You've Got To Be Kidding Me

On Yahoo! News this morning - my breakfast suddenly isn't sitting so well.

The Bible bill?
Victoria McGrane Victoria Mcgrane – Fri May 22, 5:40 am ET
When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 2009, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) hopes you’ll be ringing in “the Year of the Bible.”
It’s probably just wishful thinking.
Broun’s simple congressional resolution aimed at honoring the Good Book has produced a push-back of biblical proportion in the blogosphere, with critics dismissing it as either unconstitutional or a waste of time. Jews in Congress and atheist activists are dismissing the resolution, while none of the many Democrats in Congress who are Christian have bothered to sign on as co-sponsors.
According to GovTrak.us, the resolution is among the most-blogged-about pieces of legislation, with most posts less than complimentary in nature.
“Does that mean 2009 is not the year of the Bible?” mocked Rep. Barney Frank ­(D-Mass.), who is Jewish. “What is 2012 the year of? The Quran?”
“That’s an endorsement of religion by the federal government, and we shouldn’t be doing that,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), even though he has introduced his own legislation dealing with religion.
“Republican lawmakers with apparently too much time on their hands and no solutions to offer the country are pushing a resolution that will not address the nation’s problems or advance prosperity or even untangle their previous governing mistakes,” blogged the Progressive Puppy.
Broun rejects the critiques leveled at this effort.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity,” he said in an interview with POLITICO. Rather, he says, it seeks to recognize that the Bible played an integral role in the building of the United States, including providing the basis for our freedom of religion that allows Muslims, Hindus and even atheists to vocalize their own beliefs.
And even as Nadler criticized Broun, he has done his own share of mixing religion and legislation.
Last year, he introduced a bill that would overturn a federal appeals court ruling — an “idiot” decision, he says — that a condominium board in Chicago had the right to ban Jews from installing mezuzahs, which consist of a piece of parchment inscribed with a specific religious text put inside a case and hung on a door frame.
Condo boards shouldn’t be able to interfere in an individual’s right to practice his or her religion, Nadler said.
But he himself declined to install a mezuzah on his congressional office door when asked by a rabbi, even though he does so at home.
“That’s my religious symbol, and the office does not belong to me; it belongs to the people of the congressional district, and no one should feel uncomfortable walking into the office if it’s not their religion,” Nadler said, describing his feelings on religion and Congress.
“Same thing with the Bible. ... It’s not everybody’s religion. And the federal government should not be imposing religious viewpoints.”
Atheists, who might feel themselves a particular target with the declaration of a biblical year, aren’t even worried about Broun’s effort.
“Right now, we’re seeing atheism on such a rise,” said David Silverman, vice president and national spokesman of American Atheists, a group dedicated to fighting for the civil rights of atheists.
“We are seeing Christianity on such a dramatic decline that we’re not particularly worried about it. We’re thinking that this kind of old-style George W. Bush Republicanism is about to go away,” Silverman said, referring to the latest Pew Forum survey of American religious life, which showed nonreligious Americans as the fastest-growing group.
And it may be the best-selling book of all time, as Broun’s resolution points out, but the Bible isn’t such a popular legislative topic.
A search of Thomas, the online congressional database, for “Bible” yields just one other bill: a resolution to have the “Lincoln-Obama Bible” on permanent display in the Capitol Visitor Center.
The resolution specifically asks the president “to issue a proclamation calling upon citizens of all faiths to rediscover and apply the priceless, timeless message of the Holy Scripture which has profoundly influenced and shaped the United States and its great democratic form of government.”
As for the economy, health care, global warming and all the other issues on Congress’ plate?
“While we must focus on fiscal policies that provide relief to families during these tough economic times, an endeavor I have been working tirelessly towards in this Congress, we must also not forget to protect and celebrate our fundamental freedoms that the Bible has influenced,” Broun said.
Broun has gathered 15 co-sponsors, all Republicans, but says he’s looking for more and hopes Democrats will sign on, as well.
“This is not a partisan issue,” he said. “I want it to be bipartisan.”
Whether he’s successful or not — the same measure didn’t go anywhere last year — at least Broun and his fellow supporters can take heart in one fact: They already had a “year of the Bible.”
Ronald Reagan designated 1983 as one, with Congress’ blessing.

