We’re being taken for a ride my friends, and the Big Oil companies aren’t even greasing it before they stick it to us…

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is quietly negotiating to help cell phone customers avoid expensive fees when they cancel contracts with wireless companies, The Associated Press has learned.

Cell phone companies routinely charge customers $175 or more for quitting their service early. Under a proposal to the Federal Communications Commission, the wireless industry would give consumers the opportunity to cancel service without any penalty for up to 30 days after they sign a cell phone contract or until 10 days after they receive their first bill.

The proposal also would cap such fees and reduce them month by month over the course of a contract based on how long customers have left, according to people familiar with the offer speaking on condition of anonymity because the FCC has not accepted it. The plan would not abolish cancellation fees entirely.

In exchange for the government’s approval, the agreement would let cell phone companies off the hook in state courts where they are being sued for billions of dollars by angry customers. If approved by the FCC, the proposal also would take away the authority of states to regulate the charges, known as early termination fees.

The nation’s No. 2 wireless company, Verizon Wireless, offered the proposal to the FCC for its review after high-level meetings with senior FCC officials. It did so in consultation with other leading wireless companies, whose executives indicated they would not oppose its provisions, people familiar with the offer told the AP.

Full Story Here:
Feds may help cell phone users get break on fees

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” ~Ronald Reagan~

There’s a lot said in that quote from Mr. Reagan, but maybe we’re about to see an exception to the rule…

We have had cell service for 15 years now, I have never had a problem with my cell service, at least not yet, we used AT&T until about 8 years ago and then switched to Verizon Wireless for cell service, and yes, I know there are switching fees and so forth but we haven’t switched in the middle of a contract, we waited until the contract had expired…

Those fees were put in place by the cell companies for a very good reason, lots of folks were doing the ‘but it and try it’ thing and as soon as some other company came out with a slightly better deal, more minutes, roll over, whatever, they switched, and by doing these frequent switches they caused the cell companies to have an extraordinarily large amount of unnecessary paperwork, causing their operating costs to rise, and those costs were passed on to other customers…

“It’s ridiculous,” said Ric Causey of Allen, Texas, who paid $600 in termination fees to Sprint on contracts for three cell phones after he canceled service because of what he said was poor reception around Dallas.

Somehow, I just don’t believe that, maybe 10 years ago, but not now, not in today’s market, you can’t move in Dallas county without having a cell phone tower or relay somewhere in your immediate line of sight, it’s just not possible…

Now if you’re out in the middle of North Dakota or Montana, maybe Podunk, La, somewhere like that, maybe so, but there’s not a big metropolitan area in the USA that doesn’t have cell towers sticking up everywhere…

One other thing, have you ever noticed that the lefty libbers and tree hugging crowd always gripe about the windmill towers, wind generated electricity?? “They’re an eyesore, they’re dangerous to our little feathered friends“, all that garbage??

Have you ever once heard a tree hugging libber complain because there were too many cell towers as he/she pulled out their Ipod, or whatever the latest thing is, and sent a text message to the local tofu bar for an order to go??

I didn’t think so…

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Will Weider is just the kind of customer Microsoft (MSFT) needs to keep its Windows computer operating system franchise growing.

He oversees tech for a chain of Wisconsin hospitals — 14,000 computers’ worth. But Weider has no desire to upgrade to Vista, the latest version of Windows.

“I wouldn’t put on Vista if it was free,” says Weider, chief information officer for Ministry Health Care. “In the past, there’s always been an important reason to upgrade, but XP (the previous version of Windows) is perfectly acceptable.”

Even as it pursues Internet icon Yahoo to create a more potent online-advertising rival to Google, Microsoft is facing increasing pressure on its Windows cash cow. Corporate customers such as Weider are staging a rare revolt over upgrading to Vista, which launched with much fanfare in January 2007. Last week, Microsoft reported a 24% decline in Windows sales in the third quarter.
(snip)
Online magazine InfoWorld is waging a Save XP campaign. More than 175,000 signatures have been gathered. “Why pull the plug on XP when there’s clearly a lot of people who still like it?” says Galen Gruman, InfoWorld executive editor.

Influential analyst Michael Silver at research firm Gartner calls the Vista launch a “disaster.” Other critics have been no kinder. CNet called Vista one of the “biggest blunders in technology.” PC magazine chronicles Vista’s “11 Pillars of Failure.” The Christian Science Monitor likened it to Coca-Cola’s disastrous New Coke experiment in the 1980s.

Vista — not Windows — is the butt of jokes in Apple ads.

