Even Death Can't Cancel Charter Cable Sleazebags

Of all the scenarios you run through your head when the funeral director asks how many death certificates you will need, procuring one specifically so you can wait in line at a Charter Cable office to cancel service for a family member who has died doesn't make the list.  But, apparently it is suppose to.

It didn't matter that State Farm, Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Kemper and Computershare have all kindly talked over the phone to me and given me the necessary financial info needed without a death certificate (which, I know, will be needed down the road).  I was also able to cancel my father's AARP health insurance, stop his pensions and freeze a checking account with no hassle at all.  I was even able to cancel his newspaper effortlessly.  In fact, she was so helpful she already had a refund set to go until I told her to just donate the copies to the local schools.  And all of these tasks were handle with care, efficiency and over the phone. But apparently none of those firms or industries are are as vitally important or as valuable to the social fabric of our country as almighty cable television.

When I called Charter I was thinking maybe I should just pretend I was my Dad and cancel.  But I figured honesty was the best approach.  That, of course, was a mistake.  The phone rep quickly told me only a death certificate would do and wouldn't budge.  She also attempted to give me a smart-ass geographical lesson when I asked for an office in "America" (she was based in Nova Scotia).  So I clarified "U.S." and was given Charter's St. Louis headquarters.  The guy there was helpful and thought it was odd that a death certificate was needed and promised to get back to me.  He actually did, within the hour to boot, but his news was the same.  I told him I should have just lied and said I wanted to cancel -- he agreed.  I also told him I wasn't going to pay their bill for any further days.  He noted it in my file.

In the end, I'm sure they'll file a claim with the estate for the next month or so of service that won't be used and I'll have to fight it and run up the probate bill. But in this case, I'll take a Pyrrihic victory even if it ultimately means sending those bastards 10 pounds of pennies.

So if there is a lesson to be learned when dealing with Charter and a death in the family, it is simply to lie and say you are the person the account's name is in.  You will save time and, much more importantly, aggravation you don't need when so much more important things have to be done. 

And when they transfer you to a retention specialist (don't they all do that now), just tell that person you want to cancel because you can't stand the guys on FOX News, or there is too much nudity on Cinemax or whatever.  Or, even better, tell them you once read about a guy who was told by Charter he needed a death certificate to cancel his deceased father's cable service and you would never ever do business with a son-of-a-bitch company like that.

PolitickerNV is Really Beginning To Piss Us Off

Apparently complaining about PolitickerNV posting most of our feeds in their entirety fell on deaf ears over there.  Not only did they re-run that post in their Morning News Digest round-up (allegedly compiled by an actual person), but now it looks like my calculations on them taking around 120 words of my feed was wrong. 

Check out the post on the porn bailout goof on their site in the screen shot below.  All 145 words reposted without permission, while our buddy Chuck Muth (who is, admittedly, a little more long-winded) has a more reasonable 58 words of his feed used.

Oh, and apparently they don't answer emails either.

More Dire Predictions for Newspaper Industry

The Atlantic's Michael Hirschorn takes a a look at The New York Times and contemplates the end of their print edition.  With daily circulation dropping and online traffic increasing, the day of the NYT being digital only is fast approaching, but Hirschorn points out the current big problem.

The conundrum, of course, is that those 1 million print readers, who pay actual cash money for the privilege of consuming the paper, and who are worth about five figures a page to advertisers, are far more profitable than the 20 million unique Web users, who don’t and aren’t. Common estimates suggest that a Web-driven product could support only 20 percent of the current staff; such a drop in personnel would (in the short run) devastate The Times’ news-gathering capacity.

Over at The Guardian, Clay Shirky makes a few predictions on the future of media.  Like almost everyone else, he thinks the end is near for print newpapers, but his thoughts on why some magazines will hang around longer and how he thinks the book industry will survive are interesting.

Why Not a $5 Billion Porn Bailout Too?

Never ones to miss an opportunity at some free publicity, Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild impresario Joe Francis have jumped on the bailout bandwagon and have decided to ask for a $5 billion infusion for their industry.

"Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses, we feel we deserve the same consideration. In difficult economic times, Americans turn to entertainment for relief. More and more, the kind of entertainment they turn to is adult entertainment," said Francis.

Flynt was a little more to the point, "Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."