A Dark Day

First Lance is gay, and now Orlando may be engaged??

I just can't catch a break.

Catching Up

1. This was a post on the RvB forums today, and the picture really made me laugh.

"Random crime occurs during the pre-start of the show, then the show starts with the investigator people getting on the scene of said crime, maybe they talk to someone they don't know but involved in the crime somehow. Then throughout the show they display the wonders of modern crime scene investigation in some elaborate special effects way. Through a tug of war between suspect rangling or investigator characters interplay they solve the crime in the end,. maybe save someone too. Oh and that guy who wears sun glasses takes them off or puts them on after he says something witty at the beginning when they first get to the crime scene."

2. Knee still jacked. Here's hoping the next set of X-Rays don't lead to a brace and crutches.

3. Getting my 360 soon!!!!

4. I don't know how I will be able to hold on to my sanity for the next month while waiting for TF2 to come out.

I've met the devil and his name is Xerox

I've just gotten off the phone with not one, not two, but THREE Xerox supergeniuses. I can tell by the surprised look on your face that you don't believe such a thing is possible. Well my dear reader, it is! It is also possible that this marks the third time in 3 days that I've had to call. *Fun side story: every time I have called on our 'new' machine for more service, a hold shows up on the account that is leftover from the previous owner....funnily enough, I have had that hold removed, oh, today was the 7th time?*

Whee! Yahooo! Hooray! Huzzah! Rejoicing!!!

New site, and some cartoons!

I read about a new political website on Hanlon's Razor today, and it seems fairly interesting. It is called First Door on the Left. I really liked the cartoons up, and here are a couple of my favorites:

Behind the Times

I signed up for Twitter the other day (twitter.com/middleq), so I suppose the only thing left for me to catch up with is Facebook. At the Auto Show last week I was scolded by no less than 4 people for not being on Facebook, and 3 of the scolders were in their 40s/50s. Crazy. So far I have resisted - mostly out of spite - but do I really want to sign up for another website that will only end up being ignored?

Auto Show

First Look for Charity was last night, and it was awesome. No pictures today - my camera got dropped and all jacked up so there are only a few on it (the Transformers!!!!), and I have to wait for my friend to email me all the 1000s I took with her camera. So in a nutshell, I had a fantastic time and did not embarass anyone too much, and will put up pictures later. The end!

Holy Sideswipe

Hot damn. That is one good looking car. Wow. I'm excited to see it in person tomorrow.....think they'll let me touch it? Ha!

We're So Fucked

Sigh.

Open Letter to Xerox

Dear Xerox,

I am writing you today to bring some issues to your attention. My company has been a loyal Xerox customer for quite a number of years. Not just the little machines either, I'm talking about the big boys, the heavy hitters.

In the year and a half that I have been with my company one of my duties is to maintain the equipment. In the year and a half that I have been with my company one of my twice (or thrice!) weekly rituals has been to place a service call on your machine. You can imagine the joy something like this brings, especially to any person who just can't get enough of automated phone banks and customer service representatives; I'll touch back on that in a moment.

The machine we had was nothing short of a disaster. In the past 3 weeks, I have actually lost count of how many service calls I have had to make. We've been through 5 service technicians, 1 service manager, and 2 specialists. At some point a Xerox executive was pulled into the abyss as well. Not only was I making these calls, I was making them for the same group of 3-4 trouble spots that created of spectacular paper jams throughout the machine (for fun, I will call them the Crafty Buggers from this point forward). On occasion the machine would give me a totally new problem to deal with but I believe this was just to keep me on my toes. The Crafty Buggers kept cropping up at least 2 or 3 times a day, and here is a brief list of reasons I was given at various times for this: room too hot, room too cold, room too humid, room too dry, not enough paper in the tray, door covers open, stapling finisher out of staples (one of my personal favorites), wrong brand/size/color/weight of paper (we have always used the same paper), etc.

