes and I had a new card a few days later. I've never paid a dollar in fraudulent charges to my card.
Fraud is not a problem for the customer either using AMEX or Visa/Mastercard. A call to the bank will solve any reasonable fraud.
I've never had to deal with an ID-theft or fraud
Nor have I. But using AMEX instead of Visa/Mastercard is not going to make any difference when it comes to ID theft.
From my point of view, preventing this makes going to a little extra bit of trouble, finding alternate vendors, whatever, very much worth the small amount of extra time.
Again, how does using your AMEX reduce your risk of ID theft? If someone wants to steal your identity it's not going to make a difference if you use 1-time AMEX number or Visa. The most valuable thing to them is your address and there's little you can do to hide that.
Despite popular opinion, a US law will only stop domestic spam
... But Bayesian filtering can stop more than 99.5% of all spam worldwide. So far this month I've caught 99.9% of spam with my Bayesian filter: Only 1 out of 1025 spams made it through.
I'm in favor of dealing with spammers via existing laws to make it more costly for them. But in terms of solving the problem for me personally? Bayesian filtering is the answer.
A solution could be to keep the mails on the outgoing mail server. The incoming mail server could only recieve for instance a header acknoledging the final recipient that he could download a mail from the expeditor. If and only if the final user chooses to download the message, will it be downloaded from the outgoing to the incoming mail server.
That's a good idea in theory, but in reality I doubt it would work.
The header would have to have at least enough information for the receiver to make an intelligent decision on whether or not to download the message. Probably that means at least a Date/Time, Subject, From, and To header. All you would see is the spammers putting their spam message, in condensed form, in the subject. Sure, you might reduce the bandwidth consumed by spam a bit, but you're not going to reduce spam itself.
Plus this gives users less information on which to perform Bayesian filtering which, for me, has caught 1024 of the last 1025 spam I've recieved.
Reluctant merchants are far more likely to ship to a business they can look up and verify exist than a private address.
True. Also, offer to send a U.S. check or money order. They'll want to sit on the check for a few weeks to make sure it clears, but once the money is safely in their account there should be no problem shipping.
My company also receives wire transfers from abroad quite often. Once we see the money sitting in our account, package goes out.
False numbers or valid numbers that are just disputed later. If I accept an order from outside the U.S. and that person disputes the charges (even if they were valid), I'm pretty much stuck. It's not like I'm going to try to sue them in their country--that's going to be a money-losing proposition.
What I do is if the order is from outside the U.S. *OR* from inside the U.S. but uses a free-email account as a contact, or there is any question about the validity of the order, an email is sent to the customer asking them to fax a copy of the image of both sides of their credit card along with their signature and a note of the amount to charge. If it is charged back that gives me some documentation to dispute the chargeback with Visa/MC.
Of course, American Express is an entirely different set of nonsense. If you do more than 50% of your business on the Internet AMEX puts you on a "Full Recourse" plan which basically means any chargeback against you CANNOT be disputed, even if you have the above documentation. It's basically a cop-out on the part of AMEX in its duty to do a good-faith investigation into a chargeback. Basically, if the customer disputes the charge you're screwed. For that reason, our company will not accept AMEX orders over $50--which kind of defeats the purpose of accepting American Express. But I happily tell my customers to just use Visa or Mastercard instead. Seems AMEX is shooting itself in the foot.
Slashdot Mirror
Put your bias aside for a minute and realize that 9/11 didn't happen because of 8 months of the Bush presidency but an ongoing hatred of the United States that was evident back in the 1993 WTC attacks. Gore being president wouldn't have reduced the chance of 9/11 happening, the only question would have been our response.
given I doubt Gore would have closed the investigation into Bin Laden
The investigation had been going on for some time. You can argue theoreticals, but there's no particular reason to believe it would have been more successful in the 8 months leading up to 9/11 than the years prior. Plus, 9/11 apparently would have occurred even if Bin Laden had been captured since underlings were actually organizing and executing the attack. It's doubtful a Bin Laden capture in 2001 would have avoided the 9/11 attacks. A capture in 1995 or 1996 might have, though.