And unlike the auto industry's private jet fiasco, Francis tells TMZ he will even drive his politically correct Prius to DC for any handouts.  Heck, he even invokes a little Adam Smith in the video -- something everybody seems to be forgetting nowadays.

Top 50 Political Blogs

Personal Democracy Forum has the top 50 political blogs according to Technorati.  Not surprisingly, HuffPo was number one.  A little surprised at Boing Boing being #2 (didn't think they were all that political).  Michelle Malkin was the top conservative blog, 13th overall.

Why Is PolitickerNV Stealing My Content?

If you are reading this on PolitickerNV then we humbly suggest you follow us directly at Dullard Mush or subscribe to our RSS feed just like this company is doing except, you know, without the whole posting our content in its entirety on their site without our permission thing.

Apparently the New York Observer owned site has ceased creating original content and instead has become an aggregator of local Nevada political blogs.  In fact, our post on Southwest's Vegas airfares was PolitickerNV's most read last week.  The problem?  It was our entire post, not just a sentence or two like most aggregators.  (Warning! For reasons explained below, PolitickerNV readers may need to click "read more" now!) And it's not the only one of ours that has been scraped.

Looking over Politicker's recent incarnation it seems like our feed is being copied at about 100 to 120 words, while others are in the 60 or less area.  And let's face it, on those days when you don't feel like pontificating ad nauseam, you're going to have posts that fall into that range.  Four of our last six have been that way and each was copied word for word by PolitickerNV.  And on one that they didn't, Tweet Congress, they left off a continued [...] indicator letting people know there was more to the post.

Some might say why bitch about more exposure and a chance to land new readers. And in theory they might have a point.  But the actual stats don't bear out.  At all.

It looks like PolitickerNV started this practice on December 18th (ironically, with one of our posts on push polling) after ceasing original content on the 11th.  When we ran our Feedburner stats for uncommon uses, PolitickerNV showed up as having 266 views as of January 4th.  Out of those views we had exactly one click-thru to Dullard Mush.  One.

Google Analytics was a little more generous as it said PolitickerNV had sent 10 visits in that 12/18-1/04 time frame.  Of course, of that number a half dozen or more were us trying to figure it all out.  So you are looking at anywhere from one to four visits total.  To put that number in perspective, during the 18-day period Local So-and-So sent us 30.  Even outside.in sent more (17).  So you can toss out the "they're helping build your readership" argument.

But what is probably the most aggravating is this isn't some scammer in Eastern Europe scraping content for his Made-for-Adsense site.  This is a newspaper-owned site that actually produced some interesting and exclusive stuff during the election season.  They didn't really engage with other bloggers or commenters and, now that I think about it, Wally Edge never did pay me the $5 he publicly offered, but there was some good work done.  But no more.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Economic Stimulus World

Is there anybody left that isn't trying to grab a fistful of economic stimulus money?

It reminds me of that scene near the end of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where the suitcase opens and the money falls to the crowd below.  Everyone is scrambling to grab as much as they can before the guy next to them does.  Now that I think about it, that was the premise for the entire movie (a comedy classic btw).

And it's the same plot we have happening today.  Except, of course, we're talking trillions of dollars, not a measly $350K.  First it was Wall Street, then Detroit, now it's bike makers, zoos and, the latest, a nice round trillion for states.

But does anybody out there actually remember this isn't free money falling from the sky?  It's a huge IOU that needs to be paid off.  The U.S. isn't like that neighbor down the street who charged up his credit cards on plasma TVs, vacations and other stuff and then blithely walked away from the debt with nary a consequence thanks to an easy bankruptcy.  Every dime of these stimulus packages, and the corresponding interest, will have to be paid back.

Paid back by our children, grandchildren and, probably, great-grandchildren through increased taxes for all.

Like Jonathan Winters' character Lennie Pike said, "Everyone pays taxes!  Even businessmen, who rob and cheat and steal from people everyday, even they have to pay taxes!"

Who and/or What is Nevada New Media?

Some good stuff over at I am Indisposed and MrJerz.org regarding what is "new media" and, more specifically, a recently-formed Reno organization touting Nevada new media.  Like all good debates, the comments are equally lively. 

If there is a lesson to be learned, it's if you want to create an organization representing "Nevada new media" perhaps you should have those who actually do it be a part of the process.