I spent a little time this evening reading through some reader comments to a story on anti-american sentiment. While I haven't yet read the actual story, this reader comment caught my attention:

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Hey Jas of Sydney just what politically illiterate left wing cave did you crawl out of!!! In fact there were over four occasions where Clinton was advised that they had Osama Bin Laden in their sights but he refused his operatives to take any further action because of potential "collateral" damage. In one instance they knew the time Osama would be attending a mosque in Afghanistan but Clinton did not have the guts to take him out because of potential damage to the building. Just think had he had the resolve of Bush 3000 Americans would still be walking this Earth. But then you traiterous left wing filth would be screaming about Americas imperialist foreign policy and the great threat they pose to the rest of the world. Were it not for the United States and its incredible commitment to freedom and Democracy we ungrateful Australians would not have enjoyed over 60 years of peace and stability. Take America out of the picture and watch Japan and China rip each others throats out. In fact America is the only reason we have not had a major Nuclear conflagration in the past 60 Years. The vast majority of the Earths nations are a hairs breadth from social anarchy - visit any Asian nation apart from say Singapore and you will know what I mean. The greatest threat to this planet today is not Bush but the masses of illiterate Western liberalist lefty lowlifes - the Bush hating traitors and the Western press. Annihilate these trotskyists and you rid the world of the terrorist threat! And just remember my fine long haired inexperienced Uni student friend Clinton and his wife voted for the War in IRAQ. So stop listening to your degenerate socialist history professors and take a lttle wider view of the world. When you get a little more experience you will realise that the socialism has and never will work and that Bush is probably one of the best Presidents the US has had in the last 40 years. /p>

Posted by: Paul of Adelaide 2:21pm today

Comment 193 of 233

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Ummmm....

OK - I particularly like the bit about "The greatest threat to this planet today is not Bush but the masses of illiterate Western liberalist lefty lowlifes - the Bush hating traitors and the Western press. Annihilate these trotskyists and you rid the world of the terrorist threat!"

For someone who seemed so upset about the killing of 3000-odd americans in 9/11, I wonder if he has any concept of the millions of people he has just "annihilated". Maybe he should kill all the children while he's at it, lest they grow up to be free-thinking lefty lowlifes... Who, really, is the terrorist? Should he be picked up for plotting/scheming/thinking against western culture as with all our funny-beard wearing friends?

Or maybe someone should just contact a proctologist in his area... I do believe that Paul of Adelaide may be requiring of some assistance in locating his head.

I am running around like a headless chicken preparing for my trip to Sydney today... Getting all my gear organised. Boarding pass - check. Laptop - check. Notepad - check. Pen - check. Laptop charger - check. Ok - now I have to put it all somewhere...

Today is the first day i have needed to use my laptop backpack in the past couple of months. If Chris and I go into the office, we pack both laptops into his bag or something. This is the first time in a long while that I am going somewhere without him and therefore am wanting to use my backpack.

Seems it is one f those things that you don't miss until you need it - and now that I'm looking for it and KNOW where I left it, it is obvious that they bloody well stole it during the robbery.

D'OH!!!!!!!!!!!

Telemarketers are annoying... Getting cold calls during the evening in your own personal time is annoying... If I wanted to buy it, I would have come to find you. Fine, I understand that for these ppl it pays the bills, and they probably dont care much for it either... But that doesn't make it any less annoying

MORE annoying is when you answer the phone, and you get a few seconds of silence or hold music - you then have to wait patiently to have your evening interrupted by annoying people trying to sell you their wares and/or services.

Today they have hit entirely new heights!!

A few minutes ago the phone rings. Chris gets up from what he's doing, heads to the kitchen, picks up the phone... I'm watching this look of confusion on his face. Then he hangs up and bursts into fits of laughter.

"What was that?" I ask

"There are no representatives available to speak with you at this time"

w00t?!?!?

HEY MORON!!