Clinton's government did, after all, head off a major attack on our airports on New Year's Eve 1999. Or did you forget that too?
9/11 wasn't planned, funded, and executed in the 8 months of the Bush presidency. So apparently Clinton's government succeeded at heading off the airport attack(s) [I had only heard about LAX, was unaware of other airports?], but they missed the upcoming WTC attack despite one having already occured back in 1993. They missed the Cole bombing as well as the two attacks on our embassies. 1 out of 4. They're batting 0.250.
Clinton lied constantly--I wasn't even referring to his affair. I was referring to, starting with the 1992 campaign, literally promising one thing to a group of people and within a week or two promising the exact opposite thing to another group of people. Not that politicians don't try to make everyone happy to vote for them, but simply how bold he was in his lies and how quickly he promised opposing things to two groups was fantastic.
It has yet to be determined whether Bush lied about Iraq, BTW. With Reagan and Clinton we have a decade or two of history to look at. We're still in the middle of Iraq. He may have lied, he may not have. To claim that you know for a fact at this early date shows your bias more than your knowledge.
Nixon was clearly criminal. This is okay? Because he warmed relations with a foreign power?
Check your history. Nixon didn't order the criminal activity that was originally in question. He got carried away after the fact and helped cover it up--which I don't condone. But I bet you real money that had Clinton been in the exact same position he would have done the exact same thing to avoid the heat of a partisan action he didn't even order.
The Russians stopped playing the Cold War game because the could no longer afford to play.
Bingo! Why? Because they couldn't keep up with Reagan's level of spending which created $1.672 trillion in debt which the Democrats love to burn him for--even though it's only $62 billion more than the debt rung up by Clinton having done nothing significant.
What is worse, under Reagan, the rich grew by 3%, while the middle class shrunk by 20%. All hail voodoo economics.
Hmmm....
Under Reagan, every income group saw their income grow. Stop distoring the facts and spreading misinformation please.
It always surprises me that people are oblivious to the fact that Bush Sr. was in control of the CIA when they were ferreting weapons Saddams way.
Yes, back when they were the enemy of our enemy Iran. Again, I don't think it's reasonable to criticize Bush Sr. or the CIA for not being able to see the future. I'm sure if they could see 20 or 30 years in the future they would have taken different actions.
The eventual fallout? The attacks on the WTC, and more U.S. military adventurism. Sad.
Oh, come on. You can trace everything back further and further until it is absurd. We armed Iraq because we were against Iran, because Iran held our citizens hostages, because... blah blah. The reason for the attacks on WTC was because some radical suicide bombers decided to commit a terrorist act. You can say it's because of our actions involved in Iraq. I tend to believe it has more to do with our support for Israel. The fact is, international events are way too complicated to say that "the cause of 9/11" is a specific act or acts committed by Bush Sr. or the CIA. It's a lot more complicated than that.
Your grasp of international events and U.S. involvement in them is shockingly incomplete.
It's not incomplete, it's just not as biased as yours. See the big picture instead of looking at everything through your anti-Republican, anti-Bush, anti-everything glasses and you'll have a much better understanding of what goes on around you.
It might be because the music sucks. It might be because the economy sucks. Many companies would love to have the slightly reduced profits that the RIAA is "suffering" right now.
Or it could be that the product/service that the RIAA has been performing for the last 50 or 60 years is now completely obsolete.
I tend to believe it's the latter. And I believe they realize that and that's why they're looking for this revenue stream. They'll essentially want some percentage of the tour so that the artists get radio play. This will work for the RIAA until the radio industry gets into the same business and cuts RIAA out as an intermediary.
Any way you cut it, the RIAA is obsolete and will be history within 5-10 years, easily. But don't expect it go down without a fight.
