May 21st - Judgment Day!

Breaux Bridge, LA - It has come to my attention that a small group of Christians are suggesting that Judgment Day, also known as the Rapture, will occur this Saturday, May 21, 2011.

As I will not be among those being carried away to eternal bliss at the Lord's right hand (Way too many acts of television to be forgiven at this point) I would like to make this offer. I will be happy to take your real estate, appliances, collectables, valuables, etc and dispose of them for you. Feel free to reply here so the necessary paper work can be completed before Saturday.

Oh, yeah, no driving on Saturday. Can't have that car suddenly driverless while speeding down the highway.

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Louis Armstrong playing trumpet on the Judgment Day.
- Al Stewart

Great time for a debate

Yesterday, Washington DC was under 30+ inches of snow. Mother Nature is expected to deliver another 15 inches by the end of the day. Trees are down. Power is out. Flat roofs are collapsing. The city is paralyzed.

This would be a great time to hold a congressional debate on global warming.

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The sky is not burning, and to claim that it is amounts to journalistic malpractice... the press only promotes the global warming alarmists and ignores or minimizes those of us who are skeptical.
Mark L. Campbell

State Farm Insurance: Like a good neighbor until you have a claim

My friend Lea Hernandez had a fire a little over a year ago. Lea and her family got out safely. But the house and contents were destroyed. Worse then that she lost several beloved animals that no amount of money can ever replace. For those things that could be replaced, fortunately they have State Farm insurance.

Or at least they thought that was fortunate. It turns out that after the trauma and pain of losing almost everything they owned, State Farm Insurance was about to become their worse nightmare.

Reading through her blog and talking with her reveals one more State Farm Insurance insult after another. Let me quote a few of her more colorful experiences with the fine folks at State Farm Insurance:

-How have you paid for replacements so far?
WITH MONEY. Why the **** would he ask this?
-There were some items duplicated from the theft. Big deal, it was a mistake, we're not trying to double-dip, knock them off. But we can't do that, Dave. Daisy, Daisy.
-Oh noes, you had a huge table that "doesn't look damaged."
Dangit, I knew I should've paid for the scratch-and-gag upgrade on the pictures. What was I thinking, not making them a total sensory experience of stench, blackened hands, and tears? It couldn't have been THAT bad, there was only smoke in every damn inch of the house. Why couldn't we salvaged things from a fire that nearly killed me and the kids? Sheah.
-We have the right to inspect.
Then maybe you should've gotten your miserly asses over to the house MORE THAN ONCE in the TWO MONTHS it was vacant before demolition was started. I guess, in the copious notes you have, you're missing the statement from our first adjuster, "I'd start a Bobcat at the driveway and keep going until I got to the other side."
Lea's Journal: Today is made of suck!

And...

See the table? It's the big flat dusty thing in the center of the picture. That table was questioned on our claim because of its cost and apparent condition.
The issue seemed to be maybe we were still using that table because we'd waited almost a year to claim it and how did we buy a new one if we hadn't put in claims money? Did we realllllly throw it away?
Why, yes, we did! See, we have a picture!

The lesson here is YOU CANNOT BE OBSESSIVE ENOUGH when documenting a disaster. Without my being over every day taking pictures, I'd have never had this shot to wave about. Imagine my ridiculous Rocky-dance glee when I found it.
Lea's Journal: ATF: In Which My Huevos are Bigger than Their Cojones

According the Texas State web site, the adjusters representing State Farm Insurance are breaking the rules. They are not allowed to ask about things not related to the claim. Questions about how they paid for things like a new washer and drier are outside the legal limits as well. (Yo adjusters, I got your answer to that last one right here: She paid for it with Donations from people like me, you got a problem with that?)

Lea tells of other problems as well. Adjusters tell her of other people replacing Wal-mart underwear with Victoria Secret fineries and then, without saying there was wrong doing, using that story to pressure her to back off her claims. Adjusters claiming they called her or her husband when there is no message or record of the call on the caller ID.

The biggest problem is that State Farm Insurance foot dragging in this case left my friend Lea in a very bad spot at the moment. She needs to be paid for the rest of her losses and State Farm Insurance is playing games with her.

Lea is not the only victim of State Farm's claim service. She has a lot of company.

People with damage from Katrina are still fighting to get paid. State Farm Insurance is splitting hairs trying to claim flood damage even on properties that were damaged by winds. There are millions of dollars at stake here.

But a US District Court Judge sees it differently:

Judge L.T. Senter, Jr. ordered State Farm Fire & Casualty to pay $223,292 in damages to a Biloxi couple, who suffered the loss of their home in the devastating storm. The judge declined to award punitive damages in the case, but said the jury may choose to do so.

In an unusual move, the judge issued a directed verdict from the bench, then ordered a recess. He sent the jury to the jury room to begin deliberating punitive damages.

Norman and Genevieve Broussard say they lost their home when a tornado spawned by the massive hurricane slammed into it, leaving only a concrete slab.