Perhaps if you were not busy talking on your mobile telephone instead of concentrating on your driving, you MAY have noticed that you were, in fact, in the straight lane and that I DIDN'T cut you off when you turned the corner (illegally, may I add). Or maybe you did notice this (belatedly), and that's why you suddenly took off like a rocket (an embarrassed one at that) after giving me the death stare.

Get a clue.

Spent a wonderful christmas in Adelaide with Chris's family. Pressies all round, water fights, all the usual hot weather festivities (except the weather wasn't that hot!!). Hacker BBQ at Groggy's was excellent, also! Looking foward to taking Rodney to work to meet everyone!

New years was in Ballarat with my fam. We had a great time, Chris approves of my favourite Ballarat restaurant, got to spend some time with parents, grandmother, surprise visit from my gorgeous cousin, Cassie, and her (relatively) new husband.

And getting down to business... Because our government and tax system is so screwed up, we get rewarded for driving more and penalised for driving less when taking up a salary sacrifice car lease. As such, if I don't come up with another 9000km between today and March, it's going to cost me somewhere in the vicinity of $4500. Ouch... Seriously, given environmental concerns, you would think they'd be willing to provide tax cuts for looking after the world we live in and driving less... Idiots... As such, we drove from Canberra to Adelaide to Ballarat to Canberra for Chrissy and New Year.

ANYWAYS... Driving home from Ballarat to Canberra yesterday. Not too much traffic on the roads, so it was rather good driving long distance when most people were suffering from hangovers and unable to drive. One person who wasn't suffering from some such hangover was this fella - around mid thirties - driving a (approximate guess here) 1997ish dark blue holden commodore station wagon.

This driver stayed pretty close behind us until just before the Victoria/NSW border. Not so close that it was annoying or even dangerous, but close enough to see clearly from my rear view mirror. As such, I could see that for EVERY bend in the road, he would indicate and change lanes to get to the inside of the corner, therefore cutting about 2.5mm distance from each corner (possible under-exaggeration here, but you get that). We figured that he was probably REALLY proud of himself for his ability to drive less distance, probably thought it was an excellent short cut. Chris and I just thought "WHAT A WANKER!"... Seriously - why bother?!?

If anyone can give valid reason why cutting corners is good in any driving other than grand prix and the likes, please tell!!!

It's been a while, a lot has happened... I should update this =)

After several emails flying back between them and me, where they quote dates, times and figures inconsistent with what their own paperwork shows, and I respond with comments such as I can't believe the complete and utter incompetence, I get an email stating that they've contacted the Telecomminications Industry Ombudsman and closed the complaint. I write back and ask why have they closed the complaint when they haven't even told me the decision? No response... I write back and say that if I don't know why they have closed the complaint within one hour from sending the email, then I call the TIO and reopen in myself. No response... I call the TIO, who then call the telephone company in question and they get told that my request has been declined. Now we have a fully reopened dispute, taken up a level both within the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and also with the problematic phone company.

At this stage, the complaint is also opened with the credit control agency with whom my black mark was listed. It is the 12th of August.

We returned from our trip on the 23rd of August, and the first thing I do is go for my mail... I'm sorting through and removing anything from TIO or Baycorp (the credit control guys) so that I can see what's up... On the 17th of August the TIO wrote to the phone company with the list of known information, highlighting the inconsistencies with their own data, and requiring explanation how they could get it so wrong, and giving the opportunity to give valid explanation why I cannot have the default removed from my name...

the next letter I open is from Baycorp. It is dated the 12th of August. It is to let me know that they, too, have contacted the phone company and asked many questions...

The next letter I open is from Baycorp, dated 15th of August. It is a new copy of my credit record showing that on the same day the phone company removed the default against my record.

I WON!!!!!

So I'm not sure if it was the clout of knowing that the TIO have moved it up a level (they hadn't received the TIO correspondence when they removed the default, but they had been informed that it was reopened), or if they're just really scared of Baycorp being involved....... I tend to think it may have been the latter.... SO I suggest to anyone with a dodgey default that is undeserved to follow it up via normal routes, but definitely also get Baycorp involved... It was the day that they would have received correspondence from Baycorp that the default was removed...