Agreed. And if they can't manage that, well, at that point I hardly feel sorry for the artists. The artists currently get shafted by the RIAA and yet they put up with it, but it's mostly tradition. If I were an artist and the RIAA bow told me, "Hey, not only aren't you going to make any real money off of CDs, we want a piece of your tour money" I'd well and truly tell them to take a flying leap.
I keep wondering when the artists themselves are going to leave the RIAA en masse. It's becoming completely clear that these heavy rockers that preach rebellion are too much sheep to actually follow their own advice.
Perhaps they don't. That's why I would agree with helping the poor to get their college education.
What about medicare, which provides services to the old who CAN NO LONGER WORK?
That's the problem. We've fostered a culture of dependency where the old depend on the government to take care of them rather than having saved money during their life so they'd have money when they grow older. Likewise, we now expect the government to take care of the eldery rather than the families of the elderly.
If our paychecks weren't hit with social security/Medicare tax perhaps we could use that money to purchase medical insurance for our parents or grandparents. Or better yet, they could have started paying into an insurance plan when they were still insurable and would have enough money to keep paying their premiums after they retired.
What about the people with minimum-wage jobs that provide essential services to our country?
Which minimum wage jobs provide essential services to our country?
Should they be left without health care, in misery?
No, they should continue to improve, get a college education (which I would not be opposed to the government assisting them with financially), and get a better job that pays them more money and either gives them health care or gives them sufficient income that they can purchase it themselves.
Minimum wage jobs should not be the final resting place of adults. These jobs should be primarily for the young and college students that are working their way through college. Someone that is 25 or 26 years old and is still earning minimum wage has failed to contribute all they could to society, and perhaps society has failed to assist that person in educating themselves sufficiently to be able to make that contribution.
Wow, all three of those articles are from the 90s when Clinton was in charge. It also doesn't appear to be an ongoing handout or subsidy but one-time assistance packages for defense mergers that would put workers out of work in the downsizing of the post-cold war defense industry. I'm not going to investigate it fully right now but far from an ongoing scheme of defense handouts year after year, it looks to me like the government was offering some financial assistance to ease the impact of a sudden DECREASE in military spending.
And you never answered my question: does that figure include monies to prop-up failing businesses that the military still needs as defense contractors? Its not a complicated question.
Considering this corporate "handout" was "billed" by defense contractors, I'd be pretty dang sure that that's already included in defense spending (or was during the Clinton years when it happened). Feel free to investigate whether it came out of the education budget, though I think we would have heard something about it from the educators if that had been the case.
Don't get me wrong. I'm entirely in favor of a balanced budget and would favor an ammendment that requires it by law--as long as that ammendment considers the entire federal budget and doesn't exempt "non-discretionary" programs.
The fact is, we could eliminate ALL defense spending and our debt would STILL be growing by over $100 billion per year. If we got rid of all social spending, on the other hand, we'd pay off the national debt in under five years. Until everyone realizes that defense spending is not the primary cause of the debt we're not going to be able to solve it.
While I'll agree that those figures sure do agree with your assment that the debt didn't go down during the Clintion years, it is a fact, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that he did sign a balanced budget.
I remember that in the news, too, and I'm not going to spend time to see if that was honestly true or just technically true. But, of course, the budget you sign means little if the reality is different. I can make a budget for my personal finances that shows me with a $100k surplus per year. Of course, it could jsut be wishful thinking. :)
It would have been some time of course before the deficit actually went down but it was a step in the right direction imo at least.
Of course, all a balanced budget would do is keep the debt from growing. You need a surplus to bring it down. Which I thought I heard there was, but I sure don't see it reflected in the actual year-to-year record of the U.S. debt. Makes me kind of wonder where all that surplus went. :)
I have a distrust of most politicians as a rule but as far as it goes Clintion was not as bad as some people like to make him out to be.