Full Story Here:
Vista struggles to bust out as business customers snub it

Love em or hate em, Microsoft is a major player in the PC world, and even though there are other options, many of us really like Windows…

I was 1st introduced to Win95, a great system for it’s time, then Win98 came out and it was impressive, and Microsoft did a lot of upgrades along the way and made it even better, but then Microsoft did what they are becoming infamous for doing, they took a perfectly good system and threw it away for a piece of junk…

Case in point, WindowsME, then Win2000, both were pieces of crap, and you know, a smart guy like Bill Gates should have figured it out after he came out with XP, all the PC users were relatively happy, XP made PC users a happy crowd for the most part…

Leave it alone, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, an old axiom that goes a long ways…

We’re a 2 computer household and both of us have XP, and if Microsoft drops support for XP in the future, I will no longer be a Windows person, there are too many people that are very happy with Apple and their systems, and it appears that Apple does listen to their customers, if Windows won’t, hit em where it hurts the most, hit em in the wallet…

Microsoft can tout Vista until hell freezes over but they know it’s a piece of crap and I know that they already have their new system ready to hatch soon, it’s called Vienna, and it’s waiting in the wings right now…

I hope Gates and his crew of eggheads took the time to get it right, they seem to prefer pushing a product off on the public before it’s ready, and if Microsoft has a downfall, that will be it, and there is one other thing that Gates and crew need to consider, the CUSTOMER is always right, keep XP, bring out your new stuff but keep XP, for some of us it IS the perfect system…

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans’ confidence in the economy fell to a new low, dragged down by worries about mounting job losses, record-high home foreclosures and zooming energy prices.

According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence dropped to a mark of 29.5 in April, down from 33.1 in March. The new reading was the worst since the index began in 2002. It marked the fourth month in a row where confidence has fallen to an all-time low.

“Consumers are very pessimistic,” said Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia. “There are not a lot of happy campers out there.”

Over the past year, consumer confidence has deteriorated significantly. Worsening problems in housing, harder-to-get credit, financial turmoil on Wall Street and lofty energy prices have put people in a much more gloomy mind-set. Last April, confidence stood at 85.4. The index is based on results from the international polling firm Ipsos.

Full Story Here:
Consumer Confidence Falls to New Low

More airlines either file for bankruptcy or Chapter 11 protection, Frontier Files for Bankruptcy Protection, the price of gas is through the roof, Gas Prices Could Hit $4.00 Per Gallon, and I guess this could be looked at as a sort of bright spot, Oil prices ease back from $112-a-barrel peak but today the stock market, the Dow, is off by over 250 points, NASDAQ is off by 61 points and the S&P’s are down 27, so, maybe it’s not that good a news story or the economic stimulus we need…

Meanwhile, home loans are almost a thing of the past, Home loans are harder to get, and this, Overextended U.S. home loans, and automobile owners are defaulting on their loans at a record pace, Defaults soar on auto loans in pattern likened to mortgage crisis, as the Moron in Chief tells his loyal followers, U.S. is not headed for recession..

Most Americans, something like 70% of ALL Americans, are not stupid, we see what’s happening to our dollars and this nation, and we’re not falling for the BS coming from the Bush White House, most of us I say because then there’s folks like the one in the following, a reader that told me recently, “The House and the Senate are to blame for Bush’s light tread, I think. He was put in a terrible position, and he has been a strong leader in the face of the rudest and meanest Congress a President could have. He has had little loyalty, including from McCain.”..

And to that I have to ask, what planet are YOU living on?!?!

Bush may not be to blame for ALL the ills of America, but to claim that he is the victim of a “rude and mean” Congress is nothing more than outright lunacy, and an attempt to deflect blame away from your hero, this has ALL happened on the Bush watch, Bush had a DREAM setup in the House and Senate and HE turned that dream into a nightmare, he had a Republican House and Senate, a Conservative majority SCOTUS as well as huge U.S. and world support for the actions in Afghanistan, so what does he do next??

The Moron in Chief takes us into his Debacle in Iraq, an action that we had NO business engaging in, and by doing so he lost focus on the REAL battle in the War on Terror, Afghanistan, not to mention the fact that his approval ratings and support level fell to all time lows, both domestically and world wide…

What Bush has done for the American people is this; he has taken the USA and it’s citizens to the very brink of financial disaster, we are all but bankrupt, we are owned by the Chinese, for crying out loud folks, we have to borrow money from other nations to pay OUR debts, yet we continue to spend BILLIONS of dollars in Iraq, a venture that has not, and quite likely will NEVER yield any financial gain to us, in any way…

But Mr. Bush says we’re not heading into a recession, so, it must be true, just ask any Bush Bot…

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