I also experienced increasing levels of resentment and outright hostility from the service technicians. I am not sure if this was because they were upset with themselves because they could not find the root problem, or if they were being called to the same location up to 10 times a week and found that to be annoying. Either way, this doesn't scream 'we care about our customers.'

Which brings us to the customer service department. After the 100th (1,000th?) service call in a month-long run, when I gave the machine's serial number I would be placed on hold for a time not less than 45 minutes. Repeatedly. In a moment of crushing paranoia, I twisted and turned through the automated menu again, only instead of saying my serial number I said 'I don't have one.' My fear was that my calls weren't being taken because the file would open showing all the previous calls and nobody wanted to take yet another call. Whether by coincidence or not my phone call went through immediately. I asked if the callers who knew their serial numbers were directed to another phone bank, or if all the calls came to the same place. I was told they all go to the same place, so I can only assume my paranoia was justified and my calls were being left to hang until I gave up and ended the call.

While discussing my reasons for needing a service call towards the end of the entire debacle, I would be treated to some truly fantastic lectures by the call center employees detailing just how exactly all of the problems with the machine were my own fault (see above list regarding Crafty Buggers). Silly me! Had I known, I would have never had any other employees use the machine for any reason and thereby end all of the problems.

I only had to send a copy of our contract twice to get some sort of resolution, which at the time of this writing is not complete. Our contract states that when basic maintenance cannot be upheld, Xerox will replace the machine at no additional cost with an equal or better piece of equipment. I fought for a month before anyone at your company would even give half a glance at your own fine print. Finally, the heavens opened up and took pity on me and my coworkers, and the second specialist came for the third time in two days to tell me he was putting through the paperwork for our replacement. At last! No more service calls! No more unending complaints from coworkers! No more cranky service technicians every other day!

Today I was scheduled to receive my replacement machine. I left my desk to pick up some lunch, and in the hour I was gone a Xerox technician came to my company and dismantled the broken machine. He then left, and left no contact information, and so we had one dismantled machine. I called to get a delivery time for our replacement, and the company that was hired out by Xerox brought me the replacement within an hour. This was wonderful! Nobody at my company needed the machine during that time, so things were still alright. Then the delivery men left, and now I had a newer dismantled machine, and this one did not come with a matching finisher as it should have. Despair overtook me.

I attempted to reach someone at Xerox and received more attitude from customer service, and no guarantee of anyone coming to put my machine together. I called the previously mentioned executive once again pleading for help, but to no avail. Neither he nor I were able to make any progress in getting someone to come put my machine together.

I am no longer entertaining the foolish hope that this will be cleared up first thing in the morning. If it were my decision, I would gladly push all three pieces of my new machine out to the curb and burn my Xerox contract and any files pertaining to this horrific period of my life. Thanks to this stellar service and customer care, I am not only terminating my Xerox contract at the first possible opportunity, but am spreading the word among my coworkers, friends, and business contacts about these incessant, maddening problems in the hopes that they will not direct any business to Xerox in the future.

Please do not contact me with any patronizing apologies, or empty guarantees that this will never happen again. I am only sending this to inform you of my experience so that in the future another poor fool will not be dragged behind your soul-crushing business model.

Signed,
Laura

Slacker

I've been busy, so here are just a few things for the interim:

1. Transformers 2 trailer during the Superbowl was sweet. Full length comes out next Friday!
2. I have had 2 full days at work with zero angry calls about our crap copy machine, and Xerox is giving me a replacement next week.
3. Bill O'Reilly (aside from being an all-around douchebag and scrud-sucking bottom dweller) is a white supremacist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC8mNynSJi4 I found this on Hanlon's Razor today, and was stunned. Holy mackerel.
4. I am now officially part of the 'Green' committee at work :)

Friday Physics Lesson

Talk about a mind job. Wow.

We're A Hologram? Maybe?

Boost

There are a lot of extra people at work the past couple months working on a big renovation project. I see this one guy fairly often, as he comes back and forth past my desk doing whatever. He's pretty cute, I think.

Last week he said hello to me a couple times. This morning he not only said hello, but stopped for a few seconds to ask how my morning was going.

This makes me feel pretty happy :)

I find this entertaining