I think the problem most people have with Clinton is that he was kind of a joke and a blatant liar. Now, that could be construed as the "norm" for a politican--but the fact that he is most memorable for "not being as bad as some people" make him out to be just goes to show that he really didn't accomplish anything in his 8 years. Nixon might have been impeached, but he improved relations with China. Reagan is criticized, but he fixed the economy that Carter left him and won the cold war. Bush Sr. led one of the most unified coalitions to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. What did Clinton preside over? Nothing, really. And given that he didn't really do anything, the fact that he was a moral joke and a blatant liar received a lot more attention than would have been the case if he had used his 8 years in office do something worthwhile for the U.S. or the world.
Sources or references? I'm aware of a lot of defense spending, but am not aware of money given to the defense industry just for fun. Even if that is true, how is it different than giving moeny to farmers, the airline industry, insuring insurance companies against future massive terrorist attacks?
Fact is, if the defense industry collapsed (which you apparently suggest would happen if this cash giveaway to defense magnates didn't happen), the effect on the U.S. economy would be much more severe than if the airline industry went bankrupt. Perhaps the government realizes that that's not in anyone's best interest.
See my previous post regarding the U.S. Debt. Clinton didn't balance anything and increased the debt almost as much as Reagan without any impressive accomplishments such as ending the cold war.
Cut military spending
I'd rather cut entitlements which haven't done much to improve the situation for the poor in this country despite having transferred trillions of dollars to them.
International relation skills (many Germans still love Clinton, same can't be said about Bush (1 or 2)...)
International relation skills isn't just about being liked or loved, especially by anyone other than your citizens.
Clinton didn't take any decisive action internationally. He just left us with a big mess to clean up. He brushed aside North Korea that now has to be dealt with. He didn't invade Iraq in 1998 when there was more world support for that action and it was completely justified. He didn't adequately deal with Bin Laden. You think 9/11 was a result of Bush being in office for 8 months?
He's probably liked because he didn't do anything to piss anyone off. Which is pretty easy when you don't do anything.
We absolutely don't need a giant military for those purposes.
The fact that we don't need a giant military to crush Iraq or Afghanistan does not mean we don't need a giant military. The biggest benefit of our large and powerful military isn't the wars we've won, but the wars that haven't had to have been fought because most countries don't feel like rolling their dice against our military.
I don't think the US has ever had a president that was so unpopular with the rest of the world
Again, I could care less. Yes, it's nice when we have world approval. But do you have any doubt that Saddam would have liked WMDs? We know he *had* them. He used them on his own people and that's documented fact that nobody denies. If it turns out he didn't have them or destroyed them before the war that's not because he had a change of heart. It's because the world, backed up with overwhelming military might, demanded it. Given the chance he would have reacquired or redeveloped those weapons. And then, 50 years from now, Bush would be blamed for not dealing with Iraq before the "San Francisco Bay" chemical attack (i.e. Pearl Harbor) and they'd accuse Bush of having allowed the attack to give him a justification to take the middle east.
Come on, he can't win.
That would be either NASA or the American Science Foundation NOT the military.
I agree that those would be better places to spend the money for R&D purposes. Unfortunately, politicians don't spend much there. What I was saying is that the military defense budget is where a heck of a lot of this country's R&D takes place so while you can complain about it being "useless defense spending" you also need to consider the R&D aspect of the benefits.
Take a look at the Constitution. The government should not have a standing army for more than X years (5 I think it was),
Can you tell me where that is in the Constitution? I can't find it.
Tax cuts are always a good idea, unless you have mega-inflation in which case you can try to take additional money out of circulation if the Fed is unable to do enough by adjusting interest rates. But otherwise, tax cuts will stimulate a sluggish economy and boost a good economy further.
You can't hurt the economy by letting people keep their money.
And while I'm not a great fan of Clinton I'm pretty sure that the budget he signed lowered overall spending. (Thus managing to have a balanced budget for the 1st time in years.)