The insurance company refused to pay, saying the home was destroyed by Katrina's storm surge, and that the policy did not cover water damage.
Consumer Affairs: Judge rules against State Farm in Katrina case

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood dropped all efforts to get State Farm to come around peacefully on Mississippi hurricane damage. He is now filing suit to get State Farm to cough up some money:

In January, Hood agreed to remove State Farm from his office’s suit against several other insurance carriers after the firm said it would pay some of the disputed claims. But the deal apparently fell apart after it failed to win backing from a federal judge.

Insurance companies refused to pay thousands of hurricane related claims, saying the damage was caused by the storm’s ferocious storm surge and therefore were not covered by the policy. Homeowners countered that their homes were knocked off their foundations by the hurricane’s winds, when the storm’s eye passed directly over the coast.

“We filed this lawsuit in an effort to help the more than 30,000 Gulf Coast policyholders who have suffered for nearly two years because of State Farm's inaction,” Hood said.
Consumer Affairs: Mississippi Sues State Farm Over Katrina Coverage

Well, State Farm Insurance has a solution to that problem:

Paraphrasing Richard Nixon, Mississippi won't have State Farm Insurance to kick around anymore.

Stinging from defeat in a Hurricane Katrina damage claim in Biloxi, the company says it will no longer insure homeowners and businesses in the state, where it is the largest single insurer with a 30 percent market share. Allstate pulled out of Mississippi's six coastal counties last year.

"It is no longer prudent for us to take on additional risk in a legal and business environment that is becoming more unpredictable," said Senior Vice President Bob Trippel, in a statement.
Consumer Affairs: Payback: State Farm Writes Off Mississippi

That should solve all the problems plaguing State Farm Insurance in Mississippi all right. Better they should deal in states with attorney generals that don't like to fight.

The State Farm Insurance jingle reads, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there."

Uhm... yeah. Right.

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What the insurance companies have done is to reverse the business so that the public at large insures the insurance companies.
- Gerry Spence

Spam with a toxic link twist!

Columbia, SC - From today's e-mail was this plain Jane missive with the subject "You've received a greeting card from a friend!":

Good day.

Your friend has sent you a greeting card from postcardsfrom.com.

Send free ecards from postcardsfrom.com with your choice of colors, words and music.

Your ecard will be available with us for the next 30 days. If you wish to keep the ecard longer, you may save it on your computer or take a print.

To view your ecard, choose from any of the following options:

--------
OPTION 1
--------

Click on the following Internet address or
copy & paste it into your browser's address box.

http://69.132.108.x/?e0403eca36dcae987dxxxxxxxxxxx

--------
OPTION 2
--------

Copy & paste the ecard number in the "View Your Card" box at http://69.132.108.x/

Your ecard number is
e0403eca36dcae987d9000be022dxxxxxxxxxx

Best wishes,
Mailer-Daemon,
postcardsfrom.com

*last portion of the URL is an 8. I changed it to an 'x' to avoid anyone accidentally clicking on it and getting a case of the computer clap. If you want to see what it does, replace the 'x' with an '8' and you're in. I also changed the last 11 digits in the identifier so the harvesting web site would not validate my e-mail address for spam purposes.

If you follow the link in option 2 you get a web page with text that reads, "We are currently testing a new browser feature. If you are not able to view this ecard, please click here to view in its original format." The 'click here" links to an executable named ecard.exe.

Okay, so I know that most of you reading this are computer savvy enough to at most, check to see where the link leads and then delete this spam untouched. However we all know someone that would download and run that program so they could see their e-card.

With that in mind I started digging. There is in fact a postcardsfrom.com on the net. But they do not provide an e-cards service. Their IP address does not come anywhere near the numbers in the url. The WhoIs listing for that number comes back to Road Runner.

With that thought in mind, I set out to contact the fine folks at Road Runner so that they might shut this amateur script kiddie down before too much damage is done.

What a joke. I sent three e-mails to Road Runner's abuse address. They were all returned by an automated system demanding more information like the e-mail headers. After the third attempt it finally became clear to me that the system was designed to keep people from contacting the abuse department.

So I went to Road Runner's tech support page and did some on-line chatting with a tech support person named Cassandra. After explaining the entire situation to them, She referred me to their fraud department e-mail address.

I asked if she had anyway of of contacting their security department before the damage became wide spread. Her response was, "Cassandra D: If you have no further issues that we can assist you with, you may end the chat session by clicking on the X or End Session button and a chat transcript will be displayed for you. Once again thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable Road Runner!"

The e-mail to their fraud address just came back for the second time demanding more information. You gotta love it!

This garbage about corporations going out of their way to isolate themselves from their customers and the public at large has gone way too far. Do you think Road Runner bears any liability for any damage that occurs after my chat with Cassandra? That would be an interesting legal challenge.

I post this as a warning to be freely passed along, especially to anyone you know that would cheerfully click that link, download and run that program so they can see their e-card.

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I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
- Stephen Hawking