I'm a happy little vegemite =)

The latest email...

Sorry I did not get back to you yesterday.I went through your complaint again yesterday 03/08/2005.
I have to apologise,my error. The default was for 27/04/2005 for $287. 00 and 23rd June 2005 was the date the account was referred to Baycorp Advantage.I had been working on your complaint for 3 hours and got the dates back to front.I have actually had my Manager go through this again for me today just to make sure that the information is complete and without error.

ummmmmmmmmm.......... hello??? How the hell can they have referred it to baycorp 2 months after defaulting me! This was part of the action required by law BEFORE defaulting me!! Still doesn't explain the other discrepancies in data, and it's very hard to believe that they can STILL be delaying me on removing the default!! The whole company should be sacked - they're all incompetent

rant over for another day... Well, another few hours at least - need some beauty sleep =)

So I'm having problems with a phone company. I'm not sure what the laws are regarding bagging the hell out of dodgey telecommunications firms in public, and whether or not names can be mentioned without potentially icky legal consequences - so if you want to know who it is in order to avoid them, please email me! I guess I am within my rights to mention the crap ads involving a certain australian television personality with big, bad hair and a terrible fake italian/australian accent...

It all started with my having gotten 2 young ladies boarding at my house. These young ladies between them managed to rake up over $800 in long distance calls within a single month, then both left. It's not QUITE as bad as all that because I had this wonderful $59 call cap on my long distance calls, but that only covers up to $500, so I ended up with a $367.11 bill.

The due date of the bill was the 10th of April. I called them in March and said I needed a little more time to make the payments, and please cancel my telephone service because there was nobody actually living in the house (a complete other story - I might even tell it sometime). We came to an arrangement of $80 to be paid immediately, and $100 per month starting 2 months later. breakdown follows:

• $80 paid 23rd March, 2005
• $100 due 16th May
• $100 due 16th June
• $87.11 due 16th July

So that all adds up to the correct total, right?

Now... add to this the following information: In Australia, to add a black mark (or default) against a persons permanent credit record used by banks, etc, when deciding if they will loan you finance to buy houses, cars, etc, companies must give a MINIMUM of 60 days to pay a bill AND letter of intention to list the default. Why then did the aforementioned telecommunications company decide to default me only 17 days after the due date of the original bill?

Currently involved in major argument with said company, whose excuses range from claiming that the default wasn't placed until 2 months after the date that it was done, that I am a liar, that the amounts I had organised to pay were as follows:

• $74.21 on 8th March
• $100.00 on 18th of April
• $100.00 on 15th May
• $99.74 on 16th of June
• $110.24 on 27th June

Now, I'm no mathematician, and far be it from me to tell other people how to do their jobs, but HOW THE F^*^%$ does that add up?? According to that my first payment arrangement was 11 days before the bill was ever issued! Not to mention that I made the arrangement with them ON THE DAY that I paid the $80 as above (and they sent me the dates and amounts which I had paid, which reflect pretty closely what I had arranged with the exception of the last payment which was made 3 weeks early).

Given their inability to get dates and figures correct, does it come as a surprise to anyone that the woman dealing with my case cannot even get her email address correct on her email closing signature?? It's doesn't surprise me... For example, if her name was Idiot Woman, then her email address at this company is, in actual fact, idiot.woman@craptelecommunicationscompany.com.au, yet her mail signature states that it is i.woman@... I only mention this after having tried to email her at the claimed address and received a delivery failure notification with info that the email address just doesn't exist! So along with my many other reasons as to why they are incompetent, can we really believe the word of a woman who makes up figures, dates, etc and cannot even write her own email address correctly in the signature file that gets sent with each and every outgoing email? I think not.

By the way - did I mention that I have documentation to back me up by way of phone bills, credit agency reports, etc? I have all dates, amounts paid, everything required to prove her a fool... =)

So now a list of incompetencies has been compiled and sent to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to deal with them and see if they can't have this unlawful default removed from my otherwise excellent credit record. I'll keep you informed!