That's an urban legend started by the Clinton administration and never challenged by the press. Check out the last 50 years of the U.S. debt. The last year I see where the debt went down was in 1960 (Correct me if I missed some more recent year).
The debt didn't go down under Clinton. It went up $1.610 trillion. Considering it went up by $1.672 trillion under Reagan it's amazing that Democrats chastise Reagan for so much "deficit spending." Reagan spent just $62 billion more than Clinton while lowering taxes and winning the cold war and receiving the country in the middle of a recession. What did Clinton accomplish with his $1.6 trillion other than raising taxes after receiving the country with a growing economy?
You don't help your argument by essentially demonstrating that you can't (or don't) read.
Social spending may be "non-discretionary" but that does not mean you can ignore its contribution to the national debt, nor ignore that other aspects of government wouldn't be "starved" if there was less "non-discretionary" spending. Basically, the legitimate aspects of governemnt are "starved" because so much of the budget is tied up in feel-good social programs that have created so much dependency that politicans don't dare risk undoing the damage.
Actually, Kennedy lowered taxes on the rich from 94% to 70% (he had asked for 65%, but Congress gave him 70%). He stated: "It is a paradoxical truth, that tax rates are too high today, and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the tax rates".
Kennedy cut taxes on the rich more than Reagan or Bush and seems to be as much a source of "supply side economics" as anyone else. Yet for some reason the Democrats think JFK was a god. Strange contradiction.
You had... Carter
Carter seems to be a fine man, the kind of guy I'd love to have as a neighbor. But what exactly would you have Bush duplicate of his presidency? The high inflation or would it be the oil crisis?
You had... Clinton
Again, what would you duplicate here? Raising taxes? Raising spending? Military intervention in countries that have nothing to do with our national interest? Sticking smoking devices into young interns? What exactly should Bush duplicate from Clinton's presidency?
Contrary to the social spending, cutting the military spending will *not* make your population's life worse than it is now
So giving money to people instead of having them work and produce something is going to make life better? Maybe for a few for a short amount of time, but that's not a system that can work in the long-term. Forcing the successful and productive to subsidize the unproductive and, sometimes, downright lazy is NOT fair and is NOT in the national interest in the long-term.
I would note that we have not significantly improved the sitution of the poor even after decades of wealth distribution. If the situation before and after are pretty much the same and the only difference is that we've increased the debt, what exactly was the point?
unless you insisit on giving more importance to some corrupt senators and the military-industrial magnates.
Not everyone that works in the defense industry is a "magnate" and the defense industry does provide jobs to MANY engineers that contribute to the tax base as well as lead to technological improvements, both military and otherwise. Military spending is the closest thing this country has to a pure R&D investment in technology.
As such, it is normal to blame the waste and not the needed.
Which is the bigger waste, defending our country or giving money to people that are unproductive? I'd even be willing to subsidize sending poorer people to universities so that they have the opportunity to contribute more to society and the economy. But wealth redistribution? That's a waste of time and money, especially when an organization as inefficient as the government is in charge of it.
Outlays:
Soc. security, Medicare, retirement, social programs, physical, human, community development: 64%
National Defense, Veterans, and foreign affairs: 18%
Interest on the debt: 10%
Law enforcement & general government: 2%
So... There you have it. 64% of the budget is spent on social programs and, no, that doesn't include interest on the debt or veteran's benefits.
And again, if 64% of the budget is social programs then saying that the past debt was incurred by military spending is less than honest. In reality, you can't say what caused the debt other than "total spending." And of that total spending social programs makes up 64%, so social programs have caused more debt than military spending.
Glad I could help.
Think? I think you give them too much credit. :)
On an aside, whether we gave these people weapons or not begs the question: How many Americans have been killed by weapons we gave them?
Believe it or not it takes more than a few days to plan and build one of these things. We were still in an economic boom (bubble, but who knew) at the time.
