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You have to wonder if the political spin doctors ever read their own stuff. This morning, the BBC reported that the British Government is to allow rail fares to rise by 8%. This is based on a new formula which will enable train companies to increase ticket prices by the rate of the Retail Price Index (RPI) plus 3%.

It’s apparent that the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition is begging for a general election sooner, rather than later. Why should these companies be permitted to raise their prices by so much during a time when wages have barely risen or have been frozen altogether?

The rationale is that these increases will “reduce the cost to the taxpayer of running the rail network. Pardon?

The last time I checked, the passengers were also taxpayers.

So, what the Government is really saying is that if they reduce the subsidy they’re paying to the train companies, then they’ll have more money to spend elsewhere.

Now let me be perfectly clear.  Taxes should not be used to prop up the private sector. That’s what market forces are all about. Supply and demand. If the customers want it, they’ll pay for it. If they don’t, then the company will have to lower its prices, provide so much more value that consumers feel its worth the price, or go out of business.

But to suggest that by charging taxpayers at the point of use will somehow decrease the amount they’ll have to spend is ludicrous. It’s akin to saying that by robbing Peter to pay Paul, Peter will somehow be better off. In this case, the only thing withdrawing the subsidy will do is make it more expensive for travellers and leave more money in the Government’s coffers.

We can call a spade, a spade. If any democratic government is unable to do so, perhaps we should help them get a better perspective . . . by voting them out of office.

Bruce Hoag, PhD, CPsychol
Work Psychologist & Business Coach

It seems that a businessman who had just retired stabbed two armed robbers who entered his store. One of the gunman was killed, the other was wounded but managed to run away. The police arrested the businessman. I suppose that was because he was the only one they could catch.

What a bunch of idiots! This was something I could never figure out while I lived there. I thought it was only in the US where criminals could sue the innocent because they got injured while commiting a felony.

When the fiscal fiasco has passed, it’s time we all contacted our political representatives and told them that part of representing us includes enabling us to protect ourselves as well as our property.

On 23rd Avenue in Panama City, Florida, there’s a billboard which reads, “Baldwin Pediatrics. New patients welcome.” Implication? Existing patients are taken for granted!

When will companies start to appreciate the value that is contributed to their business from the customers they have?

The mind boggles.

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At the risk of being sued, I’m prepared to state categorically that iContact promotes spam. I don’t say this lightly; rather, I make this assertion because I’m fed up with dealing with the spam that it’s members continue to foist on me. So, I’m writing this post to help all of you deal with it when it comes.

Most of us have good spam filters to weed out the majority of junk that arrives in our InBox. But, spammers have figured out how to get around that, and I’m afraid that until such time as the powers that decide on what is code is acceptable what is not change the rules, there will be very little that we can do about it.

In this case, the spammers are using iContact to distribute their tripe. Their able to do so because a) the email marketing company doesn’t require a double-opt-in sign up, and b) (and this is the real kicker) the senders place an asterisk ahead of the name they give in the “from” box. That asterisk makes it impossible to filter out what follows, because it is a kind of wild card. In other words, if you used in in your filter, it would prevent everything from getting to you.

You can’t prevent this stuff from arriving, but you can minimize the damage. Here’s how.

At the bottom of the email, click the link that says you want to “confirm to list.” This will bring you to another screen where you can manage your account. Click the link at the bottom, and then untick the box beside the name of the person who sent it to you. Be sure that you also tick the box next to the “Do Not Contact List.”

You will find that doing this is much more effective than deleting it or consigning the message to your spam folder. If you do either of those, you’ll keep getting them from that person. I’ve managed to dramatically reduce the number I get by following the method I’ve suggested.

It seems to me that iContact has a responsibility to fight spam, rather than promoting it. There are a couple of easy things that they could do. First, they could make it impossible for their customers to preface any box in their emails with an asterisk. The second, and equally responsible thing to do, would be to institute a policy where double-opt-ins were required.

In the absence of both of these suggestions, I recommend that you use a more respectable service, such as AWeber.

Today, we’ve been reminded that the Afghans aren’t ready to take over from Nato in just a few months. Why am I not surprised?

Well, for one thing, they engineered one of the largest escapes of captured prisoners in modern times: 488 to be exact.

It matters not that the Kandaharian prison was run by the Taliban, rather than the Afghans. The fact remains that it was under their jurisdiction.

Prisoners dug a 1000-foot tunnel that provided passage for about 1/3 of the total inmates. They didn’t have to rely on the cover of trees or a moonless night to make their escape. According to the BBC, they were able to coordinate their plans with those on the outside by communicating with the mobile phones they bought from the very police who were there to guard them.  In addition, none of the troops posted at the hilltop lookout on Cheel Zeena noticed anything unusual at the time of the breakout.

It’s amazing what you miss when you’re looking the other way.

If Squadron Leader Roger Bushell had had this much cooperation, perhaps there would have been more than just 70-odd escapees from Stalag Luft III in March, 1944. He had planned an escape for 200, less than half of the number that “walked” out of the prison in Sarposa.

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When the Great Escape was discovered in progress, more than 100 of the inmates were still in the tunnel. Of the 76 who escaped, only three managed to avoid recapture, and fifty of those that were caught were murdered by the Germans, including Bushell.

The Kandahar governor, Tooryalai Wesa, says that because they have so much personal data on those who escaped from the Sarposa prison, that recapture shouldn’t be a problem. “They can run, but they can’t hide,” he says with confidence.

Given the recent events in which Bin Laden hid in plain sight for six years at least, I’m not convinced. To date, more than 85% have evaded authorities.

