My arrogant opinions about politics, culture, science fiction, and whatever else I feel like talking about.

The Age of Consent for Participating in Pornography

        Jon Swift explains why it must be raised to sixty-five.

        "Amazon customer service sucks!  Tell a friend."

Posted by: saintonge at 11:00 | link | comments

I Can't Completely Agree

        Betsy Newmark notes an incident in China 13 years ago.  Two Hundred Eighty Eight (288) children and thirty six (36) teachers died in a fire in 1994, mostly because the local party officials present were too busy saving their own asses to care about any inconsequential people who weren't party officials.

        Betsy calls this "dreadful" and terrible, and of course I agree, but she finds it "amazing that the truth had been hidden for thirteen years."  Hey, this is China, the country where Mao starved twenty-to-thirty million people to death, knowingly, yet that was mostly covered up till only a few years ago.  Compared to that, 324 deaths whose cause is concealed, because it would embarrass the party, is what you'd expect.

        "Amazon customer service sucks!  Tell a friend."

Posted by: saintonge at 08:37 | link | comments

The Continuing collapse of civilization

        I logged on to Yahoo!, and the top stories featured are:

Paris sentenced to jail
How high can gas prices go?
Brandy sued over freeway death
Super bout: De La Hoya fight could save boxing
Interactive floor draws street-dancing antics

        The last is the only story of any possible interest, and that mostly because of its incomprehensibility -- what on earth is an "interactive floor"?  It's an area with motion sensors,and lighted squares projected from above. You can see a video here, or at least you could on the date this was posted.  Mildly interesting.

        Meanwhile, remember, when ever smaller figures cast ever longer shadows, it's a sign that the sun is setting.

        "Amazon customer service sucks! Tell a friend."

Posted by: saintonge at 20:30 | link | comments (1)

Amazon Inches Toward Competency

        They finally called me, and re-opened my wife's account.  They also said they'd sent an e-mail about the question, but I didn't find it when I looked.         But they did re-open the account.  So I went into the records to try to find out what had happened, and -- Wait For It! -- there were no records.  They were apparently wiped.

        What a bunch of maroons.

        Still, I think I now know what the root of the problem is.  Amazon seems to have confused two different credit cards.  I have a call in to Chase on the matter.  Chase, by the way, identified the person who was specifically handling the problem account, and gave me a toll-free number and extension to reach her at.  She was away from her desk, so I was sent to voice mail.

        That's customer service.   Amazon.com would do well to emulate them.

"Amazon customer service sucks! Tell a friend."

Posted by: saintonge at 15:45 | link | comments