Plus, these things don't last forever and you don't wait until one of your existing carriers is toast to start thinking of buying another one. The defense of the country is an ongoing investment.
Ronald Reagan's pro-spending, pro-big-government, anti-labor policies are undoubtedly going to lead my beloved country to her death.
Wow, you take the cake. A liberal that can blame today's problems on a president from two decades ago. Nevermind that social spending far exceeds military spending, but blame the military spending for the deficit. Whatever.
Congratulations. The three people I know first-hand that have/had AMEX have told me horror stories. In fact, I used to pay someone by sending a payment to credit their AMEX card. More than once AMEX couldn't figure it out even though the cardholder name and number was clearly on the check. We eventually gave up and now I just send the check directly to his bank account. But that AMEX couldn't figure out how to accept those payments was downright incredible. It wasn't rocket science.
The had them run a $20,000 charge onto his card and it went through just fine. Try doing that with a standard visa/mc and see how far you get.
If you have a corporate card with a suitable limit I'm sure you'd be fine. If not, a quick call to your bank would resolve it. I'm not sure that if I have a history of $500 transactions I want my bank accepting $20,000 transactions without question.
But, with AMEX's policy in place I guess it's no risk to them (AMEX). If you had disputed the charge it's no sweat for AMEX. Just charge it back to the merchant and tell them tough luck. It's pretty easy to accept rediculously large transactions if you don't even give the merchant the chance to document it.
Which is my whole point: I'm not against AMEX taking chargebacks from my account. That's how chargebacks work. But to tell me that I can't even provide them with documentation to substantiate the charge is completely bogus and it doesn't cut down on fraud--it just screws the merchant. The fraudulent charge still appears on the consumer bill, the consumer still disputes it. Just at that point instead of letting the merchant provide his side of the story with documents and making a fair analysis AMEX just tells the merchant he's SOL. I don't see where that helps the customer or prevents fraud--it just gives AMEX a "legal" way to be shielded from any risk of the business in which they are in.
But it's a heck of a lot easier to make sure the fraud never shows up in the first place.
Please explain to me how the fraud will never show up in the first place just because the merchant can't dispute a chargeback? The charge will still appear on your bill and you still have to dispute it. The only difference is that normally Visa/Mastercard gives the merchant the opportunity to try to prove that the charge was valid, which is fair. If I can prove the transaction was NOT fraudulent, why should I have to eat the loss? Either the customer is using their AMEX card fraudulently (making charges and then saying it wasn't them) or AMEX isn't doing their job authorization the transaction at time of sale?
Try re-using a 1-time number from amex and see how far you get.
I didn't say it would. But what if someone does have your AMEX number? It's still going to appear on your bill and you are still going to disute it. I assume you use your card in physical locations, right? Those numbers can wind up in anyone's hands. Just because you don't use it online doesn't mean your number can't find its way online.
But try telling visa that that one-time charge of $50 to a legit software download site isn't really yours.
That's exactly the point. I had a charge of $195 that was labeled as "Maxsite.com" (or something like that, can't remember the website). As far as the bank is concerned it looked completely valid. I noticed it on my online statement the next day and called and disputed it. They immediately reversed the transaction. Done deal. It didn't take any convincing at all. I just told them the charge was fraudulent.
If a vendor doesn't want to take it, no skin off my back. I'll just find another vendor ;)
I guess it depends on what you buy. Many merchants that accept Visa/MC don't accept AMEX. I was hoping to offer the full gamit of cards, but with the AMEX policy I'm not going to give up my right to document a transacti
If effective Bayesian filtering becomes widespread, fewer and fewer people will even see the garbage spammers send out which will cause their response rate to go even lower. Eventually, it won't make sense to send spam.
Filtering gives an immediate solution to the user that doesn't want to be bothered by spam, and is a long-term solution that will eventually lead to spamming being a pointless excercise since no-one will actually receive the spam that is sent.