 

Related articles

• Afghan officials recapture 65 prisoners (nationalpost.com)
• The Great Escape — Kandahar inmates crawl their way to freedom (theglobeandmail.com)

Belfast’s international airport has instituted a policy of charging smokers £1 to light up within the designated area. Officials say that the charge will pay for construction of the space created. I imagine it will also offer a bit of compensation to the domestic engineer that has to empty the ashtrays, too.

Referring to these additional expenses as “death by a thousand cuts,” those addicted to tobacco are shaking their lighters in protest, arguing that their nicotine habit is being exploited. I want to tell them, Welcome to the club! Airports have been taking advantage of the need for the rest of us to eat for decades.

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Actually, I think that smokers can avoid the cost of smoking and eating by chewing on their cigarettes. There wouldn’t be any butts to dispose of either.

It beats death by a thousand cigarettes.

The Pakistani government is in deep doo-doo this morning following details of the operation in which Osama Bin Laden was killed. Far from being discovered hiding in a hole in the ground, he had been enjoying five-star treatment in a compound of impressive proportions. Walls 12-18 feet thick. Living space eight as large as anything in the surrounding area. Sixty-something miles north of the nation’s capital of Isalamabad, and closer to India than Afghanistan.

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Some embarrassing questions will be asked. For example, how could a secure building of this size go unnoticed by Pakistani officials? More than that, how could it be built without attracting some attention?

And how could Bin Laden live there for any length of time without the government’s knowledge?

Mr Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, will be the one to whom the rest of the world will look for answers. It’s rather telling that at 11.15 am on the day after the operation, his own web page makes no mention of it.

The confirmation that the king-pin of terrorism has been killed deep inside Pakistan will demand more than the token sacking of a junior minister; but given that the country itself is run according to the laws of Islam, it seems unlikely that the government will crumble as a result.

I had thought that the internet put an end to this nonsensical sales technique. You know, the one where instead of listing a price, there are hundreds of “Call Now!” phrases all over the full-page magazine add. It not only encourages me not to call, but also not to do business with that firm at all.

A few minutes ago, I was looking for pricing on altitude simulation equipment. For those who live in Colorado, this machine is unnecessary; but for almost any other athlete, from amateurs (that’s me) to professionals (that’s not me), such a device can simulate thinner air and, if used over time, cause your body to develop more red blood cells, and thereby increase the blood’s oxygen carrying capability.

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I did some searching and came across Hypoxico. When I clicked on the link for pricing information, all I got was the nonsense about filling in an online form so a salesman could call me. Don’t these people get it? I don’t want a phone call; I just want to know the price! But, since you won’t tell me, I won’t buy from you . . . at any price. Do you get it now?

If you’ve flown on a commercial airliner in the past 10 years or so, then in one form or another you’ve experienced the searching and scanning of you and your hand luggage that has become commonplace. I travel regularly through Venice, Italy, London, New York, Denver, and sometimes Atlanta. I can tell you that the security procedures are different everywhere. Italy is more lax than the US. The British are much more polite and professional than the US, though Atlanta is quite friendly and light-hearted. In Denver, you get the feeling that they really don’t want you there in the first place.

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The goal, of course, is to prevent any sort of attempt at hijacking, the worst examples of which occurred infamously on September 11th, 2001. Despite the increase in airport security, attempts are still made. The most recent one by 48 year old Valery Tolmachev, who allegedly was attending a Unesco function in Paris as part of  Kazakh delegation.

The most surprising feature, not only about this attempt, but also the press reports about it, is any discussion about the small knife that he used in an attempt to carry out his wishes. It’s commendable that the crew and passengers were able to easily subdue Tolmachev, and that a doctor on board then sedated him; but what of the airport security in Paris? How could a knife of any size pass through the sophisticated airport security that we have all been led to believe is being used? Is it all just more expensive equipment that governments have bought, but in the final analysis is useless?

I call upon the public and the press to demand satisfactory answers.  This is not a game, and we should not be treated like pawns so that the “kings and queens” can justify their actions as “doing all they can.” Clearly, they are not.

I remember John Dvorak saying that Windows 7 really ought to be named Windows 31, or some such, because by the time you added up all of the x.* versions that were published in between the integers, that was the total. You’ve probably noticed that many companies are inserting four digits between two different decimal points. I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but whatever it does probably isn’t good new for the rest of us.

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It seems that practically the entire world of Windows disliked Vista. I really can’t imagine why. I used it for several years and had no more problems with it than XP. In fact, I found it to be a superior operating system.

But, I was rather annoyed when the original hard drive conked out on my HP laptop, because that company required me to order recovery CDs from them in order to format the new drive. They couldn’t just let me download a file to fix the problem. So, instead I bought Windows 7.

Windows 7 also works just fine, as did Vista. The is the odd problem, but nothing to write home about. The really surprising thing, however, is that the left hand doesn’t seem to know what the right hand is doing at Microsoft. You’re probably familiar with the usual compatibility issues between your favorite software and the latest PC operating system, but you’d expect MS to keep those things under control in house, wouldn’t you?

Normally, I use Google Chrome. It’s the fastest browser by a furlong, and easier to use (imho) than Firefox, which has as many extensions as the iPhone has apps, and Internet Explorer which many hackers use for target practice. But, much of the Internet world just hasn’t caught up yet, and so sometimes I find that I need to use IE to view some web sites.

Today, I tried to download the latest version. Despite having a 64-bit machine running Windows 7, MS said that IE9 didn’t support that operating system. Well, you know, I thought: no problem. I’ll just use IE8. I got another message to say the same thing.

Under the circumstances, it’s obvious that the Justice Department and the EU could have saved themselves a lot of time and money trying to prevent MS from including their browser with their operating system. All they had to do was wait a little while, and MS would make sure that the two wouldn’t work together anyway.