Archive for category Government Stupidity

DoNotCall.GOV offers LAME reasons for their ineffectiveness!

I was just on the DONOTCALL.GOV web site today (yes, I got another call from Bridget or Rachael from Cardmember Services), and while poking around, I came across this:

DoNotCallLameAnswers

If these aren’t the lamest excuses for why they can’t get things done, I don’t know what are!!  There is nothing preventing the government from REQUIRING that phone companies provide ONLY ACCURATE CALLERID INFORMATION!  There’s nothing that says people have to be allowed to LIE in their CallerID information!  Sure, some people need to be able to BLOCK their CalledID for legal (safety) reasons, but then it’s BLOCKED – the recipient can see that and decide to answer the phone or not.  There’s no reason why the data provided via CallerID should be spoofable or set by the “customer”.

Without valid CalledID information on the phone, the DONOTCALL.GOV web site is NOTHING MORE THAN AN EXPENSIVE JOKE that the American citizens are wasting millions of dollars on!!!!

 

 

Central ?Intelligence? Agency

I don’t get it.  The Central Intelligence Agency is supposed to be an elite government agency with (I’m assuming) the best hackers in the world.  So WHY does their “Contact CIA” page prevent a user from submitting information if it includes anything more than letters, digits, a comma (even the comma is questionable) or a period?!?  Seriously, I was trying to send them a URL on their “Contact CIA” form at this address:

https://www.cia.gov/cgi-bin/comment_form.cgi

Every time I submitted my comment (regardless of how I tried to sanitize the URL and other information so they’d accept it), I’d get the following error: (click to see the readable screen dump of the form)

Bad CIA Form

There must be an entry in the message field for this form to be accepted.

Really?!?  Sure, as LAME as it is, your contact page states “Our form does not accept keyboard characters commonly used to illicitly enter computer systems. We sincerely regret the inconvenience.”, but you can’t take commas and colons because someone might hack your site with them?!?!?  Maybe the terrorists have won???

 

Playing “Hide ‘n’ Seek” with Social Security!

If you have to go to the Social Security office in your town, be prepared to play some Hide ‘n’ Seek!  I went to my local office today.  The sign in the lobby said “Social Security Office – Second Floor”.  So we got on the elevator, went up to TWO, and got off.  We walked down the hallway, but NONE OF THE DOORS HAD ANY SIGNS ON THEM.  I tried the biggest door, figuring it was the most obvious, but I was wrong – it was locked.  I walked back down the hallway towards the elevator, trying each door.  All were locked except the last one:

Like I was supposed to know this was the Social Security office?!?

 

Now Obama blames technology for job losses!?!

Now Obama blames technology for job losses!?!  He says there are too many ATMs that are displacing real tellers’ jobs?  (what percentage of the job force are bank tellers?)  Is Obama trying to imply that all this new technology that is taking peoples’ jobs must have come about in just the last few years??  Obama is really reaching the bottom of the barrel of excuses, isn’t he!?!

The Do Not Call Registry is a joke!

Despite having all our phone numbers registered with the United States Government’s Do Not Call Registry, we are still getting plenty of calls from “Rachael at Credit Card Services” and the “Higher Impact” (the “Work At Home” people), among many others, including the bunch that use automated systems that don’t even respond when you answer the phone!

National Do Not Call Registry

National Do Not Call Registry

Why can’t (won’t) the phone companies let you block calls on which the caller ID information is clearly bogus?!?  (how many times do you get all zeros, or just zeros in the exchange?)

What good is this registry if the government isn’t willing to:

  1. Enact laws that require the phone companies to provide ONLY valid caller ID information (or the word PRIVATE for people who want/need to disable their number from being viewed).  No one should be allowed to place arbitrary caller ID information on the phone line when making calls.
  2. Go after these companies that abuse the Do Not Call List?!?  (of course, this would be easier if they implemented #1 above!!!)

I have to wonder how much money it’s costing the American taxpayers to maintain a registry that is BARELY (if at all) being enforced?!?

TSA vs Play-Doh – “Use your own discretion…”

After a report that a child’s Play-Doh was confiscated by the TSA in New Orleans, it turns out that the Play-Doh should not have been confiscated.  Play-Doh is not a prohibted item.  That said, it was noted that “because plastic explosives can be cammouflaged to look like play doh, screeners are told to use their own discretion“.

To be fair, I haven’t had the chance to meet every TSA screener employed in the United States (and around the world), but I can’t say that I’ve been very impressed with many of the TSA screener’s I have met to date.  I don’t think I want to leave it to their “discretion” to figure out if a container of colored putty is really Play-Doh or plastic explosive?!?

And what is with the “Underwear Bomber” and this ridiculous call for “body scanners”?!?  From all descriptions, the material (less than 3 ounces of PETN) that was sewn into this idiot’s underwear could have easily been hidden in a variety of carry-on scenarios!  If a terrorist is serious, he could easily disguise the material in so many ways, it’s not worth trying to list them.  This guy clearly wasn’t very serious – I can’t imagine someone willing to die for a cause who wouldn’t be 200% prepared to carry out his final act!

Instead of taking Play-Doh away from babies and invading everyone’s privacy with full body scanners, why don’t we screen the person?!?  When someone is on the “Terrorist Watch List”, SCREEN THEM.  When someone buys their tickets with cash, SCREEN THEM.  When someone buys a 1-way ticket, SCREEN THEM.  When someone has no luggage, SCREEN THEM.  When someone is on the “Terrorist Watch List” AND buys their tickets with cash AND buys a 1-way ticket AND has no luggage, SCREEN THAT MOTHER F%$&ER LIKE YOU AINT NEVER SCREENED ANYONE BEFORE!!!

Until the TSA starts deploying “explosive sniffers”, all this other crap is just a weak attempt make it appear that the screening protects the public.

“Play-Doh” is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc.

President Obama wants to spend the TARP money?

Now that some of the financial institutions are paying back the money the US government LOANED them thru the TARP program, Obama wants to spend it on other things?!?  THAT MONEY WAS A LOAN! It’s not FREE MONEY for the government to do whatever it wants with.

Global Warming? What a crock!!

These “Global Warming” people are such hypocrites!  They make claims that the human race is responsible for the alleged climate change over the last 100 years or so, but they have no scientific proof.  Now they’re all showing up in Copenhagen in private jets!!!  Go figure?!?