How well will your filter work when you get 72634 spams a day?
My filter will work a lot better dealing with 72,634 spams a day then *I* would if I had to deal with that manually with the delete button.
Not only that, they're consumer un-friendly, too. I've never had an AMEX (and never will), but I have friends and associates that did.
And from a customer's standpoint, I'm not as much worried about other customers defrauding the supplier... I'm far more worried about suppliers/whomever defrauding me, selling my info, or "losing" it.
That risk is the same whether you use AMEX or Visa/Mastercard.
So if a merchant won't take my 1-time AMEX number...I'll try to find another merchant who will.
And that's your decision. The reality is that merchants get screwed by fraud far more often than customers get screwed by merchants. Especially if you make any effort whatsoever to see how long the merchant has been around, references, etc. Luckily, most people DO have Visa/Mastercard--even most AMEX cardholders. So I don't seriously reduce my company's sales by not accepting AMEX for high-dollar transactions. I do, however, reduce the risk of being screwed by AMEX.
My real number doesn't end up in anybody's database, to be snarfed at random when they forget to secure their machines.
Does it matter? Apparently my Visa card did once. I was told that my card had been compromised with thousands others and that I'd receive a new card in a few days. I did, and there was never an issue.
Last November I got some mysterious charge for $195.00 from a company whose website didn't exist and phone number didn't work. Called my bank, it was reversed within minutes and I had a new card a few days later. I've never paid a dollar in fraudulent charges to my card.
Fraud is not a problem for the customer either using AMEX or Visa/Mastercard. A call to the bank will solve any reasonable fraud.
I've never had to deal with an ID-theft or fraud
Nor have I. But using AMEX instead of Visa/Mastercard is not going to make any difference when it comes to ID theft.
From my point of view, preventing this makes going to a little extra bit of trouble, finding alternate vendors, whatever, very much worth the small amount of extra time.
Again, how does using your AMEX reduce your risk of ID theft? If someone wants to steal your identity it's not going to make a difference if you use 1-time AMEX number or Visa. The most valuable thing to them is your address and there's little you can do to hide that.
I'm in favor of dealing with spammers via existing laws to make it more costly for them. But in terms of solving the problem for me personally? Bayesian filtering is the answer.
That's a good idea in theory, but in reality I doubt it would work.
The header would have to have at least enough information for the receiver to make an intelligent decision on whether or not to download the message. Probably that means at least a Date/Time, Subject, From, and To header. All you would see is the spammers putting their spam message, in condensed form, in the subject. Sure, you might reduce the bandwidth consumed by spam a bit, but you're not going to reduce spam itself.
Plus this gives users less information on which to perform Bayesian filtering which, for me, has caught 1024 of the last 1025 spam I've recieved.
True. Also, offer to send a U.S. check or money order. They'll want to sit on the check for a few weeks to make sure it clears, but once the money is safely in their account there should be no problem shipping.
My company also receives wire transfers from abroad quite often. Once we see the money sitting in our account, package goes out.
What I do is if the order is from outside the U.S. *OR* from inside the U.S. but uses a free-email account as a contact, or there is any question about the validity of the order, an email is sent to the customer asking them to fax a copy of the image of both sides of their credit card along with their signature and a note of the amount to charge. If it is charged back that gives me some documentation to dispute the chargeback with Visa/MC.
Of course, American Express is an entirely different set of nonsense. If you do more than 50% of your business on the Internet AMEX puts you on a "Full Recourse" plan which basically means any chargeback against you CANNOT be disputed, even if you have the above documentation. It's basically a cop-out on the part of AMEX in its duty to do a good-faith investigation into a chargeback. Basically, if the customer disputes the charge you're screwed. For that reason, our company will not accept AMEX orders over $50--which kind of defeats the purpose of accepting American Express. But I happily tell my customers to just use Visa or Mastercard instead. Seems AMEX is shooting itself in the foot.